Pete Alonso should mean more to Mets than just his WAR: Royals’ Vinnie Pasquantino

Intangibles are great, sure, but what’s his WAR?

Wins Above Replacement has become a deciding factor among baseball executives mulling over who to keep, who to shop and what price is right.

It’s also keeping Polar Bear Pete from getting paid. 

So alleges Vinnie Pasquantino, the Kansas City Royal’s first baseman. 

During an appearance on the “The Chris Rose Rotation” podcast Monday, the Richmond native purported that Billy Beane’s prized stat undervalues his breed — first basemen — and that the Mets front office should look past Pete Alonso’s career 3.8 average and at everything else he brings to the table.

“If you play first base, you essentially have to put up an .850 OPS to get paid nowadays,” Pasquantino began. “[That’s] fine, you need to perform. But teams use WAR…

“If you play first, it is very difficult to get that WAR number up because it gets so trudged down, simply, by the position … What these [front office] guys have determined is that players who handle the ball — almost, more than anybody, in terms of catching the baseball — are the least valuable people out there.”

Pasquantino then turned his attention to Alonso, who, as The Post’s Joel Sherman reported earlier in January, is expected to sign somewhere other than Queens after turning down the Mets’ three-year, $68-70 million offer.

“It’s just tough, Pete has been the face of the Mets for the past six years and that should mean something, in my opinion,” Pasquantino said. “I’m not in the room, but it does not seem that [the Mets’ front office] values things that he brings to the table, other than the numbers.”

The first baseman concluded his perhaps slightly self-interested soapbox speech by looking West toward the Mets’ National League rival in Los Angeles. 

“I get that the Dodgers have the most money of any team, but they are investing in players that mean something off the field, and they are winning,” he said.

He’s certainly right on that final mark, the Dodgers are winning — in the regular season, the World Series, and even free agency.

But if WAR is being used by the Mets, let alone any other Major League Baseball front office, to compare players at different positions is harder to say. Impossible, really, for those outside of the room.

During the 2024 season, Alonso posted 2.9 Offensive Wins Above Replacement. That mark tied him for 68th best in the league — in line with players such as Manny Machado and Joc Pederson.

On the other side of the diamond, Alonso accumulated a -1.1 defensive WAR rating (though only 80 players finished 2024 with a positive mark in the category). 

Baseball Savant, a website that provides advanced analytics and visualizations for Major League Baseball, is less flattering of Alonso’s defensive work. In 2024, he ranked 83rd among 84 qualified players in terms of runs prevented and 82nd in terms of outs above average.