Upon his arrival for the GM Meetings in San Diego, New York Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen met with the media. Among many topics of discussion was first base prospect Peter Alonso.
Alonso enjoyed a tremendous breakout 2018 season, as he mashed a minor league leading 36 home runs in 132 games, and worked extremely hard to improve defensively.
Van Wagenen, like Mets fans everywhere, has certainly taken notice of the power hitting prowess Alonso has displayed. In fact, Van Wagenen told reporters yesterday that he thinks Alonso “is a piece that could help now and in the future.”
Going into the 2019 season, Van Wagenen says he plans on giving Alonso every opportunity to compete for the starting first-base job this spring.
“He will be going to big league camp and we’ll try to get him as many at-bats as we can to see if we can make a decision in terms of how ready he is. He’s gonna continue to work hard on his defense. He’s gonna continue to be an impact player offensively, and we’ll see how it shakes out come spring training,” Van Wagenen said.
“He is a really hard worker, and he has a burning desire to succeed, and he communicated that very clearly to me. I told him that we are going to give him every opportunity to try to capitalize on that both in the short term and the long term,” Van Wagenen added.
Most importantly, Van Wagenen noted that service time will not effect Alonso from potentially winning the job out of camp.
He said, “my goal is to win as many games as we can. The wins in April are just as important as the wins in September. My philosophy is to try to put the best 25 guys on the field… I think he has a chance to be an impact player, and our goal is to try to have as many impact guys on the field as we can.”
