3 NY Mets alternatives to signing Pete Alonso that would’ve been a complete disaster

3) Anthony Santander

Poor Blue Jays. Amid an ongoing joke around baseball about Toronto always failing to acquire big-name players they pursue, they finally got their guy in Anthony Santander, and he's having an absolutely brutal season thus far. When the Mets considered moving on from Pete Alonso, Santander's name received a lot of buzz in rumors to replace the power Alonso had provided, but now we should be thankful the Mets weren't the ones to land him.

Similar to Mountcastle, Santander has been sidelined since late May due to injury and was not performing well beforehand, posting a line of just .179/.273/.304 with a 63 wRC+ and a negative fWAR in 50 games played. Dissimilar to Mountcastle, Santander was regarded as a star at the plate before this season, coming off a 2024 in which he hit 44 home runs with a .814 OPS, earning him his first All-Star appearance.

Santander's fall from grace was unexpected, but not exactly surprising. In 2024, his chase rate was below the league average, ranking in the 16th percentile. His average exit velocity and hard hit rate were mediocre at best -- overall, he was hitting the ball well, but he wasn't necessarily doing anything special. Pitchers were able to figure him out fairly easily this year without having to change what they were throwing him.

This is also a bit of a different scenario -- Santander's bat would be to replace Alonso's, but his name circulated in Mets rumors mostly before they had signed Juan Soto. We can imagine how disastrous things would look if the Mets had gotten Santander instead of Soto. Even if they had inked Soto and instead got Santander to replace Alonso's bat, things would still look worse than they do now; let's just say everything happens for a reason, and the Mets ended up with the best-case scenario.