A Case for the New Pete Alonso
Who doesn’t like home runs? Pete Alonso has been arguably the best at hitting them among people not named Aaron Judge since his debut. The flaws with Alonso are that he made his debut at an older age, his hit tool nor his batting eye are particularly great, and his athleticism is towards the lower end of the spectrum. Naturally, teams are scared off by all those facts in free agency since teams are looking towards a future projection rather than what a player has done in the past.
That said, Alonso may have very well found a way to salvage his future outlook in the second half of the 2024 season. Alonso’s lack of athleticism can be revealing at times but at the plate, it shows when he is trying to maintain the same approach he had from 2019-to-2022.
Brad Penner-Imagn Images
To his credit, Alonso has never been a prototypical big strikeout, big power guy. In fact, it was under 20% in both 2021 and 2022. It is probably something Alonso prides himself on but sometimes we have seen that when guys try and avoid strikeouts with diminishing bat speed, they end up sacrificing some of their production in an effort to keep the ball in play.
This is not just an attempt to tear down Alonso’s player profile. While Alonso actually struck out nearly 30% of the time in the second half, he actually managed to drastically improve his production.
In the first half of the 2024 season, Alonso slashed .240/.319/.454 with a .332 wOBA, 116 wRC+, 31.6% hard-hit rate, 80% contact rate, and 20.7 K%. As for the second half, he hit .240/.345/.467 with a .352 wOBA, 130 wRC+, 40.8% hard-hit rate, 73.2% contact rate, and 30.6% K%.
The skinny? Alonso effectively struck out more and made less contact which by itself is not great, but he managed to hit the ball harder and increased his production. Of course, we’re all left to speculate but this does lend some credence to the notion that Alonso abandoned the idea of trying to avoid strikeouts in exchange for more authoritative contact. He then followed the second half by slashing .273/.431/.568/.999 in the playoffs while striking out 26% of the time.
Adding to that, Alonso hit .332 with a .665 slugging percentage and .414 wOBA in the 2022 season on pitches in the zone. In the first half of 2024, those numbers were .285, .533, and .343 respectively. Well, in the second half, those numbers returned to 2022 form with a .341 average, .674 slugging, and .423 wOBA.
These numbers could all mean nothing but I maintain slightly more optimism. A big reason why is because Jeff McNeil had a similar path prior to his injury. McNeil had a .216./.276/.314 slash in the first half with a .263 wOBA, 70 wRC+, and 12.4 K%. In the second half (with albeit fewer plate appearances), he hit .289/.376/.547 with a .391 wOBA, 156 wRC+, and 18.8 K%.
For some more context, the Mets as a team had the ninth lowest K% in baseball in the first half (21%) but the 10th highest in the second half (24.4%). Before it is misconstrued, I am not saying striking out more is a good thing on its own but given the team’s success in the second half compared to the first half, it can also be said that hitting to avoid strikeouts is not optimal either.
Regarding Alonso, I do not think he’s about to start putting up numbers like it is 2022 but I can get behind the idea that there is more behind the curtain than just his 2024 statistics. All this is entirely speculation but I believe this was a worthwhile analysis. Someone who would know whether or not Alonso made some genuine changes to his approach would be David Stearns. If Stearns is on board with bringing Alonso back, I think there is something there.
The only hesitation I would have with Alonso returning is locking Mark Vientos and Alonso in at the corner infield positions for the next couple of year years. Having those two on the corner infield of a starting staff that does not strike a lot of folks out seems suboptimal. David Stearns has the benefit of the doubt but I would certainly feel better if one of those two were the DH.
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