Pete Alonso passed the eye test. Should the Orioles first baseman be a Gold Glove finalist?

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Pete Alonso never concerns himself with making the pretty play.

“Making the play is king,” Alonso said in August, near the end of his first season with the Orioles. “Make outs be outs. That’s king. That will always be king.”

That’s his guiding light as a first baseman, and it’s why he’s often on the ground, sprawled out, dirt on his pants. Alonso has always been known more for his bat than his glove, although in Baltimore, after he signed a five-year contract, management raved that Alonso brought much more in the field than expected.

In many ways, Alonso passed the fielding eye test — even if his play wasn’t always smooth. He didn’t, however, pass the defensive analytics test, and that is likely a large reason Alonso was not named a Gold Glove finalist by Rawlings on Wednesday.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino and Christian Walker are the American League’s finalists at first base. This is not to write that those players are not deserving. However, Alonso was a bright spot in Baltimore’s lackluster defense, and he earned praise for it.

“Pete should win a Gold Glove this year, in my opinion, just what he’s brought to the table this year for us with both ball security and catch security in catching the balls,” manager Craig Albernaz said in August. “Pete’s done a great job in all aspects.”

The difference came down to a few analytics: outs above average (a measure of a fielder’s range), first base receiving (how much a first baseman helps save throws) and overall fielding run value (which distills multiple variables into one digestible number).

All three finalists finished with better numbers than Alonso in those areas, and Walker of the Houston Astros led the trio in two of the three categories. If anything, the Los Angeles Angels’ Nolan Schanuel and Texas Rangers’ Jake Burger were snubs, because they finished with a fielding run value of 5 and 4, respectively, among qualified first basemen in the American League (minimum of 750 innings played in the field).

Alonso finished with a minus-2 fielding run value, a 0 range and minus-4 receiving, according to Statcast. That tells only part of the story, of course, but it’s a big part.

“The first base play is kind of the one where the eye test is real, because you get to see how he’s helping out the second baseman on balls in the four-hole, being able to cover that ground,” Albernaz said. “Even though arm strength is not a thing, [pitcher fielding practice] plays with pitchers covering the bag, that’s a really tough play for a first baseman. And being able to pick the ball, I know there is a stat out there about picks and scoops, but even that is not 100% accurate. I think that’s where a lot of metrics, especially in the defensive space, it’s really tough to get 100% accuracy on that.”

Let’s use what we have, however, to focus mainly on Alonso’s range and receiving metrics. They are important indicators of how well one does in the field, even if they aren’t perfect.

This was one of the best seasons of Alonso’s career when it came to range. He produced positive range values when dealing with balls that forced him to move back toward the outfield or to his left, toward the foul line. He was docked, however, on balls to his right and when charging balls hit softly in front of him.

That goes along with career trends for Alonso, who has long struggled on balls to his right. He finished with a minus-8 range score on those balls in 2025 (and minus-6 in 2019 as a rookie), so minus-2 was a marked improvement, even though he is getting older.

The first base receiving statistics available on Statcast offer a granular look at where Alonso dealt with the most trouble. Historically, he has been a terrific receiver — he managed an 8 in 2024, with 0 being league average. And his minus-4 this year — the lowest mark since 2021, when Statcast began tracking this — could be more of a statistical anomaly than anything else.

“My read on this data is that there’s little evidence that this is anything other than just a weird confluence of tough throws that the model doesn’t have perfect, or just random variation,” FanGraphs writer Ben Clemens wrote in an email in August when asked for a more expert opinion of what was going right and wrong with Alonso’s fielding. “I expect him to be an above-average receiver next year, because he’s been an above-average receiver overall.”

Why? There was a very minor drop-off in how Alonso received throws. From 2021 through 2025, Alonso caught 98.2% of on-target throws. In 2026, his rate dropped ever so slightly to 97.8%. But that counts.

His rate of getting to other types of throws also went down this season. Alonso completed eight of 12 bounced throws, nine of 19 scoops, 14 of 17 low throws, 27 of 29 high throws and 33 of 41 wide throws. (Statcast quantifies scoops as balls that hit the ground within a 5- to 15-foot range; bounces hit 15 or more feet from the bag).

The 47.4% rate at which Alonso completed scoops was the lowest of his career. In 2024, when he managed his best-ever receiving season, he completed 18 of 22 scoops (81.8%).

As Alonso talked through his advanced metrics in August, some of his points were off. He said his throwing velocity impacts his fielding run value (it doesn’t; only outfielders are rated on throwing velocity). He disagreed with the heavy positional adjustment tax placed on first basemen in the wins above replacement statistic, but proponents of that rule argue that shortstops are more valuable defensively and therefore they earn their positive WAR boost.

But, in the end, Alonso was absolutely correct on one thing.

“For me, you can look at fielding percentage, I’m way up there, probably top in the league I’d say,” he said.

Alonso finished with a .997 fielding percentage, which ranked in the top 10 in MLB. It’s a stat not as heavily used anymore because advanced analytics help to show a more holistic view of a player’s defense, but there’s no arguing with the raw number in one sense. Alonso faced 1,169 defensive chances this year. He notched only four errors.