Pete Alonso · 1B · Age 31 · Data as of
Is the Polar Bear in decline?
NOT YET.
- This reading: NOT YET
- CRACKS SHOWING
- DECLINING
- CLIFF
The only four answers this site gives, mildest first. See the rule that sets it.
None of the six decline signals has broken down at age 31.
Edition of . No new reading since 22 August. What moved is the measuring: the comps became a published rule over 164 hitters, and the five-year projection fell from 22.6 wins to 15.6.
What does the rest of the contract look like?
Cumulative wins (WAR) against the $155M bar. The filled dot is what he has actually banked. Everything else is a forecast.
- This site15.6
- Break-even14.5
- ZiPS10.6
- Median comparable hitter7.85
- Banked so far, measured3.8
- Middle half of comps, at 203012.7 to 21.6
Two of the three paths never reach the bar. This site's projection clears it by about a win, and nearly all of that has to be earned at ages 32 to 35, which is where the median comparable hitter falls to 2.00 wins per season and then toward 0.70. Those two are yearly figures rather than points on this chart, which is why you cannot find them on it: every line above is a running total. Being ahead at 31 is the least this deal needed.
The dashed line is not a season by season claim. This site publishes wins banked so far and a total for the whole deal, not a figure for each year, so the projection is drawn as its two endpoints and the range at 2030 is what the middle half of comparable hitters actually produced. ZiPS and the comp median are published per season and are drawn that way. The model, and the movable assumptions.
Show the data as a table
| Season | Age | Banked | This site | ZiPS | Comp median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 31 | 3.8 | 4.8 | 3.6 | 2.95 |
| 2027 | 32 | - | - | 6.5 | 4.95 |
| 2028 | 33 | - | - | 8.5 | 6.35 |
| 2029 | 34 | - | - | 9.9 | 7.15 |
| 2030 | 35 | - | 15.6 | 10.6 | 7.85 |
| Break-even | - | - | 14.5 wins, the value of the $155M guarantee | ||
Banked is measured and covers a season still being played. This site's column is given at the two seasons it is published for. A dash is not a zero: it means this site publishes no figure for that series in that year.
Who chose well?
The site’s second published answer, judged from each club’s own side. Both figures are fair value minus what the club actually put up, so the sign is the subtraction and the colour is the judgement.
- Baltimorechose to payFAIR VALUE
+$8.2M
$163.2M fair value against the $155M guaranteed, so in the club’s favour.
Baltimore's side has not moved. Fair value comes to $163.2M against the $155M guaranteed, roughly $8.2M in the club's favour, graded FAIR VALUE. What is new is a base rate to read that against. Of the 164 hitters the rule admits, 47 produced enough across ages 31 to 35 to be worth $155M at this contract's own cost of a win: 29 percent, which puts break-even at the 71st percentile, about 14.5 wins. This site now projects 15.6. The deal clears the bar it has to clear, and it clears it by about a win, which is a thinner margin than the grade sounds.
- New Yorkchose not toUNDERBID
+$62.7M
$220.7M fair value against the $158M offered, so light on a player they wanted. This one is the model’s current reading rather than a published verdict: the site stores a record for the contract that exists, and no offer was ever signed here.
New York's side has not moved either and still reads worse. Their declined seven-year offer prices at $220.7M of fair value against the $158M they put on the table, so they were $62.7M light on a player who has since posted his best season since 2022. The pool sharpens that rather than excusing it. Underbidding is shrewd only if the player turns out to be one of the 117 who never reach break-even, and a club that has decided a hitter is worth signing does not get to price him as though he were. They identified him correctly and paid for the judgement with the player.
The six decline signals
These six decide the verdict above. They are also one of the two heaviest inputs to the contract answer at the foot of this page, alongside how the comps actually aged. What they no longer do is set the projection: that comes from what 164 comparable hitters produced across the same five years.
Each bar is that signal's own value axis, rising left to right, with the three bands where they fall on it. Strikeout rate runs the other way because a higher number is worse there. Distances are in each signal's own units, and no two signals are drawn on a shared scale.
Exit velocity
Current: 94.1 mph · 3rd in MLB
STRONG
0.6 mph short of the WATCH line (93.5)
The 92 mph line is this site’s calibration, not an outside standard. It is drawn where a drop is large enough to read as lost contact quality rather than as a slow month, and exit velocity is the signal this site expects to move first.
Hard-hit rate
Current: 56.2% · 4th in MLB
STRONG
6.2% short of the WATCH line (50.0)
Calibrated so the ZiPS base case crosses into WATCH late in the contract rather than at signing.
Production
Current: 143 wRC+
STRONG
18 wRC+ short of the WATCH line (125)
Set so the published ZiPS glide path (112 OPS+ by 2030) reads WATCH around 2029, matching what the scenario model implies.
Plate discipline
Current: 11.3%
STRONG
1.3% short of the WATCH line (10.0)
Aging hitters who hold or improve walk rate age best; a collapsing walk rate tends to follow bat-speed loss.
Durability
Current: 545 straight games
STRONG
compound rule
- Consecutive-games streak
- live at 545
- Share of team games
- 100.0% (declining under 80%)
- IL days this season
- 0 (declining past 30)
Injury is the most common cliff trigger in the comp set, so durability is scored on availability rather than on any rate stat. The 80-95% band without a live streak reads WATCH.
Strikeout rate
Current: 24%
STRONG
1.8% short of the WATCH line (25.8). Lower is better
Read against his own record rather than an absolute line. The baseline is the mean of his completed seasons and the bands are set at one and two of his own year-to-year swings above it, so a hitter who has always struck out a lot is not flagged for it. There is no absolute backstop on purpose: if a high rate is costing him, production carries that, and production is its own signal.
Show the signals as a table
| Signal | Current | Band | Next line this site draws | Room left |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exit velocity | 94.1 mph | STRONG | WATCH at 93.5 mph | 0.6 mph |
| Hard-hit rate | 56.2% | STRONG | WATCH at 50.0% | 6.2% |
| Production | 143 wRC+ | STRONG | WATCH at 125 wRC+ | 18 wRC+ |
| Plate discipline | 11.3% | STRONG | WATCH at 10.0% | 1.3% |
| Durability | streak live at 545 | STRONG | compound rule | 0 IL days (declining past 30) |
| Strikeout rate | 24.0% | STRONG | WATCH at 25.8% | 1.8% |
No trend indicators yet. This is the first snapshot in the log, so there is nothing to compare it against. Movement appears here automatically once a second snapshot is appended.
Is he on pace?
The scorecard above reads six rates. This reads the scoreboard. As of 22 August 2026, after 129 of the club’s 162 games with 33 still to play, he had banked 3.8 wins. Carried across a full season that is a pace of 4.77: ahead of the 3.6 ZiPS had for his age-31 season at signing, and ahead of the 2.95 the median comparable hitter actually produced at the same age.
Banked is measured. The pace carries his rate at that point across the rest of the season, so it is a projection. Of the two figures beside it only ZiPS is another one: the comp median is what those hitters finished with. It divides by the 129 games he had played rather than the club’s, which is what makes it a rate rather than a total. Among the 164 hitters the inclusion rule admits, that pace would rank 38 in their own age-31 seasons, the 77th percentile.
Which settles less than it looks. Age 31 is one year of five, and it is the year this contract was always most likely to win. The pool falls away underneath him from here: its median season is 2.95 at 31 and then 2.00, 1.40, 0.80 and 0.70 across 32 to 35. Clearing the middle of that at 31 is the least this deal needed rather than evidence it works, because the years it has to survive are the ones where the middle is nearly nothing.
Show the data as a table
| Figure | Wins | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Banked | 3.8 | Measured, after 129 of his club’s 162 games |
| His pace | 4.77 | That rate carried across a full season. A projection |
| ZiPS | 3.6 | Published December 2025, before any of this season |
| Comp median | 2.95 | The middle of what the 164 comps produced at 31. Measured, not projected, and counting a season a hitter did not play as the zero it was worth |
Why
Nothing about him changed between these two editions. The snapshot is the same one, taken 22 August, and all six signals still read STRONG: exit velocity 94.1 mph, hard-hit rate 56.2%, production 143 wRC+, and 545 straight games without missing one. The verdict is still NOT YET, for the same reasons it gave on 25 August. What changed is what those readings are measured against, and it changed enough that the last edition's arithmetic no longer describes this site.
The comp set was fourteen hitters this project picked. It is now the 164 that a published rule admits: 115 OPS+ or better through age 30 across at least 1,500 plate appearances, a debut in 1986 or later, and an age-35 season already on the calendar, so nothing here is being predicted that has not already happened to somebody. Picking the fourteen turned out to have picked the answer as well. Eleven of them sit above the 54th percentile of the pool and the other three at the 13th, 1st and 0th, with nobody in between, so they were never a sample of what happens to good hitters. They were a sample of the two extremes, and every band drawn from them inherited that.
The projection fell from 22.6 wins to 15.6, and none of that is news about him. The old figure took his scorecard, which is a prediction, and mapped it onto the pool's top quarter, which is a quarter sorted by what those hitters turned out to do. That assumes the prediction is perfect, ignores that extreme readings drift back toward the middle, and produced a number higher than any comparable group has ever actually averaged. The projection now conditions on the contract years already played and forecasts only the ones left, so it will tighten each season instead of staying equally vague until 2030. A site that publishes a method owes you the correction when the method was wrong, and this is that correction rather than a change of mind about the player.
Measured against anything outside this site, he is doing well. His pace of 4.77 wins is ahead of the 3.6 ZiPS had for this season at signing, and ahead of the 2.95 that the median comparable hitter actually produced at 31. The caution is in what comes after: that same median is 2.00 at 32, and 0.70 at 35. Being above the middle in the first year of five is the least this contract needed.
When the comps fell off
Four of the seven hitters who collapsed were already diminished inside the ages this contract is paying for. Three of them at 32, which is next season. Not one of the seven who lasted has a documented drop at any age on this chart.
These fourteen were chosen by hand before the comp pool existed, and they are not a sample: eleven of them land above the 54th percentile of the 164 hitters the published rule admits and the other three at the 13th, 1st and 0th. Every age here is transcribed from a source, so the count above holds. It is a claim about these fourteen and not about hitters in general. The full pool is on The Evidence.
Above the line, the last age each source still shows him producing. Below it, the first season each source shows him diminished.
Every age here is transcribed from the sourced fact this site already carries for that hitter, and a test refuses any age that does not appear in it. These are not the illustrative group curves: nothing on this chart is an estimate. Ages follow the Baseball-Reference convention, age as of 30 June.
Show the data as a table
| Hitter | Age | Group | What the source says |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Davis | 32 | First diminished season | A 49 OPS+ at 32, two years after signing for seven years and $161M |
| Prince Fielder | 32 | First diminished season | Ran a 547-game streak, then two neck surgeries 26 months apart ended his career at 32 |
| Ryan Howard | 32 | First diminished season | A 126 OPS+ at 31, then the Achilles tore on the last play of that October and he topped out at 115 across five more seasons |
| Paul Konerko | 34 | Still producing | 39 home runs and a .312 average at 34 |
| Adrian Gonzalez | 35 | First diminished season | A 130 OPS+ at 33, then 70 at 35, released 54 games into his age-36 season and never seen again |
| Jim Thome | 35 | Still producing | 42 home runs at 35, then 35 and 34 in the two seasons after |
| Jose Abreu | 36 | First diminished season | 134 OPS+ at 35, then 87 at 36 and a .124 average at 37 |
| Mark Teixeira | 36 | First diminished season | Still a 144 OPS+ at 35 but only 111 games, then 74 at 36 and done |
| Edwin Encarnacion | 37 | First diminished season | Pull-heavy exception: 34 home runs and a 131 OPS+ at 36, then 70 at 37 |
| Frank Thomas | 38 | Still producing | 39 home runs and a 140 OPS+ at 38 |
| Fred McGriff | 38 | Still producing | 30 home runs and a 125 OPS+ at 38 |
| David Ortiz | 40 | Still producing | 164 OPS+ at 40, with 38 home runs and a .315 average |
| Edgar Martinez | 40 | Still producing | 139 OPS+ or better every year from 35 through 40, with 37 home runs at 37 |
| Nelson Cruz | 40 | Still producing | 129 OPS+ or better every year from 33 to 40, peaking at 171 at 39 |
Sources for every line are on The Evidence, beside each hitter.14 hitters, seven in each group.
What would change this
The verdict is a published rule, not a judgment, so it can be shown wrong. These are the readings that would do it, named in advance and in each signal’s own units.
- No single signal slipping one band changes the answer. It takes three of the six moving together, and the verdict would then read CRACKS SHOWING.
- A signal can also fall past watch inside one reading, and any one of the six breaking down outright would change the answer alone. The table below gives the value that would count as broken for each.
- Even then it does not publish immediately. A new verdict has to compute two readings running before this page prints it, and this site takes two or three readings a season.
| Signal | Reads now | On watch at | Broken at | Verdict if broken |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exit velocity | STRONG94.1 mph | 93.4 mph | 91.9 mph2.2 mph away | CRACKS SHOWING |
| Hard-hit rate | STRONG56.2% | 49.9% | 43.9%12.3% away | CRACKS SHOWING |
| Production | STRONG143 wRC+ | 124 wRC+ | 104 wRC+39 wRC+ away | CRACKS SHOWING |
| Plate discipline | STRONG11.3% | 9.9% | 7.9%3.4% away | CRACKS SHOWING |
| Durability | STRONGstreak live at 545 | streak ends and he plays under 95% of team games | under 80% of team games, or past 30 days on the injured list | CRACKS SHOWING |
| Strikeout ratelower is better | STRONG24.0% | 25.8% | 28.7%4.7% away | CRACKS SHOWING |
The bands are the ones on The Formulas, and the verdict beside each line is the rule’s own answer with that one signal changed and the other five left where they are.
How many of them were worth it?
The Orioles guaranteed $155M for ages 31 to 35. Every hitter the inclusion rule admits has already played those five years, so the question can be asked backwards: price what each of them actually produced at this contract’s own cost of a win, and count how many were worth it.
47of 164
Worth $155M or more. Worth less.
That is 29 percent, so break-even sits at the 71st percentile, about 14.5 wins across the five years. The median hitter here came to $91.4M, a $63.6M shortfall. The best was $398.6M and the worst -$60.4M. Restricted to the first basemen and designated hitters the answer barely moves: 15 of 50, the 70th percentile.
More wins is not the same as more money, and the gap between these two is why. Mike Piazza produced 14.9 wins and comes to $152.8M, which misses. Jose Abreu produced 14.4 and comes to $158.3M, which clears. A win in the last year of this deal costs about a quarter more than one in the first, so when the wins arrive matters as much as how many there are.
This prices what those hitters did, not what Alonso will do. It is deliberately not a second opinion on the surplus: the site publishes one figure for that, on The Contract, and it comes from a different method. What this says is the base rate the contract has to beat.
Show the twenty nearest the line
| Hitter | WAR, 31-35 | Worth | Against $155M |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edwin Encarnacion | 17.1 | $180.4M | cleared |
| Bernie Williams | 16.8 | $172.8M | cleared |
| Robin Ventura | 16.5 | $172.8M | cleared |
| Jose Altuve | 16.3 | $169.3M | cleared |
| Bobby Abreu | 15.8 | $168.9M | cleared |
| Jayson Werth | 15.4 | $167.7M | cleared |
| Todd Helton | 15.7 | $166.7M | cleared |
| David Ortiz | 15.6 | $165.9M | cleared |
| Jose Abreu | 14.4 | $158.3M | cleared |
| Frank Thomas | 14.5 | $156.2M | cleared |
| David Justice | 14.6 | $154.9M | missed |
| George Springer | 14.2 | $154.1M | missed |
| Reggie Sanders | 14.2 | $153.9M | missed |
| Mike Piazza | 14.9 | $152.8M | missed |
| Josh Donaldson | 14.4 | $152.8M | missed |
| Matt Holliday | 14.4 | $150.7M | missed |
| Curtis Granderson | 13.7 | $149.6M | missed |
| Carlos Delgado | 14.5 | $148.9M | missed |
| Victor Martinez | 13.5 | $146.7M | missed |
| Magglio Ordonez | 13.7 | $146.4M | missed |
The record
Every verdict this site has issued, and when. The record is here so the site can be held to it.
| Issued | Verdict | Fair value vs guaranteed |
|---|---|---|
| NOT YET | +$8.2M |
This is the inaugural verdict, issued 25 August 2026, and the first of five contract seasons on the record. Every verdict after it is appended below this one and none of them can be edited, which is the whole point of keeping the record. A verdict that changes is this site’s news.
Earlier editions
First edition, with year one of five nearly done.
Exit velocity is 94.1 mph and hard-hit rate 56.2%, both career highs and both top five in baseball, which is not what the front half of a collapse looks like. Production sits at 143 wRC+, his best mark since 2022. He has not missed a game in 545.
Strikeout rate is the one people point at, and it is not moving. He is at 24% against a career mean of 23.0% across seven seasons that have run between 18.7% and 26.4%. That is a point above his own baseline and lower than his rookie year. A hitter who strikes out this much has always struck out this much; what would matter is the rate climbing off that baseline, and it has not.
None of which says the contract is safe. He turns 32 in December and the deal runs through 35, which is where the comp group that collapsed did most of its collapsing. The case for him today rests on contact quality better than any he has had, and the thing to watch is whether that holds once the bat slows.
Baltimore is ahead. The model puts fair value at $163.2M against the $155M they guaranteed, so they are carrying roughly $8.2M of surplus at the published assumptions. That is FAIR VALUE rather than a steal, and the honest reading is that they paid about what he is worth with a little room in their favour.
The Mets are the real story, and it is not a happy one. Their declined seven-year offer prices out at $220.7M of fair value against the $158M they put on the table: they were $62.7M light on a player who has since posted his best season since 2022. Underbidding is only clever if the player signs. He did not, so New York did not capture a bargain, it lost a first baseman it had correctly identified and incorrectly priced.