The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Astros’ Altuve makes his mark
Sparkling numbers make Astros’ Altuve an MVP favorite.
The Astros’ Jose Altuve is flirting with a distinction not achieved since Ty Cobb did it 99 years ago.
HOUSTON — Of all his wondrous statistics this season, Jose Altuve cares most about games played. Altuve, the Houston Astros’ second baseman, has played all 101 this season entering Friday, part of an active streak that leads the majors.
“I feel proud to be able to play every day,” Altuve said. “That’s what makes me really happy. Numbers, they can change. You can be here, then tomorrow you can be there. But I think the value of a player that goes out there and plays every day is big.”
When Altuve is the player, the value could not be higher. With two months to go, he is the clear leader for the American League Most Valuable Player Award. Only one Astro has been his league’s MVP — Jeff Bagwell in 1994. Bagwell is on the cusp of election to the Hall of Fame.
Altuve, 26, has a long way to go. But his trajectory is encouraging. Entering Friday, he was leading the AL in hits and was second in stolen bases, while also leading the majors in batting average, and was second in on-base percentage and tied for third in total bases. Last year, he won a Gold Glove at second base.
“He won the batting title two years ago, and he came in even hungrier the next year,” said Astros infielder Marwin Gonzalez, who has known Altuve since they were teenagers in Venezuela. “That’s what people don’t know about him. Whatever he ends the season with this year, he’s going to want more next year and he’s going to work even harder. It’s never enough for him.”
Few have packaged their numbers quite the way Altuve is doing now. The last player to finish the season as the AL leader in average, hits, on-base percentage, steals and total bases was Ty Cobb in 1917.
Cobb also led in slugging percentage — his six home runs ranked fourth in the league — and Altuve’s .566 mark ranks among the leaders. His 17 homers are a career high and a direct result, the Astros believe, of being more selective.
Every season, manager A.J. Hinch said, Altuve sets a new goal. Two years ago, before Hinch arrived, he wanted to lead the league in hits. Last season, he wanted to win his first Gold Glove. This season, he wanted to improve his strike-zone judgment.
That sounds elementary, but Altuve does not need to swing at strikes to get hits. Like Yogi Berra (who was 5-foot-7, an inch taller than Altuve), he is a classic badball hitter.
“He didn’t have as much incentive as the other guys to change his approach,” general manager Jeff Luhnow said, “because he could swing at a ball well outside the zone, a ball that we would say you should never swing at, and he could actually hit it for a single, a double and occasionally a home run. So the feedback mechanism wasn’t coming back saying: ‘Don’t do that.’ He was basically so gifted at bat control that he could get away with it.”
Essentially, Altuve decided that being able to hit bad pitches did not preclude him from hunting good ones. After five major league seasons, he said, he could use a more sophisticated game plan by making pitchers respect his discipline.
“Year by year, you learn a little bit every day,” Altuve said. “Sometimes you go to home plate and you have an idea, like a clear idea, of what they’re going to throw to you. I think that’s all: getting better pitches to hit, realizing when you hit the ball better, what pitch you hit, if you’re chasing too much. If you figure out all that, you can get a little better as a player.”
Altuve is seeing more pitches per plate appearance than ever this season (an average of 3.57 through Monday), and has hit in a greater percentage of 2-0, 3-0 and 3-1 counts than ever. He can still connect with almost any pitch, but now he is getting more opportunities to drive the ball.
“I had a conversation with him at the beginning of the season, about some of the guys that he watches,” Hinch said. “He loves Miguel Cabrera, he loves Victor Martinez, he loves Ian Kinsler. We played the Tigers early, and when you talk about those hitters, you think damage.”
Those players combine walks with power, Hinch said. “I don’t think Jose put himself in that category until this season, when he strengthened his strike-zone judgment and he started producing at an all-time high.”
The Astros, who had baseball’s best record from May 1 through Monday, have largely been rewarded for an organizational commitment to analytics. Altuve was originally signed by the previous regime, but signed an extension under Luhnow in 2013 that binds him to the Astros through 2019. The maximum value of the deal, if the team exercises two club options, is six years and $25 million.
Altuve can still reach free agency at age 29, but the deal is a bargain for the Astros, who did not know he would evolve this way. Statistical models do not account for this much improvement by a player already so good.