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Sign up NowWEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — After banging baseballs off the pale yellow building far beyond the left field wall here at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, Pete Alonso bumps fists behind the batting cage with long-time buddy Jeff McNeil, warmly greets team owners Steve and Alex Cohen, then happily hands his batting glove to a tiny fan.
Alonso is at ease, bordering on ebullient. If anyone expected remorse, or even regret, after his long, laborious winter, they’ve got the wrong guy. If anyone figures he wishes he’d taken the $158M, seven-year offer he received from the previous Mets regime in the summer of 2023, well, that’s not him.
“I have no regrets,” Alonso told The Post. “Honestly, with how everything played out, I have no regrets, which is honestly liberating. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
He stresses the positive, and he finds plenty, even after a winter that didn’t go as necessarily imagined. He did get $30M for 2025, allowing him to nudge the stagnant first base market forward. He also got the desired opt-out after 2025 in his $54M, two-year deal, and the combination of the high first-year salary and optionality caused him to return to the Mets over the Blue Jays, the other most real alternative.