Pete Alonso reached base four more times during the Mets’ 5-1 win on Monday night over the Minnesota Twins. So continues a red-hot start to the 2025 season, which further puts a career-worst 2024 and a testy winter of free agency firmly in the rear-view mirror.
Through 16 games, Alonso is leading Major League Baseball with a 1.136 OPS and 227 OPS+. Ten of his 19 hits this season have gone for extra bases, including four home runs. His 19 RBI is tied for the third-most through 16 games in Mets history behind Jeff Kent (23) in 1994 and John Buck (21) in 2013.
He alone has accounted for 30.6% of the Mets’ runs scored this season
Yet the most glaring standpoint of his stat line is a .345 batting average, which is nearly 100 points higher than his career average (.249) entering 2025.
“I’m just really happy that I’ve started swinging the bat this way,” Alonso said. “It’s really good but I want to be able to continue that every single day.”
Batting behind Juan Soto is looked upon as a logical reason why he has started so well. On multiple occasions, the $765 million man has been walked to face Alonso, only for the Polar Bear to come through with big hits, which suggests that he is getting more to hit in the zone.
That is not the case, though. In fact, he is seeing 45% of pitches in the zone this season, which is a 3.3% drop from last year, per Baseball Savant.
This boils down to Alonso’s command of the strike zone.
He ranks second in Major League Baseball by averaging 4.9 pitches per plate appearance, which allows him to jump on “his pitch,” whether that be a mistake or a get-it-over offering.
It has resulted in numbers that would be career highs if he were to sustain this level of play.
His 13% strikeout rate is 5.7% lower than his previous career high. His 15.9% walk rate is 5.5% higher than his previous career high. His 95.9-mph exit velocity is 4.9 mph higher than his previous career best and his hard-hit rate of 63.8% is 17.4% higher than last season, which was a career-high.
“Game after game, it seems like [he’s] controlling the strike zone, aggressive on pitches in the strike zone, getting the barrel head out, making hard contact, using the whole field,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “He’s dictating at-bats right now.”
