Mets’ Lineup Continues to Lack Power Outside of Pete Alonso

Pete Alonso has been clobbering the baseball in the first month of the season. Alonso has amassed 10 home runs, and is second in the majors behind Max Muncy. He is well on pace to surpass 50 homers again for the first time since his rookie season in 2019.

However, the Mets are relying far too much on Alonso to score via the long ball. The rest of the team has combined for just 16 home runs in 24 games, with only Francisco Lindor (4) hitting more than two home runs thus far this season. The Braves, meanwhile, have seven players who have hit three home runs or more. The Tampa Bay Rays, who lead the majors with 48 long balls, have 10 such players.

Despite their lack of power, the Mets have still managed to score at a decent rate (13th in the majors in runs per-game). And, if you’re looking for another reason for optimism, the Mets hit at least one home run in 9 of the 10 games on their recent West Coast road trip. Still, the team’s lack of power has made games like Tuesday night, in which they fell behind early against the Nationals, more difficult to win.

In particular, the Mets were hoping to get more pop out of this point from the likes of Starling Marte (1 home run), Daniel Vogelbach (1), and the third base spot (2 combined between Eduardo Escobar and Brett Baty, both by Escobar). Jeff McNeil has largely abandoned his power game in favor of going after base hits, while Brandon Nimmo has been in All-Star form getting on base at a .456 clip and has hit two homers of his own, but has never exceeded 17 homers in a full season.

The Mets have gotten mostly what they could have expected power wise out of the rest of the outfield (two each from Mark Canha and Tommy Pham), and, while Francisco Álvarez may one day provide a consistent home-run threat at catcher, it’s unreasonable to expect too much out of him this early in his career (Álvarez did break through with his first dinger of the year Sunday in San Francisco).

So, it largely falls to Lindor, Marte, Vogelbach, and the third baseman to try to provide more pop outside of Alonso in the cleanup spot.

Marte hasn’t quite looked right thus far this season and has been dealing with some lingering health issues, which is likely effecting his ability to drive the ball.  Vogelbach has been getting on base at a much higher rate the last few weeks, but his power just has not been there. Baty has rightfully been getting the majority of third base reps since he was called up, and while he hit 5 homers in 35 at bats in Triple-A, he managed only one XBH thus far in his 24 big-league at-bats.

Unless they’re going to make an unlikely trade this early in the season, the only other options for generating more power to the lineup are calling up either Mark Vientos or Ronny Mauricio, who have combined for 12 home runs in Syracuse thus far. However, as we’ve seen with Baty and Álvarez, it’s not exactly reasonable to expect prospects to come up and rake right away at the big-league level.

The Mets can likely get by just fine for now with Alonso providing the majority of the team’s power, but long-term, it was an issue that hurt them down the stretch a season ago that they failed to really address in the offseason. For now, they’ll need to hope some of their everyday players find their power stroke as the weather continues to heat up.