Mets: Pete Alonso Joins Exclusive Class of Truly Elite Power Hitters

Every once in a while, a player hits a home run that is truly remarkable. Pete Alonso of the New York Mets did just that on Thursday night.

Hitting a home run is nothing unique, especially right now. We live in a world where Scooter Gennett can hit four home runs in a game. Pitchers, who are not even almost chosen for their hitting skill, have hit seven home runs on the young season, including one by Pete Alonso‘s New York Mets teammate Jacob deGrom.

Now, what is it that made Alonso’s home run unique? Well, he hit it into a little pool in center field. That’s kinda nifty and makes for a cool visual, but people do that in Arizona all the time. He hit the ball 454 feet from home plate. That’s certainly far, but nothing remarkable. In fact, Ronald Acuña hit a ball eight feet further in the very same game.

No, the insane thing about Alonso’s home run was its exit velocity: 118.3 MPH off the bat.

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Obviously, that’s an incredibly hard hit baseball. But lets put it into some context: Alonso’s home run was the hardest hit home run by someone not named Aaron Judge or Giancarlo Stanton since Statcast began tracking in 2015.

Any player in MLB can luck into a wall-scraper. With the right launch angle, a mediocre power hitter can even hit a ball as far as Alonso. But no one except for the very best power hitters in baseball can hit a home run that hard. With this one swing, Pete Alonso established himself as a truly elite power hitter.

This wasn’t a one-off thing for Alonso. He already has six home runs on the young season, and according to Fangraphs, his offensive production has been 141-percent better than league average.

Obviously, Alonso isn’t going to put up the best hitting season since Barry Bonds, but he has proven that he can handle major league pitching. It’s commendable that the Mets decided against manipulating his service time, and he looks like the favorite to win the National League Rookie of the Year.

It is often a mistake to put too much stock into early season results, and it may seem borderline insane to make such a grand assertion based on a single swing. But now that we have more than four years of Statcast data, we can say with certainty that no one can luck into a 118 MPH home run. Pete Alonso has a unique skill, and that bodes well for his future.