Peter Alonso is the major household name of all of the NRI’s in camp this year. Like Amed Rosario, before him, his NRI comes with the excitement of eventually seeing him in the majors this season.
By now you probably know a bit about Alonso. He’s a first basemen with an above average bat and a below average glove who saw his stock in the Mets system rise incredibly fast last year as he put together a ridiculous year:
2018 Las Vegas: .285/.395/.579 36 HR
2018 AFL: .255/.339/.510 6 HR
We actually wrote about Alonso recently, less than two months ago, while we were wrapping up our series on the Top Mets Prospects from Baseball America 2018. So if you want to know more about his journey and his other minor league stats, go there.
But also a lot has changed with the Mets since December. Our original preview article for Alonso was published two weeks after the Cano/Diaz trade. Acquiring Cano pushed McNeil off 2B and back then the thought was McNeil would split time at 3rd with Frazier and maybe at the start of the season McNeil would be at 3rd, Frazier at first and the Mets wouldn’t keep Alonso in the minors until the Super 2 deadline passed (ultimately the reason why he wasn’t brought at all last year despite the environment being right in Queens).
Then January happened. The Mets acquired Broxton, JD Davis and Jed Lowrie. Not only does this mess with McNeils playing time, it really puts a question mark for Alonso. At the start of the season the Mets could have Frazier and Lowrie at the corners with Davis as a back up. This creates quite the jam for Alonso.
Ultimately it’s not going to hold Alonso back. Once the Mets call him up, they’ll play him every day. Too much depth in the majors tends to work itself out in the end. Ultimately there will be a lot of competition in Spring.
Peter Alonso showed last year that he can hit. If he has a strong defensive showing in camp this year he will cut through the infield noise.
