Since October 2nd, the staff here at Camden Chat has been bringing you reviews of all players who were consequential to the 2026 team. Today is the final day of those reviews, and it’s no understatement to say that we saved the best for last. What would we have done without Pete Alonso?
When the Orioles signed Pete Alonso to a five-year, $155 million contract last December, I was shocked and thrilled. The Orioles don’t do contracts like that! Players like Pete Alonso don’t end up in Baltimore! But
they did. And everything Pete Alonso did since the day he signed that contract has been a boon to the Baltimore Orioles.
Starting with his introductory press conference, Alonso was impressive. He seemed genuinely excited to be an Oriole and gave thoughtful and interesting answers about why he chose to come to Baltimore. He seemed eager to win and to help his teammates in any way he could. It was a great introduction and a sign of things to come.
The ovation that Alonso got on Opening Day was thunderous, though he went hitless in his Orioles debut. It’s hard to recall now, but he did have a rough start to the season. Through the first 31 games, Alonso OPS’d just .668 and went into the month of May with a .198 batting average. He had enough of a track record that it wasn’t too worrisome, but it was frustrating for the fanbase to watch given the high expectations.
Alonso started May by homering in back-to-back games and never looked back. Later in the season, Alonso revealedthat he struggled with his routine early on. It was his first time starting a season with a baby in the house, and he had to learn how to be a baseball player and a dad at the same time. Once he got that down, he was again unstoppable.
Alonso’s hot May turned into a scorching June. Even as the Orioles struggled, Alonso was out there every day putting up numbers. He hit eight home runs in the month and slugged .557. He slowed down a touch in August, but was saving the best of his season for the last two months.
Thanks to the general mediocrity of the American League in 2026, the Orioles hung around the Wild Card race for most of the season despite their sub-.500 record. And it felt at times like Alonso was doing all that he could to drag them over the finish line by himself. And he did so despite struggling with a calf injury.
From July 31st through the end of the season, Alonso mashed 20 home runs and had a .402 on-base percentage. You could not keep the guy off the bases. In August, he had a 17-game hitting streak during which he hit .470. One day after he lost his hitting streak, he came back with a four-hit game.
The most memorable series of Alonso’s season came in September when he returned to New York to face the Mets. Mets fans were understandably devastated by the departure of Alonso. He is their franchise leader in home runs and the kind of player you want to build a team around. The Mets fans spent the entire weekend chanting his name, wearing his name on their backs, and expressing their discontent with the Mets’ ownership.
For Alonso, he just kept playing like he had been. He was sitting on 299 home runs, and everyone knew he was going to get #300 at Citi Field. He did just that, and with maximum drama. In the second game of the series, Alonso stepped to the plate in the top of the ninth inning. The Mets were up, 3-2. That is when he launched the 300th home run of his career. It tied the game and the Citi Field crowd went wild. It was the most unusual scene I’ve witnessed in baseball. The Orioles went on to win in extra innings, and Alonso hit another home run the next day before leaving New York.
He finished the season in style, hitting three home runs in the O’s sweep of the Blue Jays, and going 4-for-8 with two more dingers in the rain-shortened final series against the Yankees. Alonso finished the year with a batting line of .267/.363/.522. He led the league in HR (43) and RBI (113). His 5.0 fWAR ranked tops among all first basemen. He was unanimously selected as the Most Valuable Oriole.
It was as good a start to his Orioles career as you could imagine. The only sad thing is that it happened in a year when the Orioles had a losing record. I try not to dwell on that too much, but it is reality. This could be the best year of Alonso’s contract, and there were zero postseason games. But even without that, he brought us a lot of joy.
Alonso’s play on the field was the most important thing, but it wasn’t the only thing. He came across as a leader. He worked with Gunnar Henderson as the star tried to get back to form. He spent time with his teammates in the batting cages long after the game ended to help them improve. He advised Coby Mayo when the young player was struggling at the plate. On the last home game of the year, Alonso led his teammates back onto the field to acknowledge the fans who had spent the season supporting this underachieving team.
Signing Pete Alonso is the best single move Mike Elias has made with the Orioles. I can’t wait to see what he does next year.
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