Scouts on Pete Alonso's career and future as Mets slugger hits 100 home-run milestone

The question has been out there since Pete Alonso bashed his way to a rookie record of 53 home runs in 2019: Was it a perfect storm of a season that created unrealistic expectations or rather a memorable start to a sensational career?

Two seasons — and one pandemic — later, Alonso is trending toward the latter.

He’s not hitting home runs at quite the rate he did in ’19, but after a somewhat disappointing 2020 season the Mets’ slugger is on pace for about 40 in 2021, again offering reason to believe that he will be an elite power hitter for years to come.

As evidence of sorts, Alonso has just reached the 100-home run mark in the second-fewest number of games in major league history at 347 games. Only former Phillies star Ryan Howard accomplished that feat faster.

With that in mind, the timing of Alonso’s milestone, coming shortly after the Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera hit his 500^th home run, makes for an inevitable comparison.

“As soon as Cabrera hit his 500^th, people started asking who’s going to be next to 500,” says SNY analyst Todd Zeile, “and Pete’s already in that conversation. It’s hard to put that added expectation on a guy when it’s already really hard to stay healthy and sustain good, quality play for a long time in the big leagues, but Pete has that capability.”

Howard is proof of just how difficult it can be to produce at an elite level long enough to approach a number like 500, which usually assures a player of election to the Hall of Fame.

After needing only 325 games to reach 100 home runs, including 58 in his second season, Howard wound up with a total of 382, dropping off dramatically in his 30s after rupturing his Achilles tendon at the age of 31.

So what about Alonso?

Scouts I spoke to for this story were mostly in agreement that he has bounced back nicely from the 60-game pandemic season in which he felt the weight of expectations and often showed his frustration at failure, to the point where he projects as a good bet to be among the home run leaders for years to come.

“He still chases upstairs more than you’d like to see, even from a slugger,” said one scout, “but I’ve seen him make adjustments and be willing to shorten up with two strikes and go the other way. He’s not an all-or-nothing guy up there, and he has tremendous power to all fields, so he should continue to grow as a hitter and be in that 40-home run range most years.

“He could hit 50 again, but I think everything would have to fall right for him to do that. It would help if he had guys around him in the lineup that were hitting, to take some pressure off him. Right now he’s the one Mets’ hitter that other teams are singling out as the guy they can’t let beat them.”

One scout was less optimistic than others, making the point that Alonso overswings too often in RBI situations and wonders if living up to expectations/controlling his emotions will always be an issue for him.

“There’s obviously a lot to like but I still see a relatively young player who gets himself out too often because he gets himself so geared up in certain situations,” the scout said. “Because of that I feel like pitchers can exploit the holes in his swing when they really need to. He’s always a threat but I need to see him control the strike zone a little better, especially in pressure situations, before I can say he’ll be a superstar for the long haul.”

Zeile, who observes Alonso more than just about anybody as the Mets’ pre- and postgame analyst, is in general agreement with the scouts that the 26-year-old first baseman still has some flaws to smooth out, but he also believes Alonso is developing into one of the most feared sluggers in the majors.

“There are so many things that he does well for a big guy,” Zeile said by phone recently. “He’s not just a feast-or-famine slugger. His swing is sound, he covers a lot of areas of the plate, he murders mistakes, and he’ll take a tough pitch and hit it hard to the opposite field.

“That’s what’s really intriguing about him and speaks to his ceiling: He will hit low-and-away pitches to right field, he’ll hit balls down-and-in off the left field foul pole, and he’ll hit balls out over the plate, 450 feet to right-center. When he’s being selective, he’s really, really dangerous.”

With all of that in mind, Zeile projects that Alonso should “run into 35-to-45 home runs a year pretty comfortably,” as long as he stays healthy.

As for what besides injuries could derail Alonso, Zeile makes a point similar to one of the scouts, noting that he can be his own worst enemy at times, trying to do too much in big spots.

“Even with his smiles and his schoolboy enthusiasm,” said Zeile, “Pete does expect to be the leader of that team and get the big hits. So sometimes he’ll overswing and come out of his comfort zone.

“He gets the adrenaline going sometimes and the swing just gets too big. He starts upper-cutting, using the big muscles in his body rather than his forearms and wrists, which is what hitting is really all about, and that slows his swing down.

“When he’s short and quick to the ball, he’s so strong and has such great bat speed for a big guy that sometimes you can’t believe how far he hits the ball. He hit one in Los Angeles like that where he reached for a slider down and away, the ball carried over the fence in right-center and you saw everybody in the ballpark looking like, ‘holy crap, how did that that ball go so far?’

“Pete’s had stretches where he gets too big, and he’s always going to be an intense player, but those stretches aren’t lasting as long as they did in the past, and that gives me some sense that he is going to continue to mature as a hitter.

“He set an awfully high bar with 53 home runs in a year when the baseballs were flying out of the ballpark and the league didn’t really know him yet, and you can’t help but press at times when you’re falling short of that number. But if he can stay healthy and he continues to mature as a hitter, I expect him to be in the top five (in the majors) in home runs year in and year out.”

In that case, considering he’s off to such a fast start in his career, Alonso will have plenty of more milestone home runs ahead. The only question is how many.