New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso‘s sophomore campaign is off to a frigid start as he is 2-for-20 with eight strikeouts at the plate to begin the 2020 season.
Let’s take a closer look at his early season struggles with data brought to you by Statcast.
What’s Going On?
Despite slugging a two-run-homer at Fenway park on Monday night, Alonso has not looked right offensively thus far.
While his overall chase rate is close to what it was in 2019, he is not connecting with pitches out of the strike zone at the same level this year, which has seen his contact chase rate plummet to 28.6% as opposed to last year’s 58.2%, per Statcast.
Alonso is also missing balls in the zone at a higher percentage in 2020. Last season, his zone contact percentage was 80.9%, but this year, in a small sample size, this number is a mere 63.3% leading to his current slump.
The initial assumption would be that teams are throwing less fastballs and a higher dose of off-speed and breaking stuff to the player, who led the league with 53 homers last season. However, this hasn’t been the case as Alonso is actually seeing 2.3% more fastballs in his at-bats or 59.8%, and his whiff percentage has doubled to 44%.
Pitchers are throwing him breaking balls 32% of the time, up almost two percent from last season, and he has whiffed on half of them, despite this number sitting at a 37.4% in 2019.
As for the off-speed stuff, Alonso is seeing three-percent less of them in his at-bats or 8.2%. Believe it or not, his lone home run came on an off-speed pitch, despite whiffing at 60%, up from only 31.9% in his rookie year.
His barrel percentage was 15.8% last year, which was good for top three in the league. This number is down to 8.3% as he has only put 12 balls in play on 97 pitches in the first five games.
Alonso’s hard hit percentage, strikeout rate, and launch angle are all down by 10-11%. This data would indicate a timing issue, and as SNY team broadcaster and former Met first baseman Keith Hernandez noted, he believes the 25-year-old is over-swinging and striding, which could also be contributing to his struggles.
Solution
While the league has seemingly made adjustments to Alonso following his monster rookie season, the “Polar Bear” must adapt by improving his plate discipline and going to the opposite field.
If he lowers his chase rate and learns to layoff the breaking and off-speed stuff he’s been seeing out of the strike zone, it will result in more walks and force pitchers to give him something to hit.
He must also fix his timing and cut down the 44% miss rate he’s had on fastballs. His exit velocity is almost identical to last season at 90.9%, he’s just not making solid contact.
If he makes the proper adjustments, this slump should be short-lived. It’s too early to be overly concerned by his slow start, but the Mets need his bat producing in the middle of the lineup.
It will be a long year if Alonso is unable to figure it out, but he has yet to give us any inclination to believe he won’t recognize these issues, and improve on them.
