By Rob Rogan November 28, 2020
There was a time, long ago, when yours truly was so aboard the hype train for a certain young Mets slugger that he preposterously suggested that said slugger could become the franchise’s future home run king. To be fair, the Mets aren’t exactly known for having an illustrious history of mashers. Darryl Strawberry, the franchise leader, heads the pack with just 252 homers after all. Still, we all know how things turned out professionally for poor Ike Davis. The “Future Mets HR King” ended his MLB career *pitching* in 2017 for a Dodgers rookie level affiliate.
By now most of us have learned that you shouldn’t fall in love with prospects because they’ll usually break your heart. We also know that early success doesn’t necessarily portend sustained success, even if it happens at the major league level. We should, perhaps, pump the breaks just a bit to see how the player adjusts to the league adjusting to them before anointing them the franchise savior. It’s through this lens that we briefly examine the sophomore season of one Pete Alonso, future…well, let’s keep that hype train in check for the time being.
Alonso burst onto the scene in 2019, earning the starting job at first base as a rookie and top-rated prospect at the position. Given this rare opportunity (at least for the Mets), all he did was break the rookie single-season home run record and set the high-water mark for the franchise with 53 dingers en route to winning National League Rookie of the Year. Not too shabby.
The natural question following a dominant rookie campaign relates to an ability to continue that performance into the next season. Would Alonso continue to dominate, or would he succumb to the precipitous second-year drop in performance colloquially known as the dreaded “sophomore slump.” Spoiler: he did see a drop in performance, but he was still pretty good during a pandemic-shortened season. Below is a selection of his stats for 2019 and 2020.
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