If you were sitting with all the publicly available evidence, would you come to any other conclusion than this:

The Mets will retain Pete Alonso at a price at which they are comfortable or they will pivot, likely soon, to use Steve Cohen’s dollars in a different fashion.

The Mets’ offseason has basically two chapters. In the first, they prioritized whatever was necessary to land Juan Soto and restock/deepen their rotation alternatives. That would allow them to believe they had assembled a roster good enough to contend in 2025 and could now be opportunistic/patient about the rest of the market to further upgrade that roster.

This is Chapter 2. The one that includes Alonso. But at some point, the Mets have to hear that Alonso is willing to accept their financial view of him or they will get more aggressive elsewhere, probably pretty soon, to avoid losing out on lingering options.