Looks like someone is liking the added protection around him! Pete Alonso is off to a hot start for the 2025 season. He is slashing .345/ .464/ .673 for the year so far, with a 1.136 OPS. He has four home runs, one being a grand slam, with 19 RBIs in just 69 plate appearances. Pete is responsible for 29 out of the 61 runs the Mets have scored. That is 48% of their runs! What a start! Below is a breakdown of Pete’s approach for games from April 8 through April 14.
Alonso has done a spectacular job of covering the outside part of the plate. As seen on Alonso’s heat map on Fangraphs, almost all of his hits have come from protecting the outside part of the plate. This includes one of his four home runs which was hit on April 11. Pitchers have been pitching Alonso away, however he is recognizing this and capitalizing on these pitches. Also Alonso has been staying balanced at the plate. He’s gotten hits off of cutters, fastballs, sinkers and sweepers. He’s seeing it all! Pete is showing great plate discipline so far this season, which is a very good sign for the Mets.
Another area of improvement for Alonso’s game this season is that he is not striking out. Last year, Alonso chased a lot of off-speed pitches that were down out of the strike zone. This season Pete has been able to lay off these pitches, and has only nine strikeouts so far, compared to 16 last year at this point in the season. His approach at the plate has been different this year, and for the better, with chase rates on breaking and offspeed pitches both plummeting.
While he is showing more plate discipline and racking up hits, he is also showing that he can hit with runners in scoring position. He is currently batting .300 with RISP for 2025. This was an area of struggle for Alonso for most of the 2024 season, and he’s the only one performing for the Mets so far this year in these scenarios. This changed during the postseason, particularly with his late-game heroic home run against the Brewers in the NLDS. Alonso continued to perform with RISP for the rest of the postseason, and it looks like he is picking up where he left off.
Gary Cohen mentioned on The Mets Pod that he thinks Pete will have a 40+ HR season with 140+ RBIs. After Pete’s performance so far, it looks like he is well on pace for those numbers. Alonso has put the off-season drama behind him and is here to play. With Pete performing at this level, he makes the Mets lineup a very scary lineup to go against.
