As free agency heats up in baseball, fans of the New York Mets are devoting significant mental bandwidth to a particular question: Will Pete Alonso, the team’s home-grown all-time leader in home runs, return to the team after testing the market?
Much ink has been spilled and many thoughts vocalized about Alonso’s age (30), his contract situation, and whether teams will offer him a long-term deal. Fans have also speculated about the possibility of him joining the cross-town rivals in the Bronx and, for that matter, going anywhere other than Queens. This would follow the trajectory of another home-grown Met of yesteryear, Darryl Strawberry, who Alonso passed this season for the club’s all-time record in career home runs. Decades before LeBron James took his talents to South Beach and before both the concept and phrase of taking one’s talents elsewhere became en vogue, Strawberry failed to heed the late writer Thomas Wolfe’s advice, You Can’t Go Home Again, and signed with his hometown Los Angeles Dodgers.
Returning to the present moment, there’s something that’s often overlooked in discussions of players staying or going: their language. Take what Alonso said in an interview with SportsNet New York (SNY) shortly after the season ended as exhibit A.
The Power of Subtle Linguistic Cues
Alonso was asked a series of questions by several reporters, and his responses provide more insight than meets the ear. His choice of words, particularly the use of “yeah”, hint at how he sees his future with the Mets.
The interview started with a question about the Mets’ failure to turn their season around by missing the playoffs on the season’s final day. Alonso responded with:
Yeah, I mean, it’s just one game. It shows the value of what one game means over the course of 162 games.
Not much to see here. True, if your season depends on winning or losing one game, that’s a big deal. Fans know this. Take their pulse or measure their blood pressure going into such games.
The next question was about Alonso’s future with the Mets:
I’ve loved playing here…Yeah, I mean, I’ve really appreciated it and been nothing but full of gratitude every single day. So, I mean yeah. I mean nothing’s guaranteed but I mean, we’ll see what happens…
If you’re inclined to analyze language, you’d probably notice that he uses the past tense (loved, appreciated, been) to describe his time in New York. Perhaps this signals that his time with the Mets is a past-tense thing. But then again, that could just be posturing, a play for leverage in negotiations. If you’re a compiler, you’d also notice that his usage of ‘yeah’ is ticking up.
Then, the question came up: Would Alonso opt out of his contract?
Yeah.
This fit the pattern of earlier ‘yeah’ usage. Abruptly, a pattern interrupt occurred.
Yes.
In real time, it looked like this:
“Yeah.
Yes.”
The Linguistic Shift: “Yeah” vs. “Yes”
The difference between “yeah” and “yes” might seem trivial at first glance. However, the reality is more like a vast logarithmic scale than a mere difference in millimeters. As linguist Roger Shuy points out in Language Crimes, the following hierarchy ranks the affirmative from fullest and most believable to weakest and least believable. It goes:
- Yes
- Yeah
- Yup
- Mmmm
In this context, Alonso’s shift from “yeah” to “yes” is revealing. He’s using the full form of ‘yes’ to answer the question of whether or not he will opt out of his contract and become a free agent. Anything less than ‘yes’ is considered a reduced form. The shift suggests that Alonso viewed opting out as a far more certain possibility than returning to the Mets.
Later, another reporter pointed out that Alonso had said many nice things about playing for the Mets and asked if it could be assumed that he would want to come back:
Yeah, I mean, I’ve definitely thought about it and it’d be great. But again, we’ll see what happens with everything… Yeah it’d be… Yeah, it’d be great but again, we’ll see what happens.
Ok, compilers, how many ‘yeahs’ have you counted? More importantly, do you see how Alonso opens up a dichotomy of interpretation for us? This dichotomy tells us that ‘yes’ means he’s serious (opting out of his contract), but ‘yeah’ indicates less than serious (staying with the Mets). Since the difference between ‘yeah’ and ‘yes’ is hierarchical, if not logarithmic, the contrast suggests a stronger level of commitment regarding free agency than a return to the Mets.
The Nail That Sticks Out: Why the “Yes” Matters
In many cultures, there’s an expression that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. In this case, Alonso’s use of “yes” when asked about opting out is the nail that sticks out, which helps us do the hammering although not to it. This is the only time in the entire interview where he says ‘yes’. The rest of his answers are full of “yeah”s, which, because of the hierarchy of full and reduced forms, have to be stripped of their “yes-ness.” At best, the responses sound non-committal and carefully measured. The “yes” is given outsized importance not only because of linguistic convention but also because it stands in stark contrast to his other supposed “affirmative” answers. That one “yes” tells us that it’s more likely he’ll be suiting up for another team next year than any amount of “yeahs” could indicate that he’s staying.
Paralinguistic Indicators: A Further Look
In a different interview, Mets closer Edwin Diaz was asked about opting out of his contract. He said he hadn’t made a decision yet and was waiting to go home to talk to his family. Diaz, like Alonso, would ultimately opt out of his contract to test the free-agent market. Mirroring Alonso and seemingly going beyond, he had this to say about the prospect of returning to the Mets:
Yeah, of course, you know. I love this organization…I would love to come back.
“Of course”, the use of “love” twice. It sounds so promising, right?
Not when you consider the reduced form ‘yeah’ standing there like a monolith, first and foremost.
Unfortunately for Mets fans like myself, there are other hidden markers in these interviews that suggest an even greater possibility of both Alonso and Diaz leaving. Both of them, while giving their ‘yeah’ answers in response to the question of returning to the Mets, gave half-shoulder shrugs. This is known as a paralinguistic indicator, which refers to something other than the language itself. In nonverbal communication, the half-shoulder shrug indicates less commitment to what is being said. When you consider that the ‘yeah’ responses by themselves aren’t good news for the Mets, both of these cues may suggest some hesitation or uncertainty about returning.
Facing these likely headwinds, let’s see if Mets deep-pocketed owner Stevie Cohen can make them offers they can’t refuse.