Astros’ bitter division rival’s potential Josh Naylor fallback plan could blow up in their face

While the Houston Astros aren't entering the offseason in their customary position of strength, the club has a lot of holes and not a lot of room in the budget to work with. The silver lining is that their chief rival is in a state of flux.

The Seattle Mariners are Houston's biggest threat, but they face some uncertainty when it comes to their lineup. Josh Naylor, Eugenio Suarez, and Jorge Polanco are all free agents, and without that trio, Seattle would go back to being a club with a dominant rotation and not much else.

Of the trio, re-signing Naylor is their top priority. A revelation since arriving in the Pacific Northwest at the trade deadline, Naylor gives them contact skills to balance out Cal Raleigh's striking power, while also possessing some pop of his own. Throw in a surprising penchant for swiping bases, and Naylor is a dynamo of sorts.

That means he'll get plenty of attention on the open market, and if the Mariners decide to pivot to the other star first baseman available, Pete Alonso, they could be opening themselves up to a world of pain.

The Astros can take solace in the fact that if Pete Alonso is the Mariners' Josh Naylor fallback plan, it probably won't go well

The Athletic's Jim Bowden seems to think that if the Mariners were to lose Naylor in free agency, Alonso would be the first guy they'd call. There's a more than decent shot that happens, too.

While Alonso has more name recognition than Naylor, the long-time Met is pursuing a long-term megadeal, something that eluded him last offseason and left him out in the cold as the winter dragged on. Naylor, on the other hand, will likely come cheaper, but he's two-and-a-half years younger, hits from the left side, and has a more varied offensive skill set than Alonso, making him potentially more attractive.

Naylor landing elsewhere would be great news for the Astros. Right-handed power doesn't exactly play well in T-Mobile Park up in Seattle, and despite a resurgent 2025 campaign, Alonso had been in the midst of a two-year skid.

In 2023, he crushed 46 homers, but it came at the cost of a .217 batting average and .318 OBP. He followed that up by raising his average to .240, but hitting just 34 home runs, the lowest tally in his career outside of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. That also came with a career-worst .459 SLG, which contributed greatly to his frigid experience in free agency last winter.

Therefore, it's possible to believe that 2025's .272/.347/.524 line is the outlier, not the two down years that preceded it, and that Alonso's talents would play even worse in a less hitter-friendly environment.

If he truly is the pivot and the Mariners get saddled with a six or seven-year deal approaching $200 million for his services, they'll likely find out fast why teams have moved away from giving those sorts of contracts to slugging first basemen.

The worst-case scenario would leave them less potent in 2026 than they were in 2025, while Alonso's hypothetical contract serves as an anchor on their payroll. That would help the Astros keep pace next season while making it harder for the Mariners to continue ascending in the years to come.

Sometimes it's not the moves you make, but the mistakes of your rivals that buoy your future outlook, and for the Astros, the Mariners' signing Pete Alonso could do just that.