PORT ST. LUCIE — Fifty-three home runs later, Pete Alonso returned to spring training Saturday with a different top priority than a year ago.
It’s no longer about trying to prove he belongs in the major leagues or win a job with the Mets, as was the case last spring when he arrived to camp as a non-roster invite. After leading MLB in homers, establishing a rookie record in the process, Alonso wants the biggest prize.
“I want to be celebrating on a parade float, drunk as hell, that is the goal,” Alonso said at Clover Park. “I want to be having good times with everybody celebrating, holding up a trophy. There’s so many people that work hard and there’s so many of my teammates that work hard and also the fans deserve that as well. We are going to work as hard as we can, and we’re going to push to make it happen.”
Alonso won the NL Rookie of the Year award convincingly, receiving 29 of 30 votes after displaying a kind of raw power seldom seen. Along the way, he shattered the franchise record for homers, previously shared by Todd Hundley and Carlos Beltran at 41. Alonso hit No. 53 on the final weekend of the regular season to break the rookie record Aaron Judge established in 2017.
If there’s a new personal goal for the first baseman this season, it doesn’t pertain to home runs.
“Winning a Gold Glove would probably mean the most to me,” Alonso said. “Because outside of winning the World Series, because for me that is the ultimate — and I think everybody wants to be a champion — but for me winning a Gold Glove would be real special. I work extremely hard on all facets of my game, but just because so many people told me I couldn’t, I was a bad defender, so many people counted me out on it. Just to win that and throw it in their face would be awesome.”
Alonso pointed to the Friday after the All-Star break last season, when a loss to the Marlins pushed his team 11 games below .500. The Mets appeared finished, but a surge over the ensuing month allowed them to remain in wild-card contention until the final week of the season.
“We made a collective effort to make the biggest push that we can,” Alonso said. “Now that we have so many of the similar faces in the locker room as last year and also with a couple of new additions, we have what it takes, so it’s good vibes in the locker room.
“I can’t wait for games to start because it’s that same guys, familiar guys, we know what that mojo was. We remember what that feeling was like and we don’t want that to go away. I bottled up that emotion and I remember freshly what that felt like — what it took to win in major league baseball.”
He will have a familiar accomplice in manager Luis Rojas. The two were together at Double-A Binghamton in 2018, where Rojas served as manager before becoming the Mets’ quality control coach last season. Rojas said he’s already spoken to Alonso about not putting too much pressure on himself this season.
“You can’t set the goals as far as numbers that you are going to do better than what he did last year,” Rojas said. “But you can look forward for him having a great season. I don’t think he is going to put himself a number that he is going to be doing. I know he got himself ready in the way he always does.
“This is a kid who works really hard on a daily basis. Not only on his offensive approach. He’s going to keep working on getting better at that, but he’s also going to work on getting better on defense, base-running and the way he goes about it I don’t think he’s going to put in his mind that he’s got to beat what he did last year.”
Through all the fame his new status in the game has brought him, Alonso says it was a normal offseason for him.
“The only different thing is a lot more people knew my name, but a lot was the same,” Alonso said. “My strong work ethic still continued, my offseason routine, I am feeling so good about 2020.”
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