With our sights now set on Opening Day, I think It’s time for us to confront a thought that we’ve been hiding in the back of our minds all winter, and that’s what should we expect from Pete Alonso in 2020.
For me that answer has a few layers to it.
Firstly, I think it would be unrealistic to expect another 50+ home run season from the Polar Bear after what was an all-time rookie campaign. We need to remember this is still a young player that will go inevitably through some struggles this season when the league figures him out and force Pete to make adjustments back.
When he went through his only real slump of 2019 (just after the All-Star break), Alonso was still able to rely his plus knowledge of the strike zone and get on base at a decent rate via the walk. He finished the year with a .358 OBP overall, showing us the walk is a great asset to his game.
Now getting back to the home runs, I think Alonso will hit somewhere in the 35-40 range (still damn good). I worry though that people will get too hung up on the homers, especially early on if the power isn’t there just yet. I cannot stress enough that this guy will still be the force in the middle of the lineup that the Mets need without necessarily hitting everything over the wall.
It probably goes unnoticed, but besides hitting the 53 home runs in 2019, Alonso also slugged 30 doubles. If he can continue building on his effective gap-to-gap approach from last year, we could see the Polar Bear have a 40 homer, 40 double season as an encore performance in 2020.
On a personal note, I wanted to thank the entire MMO staff for the opportunity to share my insights and opinions with so many amazin’ Mets fans…I’m excited to share my thoughts on all things Metsies with you throughout this season and beyond!
