How do Jeff McNeil, Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz plan to duplicate greatness?
Mets infielder Jeff McNeil during a spring training workout, Sunday Feb. 19, 2023 in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.
Jeff McNeil was a better pure hitter than anyone else in baseball last season, only Aaron Judge drove in as many runs as Pete Alonso, and Edwin Diaz was the game’s most proficient strikeout machine.
Their reward? Well, aside from the lucrative new contracts for McNeil and Diaz, now everyone expects those three to repeat their career years. Or even improve on them.
So as the Mets began their Grapefruit League schedule Saturday, I pitched the question: What’s the best approach to duplicate greatness? Try to forget it ever happened? Or utilize the accomplishment as another platform to build on?
That depends on whom you ask.
“As a closer, you’ve got to flush everything,” said Diaz, who had an uncanny 17.13 K/9 rate a year ago. “Every day is a new day. So I try to flush everything, good or bad, and live day by day, play day by day.”
Diaz just stretches that mindset a little longer during the offseason, turning the page come November and showing up in spring training almost like a rookie again. No matter how untouchable he was last summer, that doesn’t do him any good now, other than giving him a blueprint to prepare for doing it again. Oh, and the new five-year, $102 million contract was a nice bonus, too.
“I try to do the same things, but every year you learn something different,” Diaz said. “If you think something will help, you add that to your work. I think I just tried to get stronger. Gain five to 10 pounds more than last year. So that’s what I did.”
McNeil’s .326 batting average edged the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman (.325) for tops in the entire sport, a lofty goal he’s had in his sights for years now. Defending that crown is one of the toughest challenges in any sport — Hall of Famer Larry Walker is the last to lead all of MLB in consecutive seasons (1998-99) — so what’s the strategy for McNeil? Once you’ve confirmed what you’re capable of, does that make it easier to visualize a repeat performance?
“You come into spring training more confident,” said McNeil, who hit a career-worst .251 the previous season. “Last year I don’t think I was as confident coming into spring training. Now I know what I did last year worked. I know if I do the same things I did last spring, I take the same approach, I can do it again.”
For McNeil, that wasn’t too complicated this winter. Went to the same gym in Santa Barbara, played the same amount of golf — a few times a week — and didn’t try to fix anything that wasn’t broken.
McNeil leaves the dramatic winter makeovers to the other guys. Once you hit .326, showing up status quo is a good place to be.
“I don’t want to go chase something that might get me in trouble,” he said. “I know last year is who I am and it works. Yeah, we’re all trying to get better. But at the same time, by trying to get better, you can get worse.”
Brandon Nimmo expressed a similar sentiment when I asked him earlier in the week about potentially stealing more bases, especially in light of this year’s new rules creating a favorable environment for the running game.
Nimmo just earned himself an eight-year, $162 million contract, in part by staying healthy enough to play a career-high 151 games. His motto? Don’t weaken your strengths trying to strengthen your weakness. There’s a balance to be struck between polishing your best skills and stretching to develop new ones.
McNeil subscribes to that as well, but Alonso — still seeking his own contract extension after agreeing to a $14.5 million deal for this season to avoid arbitration — tends to branch out a bit more in exploring offseason upgrades.
Since 2019, Alonso leads MLB with 146 homers (Judge is second with 137) and 380 RBIs (next up is Jose Abreu at 375). That elite type of consistent power is one of the game’s most valuable assets, but when Alonso evaluates his performance, he sees room in the margins, whether it’s becoming more athletic for defensive purposes or readying himself upstairs for the relentless grind of a six-month season.
To that end, Alonso added a morning run to his routine this offseason, occasionally cranking it up to a pair of sub-seven-minute miles. Alonso does look noticeably slimmer — he said he dropped roughly 10 pounds — but the motivation behind it went beyond a trimmer physique.
“I feel like establishing that into my routine, and not making any excuses and not deviating from it, for me I’m just always seeking and trying to find a new level,” said Alonso, who went 3-for-3 with a home run Saturday night in the Mets’ 5-2 victory over the Marlins. “And it’s not about the running or the physical thing. I think it’s more of the mental fortitude of keep hammering, keep going every single day.”
Alonso and Judge were tied atop the leaderboard at 131 RBIs last season, and only four other players had reached that number since 2010 — Miguel Cabrera (139), Chris Davis (138), Nolan Arenado (133) and Giancarlo Stanton (132). Like McNeil staring at .326, that’s a daunting mountain for Alonso to scale again, but the pursuit is what drives him to repeatedly try.
“Every year I feel like I’m a different player because you never know what the game is going to throw at you in the future,” he said. “Granted, you can draw on certain experiences that you’ve had. But for me, I don’t want to say I have to relearn, but I have to really get back in the flow and back in the rhythm. And as much as I’ve had success in the past, that doesn’t guarantee success now or in the future. So there’s always that sense of urgency, that little part of me that drives me to continue to evolve.”
To give you an idea of how Alonso views that evolution and measures his offseason progress, he provided an example that most of us can relate to.
“The best analogy is that it’s like you hold your breath and swim as far as you can underwater, and once you can’t last any longer, you poke your head up and see how far you swam,” Alonso said. “If you’re happy with it, then you try to do it again. And if you’re unhappy with it, you still do it again. So for me, it’s seeing how far I can push myself, because I want to win a championship — and I don’t want to be the weakest link.”
After last season, it’s almost impossible to imagine a scenario in which Alonso, McNeil or Diaz would be among the culprits to sabotage the Mets’ title pursuit. But the bar got a little higher this year, and they’re well aware that everyone is wondering what they can do for an encore.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
