Jose Altuve Could Be on the Move — to Left Field

Jose Altuve, left fielder? The nine-time All-Star second baseman first suggested last month that he’d be willing to change positions in order to accommodate the potential return of free agent Alex Bregman. While a reunion with the third baseman may be a long shot at this point, Altuve has spent the past couple weeks taking fly balls. The team indicated earlier this week that he’ll get an extended look at the new position during spring training, and could split his time between left field and second base during the regular season. Whether it will work is another matter.

The Astros still have a six-year, $156 million offer on the table for Bregman, by far the top free agent remaining on the market, but the Tigers are in hot pursuit of him, and the Blue Jays, Cubs, and Red Sox have also shown interest. On Tuesday, Astros general manager Dana Brown made some headlines and raised some eyebrows when he described the team as having “lost [Kyle] Tucker and Bregman,” putting the third baseman in the past tense alongside the since-traded right fielder. However, Brown quickly acknowledged, “We’re continuing to have internal conversations because he’s still available.”

Those discussions have included how the Astros would align their infield in the event Bregman returned. In the December trade that sent Tucker to the Cubs, they received Isaac Paredes, who has major league experience at all four infield positions but has spent 86% of his innings at third over the past two seasons. A week later, they signed free agent Christian Walker to fill their first base vacancy. With Jeremy Peña entrenched at shortstop and Altuve at second, their infield would appear to be a finished product, albeit one that isn’t as good as a version featuring Bregman.

Altuve knows this as well as anyone, and at the Astros’ FanFest on January 25, he raised the possibility of a switch to accommodate Bregman, his teammate for the past nine seasons — a run that has included eight straight trips to the postseason, four pennants, two championships, and one scandal. “We haven’t talked about it, but for Alex I’d do whatever,” he said. “He’s one of the best players in the whole league… We want him to stay, and whatever I have to do for him to stay, I’m willing to do it.”

Altuve is coming off an All-Star season, albeit one that suggests he’s in decline — not that surprising given that he’ll turn 35 on May 6. He played 153 games, his highest total since 2017, and while his .295/.350/.439 (127 wRC+) offensive performance was more than ample, his slugging percentage was his lowest mark since 2013, and his wRC+ his lowest since ’14. What’s more, he set a career high with a 10.4% swinging strike rate; his 2.8-point spike in that category relative to 2023 was the fifth-highest in the majors, while his 17.4% strikeout rate set a full-season high.

Note that the above comparisons omit Altuve’s dreadful 2020 showing. In 48 games that season, he batted .219/.286/.344 (74 wRC+) and struck out 18.6% of the time, though even then his swinging strike rate didn’t reach triple digits. His production rebounded the next year, as he hit for a 128 wRC+, and was even better in 2022 (a career-high 164 wRC+) and ’23 (155 wRC+ in only 90 games).

Altuve’s decline from 2023 to ’24 wasn’t confined to the offensive side. According to Statcast’s defensive metrics — which don’t include the value of his throwing — he fell from -1 FRV to a career-worst -6. Meanwhile, his DRS numbers were brutal for the third year in a row:

By DRS, Altuve has been the majors’ worst second baseman for three years in a row, and by Statcast, only Jorge Polanco was worse last year. I’m not sure what to make of the UZR trend, other than it serving to remind us that defensive metrics don’t always agree. An average of the three suggests Altuve’s defense has been generally bad across this three-year stretch, with his 2023 performance — the start of which was delayed by surgery to repair a broken right thumb suffered during the World Baseball Classic, costing him 53 days — looking worse than the others on a prorated basis (1,350 innings is approximately 150 games).

The granular nature of Statcast’s breakdowns sheds further light on Altuve’s woes. Keep in mind these are in terms of Outs Above Average, not runs:

The Range and Release breakdowns above represent two components of OAA that aren’t currently published on Statcast, but old friend Mike Petriello generously supplied them for the purposes of this piece. They add up to the OAA total, just as the directional In, Lateral, and Back breakdowns do (subject to rounding). What the Range and Release numbers tell us isn’t that his arm is great — indeed, those Arm Strength metrics place him in single-digit territory ranging from the fourth percentile in 2021 and ’22 to the seventh in ’24 — but that he’s accurate, completing the plays on balls he reaches. For what it’s worth, he made just one throwing error last year, his lowest full-season total. As a point of comparison, Bregman’s 6 OAA for 2024 breaks down to an outstanding +8 for range and -2 for throwing; he had seven throwing errors.

The actions of the Astros and Altuve suggest they’re aware of the general trend of his defensive decline, but what to do about it is another question. Aside from four innings at shortstop in 2016 and two more in ’19, he’s never played another defensive position in the majors. He made a few brief cameos at third base in the minors before playing six games at the hot corner during the 2010–11 Venezuela Winter League season, and seven more at Double-A Corpus Christi in ’11, but other than that, it’s been second base all the way down, even though the Astros have long contemplated moving him off the position. According to a 2021 Sports Illustrated profile by Stephanie Apstein, general manager Jeff Luhnow’s front office mulled relocating Altuve to center field given concerns about his lateral range (his -6 OAA towards first base was the majors’ lowest mark), and the prospect resurfaced when the second baseman battled the yips — related to his having to make a longer throw from shortstop or right field on infield shifts — during his miserable 2020. The coaching staff talked Luhnow out of the move given that it might have been seen as demoting the team’s unofficial captain.

The outfield remained uncharted territory for Altuve until he recently began taking fly balls in left at Daikin Park (formerly Minute Maid Park). Brown offered a positive report on Tuesday:

“He was running down balls in the gap,” Brown said. “He looked like he was having the time of his life. He looked like he was a little kid out there. His jumps off the bat were really good. With his foot speed, playing left field, I think he’s got a chance to be really good. I like what I saw from a purely scouting standpoint.”

Like Altuve himself, Daikin Park’s left field is comparatively small. Because of the Crawford Boxes, left field is only 315 feet down the line and 362 feet to left center, though it’s 399 to deep left center. The 19-foot wall is about three Altuves high, so it’s not as though they’ll lose out on home run robberies by playing him there instead of a taller player. That said, Statcast isn’t so keen on Altuve’s foot speed. He placed in the 44th percentile in 2024, up from the 38th in ’23, but prior to that had never been below the 70th percentile. Maybe some of that has been self-preservation, a nod to aging and a history that includes several hamstring strains, but then going all-out more often in 2025 would suggest an increased risk of injury.

The Astros are already looking for a left field solution because they can only tolerate so much injury risk and subpar defense from Yordan Alvarez, one of the best hitters on the planet. In 2024, Alvarez was five runs below average via both DRS and FRV — and that was in just 53 games totaling 421 innings in left. Manager Joe Espada said on Tuesday that the team is looking to cut down his time out there. With Chas McCormick slated to replace Tucker in right field, and Jake Meyers in center, the roster’s other alternatives aren’t tremendously appealing. Brown said on Tuesday that the team would like another left-handed bat for the outfield, then added that the options are “slim to none,” which wasn’t the most flattering way to foreshadow Wednesday’s re-signing of Ben Gamel on a one-year, $1.2 million deal. The 32-year-old Gamel hit for a 115 wRC+ last year, but that was via a wonky-looking .247/.384/.333 line across 99 plate appearances split between the Mets and Astros; he’s a career .252/.334/.382 (96 wRC+) hitter, with a 98 wRC+ against righties, so it’s not as though he’s got an impressive platoon split. The roster already includes 27-year-old lefty Taylor Trammell, a career .167/.270/.363 (63 wRC+) hitter who made just eight PA in 2024 split between the Dodgers and Yankees, and 30-year-old righty Mauricio Dubón, who saw extensive duty with the Astros, hitting a thoroughly representative .269/.296/.361 (87 wRC+) in 428 PA while playing every position but pitcher and catcher. His 67 games in left were by far his most at any spot, but he was a drag on the lineup.

Espada told reporters on Tuesday that Altuve is still taking groundballs at second but will get an extended look in left during spring training, giving the team more lineup flexibility. Reading between the lines, they prefer Dubón’s defense at second to Altuve’s, but that still exposes the former’s weak bat, and absent a return from Bregman, their roster lacks a clear third base alternative that would justify shifting Paredes to second, a position he didn’t play at all in 2024 (his metrics in 456.2 innings form 2021–23 are range from -3 DRS to 3 FRV).

To these eyes, it would make far more sense for the post-Bregman Astros to cobble together a left field platoon of free agents David Peralta (a lefty) and Mark Canha (a righty), and work Altuve into the mix in left while spotting Dubón at second behind groundball machine Framber Valdez. Canha and Peralta were both above league-average in 2024, and would substantially upgrade the roster relative to Gamel and Trammell. The Astros could more easily milk an extra win or two out of those more established (and somewhat more expensive) veterans than with an Altuve/Dubón alignment, and by the looks of our fresh Playoff Odds, which have them as one of three AL West teams forecast for 84 wins, they could use them. Long story short, the reason you may see Altuve running around at the new position may have more to do with dollars than it does sense.