A sophomore slump is not what Pete Alonso had in mind for the start of the 2020 season, but he finds himself in that rut through the Mets’ first 13 games.
Alonso hasn’t looked like himself at the plate, striking out 20 times already and collecting a multi-hit game just once against the Boston Red Sox on July 29. That 4-for-4 night looked like it was going to turn things around, but that hasn’t been the case. He is hitting .180 over 50 at-bats with only one homer and four RBI.
The 2019 NL Rookie of the Year discussed his struggles recently with reporters, and he didn’t make any excuses. He knows things have not gone according to plan at all, but he was also confident it will turn around soon.
“For me, it’s been tough stringing together the results but they’re going to come,” he said. “I know what I’m capable of. I work hard, I work diligently. And I’m a smart ballplayer. It’s rough now but I know it’s temporary.”
So what’s been ailing the man that mashed 53 homers last season? SNY’s Todd Zeile broke down Alonso’s plate appearances so far this season and what he found was someone going outside of his comfort zone, and not at all in a good way.
“What’s going on this year, and it’s troubling, is he’s missing balls in the middle of the zone,” Zeile said during Mets Pre-Game Live.
Thanks to Baseball Savant, we can see that Zeile’s comment is true. Alonso’s zone contact percentage, or how many swings make contact on pitches inside the strike zone, is at 69.4 percent this season. It was 80.9 last year.
While Zeile also said Alonso might be trying too hard to guess pitches, he is noticing a “slight mechanical issue,” though Alonso said himself he felt like his mechanics were down pat.
“I think the slight mechanical issue that he’s had is his hands are coming up a little bit higher causing him to take a little longer to the ball and he’s getting beat and cutting under a lot of the balls that are up in the zone,” Zeile explained. “As a result, he recognizes he’s not getting the ball that he would normally get to so he’s rushing out in front.”
How do we prove that analytically? First, we take a look at Alonso’s whiff rate, which documents his swings and misses. It’s up a good amount so far compared to last year at 36 percent compared to 28. But that last statement from Zeile is interesting where he says Alonso is trying to get to pitches and rushing out in front of them to beat the ball to the plate.
What happens when hitters reach for pitches? If they don’t miss entirely, they will normally top the baseball and ground out. Alonso’s topped percentage is at 40 percent compared to 30.2 last season. And his ground ball rate is 46.7 compared to 40 from 2019.
There’s no problem with him hitting the ball hard (43.3 hard-hit percentage) because of his brute strength. However, Alonso thrives when he can drive the ball in the air, as the exit velocity does the job for him at that point. Reaching out for pitches, though, diminishes launch angle, bringing us to our final point.
Alonso had one of the best launch angles in the game in 2019, sporting a 14.8 mark which is right where you want to be if you’re a power hitter in this modern game. But it’s been at 7.2 this season, and that’s why you see fly ball percentage down (20 percent compared to 28.3 last season) and ground ball percentage is up.
What all of these numbers mean is exactly what Zeile is saying: Alonso is reaching at pitches, not hitting balls inside the zone like he normally does, and could also be trying a little too hard to break out of the slump by guessing too much when in the batter’s box.
Alonso has gotten two hits in the last two games and walked five times in the last three, so he could be recognizing pitches better out of the hand. That’s a good start. But the real results will come when he lets the ball travel into the zone and thinks about driving the ball to center and right-center field, as Zeile suggested. When Alonso is doing that, he’s at his best, driving pitches in the zone all over the field.
And, of course, over the wall.