The Polar Bear gets his wings in Baltimore.

Those running baseball front offices will never lack for pressure. But there are always those among them who inflict the pressure upon themselves. Sometimes the intentions are noble. Sometimes the foresight is far. Sometimes the vision is blurry. Sometimes the blur becomes blindness.

Today’s Oriole fans have the unexpected luxury of believing their team’s president Mike Elias means business, when he says he was looking to take the Orioles’s promising lineup over the top and signing Pete Alonso was the means to that end.

Today’s Met fans have what they think is the too-familiar lack of luxury in believing their team’s president David Stearns is either talking through his head gear or blowing smoke, when he says the Mets were wary of going as far ahead in time with Alonso as the Orioles ultimately did.

Those Met fans, who’ve made a dark art out of pronouncing a season lost after a single bad inning on Opening Day, can’t fathom how a first baseman who’s still a young enough man, and has been one of their team’s most consistent power hitters since his 2019 arrival, became un-affordable beyond three years and unworthy of even receiving an offer this time around.

Stearns hasn’t kept his wish to upgrade the Mets defensively a state secret. The unfortunate flip side of Alonso’s batting prowess has been his fielding lack of it. As good as he is on the double play, as excellent as he is at snatching throws in the dirt, Alonso has slightly negative run prevention plus below-league average range factors.

The Orioles seem to be counting on Alonso’s formidable bat making up for the fielding shortfalls. The Mets seemed unwilling to continue taking that chance no matter how many home runs, no matter how many extra base hits, no matter that Alonso nudged Darryl Strawberry to one side as the franchise’s all-time home run hitter.

Alonso wasn’t the first free agent Stearns allowed to change addresses. The day before the Orioles landed him, relief ace Edwin Diaz elected to sign with the Dodgers. Three years and $96 million—and the largest average annual value for a reliever yet—wasn’t a figure the Mets couldn’t equal if they were thinking in three-year increments as seemed to be the case with Alonso.

So what made the bullpen bellwether return west? Part of it might have been Stearns signing bounceback relief candidate Devin Williams, with whom he was familiar from their time in Milwaukee. Part of it, too, and perhaps especially, might have been their coaching overhaul following the season included Jeremy Hefner, a pitching coach Diaz liked and respected.

The 2025 Mets had pitching issues that had nothing much to do with Hefner. But Diaz took his dismissal to mean the Mets suddenly got unserious about something dear to his heart.

“I spent seven years in New York,” the righthander said after he signed with the Dodgers. “They treated me really good. They treated me great. I chose the Dodgers because they are a winning organization. I’m looking to win, and I think they have everything to win. Picking the Dodgers was pretty easy.” Owitch.

And Alonso? He was both a fan favourite and an undisputed team leader, on the field and off it, known as much for his charitable acts as his bat and his fun-loving leadership style. But he spurned a significant extension offer a few years ago, and he re-upped with the Mets last winter in the face of a thinner market, taking two years with an opt-out after 2025. He exercised it after a big bounceback season and found a more accommodating new market.

Never underrate the power of betting on yourself and winning big even if it’s moving from the Grand Central Parkway to Cal Ripken Way.

“I’ve really enjoyed playing in New York,” said the Polar Bear, whose Oriole introduction included a large stuffed white polar bear on the table to his right and a brief struggle to button up his new Orioles jersey properly. He took number 25 only because his long-familiar number 20 has been long, long retired by the Orioles in honour of Hall of Famer Frank Robinson.

“I’m very gracious for that opportunity,” continued Alonso, who may have landed himself the Yogi Berra Malapropriety Award with that phrasing. “There’s some amazing people over there. Whether it be the locker room staff, clubbies, it was phenomenal. I really enjoyed my time. But this right here, this organization, this city, I’m so proud to call it home.” Double owitch.

“Losing franchise stalwarts Díaz and Alonso on back-to-back days is something a Mets fan might have expected from the Wilpon ownership—only with some ridiculous positive spin on how the team will be better for it,” said The Athletic‘s Ken Rosenthal.

Now, fans might wonder if Fred and Jeff Wilpon are practicing voodoo on David Stearns and owner Steve Cohen.

Stearns and Cohen have not said much of anything. That’s to be expected as they start to clean up the mess they’ve created, the baseball equivalent of a flooded kitchen floor. But they had better provide some answers quickly, and with actions, not words.

Maybe reuniting with Stearns gives Williams a clean shot at a big bounceback following a testy 2025 in Yankee pinstripes. Maybe bringing aging, injury-recovering Marcus Semien aboard—at the cost of another fan favourite, Brandon Nimmo, going to the Rangers—helps the Mets begin the defensive remaking Stearns has sung as a mantra. Maybe adding Jorge Polanco on a two-year deal helps likewise, especially since Polanco can play first as well as second with some pop at the plate. (He hit 26 homers last year.)

Alonso solves a huge portion of half the Orioles’s issues. They need pitching upgrades and  the best Alonso can do about that is help give that staff runs to work with. But they’re getting a class act who seems unable to wait to have a clubhouse impact as well as a scoreboard one.

“How I’m going to help is share my experience, and pretty much share whatever has helped me kind of step and rise to the occasion,” said Alonso, who has a sterling postseason resumé including an intergalactic moment or two. “I want to be an open book, pretty much to everyone in the clubhouse. For me, I take pride in that. Not only do I love performing, but ultimately I love forging great relationships and being a great teammate.”

That sounds like just the kind of guy the Mets should have wanted to keep.

Published originally at Sports Central.