Winning the All-Star Home Run Derby is an impressive accomplishment. Winning Rookie of the Year or Most Valuable Player is an even nicer accomplishment. In the case of Pete Alonso, his 53 home runs in 2019 helped him win rookie of the year. This was also the most home runs hit by a rookie in MLB history. Now Pete Alonso is the second fastest MLB player to ever get to 100 home runs.

Here is a very brief look at how Pete Alonso’s 101 home runs stack up for card investors.

The modern era of baseball card investors use all sorts of metrics to judge a player. Home runs are still among the most prized metrics. Big clinch hits are of course what wins games, but the MLB’s smaller fields just tend to allow more home runs.

It took Pete Alonso just 347 games to get to the 100-homer mark. That was behind Ryan Howard’s record of 325 games. Alonso now has 101 homers in 347 games and some baseball fans have started tallying up how long it would take to reach the 700-homer mark. One issue to consider is that, despite playing only his third MLB season, Pete Alonso’s December 7, 1994 birth date will have him turning 27 this year.

One additional issue in tabulating Pete Alonso’s track to 700 homes is that the 60-game COVID shortened 2020 season saw only 16 home runs. He has now hit 32 home runs after 129 games in 2021. Alonso’s 2021 season is more or less tracking his current career stats of a .259 batting average, followed by an on-base percentage of .349 and a slugging rate of .547. The other observation is that Alonso’s 128 current hits are above his 107 strikeouts after two prior years of more strikeouts than hits.

Pete Alonso’s 32 homers in 2021 is not even close to being in the lead for this year. Shohei Ohtani’s 43 homes is first, with the list as follows: Perez (KC, 41); Guerrero Jr. (TOR, 40); Semien (TOR, 38); Tatis Jr. (SD, 37).

The Mets team is currently 70 wins and 69 losses, and that .504 record is third in the NL East but just 4 games out of first place. That is too close to call to determine whether or not the Mets will head to the playoffs as of now, which will also be a focal point of sports investors who are watching every stat for greatness.

As for Ryan Howard, his age was very similar to Alonso. He finished his third season at age 26, but his 58 homers that year was followed by three years of 40+ homers and then his homers and batting average went into decline. Ryan Howard finished playing baseball in 2016 at age 36 and he ended with a career 382 homers.

As for rookie baseball card collectors and card investors, they will each have their own opinion about Pete Alonso’s home run tally and trajectory.

Collectors Dashboard wanted to track some of the top recent PSA 10 sales that have been seen for Pete Alonso. These are the most recent sales of base rookie cards seen within eBay with multiple bids in auction format:

• 2019 Bowman Sterling Rookie Refractor /199 – Pete Alonso PSA 10 GEM MT sold for $122.50 on September 8, 2021 after 47 bids.
• 2019 Topps Fire Pete Alonso GREEN/75 Rookie Auto PSA 10 Gem Mint Autograph RC sold for $215.50 on September 7, 2021 after 46 bids.
• A lot of 4 cards of the 2019 Topps Pete Alonso #475 Rookie Card PSA 10 (dubbed Investor Lot) sold for $130.50 on September 7, 2021 after 24 bids.
• 2019 Topps Complete Set All Star Game #475 Pete Alonso RC PSA 10 sold for $27.55 on September 7, 2021 after 6 bids.
• 2019 Topps Chrome Pete Alonso Gold Wave Refractor Rookie #41/50 PSA 10 sold for $430.20 on September 7, 2021 after 28 bids.
• 2019 Bowman Chrome Pete Alonso Rookie #48 PSA 10 sold for $51.00 on September 7 after 16 bids.
• Pete Alonso 2019 Topps Finest New York Rookie PSA 10 sold for $31.00 on September 7, 2021 after 16 bids.
• 2019 Topps Update Pete Alonso vintage stock PSA 10 (44/99) sold for $69.00 on September 7, 2021 after 12 bids.
• And for the “real rookie” cards, there have been multiple sales of the prized 2016 Bowman variations.

Here are some of the eBay sales we have seen from highest to lowest that were also in auction format:

• 2016 Bowman Chrome Gold Refractor Pete Alonso RC Rookie AUTO 10/50 PSA 10 sold for $3,076.37 on June 16, 2021 after 43 bids.
• Pete Alonso PSA 10 Bowman Draft 2016 Auto Green Refractor /99 Ebay 1/1 sold for $1,724.00 on June 14, 2021 after 48 bids.
• 2016 Bowman Chrome Pete Alonso Rookie AUTO PSA 10 sold for $897.00 on July 12, 2021 after 41 bids.
• 2016 Topps Bowman Chrome Draft Pete Alonso 1st RC Refractor Auto PSA 10 sold for $812.00 on September 2, 2021 after 39 bids.

Sports card investors have become fine tuned to watching daily tracking of stats. It is September and less than a month until the end of the 2021 season. Pete Alonso has already had an impressive start to his career. One factor that works against baseball players, beyond their overall playing health, is age. Here are some general stats about other home run leaders of the last 50 years. This shows their home run count as a whole and data on their age (stats by Baseball-Reference.com):

• Barry Bonds ended with 762 homers, but he started MLB play at 21 and ended at 42. Bonds of course has the major PED scandal tied to his playing.
• Hank Aaron ended with 755 homers, but he started the MLB at age 20 and his career ended at age 42.
• Alex Rodriguez ended with 696 homers, but he entered the MLB at 18 (or 20 for a first full season) and stopped playing at 40 years old.
• Albert Pujols has 679 home runs. He is 41 years old and began playing at age 21.
• Willie Mays ended with 660 homers, but he started at age 20 and ended at age 42. Mays also missed most of the 1952 season and all of the 1953 season due to military service.
• Ken Griffey Jr. ended with 630 homers, but he started at age 19. After injuries interrupted many seasons in the second half of his career he retired at age 40.
• Jim Thome ended with 612 homers, and his MLB career started at age 20 and ended at age 41.

Overall, baseball card investors and collectors are not giving much credence to the chances that Pete Alonso will become one baseball’s top home run hitters. That of course means nothing over a professional career, and some professional athletes have surprised over and over about their longevity and their ability to keep performing close to the same as they did earlier in their careers.