The one thing people always knew about Pete Alonso was how hard he hit the ball. He nearly broke Statcast in the futures game last year and had some bullets in the Arizona Fall League. His batted ball profile is elite in his small but impressive Major League career.
Alonso, 24, impressed again on Tuesday night against the Minnesota Twins in which he went 2-for-5 with two home runs and three RBI. That, of course, was the first multi-home run game of his young career.
Thus far, Alonso is slashing .385/.429/.923 with a .547 wOBA, and 236 wRC+. He has also faced Max Scherzer, Patrick Corbin, and Stephen Strasburg six times. While he has been amazing, spoiler alert, he won’t continue to be this good. That said, his batted ball profile has shown why his regression will still be quite impressive. Alonso’s expected slash line is .342/.386/.783 with a .483 wOBA. Okay, he probably won’t be able to do this either but the fact is, this dude is a monster at the plate.
Alonso currently sports a ground ball rate of 24%, a remarkably low rate. His exit velocity on balls hit in the air is 99.6 MPH, one of the highest in baseball. When he hits the ball hard (at least what Savant defines as hard), his launch angle is 20.2 degrees, a very optimal approach angle. For reference, Justin Turner, the launch angle king had one of 18 degrees last year. Oh and he also barrels the ball in 21.6% of his plate appearances and has a hard hit rate of 63.6%.
What I am saying in laymen’s terms, he keeps the ball off the ground and hits the ball hard in the air. This bodes well for him to continue having success. Need more proof? Alonso is in the 94th percentile for exit velocity, 94th for expected batting average, 97th for hard-hit rate, 96th for expected weighted on-base average, and 97th for expected slugging.
Pitchers will have to adjust to him and he will have to adjust again. But every time he can put his bat on the ball, there is an overwhelming chance that the pitcher will pay. I like Dominic Smith as much as the next guy but I don’t see there being any way you can take Alonso out of the lineup at this point.
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