Free agent Pete Alonso will make the 70-mile drive from his home in Tampa to meet with the Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles, and any other interested party at Major League Baseball's Winter Meetings in Orlando.

The Mets, the team that drafted him and with whom he has spent the last seven years, are not one of those teams.

Is it time for the Polar Bear fanatics in Queens to begin panicking? Not necessarily.

"I think Pete knows us really well, and I think we know Pete really well," Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns told reporters down in Orlando. "I think he'll take the time here to perhaps meet with organizations he doesn't know quite as well, and I'm sure we'll be in touch."

This is not a new tactic teams around the majors use, specifically the Mets. When Brandon Nim

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