In Defense of: Jose Altuve

A throw away line in a podcast lead me down this dark baseball road

Oct 25, 2024

Last April I was eager for MLB to start and was listening to some now long forgotten podcast that was handicapping the American League on that particular episode.

Of course, I was particularly interested in their take on the Astros, as I’ve found through experience that very rarely can a pundit talk knowledgably about all 30 teams.

It’s really hard to know every team and the dirty little secret is you probably know your team better than many “professionals” do.

This was the typical stuff that Astros fans have grown accustomed to by now, mostly why they wouldn’t win the AL West, as I recall.

Some of it was spot on. Some goofy. Some dumb.

As I said, typical.

But then they got to Jose Altuve and focused on his supposed slippage and wondered whether age had caught up with the Astros second baseman.

Ludicrous, I thought. Or perhaps I used some stronger words.

Altuve was coming off a season of slashing .311/.393/.522 in 90 games after recovering from a broken hand and showed very little sign of slipping at the plate, at least numbers wise.

Obviously reading my mind the speaker began focusing on Altuve’s defense and while I was still dismissive in my mind, it piqued my interest.

Just not enough to do any research at that time.

Perhaps this notion of Altuve regressing seeped into my subconscious because when the season began I soon noticed him not getting to balls that he once did or seemingly being slow to react to others.

Balls he would have knocked down eluded him and balls he would have caught tipped off his glove and trickled into the outfield.

A half step slow, so to speak.

It wasn’t blatant, a lot of fans wouldn’t even notice. Heck, it took a rando podcast for me to even give it a thought.

But as the season rolled on, it seemed like more and more often I would think (or say) “That’s a play he used to make” or something along those lines.

Maybe idiot podcast dude had a point.

The Numbers

I’m focusing on the last three seasons in this analysis and these defensive numbers come from Baseball Savant.1

By the outs above average metric the decline is clear over the last three seasons.

The -9 outs above average puts Altuve in the 3rd percentile in range, whereas in 2022 he was in the 73rd percentile and in 2023 the 22nd percentile.

That’s a cliff.

While the cliff looks huge from 2023 to 2024, it’s important to remember that Altuve only played 90 games in 2023 and the -3 OAA in 293 attempts would jump to -5 assuming the same rate over 444 attempts (the number he had in 2024).

Altuve is not necessarily making errors on balls he gets to, he’s just not getting to balls he used to, which confirms what my eyes had been telling me, most noticeably (to me, at least) in 2024.

The point remains the same: Altuve’s range has fallen significantly in each of the last two seasons.

Arm strength is not a huge concern for a second baseman, but Altuve’s has remained steady, and even improved over the last three seasons.

The caveat is his arm is not very good as MLB second baseman’s arms go, coming in at the 4th, 6th and 7th percentile respectively in the last three seasons.

Conclusion: The Podcast was nailed it, kind of…

It’s not surprising a 34 year old second baseman isn’t getting to balls he was at 25, but it’s important to recognize and quantify (as best we can).

It’s a tradeoff that the Astros are willing to make for so many reasons that are obvious to baseball fans, especially those loyal to the Astros.

That doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.

By the measurables it has and in a big way.

It’s also important to realize that the -9 is Outs Above AVERAGE, not Outs Above BEST.

The best second baseman in the league (Andres Gimenez, yeah I was surprised, too) recorded 21 Outs Above Average, meaning Altuve was 30 outs below the best, while coming in 36th of 37 second basemen.

At the time the podcast was released the speaker was correct about Altuve’s defense and it got worse this past season, but I’d argue there was little evidence of an offensive decline until…

Though he was still very good, that evidence came in 2024 when Altuve did decline offensively compared to 2023 and 2022.2

From 2023 to 2024 Altuve’s average dipped 16 points, OBP 43 and SLG 83.