Taught to despise, but Álvarez thrives in U.S.
Houston star fled Cuba to pursue MLB dream and hasn’t looked back
HOUSTON—Growing up in Cuba, Yordan Álvarez was taught that the United States was a bad country. The thought was so ingrained in him that when he was 12 or 13, he said, he skipped English classes at school.
“Why would I go to an English class if I’m never going to the United States?” Álvarez said he told himself then.
Look at him now.
He was the 2019 American League rookie of the year, a level he never thought he would reach. He blasts baseballs harder than all but a few major-leaguers, and sent one over Fenway Park’s Green Monster in Game 5 of the AL Championship Series on Wednesday. He is the best power bat on a Houston Astros team that is one win away from reaching its third World Series in five years. He spends his off-seasons in Tampa, Fla., and his two children were born in the country he was told to dislike.
Álvarez, 24, laughs about it now.
“When I came to the U.S., that’s when I started to learn,” he said in Spanish, standing on the field before a recent ALCS game. “I can tell you that I regret it, but now I can tell you I’m not sure if they were teaching English correctly.”
Álvarez’s story is familiar to many of his fellow Cuban-born players in Major League Baseball, including Astros teammates Yuli Gurriel and Aledmys Díaz. Many escaped the communist country, often putting their lives in the hands of smugglers or taking harrowing boat rides, or both, to chase their dreams. To play in the big leagues, Álvarez had to leave.
At 16 and 17, he played two seasons with the professional Cuban baseball team in his home province. In 74 games in the top Cuban league, he hit .279 and had one home run. “And it was an inside-the-park one,” he said.
Back then, Álvarez was known as a nimble outfielder with a good eye at the plate rather than an imposing power hitter. Still, there was potential: Although skinny, the six-foot-five Álvarez said he was always the tallest player on his teams. The size, he said, came from his sixfoot-four father, who also used to play baseball in Cuba.
When Álvarez and his family decided to pursue his baseball opportunities in the U.S., he said, he asked for permission to leave Cuba but was denied. So, in 2015, he went to the Dominican Republic, where he joined his parents and younger brother, all of whom had arrived first.
After arriving in the U.S., he went to West Palm Beach, Fla., to continue his training and work out for prospective teams. He grew close to an Astros scout, Charlie Gonzalez, who told Álvarez he could picture him in a Houston uniform and who drove him by the Astros’ spring training complex when it was under construction.
Instead, the Los Angeles Dodgers signed Álvarez in June 2016 to a $2-million deal. Six weeks later, the Dodgers needed a relief pitcher, so they traded Álvarez, who had not yet played a game in the minors, to the Astros for Josh Fields.
Álvarez shot through the Astros’ farm system. He hit .343 with 23 home runs in Triple-A in 2019 despite pain in his left knee that began the previous season and flared up as time went on.
Despite the balky knee, Álvarez accomplished his dream on June 9, 2019, at 21. Adrenalin, he said, masked the pain, and he continued pushing himself. He hit .313 with 27 home runs in 87 games as the Astros’ primary designated hitter, and he helped them reach the World Series, where they fell one win short of a title to the Washington Nationals.
Playing with a comprised leg for so long, Álvarez said, led to overcompensating with his right knee, and that caused damage there. Finally, after playing in two games in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, he could not take it any more and had surgery on both knees (a patella tendon repair for one and a cleanup of the other). He missed the rest of the year.
In 144 games this season, Alvarez hit .277 and led the Astros with 33 home runs and 104 RBIs. He strikes out a fair amount, but when he connects he hits it hard and far.
Astros shortstop Carlos Correa called Alvarez “a natural hitter.” Gurriel said Alvarez had a maturity at the plate that belied his age. “That makes him very special,” he said.