Pete Alonso wins Rookie of the Year award

The inevitable has finally become a reality, as Pete Alonso has been named the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s National League Rookie of the Year for the 2019 season.

The victory marks the culmination of a stellar first season in the major leagues in which Alonso quickly and decisively established himself as a household name. The star first baseman led all of baseball with 53 home runs—which set both a single-season franchise record for the Mets and the single-season record for most homers by a rookie—and put up a 143 wRC+ and 4.8 fWAR. He also made the first of what is likely to be many All Star appearances and appeared in the Home Run Derby, where he defeated Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in a thrilling final showdown between two of the elite young talents in the game.

Indeed, after such an incredible rookie season, the question coming into tonight was not whether or not Alonso would win the award, but whether or not his victory would be unanimous amongst the voters. It was not unanimous, but Alonso did receive 29 of the 30 first place votes. The one dissenting first place vote went to Mike Soroka.

With the victory, Alonso becomes the sixth Met to win the Rookie of the Year award, joining Tom Seaver (1967), Jon Matlack (1972), Darryl Strawberry (1983), Dwight Gooden (1984), and Jacob deGrom (2014) in that elusive company. Each of those players went on to carve an important role in the history of the franchise, and it is fair to say that Alonso is on-track to do the same thing.