Pete Alonso called it the coin-flip theory.<\/p>\n
It was April 28 at Camden Yards, and as it would happen, he was about to heat up. His first-inning home run Wednesday was his fourth in nine games since he shared this insight, and he has pulled his OPS up from .637 to .780 in that span. <\/p>\n
This is the production the Orioles were expecting when they signed him for five years and $155 million in December, and for much of April it wasn\u2019t what they were getting. But he knew he was flipping the coin and, eventually, the outcomes he wanted were coming. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou flip a coin 10 times and it all lands on heads, it doesn\u2019t change the odds of it still being tails,\u201d he told me. \u201cSo I think for me, over the course of the season, you have 700-plus at-bats, God willing, if I\u2019m healthy. Think about it. \u2026 <\/p>\n
\u201cMy version of flipping the coin is hitting the ball hard. Hitting the ball hard, big part of the field, and it\u2019s just having quality at-bats. If I go up there, if I walk or hit the ball hard, that\u2019s me flipping the coin, and if it doesn\u2019t land heads or tails, whichever I\u2019m hoping for, that doesn\u2019t change what I\u2019m going to do the next at-bat. So, over the course of time, the more times you flip it, then the odds, you\u2019re splitting hairs at the percentages.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alonso signed his massive deal on the heels of a unique season in New York. He had 38 home runs, ensuring that every 162-game season of his career featured at least 30. But those home runs weren\u2019t concentrated to the pull side, as they were in previous seasons. He was hitting home runs to all parts of the field, and with a spike in his hard-hit rate, he ended up having one of the best overall offensive seasons of his career.<\/p>\n
But for any big league hitter, pulling the ball in the air is the surest way to slug. Alonso himself acknowledged that, for him, \u201cthose kind of leave the yard,\u201d but they hadn\u2019t been happening as much this year. When we spoke, he was pulling the ball in the air 12% of the time, a career low. That had crept up to 13.7% entering Wednesday, but Alonso was flipping the coin all the same \u2014 hitting the ball hard and getting on base. The outcomes have started to even out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest focus and a big strength of mine is, yeah, I can do that, but I think if I can stay up the middle, right-center, I\u2019ve always been able to do that really well,\u201d he said. \u201cThe biggest thing is having good at-bats consistently. Hit it hard enough consistently and start getting on base enough, it\u2019s going to fall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alonso\u2019s steadfast approach is certainly paying off, and as he\u2019s been heating up, it made sense to me. <\/p>\n
He is, to borrow his phrase, flipping the coin often this year. He entered Wednesday with 54 hard-hit balls and 21 walks, accounting for 48% of his 155 plate appearances. That was 11th best in baseball among all qualifiers, and the list of players above him includes some of the league\u2019s most feared hitters at the moment. <\/p>\n
New York\u2019s Trent Grisham is first, followed by fellow Yankee Ben Rice and Houston\u2019s Yordan Alvarez. Others above him include Chicago slugger Munetaka Murakami, Atlanta\u2019s Michael Harris Jr. and future Hall of Famer Mike Trout.<\/p>\n
Notably, Alonso is flipping the proverbial coin more often than he ever has. Last season, hard-hit balls and walks accounted for the highest percentage of his plate appearances of any in his career (44.7%), with his previous high coming in 2021 with 41.9%. <\/p>\n
That this approach carried him to his best offensive season to date in 2025 lends it plenty of credibility when forecasting whether the Alonso we\u2019ve seen over the last week-plus will be the one who persists over the next five months. He had nine extra-base hits in the first 28 games of the season and now has eight in his last nine. <\/p>\n
Pulling the ball in the air would certainly help, and Alonso has shown of late that part of his game is coming back.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, when I\u2019m going right, I\u2019m still in the middle, and if I\u2019m hitting the ball in the air it\u2019s just a slight bit out front,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd if I\u2019m pulling the ball in the air, it\u2019s probably a homer or a double, and it\u2019s just a happy accident.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not the kind of accident the Orioles have trafficked in the last couple of years. They would certainly welcome this type. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pete Alonso called it the coin-flip theory. It was April 28 at Camden Yards, and as it would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2374],"tags":[143,39604,47,2538,5,1404,4,12212,23849,125],"class_list":["post-692805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baltimore-orioles","tag-baltimore","tag-baltimore-city","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-baltimoreorioles","tag-baseball","tag-camden-yards","tag-mlb","tag-os","tag-opacy","tag-orioles"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116534296193219536","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}