The 2021 season was a positive one for New York Mets’ slugger Pete Alonso. He didn’t quite hit 53 home runs as he did in his rookie year (2019), but he made some strides at the plate that guarantee he is on an upward trend.
During that 2019 season, Alonso slashed .260/.358/.583 with a 144 wRC+. His performance fell off a little in the shortened 2020 campaign, as he hit .231/.326/.490 with a 120 wRC+, but he regained form and posted a .262/.344/.519 with a 133 wRC+ last year.
The Mets’ slugger won’t win a batting title, but it’s nice to know he is a little less vulnerable as a hitter now. In 2021, he posted career-bests in swinging-strike rate at 11.4 percent, contact rate at 76.7 percent, zone contact (86.4%), and zone swing (71.3%).
The Mets will take his improved approach
These plate discipline improvements allowed Alonso to cut his strikeout rate by more than five points: he went from posting a 26.4% mark in 2019 and a 25.5% one in 2020 to a 19.9% strikeout rare in 2021.
The Mets are happy to see Alonso making strides offensively. They are also happy that his BB/K (walks per strikeout) went from 0.39 in both 2019 and 2020 to 0.47 in 2021. He is now more disciplined, and that allowed him to increase his batting average floor.
Alonso is more than a one-dimensional slugger, since he is adept to taking walks at a high rate (9.9% in his career) and is not a “homer or nothing” kind of hitter. He may never hit 53 home runs again, but he should approach or surpass 40 every year during his prime, and that’s something the Mets are surely happy about. After all, having a legit middle-of-the-order bat is very valuable.
He will try to keep the gains he made at the plate during the 2022 season. The Mets need his potent bat in the middle of their lineup to produce runs, and he will likely deliver.