The New York Mets and Pete Alonso, back together again.

It took a minute...or two...or basically three months for the sides to come to an agreement, but it finally materialized on Wednesday night. The slugger will be back in Queens via a two-year, $54 million contract that contains an opt-out after 2025.

A lot must be discussed, starting with how the parameters of this union are simultaneously obvious and shocking. Of course the Mets and Alonso are back together, but that just isn't much money, is it?

Let's get into all this and more as we touch on four winners and four losers from Alonso's agreement with the Mets.

Winner: Steve Cohen

If anyone is wondering how much Mets owner Steve Cohen has spent this winter, Spotrac puts the total at $1.03 billion. It is more than double the next-highest sum.

All this money might as well have come from between Cohen's couch cushions. He is, after all, worth $21.3 billion. He spends precisely because he can.

And yet, his pursuit of Alonso is crystal-clear evidence that even he has limits.

Joel Sherman and Dan Martin of the New York Post reported on January 16 that the Mets initially drew a line at three years, $68-70 million. Alonso, 30, and agent Scott Boras promptly walked away, but Cohen was refreshingly open about sticking to his guns.

"A lot of it is, we've made a significant offer," Cohen said directly to Mets fans at the club's Amazin' Day fanfest in January. "I don't like the structures that are presented back to us. I think it's highly asymmetric against us, and I feel strongly about it."

Well, Cohen got what he wanted and then some. As much as one feels for Alonso in all this, the result is an undeniable W for baseball's wealthiest owner.

Loser: Scott Boras

Do not weep for Scott Boras.

He's doing fine this winter, mostly by way of the bags he secured for Juan Soto, Blake Snell, and Corbin Burnes. Their collective haul from the Mets, Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers, respectively, totals over $1.1 billion.

But as for Alonso...well, not his finest work.

The Mets reportedly made Alonso and Boras an extension offer of seven years, $158 million in June 2023. They rejected it, instead setting their sights on a purported $200 million payday in free agency.

Therefore, we're talking about a mark that has been missed by between $100 million and $150 million.

Hits aside, this is now the second winter in a row that Boras has suffered a dent in his reputation. He is guilty of ignoring the diminishing demand for slugging first basemen, though something must be said about him needing to re-think his longstanding aversion to extensions.

Winner: Pete Alonso

This is not, of course, a financial win for Alonso.

He's done fine to the tune of $74.8 million in career earnings. Yet even the potential for another $54 million feels light for a guy who leads the National League with 226 home runs since 2019. And now that he's past 30, he's probably likewise past his peak earning power.

But on the plus side, at least he's back where he wants to be.

With Alonso back aboard, the team that carried the Mets to the National League Championship Series in 2024 is pretty much all back for 2025. Except now it includes Soto, which could have a real beneficial impact on Alonso specifically.

He is likely to bat behind the Mets' new $765 million right fielder, and Aaron Judge can speak to how helpful that could be. Batting behind Soto was his thing in 2024, and it resulted in a huge increase in pitches to hit because of how Soto was always on base.

Loser: Brett Baty

Alas, poor Brett Baty.

As long as Alonso remained unsigned, Baty had a hypothetical place in the Mets' starting lineup at third base. Maybe it never felt real, per se, but the idea of him as a starter wasn't impossible to take seriously.

Sure, this is a guy with just a .607 OPS to show for 169 games as a major leaguer. But Baty was a top-100 prospect as recently as 2023, and his minor league track record is a .900 OPS at Double-A and a .899 OPS at Triple-A.

Yet now that Alonso is back, Mark Vientos is back atop the Mets' third base depth chart. Barring injury, that means more time in the minors for Baty.

Though it is not an undeserved fate given his MLB track record, you have to wonder if the Mets will do him the solid of finding another opportunity for him. As a trade piece, he's a low-risk, high-reward piece who could appeal to teams of all sorts.

Trade interest in Baty was there in December, according to Mike Puma of the New York Post. Now that he's clearly expendable, perhaps it could be again.

Winner: Mets' Contention Outlook

So, just how good are the Mets now that they have Alonso back in the fold?

There is an underwhelming answer to this question, and it has to do with where FanGraphs puts their odds for various 2025 feats:

• To Make Playoffs: 66.0 percent
• To Win NL East: 17.7 percent
• To Win World Series: 4.7 percent

These are not bad odds, but they rank below those of the Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies just within the NL East. More broadly, they're nowhere near on par with those of the Dodgers.

Wins above replacement tell a slightly different story, however. FanGraphs projects the Mets for 48.3 WAR, which is good for the fourth-highest total in all of MLB.

This cuts closer to how promising this Mets team is for the coming season. They still largely resemble the club that won an MLB-high 61 games after June 12, 2024. And with Alonso alongside Soto, Vientos and Francisco Lindor, they have four threats for 30 home runs.

In other words, it ought to be World Series or bust.

Loser: Other NL East Contenders

It is possible to have a healthy debate about whether the Mets truly are a better team than the Braves and Phillies, but let's agree on three things.

For one, the Mets went further than both clubs in 2024. This is just a capital-F Fact, as neither the Braves nor the Phillies came within two wins of the World Series. The Mets did.

For two, the Mets have had the best offseason.

Cohen's $1 billion spree has bought plenty of talent, and Luis Severino is the only free agent of note that the Mets have lost. The Braves have lost Max Fried and Charlie Morton, while they (Jurickson Profar) and the Phillies (Jesús Luzardo) have added only one marginal star apiece.

For three, the Braves and Phillies both come with obvious potential pitfalls.

The former can only go so far if Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuña Jr. aren't the same players they were in 2023 after season-ending surgeries in 2024. And as for the latter, well, they're old. Bryce Harper, Zack Wheeler, Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber, Aaron Nola, Nick Castellanos and J.T. Realmuto will all be 32 or older this year.

Winner: Free-Agent Logjam

Before Alonso's deal with the Mets, the free-agent market was moving at something of a glacial pace.

This was not a coincidence. As Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic wrote on Tuesday, a "number of free-agent hitters are on hold while waiting for Alonso and Bregman to make their decisions."

To this end, there are now half as many stars sucking up oxygen in the room. It's really just Bregman, and he differs from Alonso in that his free agency seems more complicated than a game of chicken with one team. He reportedly has gotten at least two six-year offers.

Other bat-first veterans, such as Justin Turner, Ty France, and Anthony Rizzo, stand to benefit specifically from Alonso's departure from the market.

There is also erstwhile Met J.D. Martinez, though that assumes the 37-year-old isn't ready to leave for the pickleball career he teased recently.

Loser: Future Slug-First Free Agents

Perhaps this is reading too much into the disappointment of Alonso's contract, but it wouldn't seem to bode well for those who clobber the ball for a living.

It's a habit that used to pay well, to the point where Alonso might have been up for Prince Fielder ($214 million) or Chris Davis ($161 million) money if he'd hit free agency a decade ago.

But times have changed. This is an era in which everyone hits home runs and even the best first basemen max out at $160 million in value. This means Freddie Freeman and Matt Olson, and Alonso simply don't stack up to either of them.

Hence the scare-quotes question: Who should be worried?

Maybe Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Rosenthal recently teased a $500-600 million deal for the Toronto Blue Jays slugger if he reaches free agency after 2025, but those numbers sound absurd even now. And even though he'll only be 26, he could potentially face headwinds in the market if he has a down season this year.

More realistically, though, we're talking more about guys like Josh Naylor. He may well head into the market after 2025 off back-to-back seasons of 30 homers and 100 RBI, yet he's also been less valuable for his career than Guerrero was just in 2024.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.