Pitchers and catchers report to spring training in a little more than a week, and Pete Alonso remains unsigned. The New York Mets slugger has not had the offseason either he or his agent Scott Boras envisioned.

During the 2023 season, Alonso rejected a seven-year, $158 million extension offer from the Mets, deciding that testing free agency would be the more lucrative path for him. Unfortunately, it’s been quite the opposite.

Alonso has wanted to return to the Mets all offseason, and while New York wants him back, owner Steve Cohen made it known that they didn’t like the contract offers being proposed to them by Boras.

“Personally, this has been an exhausting conversation and negotiation,” Cohen said at the Mets’ fan event ahead of the season. “I mean, (Juan) Soto was tough. This is worse. A lot of it is, we’ve made a significant offer. I don’t like the structures that are being presented back to us. I think it’s highly asymmetric against us, and I feel strongly about it.”

He did leave the door open to a reunion, though.

“I will never say no,” Cohen said. “There’s always the possibility. But the reality is we’re moving forward and we continue to bring in players. As we continue to bring in players, the reality is it becomes harder to fit Pete into what is a very expensive group of players that we already have, and that’s where we are.

“I’m being brutally honest. I don’t like the negotiations. I don’t like what’s being presented to us. Maybe that changes. I’ll always stay flexible. But if it stays this way, I think we’re going to have to get used to the fact that we may have to go forward with the existing players that we have.”

While this was just last week, Alonso remains unsigned, and without any real other options. The Toronto Blue Jays have been floated around. So, too, have the Los Angeles Angels and Cincinnati Reds. But in the end, it feels like a reunion is the only thing that makes sense. And that’s exactly what USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported on Friday.

Nightengale said Alonso is “expected to return” to New York, saying it “seems almost inevitable that a resolution will be reached” between him and the Mets.

“The Toronto Blue Jays really have been Alonso’s only serious suitor outside the Mets, and if Alonso really wanted to sign there, or anywhere else on a short-term deal, it likely would have happened already,” Nightengale added.

As for the contract, Nightengale said Alonso will have to decide whether he wants to “swallow his pride and take the Mets’ three-year offer for about $70 million.”