Getty Yankees potential trade target Pete Alonso
In the days since Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo went down with a fractured arm, the team has scrambled to find solutions to what has proven to be a troublesome position. The Yankees brought up red-hot prospect Ben Rice after just a couple of weeks at Triple A, and a couple of productive games pushed his batting average to .294.
They also added veteran first baseman JD Davis in a trade with the A’s. Davis, the former Met who has eight years of big-league experience, has yet to take the field for the Yankees.
It remains unclear what, exactly, the Yankees will do at first base, not just while Rizzo is out, but beyond that as well. Even before Rizzo injured his arm, there was speculation that the Yankees would seek to make a trade for a first baseman, generally one of the easier positions to fill. That’s because Rizzo has struggled badly at the plate this year, and his slump reached enough of a depth that manager Aaron Boone benched him two weeks ago.
Rizzo has an OPS of just .630, by far the worst of his career. So, even when he is healthy, he might not be the Yankees’ best answer at first base.
The best answer, according to an article this week from Bleacher Report could well be the most dramatic: Mets star Pete Alonso.
Yankees Could Make a ‘Crazy’ Trade
Now, trading for Alonso to fill the Yankees’ gap at first base is a bit like ordering a Lamborghini as your Uber ride to the grocery store. It could be overkill for the Yankees.
Alonso is a two-time All-Star in the midst of his seventh season. He is batting .241 with 16 homers and 42 RBI, but has a career-low slugging percentage of .469. His 53 homers as a rookie led the league, and he slugged 40-plus homers in each of the last two seasons. He is on pace for 34 homers this year.
But Zachary Rymer of B/R sees the Yankees as a pursuer of Alonso at the trade deadline. The logic is that this team is good enough to win a World Series and needs to do everything it can to cover its weaknesses. First base is a weakness. Alonso would be a major cover-up for that weakness.
“Is this a crazy idea?” Rymer wrote. “It feels like a crazy idea. But it’s also a good one, as putting Alonso with (Juan) Soto, Aaron Judge and (when healthy) Giancarlo Stanton would give the Yankees a truly fearsome offensive foursome that they could hope to ride deep into October.”
Pete Alonso Will Be a Free Agent After the Season
Trading for Alonso, though, is a bit more complicated than just targeting him and bringing him in. For one thing, he is going to be a free agent after the season and likely to seek a contract in the range of eight years and $263 million, according to Spotrac. It’s very doubtful the Yankees would pay to keep both Alonso and Soto, making this a short-term rental. Would the Yankees be willing to send out prospects for a short-term first-base solution?
Then there is the Mets factor. They will do what’s best for the team, but sending Alonso across to the Bronx to possibly help the Yankees to a championship is not an option the Mets want to delve into, if possible. Besides, Alonso could be a fallback option if can’t Soto does not re-sign, so sending Alonso to the Yankees could weaken the Mets’ chances of signing him back in the winter.
And the biggest deterrent to an Alonso trade: The Mets have bounced back from their brutal 9-19 May showing to go 13-6 in June, pulling themselves to 37-39 and now sitting 1.5 games out of a playoff spot in the NL Wild Card race.
The Mets could still fall apart in the coming weeks and put Alonso on the market. But as of now, there is not much incentive to do so.