For a while there, it was looking like Pete Alonso’s Mets career was going to end on a sad note. And I’m glad that didn’t happen.
In the aftermath of Pete Alonso’s thrilling go-ahead three-run homer that lifted the Mets to an improbable 4-2 victory that sent them to the NLDS when they were staring in the face of elimination, there has been a lot of discussion here at Amazin’ Avenue and elsewhere of where this moment ranks in Mets canon. You don’t have to look at a win probability graph to know how incredibly unlikely it was, though it’s fun to do so.
But what the win probabilities don’t tell you is just how lost Pete Alonso was at the plate going into that at-bat. Alonso hit just .222 in September, his lowest mark of any month of the season. Overall, Alonso’s weighted offensive stats are similar to last year—a 122 wRC+ in 2024 vs. a 121 wRC+ in 2023. But perhaps the most illustrative split of Alonso’s 2024 season is his 71 wRC+ in high leverage situations, which prompted comments like this from the likes of Sal Licata.
So as the Mets punched their ticket to October, it didn’t matter that the only Mets in franchise history with a better slugging percentage than Pete Alonso are Mike Piazza and Darryl Strawberry. It didn’t matter that Alonso is also third on the all-time Mets home run list or that he set the rookie home run record just five years ago. It didn’t matter that he won back-to-back Home Run Derbies. It didn’t matter that he played all 162 games this season for the Mets. It didn’t matter that he is one of the best power hitters—and best hitters period—who has ever donned the orange and blue. If Pete Alonso failed in that moment—in what would have possibly been his last at-bat as a New York Met—that is what would have defined his Mets legacy. I can’t help but draw parallels to the 2022 Mets because of how many people have been contrasting how that season ended with how this season has transpired. I struggle to remember all the good times from 2022—and there were plenty of them. The team won 101 games, but all anyone will remember about that team is how their season ended. It would have been such a shame if the same fate befell the Mets career of one of the key players on that team.
It may not be fair and it may not be objective, but player legacies are built on narratives. And we were so dangerously close to Pete Alonso’s story being one of a talented fan favorite who ultimately came up small when his team needed him most and had an overall solid career end on an underwhelming note. But that’s not what happened. Instead, after struggling so mightily in the weeks leading into the postseason, he delivered a moment that reminded the Mets’ fan base why they bought his jersey and reminded us all why we love sports in the first place. That is why the great Howie Rose framed the call not just in terms of what Alonso’s home run meant for the 2024 Mets and their season, but also called it “the most memorable home run of his career.”
The conversations this offseason about Pete Alonso’s free agency and contract will largely be the same. There will be the same debates about whether signing a right-handed power-hitting first baseman nearing 30 to a long-term deal is wise. But those debates will be a little less fraught and tinged with sadness than they would have been if Alonso didn’t give us a moment that we will go back and watch periodically for the rest of our lives. And personally, I’m really grateful for that.