Pete Alonso delivered one of the biggest hits in Mets history

It's cool that we can quantify how important a single shot is to a player, a team, a game and a potential trophy – especially in the face of a moment as crazy as Pete Alonso's in the wild card decider against the Brewers on Thursday.

Alonso drove a 3-1 outside changeup to right field at 105 mph, barely managing to clear a protruding wall at American Family Field. If it landed 367 feet from home plate, the ball would have left the yard in only 13 of 30 parks, not including Citi Field. It was his shortest home run of 2024. But still! A home run is a home run – and sometimes even more.

How much more? Let's look at the numbers.

By additional win probability (+63.9% WPA according to Baseball Reference), this was Alonso's biggest play of 2024 and the second-biggest play of his career. At the game level, his only major hit was a walk-off home run in the 10th inning (+78.3% WPA) against the Tampa Bay Rays on May 17, 2023.

And while walk-off home runs are always cool, baseball history is rarely made in May. So let’s look at it from a seasonal level.

The Mets recorded just three WPA major hits in 2024. Two were walk-off home runs: JD Martinez against the Miami Marlins on June 13th (72.4% WPA) and Brandon Nimmo against the Atlanta Braves on May 12th. The other was Francisco Lindor's go-ahead home run in the ninth inning of Monday's crucial playoff game against the Braves (+64.5% WPA) – and even then, by that metric, it was barely bigger than Alonso's home run.

But Lindor's home run didn't hit the playoffs, but Alonso's did. So let's take a look at where it compares to other postseason magic.

After factoring in the championship win probability (+7.99% cWPA), Alonso's home run was the biggest play for the franchise since the birth of many Mets fans (including myself). Gary Carter's go-ahead double in the ninth inning of the 1988 NLCS against the Dodgers (+11.28% cWPA) is the latest to eclipse Alonso's home run, but that came in a series the Mets ultimately lost.

If we look at key plays in series victories, next would be Keith Hernandez's RBI single in the sixth inning of Game 7 of the 1986 World Series, which is the most crucial hit in Mets history with cWPA% (22.38%).

If we just look at home runs, the list isn't very long:

• Ray Knight: Hit the go-ahead home run in the seventh inning in Game 7 of the 1986 World Series (+21.58% cWPA).
• Lenny Dykstra: Walk-off home run in Game 3 of the 1986 NLCS (+13.79% cWPA).
• Alonso: Lead-off home run in the ninth inning in the 2024 Wild Card Series.

What is special about this historical context is that it is a play that normally takes place to the Mets.

In their history, the Mets have been involved in 14 home runs that have achieved a cWPA at least as high as Alonso's on Thursday. Of those 14 home runs, a whopping 11 came from the opposing team, many of which led to some of the biggest heartaches in team history (Reggie Jackson, Kirk Gibson, Yadier Molina, Alex Gordon – we won't get that). (but go into more detail here).

And that's just a small part of the context that made Alonso's home run so remarkable. We could go into his contract year, his slump, Devin Williams, this team's recent futility in the Milwaukee game, the patchwork pitching, “OMG,” Grimace, a first-year manager… all of it!

But based on the numbers alone, Alonso's moment is already considered one of the greatest in franchise history.