The polarizing bear | Baseball prospectus

Translated by José M. Hernández Lagunes

Pete Alonso He never wanted to be here. Last winter season he wanted to land a multi-million contract that would cover the rest of his career, but he was unable to do so. Instead, after lengthy negotiations with the Mets, he signed a short-term contract that allowed him to return to free agency after just one year. To say he gambled on himself by signing that contract would be a bit of an exaggeration. Rather, he gambled on himself in the five years leading up to his free agency by not signing a relatively lucrative (though not astronomical) extension, and he lost that bet. However, he certainly secured a second chance to amass a multi-generational fortune.

Now he gets that chance, even if he won’t achieve that fortune even after his return. He’s a year older, still a right-handed first baseman with limited defensive skills, and the threat of a lockout that wipes out the 2026-2027 winter season and shortens the 2027 season itself is on the minds of every front office. Many factors continue to work against him, but he deserves credit for his resurgence, even excellent, in 2025. After hitting .229/.324/.480 in 2023-24, he returned to the elite ranks of sluggers in 2025. His offensive line was .272/.347/.524, but just as importantly, it was an earned improvement, the result of changes in his technique with the Madero, and not just a specific stroke of luck.

According to DRC+, Alonso has never been as good as this year, even in his debut season of 2019, in which he hit 53 home runs and broke records. His 38 home runs were only the fourth-best mark of his career, but as we know, they came in a season where the ball was playing somewhat dead. He led the National League in doubles, with a career-high 41. He also slightly, but crucially, lowered his strikeout rate. On the other hand, his walking percentage decreased. He traded some patience for more aggressiveness at the plate. It’s an understandable (and often non-negotiable) concession for a hitter approaching 30, but he often doesn’t look as good as he did for the Polar Bear in 2025. How did he achieve so much success with this?

First, let’s talk about your swing. In 2025 it was a little slower, but that was more than offset by a shorter movement at the beginning of the swing. In fact, he became a more dangerous hitter because of his bat speed, as he became comfortable hitting the ball lower on his body and generating more slope in his swing. His swing angle increased from 31° in the second half of 2023 and 32° in 2024 to 34° this season, even as he started swinging more often at high pitches (where the typical swing path is flatter) and less often at low pitches. Here is your swing percentage by pitch location for 2023 and 2024 (left) and 2025 (right).

If swinging at higher pitches causes the swing to lean more downward, it means there has been a real change in the intended swing plane. This helped Alonso hit more line drives than before, resulting in extra doubles and a career-best .305 BABIP. This change in approach could have left him vulnerable to more strikeouts, but by shifting his average point of contact about two inches further down (and about 4 inches) [11 centímetros]compared to 2023), offset that risk. He didn’t come up in the lethal way that usually leads to long home runs as much as before, but he also didn’t come up in that empty way that usually leads to strikeouts. He also couldn’t knock down high fastballs, despite increasing the height of his swing. He connected on time with the largest frequency of his career.

Alonso recorded the best average exit velocity, the best 90th percentile exit velocity and the best hard-hit percentage of his career, all while lowering his strikeout rate. This is exceptionally difficult to achieve. Therefore, despite recording the worst SEAGER of his career and a lower walk rate (which was fully deserved according to the DRC model), he took a big step forward in the model’s estimated contribution. What could be interpreted with some malice as a stroke of luck or an unsustainable adjustment, upon deep analysis, turns out to be an impressive change of strategy by a hitter who learned to be more complete relatively late in his career.

Thanks Statisticswe can visualize where the most important change happened for Alonso. Shown here is a composite visual comparison of his 2024 (left) and 2025 (right) swings, but only the first part of the swing, from the moment the bat starts moving until it reaches an angle of attack of 0° and begins to rise toward the ball.

Notice how he keeps his hands closer to his body during that first motion, dropping the club and swinging sharply from behind his body toward the strike zone. That first movement, although smaller, affects the rest of the swing. In 2025, he kept his lead shoulder closer to his body better, which shortened his lead arm and reduced the pulling force that in the past lengthened his swing and caused his trail arm to move further and further away from his body. Whatever the cause and effect, this change in mechanics and the increased steepness of your swing are mutually exclusive. The same goes for better coverage of the outside of the plate, despite the emphasis on shortening the swing, which sometimes prevents the batter from making solid contact with the ball coming off the plate.

This change in physical movement is so subtle that it may be difficult to maintain, or even difficult to remember, Alonso’s muscles when he arrives at spring training in 2026, let alone at the end of, say, a five-year contract. It also takes great punch speed to generate power, and while Alonso possesses it now, he is unlikely to retain it to the same extent in three years. The fact that we can observe and measure these aspects gives you a greater chance of achieving this and therefore maintaining your adjustments for longer than an average hitter of your age would have done even ten years ago. Still, teams will likely be almost as skeptical of him this winter as they were last year.

But when this happens, an opportunity presents itself. Alonso has a good personality; There is a good balance between intelligence and ambition. You may have been a little late to a potentially career-changing adjustment, but this is a real adjustment. That’s why DRC+ can detect your improvement, not just OPS+ or wRC+. If a team signs Alonso, who according to DRC+ performed at the level of Cal Raleigh this year, and even surpassed it Kyle Tucker O Vladimir Guerrero Jr.—with a contract similar to the one being offered Matt Olson j Freddie Vrijmanyou could get a huge bargain. It’s not a hidden gem; He is one of the most famous baseball players. However, at the moment it may also be one of the most underrated.