It should come as no surprise that the number one of the Top Ten Mets would be the Polar Bear, Pete Alonso. Yes, he didn't make three straight Home Run Derby winners but there's no taking away from his 2022 season accomplishments. Have a good long look at what he's done thus far and there's no arguing with his ranking as the best of the best for the Mets thus far.
Right now Alonso is hitting a very respectable .271 with 24 home runs and 78 RBIs. Compared to most of the rest of the league he's in a class of his own. He is on a pace to approach his 53 HR season and flirting with 150 RBIs. Those are numbers very few have ever done and certainly no one else in Mets history.
I first met Pete Alonso when he was promoted to Las Vegas in 2018. He was regarded as a sure-thing slugger who struggled defensively but as something of a late bloomer at age 23 first hitting AAA it was hoped he could accelerate the learning curve to make an impact in Queens.
I remember vividly attending all four games in El Paso where Alonso went hitless, so he didn't fulfill the high hopes everyone had had up until that time, but he played a commanding first base which seemed to mirror his minor league defensive player award he'd received despite the negative previews of his work in the field.
As he hit the majors the hopes were high but never as high as a 53 HR slugger in his rookie season. Paired with 120 RBIs and a Home Run Derby championship at the All Star Game it was no surprise at all seeing him win the Rookie of the Year award for the National League.
His current 2.5 WAR rating about halfway through the season shows the Mets are getting way more out of him than he costs them. If he continues on his current pace he'll be closer to 5.0 by year's end. With the exception of some Mike Piazza years, the Mets have never had hitters who were among the truly elite in the game (unless, of course, they had substance abuse problems).
Of course, no list can be complete without an honorable mention or separate category of his own without citing the accomplishments of manager Buck Showalter. He's gotten hitters to work on the old way of getting things done, having runners work on taking extra bases, rotating folks in and out of the lineup to keep them fresh and to play to performance metrics, and he's dealt with an incredible assortment of pitching injuries yet still finds his club in first place.
No one was at all disappointed when the Mets named him manager and he's certainly done everything in his power to reinforce his reputation as a winner.
Hats off to Buck Showalter for helping turn the club from a joke into a perceived and actual winner.
5 comments:
Right on cue, Pete had 4 very valuable RBIs. I’ll concede he is co-MVP with the stellar Edwin.
Buck is worth we’ll more than a buck.
Right on both choices, though Ray may argue it should have been Lindor.
I cannot argue much with your list..I probably would have ranked Lindor a little higher, but as a point of reference, this is why I question the Baseball reference WAR calcs. At the all-star break, the Mets top WAR numbers were:
Nimmo. 3.1
Marte. 3.0
Lindor 2.8
Schertzer 2.8
Walker 2.8
Alonso. 2.2
Diaz. 1.9
I got back and forth on my feelings about Nimmo. He's good at some things but durability is a question. I kind of think of him as I did Cliff Floyd or Moises Alou. They were very valuable when available but seemingly were less likely to be in the lineup than you would have expected for what they were being paid. That is why I'm not all that keen for shoveling megabucks at Nimmo at year's end.
I know I'm an old war horse (no pun intended) and not really into all the new statistics and still don't get WAR. How can Nimmo be 3.1 and Alonso at 2.2 and Diaz 1.9 and even Lindor at 2.8 when by far our 3 most important players are Pete, Francisco and Mariano?
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