The Data Behind the Mets’ Dynamic Duo

The Mets have historically won on the backs of their pitchers. Seaver, Koosman, Matlack, Gooden, Darling, the list goes on.

In 2025, the narrative has shifted. Juan Soto and Pete Alonso have anchored the club, producing a combined 6.7 fWAR throughout the season. Despite both sluggers teeing off like there’s no tomorrow, they’re each taking different approaches to succeed.

Alonso is the archetype of a grip-it-and-rip-it slugger, living up to his Polar Bear persona. In 2025, he’s surged back to his early-career form.

In just his first season, he broke the Mets’ single-season home run record, finishing the year with 53 round-trippers. Throughout the ensuing years, he established himself as a formidable, middle-of-the-order bat. A ghastly walk year resulted in an unexpected reunion with the only club he’s ever known.

It’s fair to say the one-year pillow contract has worked well for both parties. The Polar Bear is back to attacking balls like they’re baby seals.

Darryl Strawberry‘s franchise home run record fell on August 12 with Alonso’s 253rd blast. He’s slashing .265/.348/.514, racking up 28 home runs and 101 RBIs. His .401 expected wOBA, 19% barrel rate, .286 expected batting average, and .587 expected slugging percentage all support his .862 OPS. Baseball Savant Profile Pages have rarely seen a page with more hues of red.

After his poor 2024 campaign, he changed his swing in the offseason to maximize what he’s best at: blasting fly balls all around the ballpark.

Swing Path Data allows us to take a peek under the hood at Alonso’s adjustments. He’s swung faster and more efficiently, reaping the rewards in return. According to Statcast, he’s taking efficient hacks at the plate 59% of the time, which ranks 33rd in the Majors.

So, what’s different in his 2025 version of his swing? Plenty.

He’s implemented a swing more conducive to his specialty: pulling fly-balls.

At the point of contact, the angle of his bat has drifted two degrees to the left, from 1˚ to 3˚. His average intercept point between ball and bat has tilted 11% towards the catcher. This could be the result of a slight stance adjustment, which has swung an inch towards the first-base dugout and three inches closer in between his appendages.

In plain English, he’s following good process with a brand-new hack, eliciting memories of the Polar Bear of old.

In contrast, Soto has raked at the plate in his first year in the Orange and Blue, albeit with a different approach than Alonso. Since May 1st, the 26-year-old’s scalded the ball to the tune of a .390 wOBA.

He continues to do what he does best: marry elite plate discipline with top-of-the-league power. His swing decisions are a thing of beauty; he offers at only 15% of pitches outside the strike zone, 13% lower than the league average.

Soto’s bat speed is slower than both his 2023 and 2024 campaigns, though that could be directly related to his shorter swing and a ballpark change, a topic that Eno Sarris of The Athletic recently touched upon.

Sarris wrote:

In 2023, he had a longer swing (for him, not for the league), but let the ball travel a little. In 2024, he had that same swing length, but got the ball out in front. This year, Soto has a shorter swing, and he’s letting the ball travel a little again. Both of those things would reduce his reported bat speed — without necessarily reducing his actual bat speed.

Then again, bat speed isn’t everything. Steven Kwan and Luis Arraez bring up the bottom of the Bat Speed Leaderboard, yet both are comfortably above-average hitters. Where Soto deviates from the bat speed laggards is his innate ability to generate hacks designed to produce extra base hits.

In 2025, balls have departed Soto’s bat at an optimal Attack Angle — or the vertical angle that the ball comes off his bat — 65 percent of the time, an increase of five degrees year-over-year, placing the slugger 9th in the Majors.  When a ball is hit within this optimal range, batters produce a .313 wOBA, compared to a .265 wOBA otherwise.

Soto’s a natural at maximizing his kinetic chain. He guides his bat through the zone at 28˚, six degrees lower than the Major-League Average. By leaving his bat in the zone for longer, he’s more likely to avoid whiffs.

There’s more than one way to solve the problem 60 feet, six inches away. Alonso’s bombardment of Big Daddy Hacks is certainly one way. And it works well. But similar to pitchers, not every hitter is cut from the same cloth.

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