Orioles slugger Pete Alonso continues to fine-tune his swing — with a a sledgehammer

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Pete Alonso can immediately tell whether his swing is mechanically sound when he picks up the heavy sledgehammer he packs from city to city.

One swing with that 8-pound piece of equipment is really all he needs now during the season. If his body doesn’t work fluidly — if his stride, hip rotation and arms don’t all work as one — he won’t really be able to swing that sledgehammer.

“If everything is synced up and you’re using it right, the swing will flow,” Alonso said. “To kind of get things synced up, that’s why I like doing it.”

He began the practice with the New York Mets ahead of the 2025 season, taking inspiration from hitters of old, such as Barry Bonds. When Alonso and Brandon Nimmo debuted it in the on-deck circle for the Mets last year, it seemed a novelty item, almost.

But Alonso has stuck with his sledgehammer because it really is a reminder of how he wants his body to move — all as one.

“I know it’s old school,” Alonso said. Bonds used it. Willie Stargell did too. Nimmo adopted it from Alonso. Old school or not, if it’s helpful, Alonso will keep that hammer in his bat bag.

After the 2024 season, which Alonso called the worst of his career, he searched in the offseason for ways to bring himself back to his best. He was open to anything. He remembered Bonds, a 12-time Silver Slugger, using it, and among the various drills and adjustments he tried, the sledgehammer stuck.

He’ll swing it to feel the motion of his body all as one. He even faced a pitching machine with it in the offseason, he said, so he could time his swing to a ball. And while he doesn’t always swing it before an at-bat now that he’s with the Orioles, simply picking up the sledgehammer and getting into his stance is a reminder of what he wants to do at the plate.

“If I feel it from the start, it’s like, OK, this is where my body needs to go to get myself in the right position,” he said.

Alonso doesn’t think his Orioles teammates have jumped on board, but Nimmo hasn’t let go of the habit, even after joining the Texas Rangers. He told the Rangers’ television network last month that he likes the sledgehammer more than traditional bat donuts — the weights added to bats in the on-deck circle — because his bat feels as light as a “toothpick” after swinging around the sledgehammer.

And like Alonso, Nimmo sees the value in how the sledgehammer can refine mechanics.

“If you can move heavier things, then you will cut the fat out of your swing naturally,” Nimmo told the Rangers Sports Network in April. “You have to in order to be more efficient to move a heavier object.”

Alonso is turning to his sledgehammer as one of many drills currently because his results haven’t gone the way he wants. After Tuesday’s loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, Alonso is hitting .222 with a .722 on-base-plus-slugging percentage. This is the slowest start to a season in his career. Never before has Alonso produced an OPS this low through 49 games.

He’s trying to take the long view. Each night, as he returns to the batting cage after the game to continue his work, he studies “the things that we want to stay away from, things that are bad.”

“Bad is not, like, not getting hits,” Alonso said. “Bad is chasing. Bad is making poor swing decisions, and bad is the swing not feeling right, the ball is not coming out right or things are out of sync. So, how can we eliminate the things we’re doing then and how can we continuously do the things that have the best chance to keep us in the right spot?”

When it comes to feeling in sync, the sledgehammer can help remind him of his proper mechanics. And if his swing feels natural and smooth, Alonso feels his results will come more frequently than they are now.

“I know it’s there; I just need to keep having good, quality at-bats and stacking them day to day,” Alonso said. “That’s really all it is, and everything else over the course of time, it’ll be like, ‘Oh, that’s more normal. That’s Pete. That’s what Pete is.’”