How will Pete Alonso’s game — his skill set, body, performance — age over the next three to five years?
“That’s the big question,” one National League evaluator said.
“Man,” another NL scout said, “he’s such an interesting one to think about.”
Though the New York Mets don’t have to make a ruling on Alonso this winter, his status looms over the club as perhaps its most important roster issue. Alonso, who turns 29 in December, is slated for a final year of arbitration before becoming eligible for free agency after the 2024 season. Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said last week that he expected Alonso to be New York’s opening day first baseman but didn’t guarantee anything about the slugger’s long-term future.
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Given the intrigue on the subject and the question of Alonso’s future value, The Athletic recently asked eight scouts and executives across the league how they each would forecast his next handful of seasons. The group mostly agreed on Alonso’s ability to continue supplying above-average offensive production because of his power through at least his age-33 season. After that, however, the evaluators mostly expressed some skepticism about Alonso’s mid-30s outlook.
“That’s why I think it’s essential to keep that deal short,” an executive said. “With his position, you have a bit more flexibility but it’s a big risk.”
Said one evaluator: “I’m excited to see what he does over the next five years. He could really do some incredible things on the power end of it.” (Darren Yamashita / USA Today)Such opinions involved a discussion about Alonso’s power, which undeniably checks out as his carrying tool yet also makes some evaluators wonder about its reliability in years to come. Alonso ranks third all-time in home runs by a player through their first five seasons; only Ralph Kiner (215) and Albert Pujols (201) have hit more than Alonso (192), who played fewer games than both. But studies on isolated power, which measures a batter’s raw power by showing how many extra bases a player averages per at-bat, indicated that a player’s peak power performance arrives during the early-to-mid-20s with a swift decline after 30. A couple of scouts attributed the opinion — and data — to just how the body works from an athleticism standpoint. The Athletic’s Eno Sarris, while working for FanGraphs, once wrote, “Bodies may peak earlier than skills. If repetition can improve a batter’s sense of the strike zone and make him a better hitter overall as he approaches 30, he might still be falling off a pure muscle-bound power apex.”
Alonso has heard all of this many times before, and during an interview about aging on the final day of the Mets’ season, he pushed back on the idea that surpassing 30 years old makes a player over the hill.
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“I totally disagree with that stigma,” Alonso said before listing a few recent examples to support his stance.
Among the first basemen Alonso listed: Freddie Freeman, 34, has posted a higher OPS in his 30s (.949) than he did in his 20s (.883); Joey Votto hit 36 home runs in 2021 at 37 years old; Paul Goldschmidt won the Most Valuable Player award in 2022 at 34.
“I want to age like wine,” Alonso said, “not like milk.”
Alonso smiled after saying that, but no one should laugh. Alonso takes his goals seriously. He sets objectives before every season and likes achieving them.
Ahead of the 2023 season, for example, Alonso zeroed in on improving in three specific counts: 2-0, 3-1 and 3-2. Check, check and check. His sOPS+ — which works like OPS+ by taking a player’s OPS and comparing it to the league average, set at 100, but for a specific split — on 2-0 went from 91 in 2022 to 237 in 2023. On 3-1, it went from 27 to 182. And on 3-2, it went from 91 to 122.
Alonso improved in a couple of other key ways. Listed at 6-foot-2 and 253 pounds in the Mets’ media guide, Alonso said he played the entire season at 235 pounds. He attributed his better defense to the weight loss; with a bit more range, he posted better defensive statistics, improving his outs above average from -8 in 2022 to 0 in 2023.
“This is by far my best year defensively,” Alonso said. “I think I got a really good chance at doing some really cool things in the future. I want to win, not just one Gold Glove, but multiple Gold Gloves, and I feel like I am on the trajectory to do so. I just want to keep getting better and better every year.”
One scout strongly emphasized that Alonso’s drive to improve and ability to play essentially every day — he only missed time in June after getting hit by a pitch — should count for something in the calculus of what to expect for his future.
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But Alonso’s skill set differs from Goldschmidt, Votto, Freeman and some other prominent players whom he mentioned who aged well. So rosy comparisons only go so far. As another scout put it, “He’s not Goldy — his skills were way sharper at the same age.” The same scout added that Goldschmidt and others also offered a more diverse list of skills.
Multiple scouts surmised that Alonso’s long-term value mostly relies on power and strike zone control. Alonso has so far aced the power part. Though Alonso’s chase rate actually dropped in 2023, his strikeout rate climbed to 22.9 percent, the first time it surpassed 20 percent over a full season since he was a rookie in 2019. His walk rate stayed at 9.9 percent, right in line with his career norms. Neither rate is bad. But there’s room for growth, particularly with walks and on-base percentage. While Alonso ranked third in home runs (46) in 2023, he ranked 19th in slugging (.504); to be sure, both numbers are great, but the discrepancy makes the scout want to see more.
“He is going to have to either do more damage or start walking more,” one scout said. “His trend is not great.”
The same evaluator posed a question: Is the game trending toward more speed or power? He suggested the former, pointing to baseball’s new rules. While it helps that the designated hitter exists in both leagues, a premium on speed and defense may increase. Alonso has made some improvement in those areas, but from the scout’s view, his defense and base running remain below average.
“And Father Time usually hinders this even more,” the scout said.
But, man, that raw power …
Reliable plus-power from the right side is hard to find, which is a point that a few of the evaluators made. Alonso has said it a bunch of times over the years: He prioritizes having good at-bats with a quality approach, and home runs just tend to happen for him while he attempts to hit line drives as a result of his strength. One evaluator went as far as comparing Alonso to Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt, who hit more home runs and slugged at a higher rate in his 30s than he did in his 20s.
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“I’m excited to see what he does over the next five years,” the evaluator said. “He could really do some incredible things on the power end of it, the kind of stuff that is upper-echelon worthy.”
Alonso’s power makes him special, but he’s not an all-or-nothing slugger. The scout who suggested Alonso has room for growth with his walk rate has a good point. But unlike prototypical sluggers who carry inflated strikeout rates in the 25 to 30 percent range, Alonso hasn’t typically sold out for his power. He may not be Goldschmidt or Freeman but he’s certainly not Miguel Sanó, either. For now and at least for the next few seasons, most of the evaluators suggested, Alonso does enough other things — mainly, he doesn’t strike out a ton and walks just enough — beyond hitting home runs to have staying power.
After a short period of unwinding this offseason, Alonso planned to dissect some data, reflect on his performance and set a few specific and new goals. In the meantime, Alonso recently aligned himself with super agent Scott Boras, who has a history of taking clients to free agency and has worked out mega-deals with the Mets in the past, including when the club re-signed center fielder Brandon Nimmo, another homegrown, proven star in New York like Alonso. For this winter, MLB Trade Rumors projected Alonso to earn $22 million through arbitration. FanGraphs’ ZiPS projections say he should hit at least 35 home runs with an OPS of around .850 in each of the next two seasons. Beyond that? Perhaps the Mets should find out for themselves.
As one executive said, “The Mets should try to keep him around as long as possible.”
(Photo of Pete Alonso: Bill Streicher / USA Today)
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