Homers? Oppo singles? Either way, beware the Polar Bear

Quietly, even with all the loud home runs he hits, Pete Alonso has become one of the most valuable players in baseball, so much more than just the guy who hit 53 home runs in 2019 and broke Aaron Judge’s rookie record for homers. Alonso, the young guy they call “Polar Bear,” is about to start his fifth season with the Mets, and you need to understand something about him:

He's even better than you think.

In that amazing rookie year of 2019, he smashed the Mets' single-season home run record (previously 41) en route to beating Judge’s record. In his fourth season, Alonso set a new single-season franchise mark with 131 RBIs and was a better, smarter hitter than when he hit 53 homers. Which is saying a lot.

What baseball found out last season is that the Polar Bear could be just as dangerous going the other way to get a big knock when the Mets need that from him as he is hitting balls out of sight.

Eric Chavez was Alonso’s hitting coach last season. Now he’s Buck Showalter’s bench coach.

“[Pete] came up to me the other day and said, ‘I want to be more than a home run hitter,’” Chavez said on Wednesday in Port St. Lucie, Fla. “And I said to him, ‘That’s just about the best sentence out of you I ever could have hoped to hear.’”

Chavez was just getting started on the subject of one of his favorite players.

“We talk a lot about the other top first basemen, [what] the other elite guys are doing,” he said. “And one of the things we talk about a lot is on-base percentage. And it’s creeping up with Pete, .344 the year before last and then .352 last year. And he knows it can go higher. And if it does go higher, maybe just a little more into the .365 or .370 range, and then you put that with his power and his increasing ability to go the other way, I honestly believe you’re going to be talking about a perennial MVP candidate, and somebody regarded as one of the top guys in our game.”

Alonso genuinely wants to be more than a home run hitter, but it doesn’t change this fact: You can’t talk about who he is and what he means to the Mets without talking about home runs, and the rate he has hit them so far for the Mets.

Check it out: Since he came up to the big leagues in 2019, he’s mashed 146 homers, more than anybody else in the Majors. In that span, Judge has 137, Kyle Schwarber has 127 and Eugenio Suárez has 126. The next closest first baseman to Alonso in this time period is Matt Olson, with 123.

On top of that, only one player in AL/NL history -- Ryan Howard -- ever hit more home runs in his first 530 career games than Alonso has hit. Howard had 162. Then comes Alonso at 146, Judge at 145 and the great Ralph Kiner at 138, along with Eddie Mathews. What this really means, even with the records Judge set last season, is that there are two serious long ball guys in New York City right now, and Alonso is still just 28. Judge will turn 31 in April.

Say it again: This is what it was like in the 1950s when there were three teams in New York City and Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Duke Snider were the ones hitting all the home runs.

“It has reached the point with Pete,” Chavez said, “where I honestly believe he takes as much pride taking a tough 2-1 slider at the knees into right field in the eighth inning as he does hitting another ball over the wall. And when you reach that point as a hitter, to me that means you’ve arrived. He’s not just willing to take a single to right if that’s what the pitcher is giving him. He’s willing to lay off a close 3-2 pitch and take a walk.

“I talked to coaches on other teams last season and they said the same thing: Not only had he turned himself into a tough out. They could see him getting tougher. And that’s just another sign that he’s still not the complete hitter he’s going to be.”

One of the reasons why Judge was the star of New York and the star of baseball last season was because he stayed on the field after several injury-riddled seasons. Alonso hardly ever leaves the field. In four seasons, he has missed only 16 games, The most games he ever missed in a season were the 10 he missed in 2021. Part of his greatness has been his durability.

It will be big fun watching him try to regain his title as the home run king of New York this season. But he does want more. And he is more than just the other home run hitter in town. A lot more.