The Contract
Five years and $155M, covering ages 31 to 35. Every one of those is a decline-risk year. The question is whether the production shows up.
The anchor
The base case is not this site's guess. It is the ZiPS projection FanGraphs published in December 2025 at signing, which valued the deal near $110M against a $155M guarantee.
| Year | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OPS+ | 146 | 137 | 129 | 121 | 112 |
| WAR | 3.6 | 2.9 | 2.0 | 1.4 | 0.7 |
For context, FanGraphs' Ben Clemens projected four years and $120M, and the reader crowdsource averaged four years and $107M. A February 2026 ZiPS update raised the 2026 line to 4.1 WAR. Alonso is currently beating the original year-one projection.
The model
Three things move the odds between scenarios: how available he stays, what the six decline signals read, and where his production sits between the two comp groups. None of them changes what a scenario is worth. The cost of a win does that. Every formula is on The Formulas.
77% of 2026 is already played, so that season is anchored on what has actually been banked and only the remainder is projected. Later seasons stay projections, which is why three scenarios exist at all.
What each club should have paid
Orioles 2026-30$155M guaranteed · 5 yrs · ages 31-35
+$5.1M
Fair value $160.1M, so the club paid under it by $5.1M.
That price implies 47% confidence in the Lasted pace. The evidence supports 54%.
GradeFAIR VALUE
Mets offer (declined, 2023)$158M offered · 7 yrs · ages 29-35
+$60.5M
Fair value $218.5M, so the club offered under it by $60.5M.
That price sits below even the early-cliff value, so it needed no faith in the Lasted pace at all. The evidence supports 54%.
GradeSTRONG VALUE
The grade is a band on a continuous number and sits near a boundary, so it can change on a single signal. Read the dollar figure, not the label.
The assumptions
Availability shifts the odds between scenarios, never what one is worth. It opens where the log puts him. Durability lowers cliff risk but cannot erase it. Prince Fielder ran a 547-game streak, longer than Alonso’s, and two neck surgeries 26 months apart ended his career at 32.
Higher growth raises the value of later seasons, because a fixed salary buys wins in cheaper future dollars.
Scenario odds
Lasted pace53.5%
The pace of the hitters who aged well. 130+ wRC+ into the mid-30s.
ZiPS glide path43.5%
The projection published at signing. Drifting toward 1 WAR by 2030.
Early cliff3.0%
Strikeout creep or injury triggers a Howard or Abreu style drop.
| Contract | Lasted pace | ZiPS glide path | Early cliff | fair value | gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orioles 2026-30 | $199.7M | $117.4M | $75.0M | $160.1M | +$5.1M |
| Mets offer (declined, 2023) | $260.3M | $173.6M | $125.3M | $218.5M | +$60.5M |
Alonso's side of the ledger
The team-side numbers above are only half of it. By declining seven years and $158M in 2023, Alonso earned $20.5M in 2024, $30M in 2025, and $155M across 2026 to 2030.
$205.5M over the same seven years, roughly +$50M for betting on himself.
A contract can be a poor deal for the team and an excellent one for the player. Both readings on this page are true at once.
What is not in the number
The cost of a win is derived by dividing real contracts by real WAR, so it already contains everything the market prices on average. Anything added on top has to be specific to one club, or it is being charged for twice.
- Postseason leverage, modelled
- The same wins are worth more to a club near the cut line. Scored as a deviation from a typical signing club, because clubs that sign free agents are mostly contenders and that leverage is already in the market rate. Correctly differenced it is a small term, usually negative.
- Merchandise, not modelled
- MLB licensing royalties go to a central fund split equally across all thirty clubs. A club selling more of one player's jerseys captures roughly a thirtieth of the extra royalty. Team-specific merchandise value is close to zero, which is the opposite of what most people assume.
- Gate and attendance, not modelled
- Real and club-specific, but small and badly confounded with team quality. No honest figure separates the player from the winning.
- Local media and sponsorship, not modelled
- Regional deal terms are not public. There is no estimate to make, so none is made.
A site whose whole claim is publishing its formulas gets more credit for naming what it refuses to estimate than for inventing a merchandise number.
Production value is the year-by-year WAR path multiplied by the cost of a win, starting at $8.5M in 2024 and compounding at the chosen rate. The base case is the ZiPS projection published at signing. The Lasted pace and the early cliff are comp-study estimates around it and are not projections in the same sense. Fair value is the guarantee at which a club breaks even.