Pete Alonso's turnaround with Orioles fueled by mind-boggling metric

In many ways, Pete Alonso has been even better than the Baltimore Orioles could have hoped. He's been a vocal leader, he's shown up to play literally every game, and his defense at first base has been better than anyone could have imagined. However, through the first month of the season, the offensive firepower that Orioles fans were promised when it was announced that Alonso was Baltimore-bound was missing. He finished the month of April, slashing .198/.306/.392.

The poor statistics, combined with a concerning drop in bat speed, had Orioles fans worried that they might have bought a lemon. However, Alonso has since self-corrected. Since May 1st, Alonso is slashing .292/.357/.553 with 12 homers. Even with his bad month of April, his season-long wRC+ is right at where it was during most of his Mets career, and at the rates he's going since April ended, it's reasonable to believe that this could end up being one of his best offensive seasons.

Orioles fans will be comforted to know that Alonso's bat speed is back up to his career norms, so whatever was causing him to swing slower in April appears to have been a blip on the radar. What's especially interesting is that even with his slow start weighing down all of his rate stats, Alonso is putting up a career high in average exit velocity, which is one of the most important statistics for a power hitter.

Pete Alonso is hitting the ball harder than he ever has in his life

As of today, Alonso's average exit velo sits at 95 mph. 95 mph is a significant number because that's the mark where MLB considers a ball to be "hard hit". That means that the average ball hit off of Alonso's bat is a hard hit ball. That's really impressive. Looking at the leaderboard for average exit velocity, Alonso is ahead of guys like Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, and Yordan Alvarez. The only guys ahead of Alonso by average exit velocity are O'Neill Cruz, and James Wood, who both strike out way more than Alonso does. Alonso's ability to put up similar contact quality without striking out 30% of the time really sets him apart as a power hitter.

Alonso is under contract for four more seasons after 2026, and with how power hitters tend to age as they move into their mid-30s, the last few seasons of the contract do still have the potential to get a little ugly. However, the fact that Alonso has such unique, solid contact skills despite swinging the bat and hitting the ball exceptionally hard should make any decline he experiences over the next five years far more gentle than the typical hard-hacking power hitter.

The only piece of the Alonso puzzle that the Orioles are waiting to fall into place is his runners in scoring position stats, which, so far this season, have been brutal. Over the course of his career, Alonso has demonstrated excellent ability with runners on, and that's not a skill that just goes away when a player puts on a new uniform. Orioles fans should be confident that Alonso will start producing with runners on base the way he has his whole career.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow