Alonso and Arenado Close Regular Season with MVP-Caliber Stretches

The final week of the 2026 regular season belonged to Pete Alonso and Nolan Arenado, who both earned Player of the Week honors after offensive eruptions down the stretch. Alonso hit his 307th career home run on Friday at Yankee Stadium—a 471-foot behemoth—as part of a two-homer night that capped a five-game stretch in which he reached base in 11 of 22 plate appearances with five homers, eight RBIs and eight runs. Over that same window, he accumulated enough production to lead the American League in homers (43) and RBIs (113), becoming the first player in MLB history to lead both leagues in RBIs across separate seasons (he led the National League with 131 RBIs as a Met in 2022). Alonso also played in every game for his team for a third straight season—a durability marker that holds weight in postseason rotations where usage patterns tighten.

Arenado, playing for Arizona at age 35, posted a .435 average over the Diamondbacks' final six games with three homers, two doubles and five RBIs. His two-run shot in San Diego on Friday marked his eighth 30-homer season, his first since 2022. Only Hall of Famers Mike Schmidt and Eddie Mathews have recorded more 30-homer seasons as primary third basemen, a context that underscores Arenado's sustained production relative to positional peers even in his mid-thirties. Both players benefited from weak final-week pitching, but the underlying plate discipline and barrel contact rates during their respective surges are durable inputs: Alonso's recent exit velocities on his homer balls averaged 96.3 mph, and Arenado's triple-shy cycle game featured hard contact on all three hits.

For prop bettors, the timing matters. Alonso enters October with momentum and full-game availability, making him a lean-toward candidate on postseason runline and team-total overs when the Mets face lower-tier pitching in early matchups. His five-game sample against New York and Toronto pitching isn't predictive of playoff results, but his season-long plate discipline (he drew walks in 11 of his final 22 PA) suggests he won't feast on elite arms—meaning his prop lines will track closer to his career averages than his final-week spike suggests. Arenado's late-season .435 finish is similarly a sample-size artifact; his cumulative OPS for September was 0.897, respectable but below his career mark, indicating he benefited from a hot streak rather than a fundamental shift in approach.

The real edge lies in fade positioning. Sportsbooks will price Alonso's homer and RBI props slightly elevated for his postseason opener, assuming the offensive tear carries over. It won't—not at that magnitude. His true rest-of-season (and postseason) expectation across a full series is closer to his June-August average: 0.38 homers per game and 1.1 RBIs per game. Alonso's 307th homer in just eight games after his 300th on September 15 represents a velocity of output that no hitter sustains in high-leverage environments. Similarly, Arenado's 30th homer in a final-week push will likely draw overcorrected prop lines; expect his early October lines to price him as a slugger when he's more accurately a patient contact hitter with home-run upside. Both players finish the season as legitimate offensive forces, but the market will conflate a five-to-six game hot streak with sustainable October production.