Just a rough patch, or is Jose Altuve starting to show signs of his now-35 years?
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00:00How are you feeling about Jose Altuve?
00:02Does it feel like this is just a rough patch or are we seeing
00:05the decline trademark of Astros legend after, I mean,
00:12he did not have a good game yesterday.
00:14Let's put it very simply.
00:16And it's 4-3 loss for the Astros that saw them dip right below 500 once again,
00:2217 and 18, and he was a big part of why this ends up as a 4-3 loss
00:28as opposed to maybe a potential victory with a couple of instances
00:32offensively that were problematic.
00:34But it's not just this game.
00:36It's where he's been tracking generally as a player.
00:39But in this one, there was a couple of things that absolutely were,
00:41I don't know, mind-boggling and possibly blood-boiling if you were watching it.
00:46Unsurprising a little bit?
00:48To some degree a little unsurprising.
00:50One of them really kind of.
00:51On the base path, yeah.
00:52Yeah, but, yeah, man, how are you feeling about Jose?
00:55Because, I mean, Jose was a huge topic of conversation
00:58when it came to the offseason.
01:01Obviously, you had a lot of moving and shaking,
01:03and one of the things that was done was him moving to the outfield,
01:07defensively, finding that particular change in order to keep his batting lineup,
01:12but also try and get some better defense
01:14because you knew that there was a level of decline
01:16that's inherent with a player of his age.
01:19But we're starting to see one of the things that we thought was a given
01:22in the bat really trend down.
01:25In some words, I mean, typically, you know, the defense and the bat
01:31or, like, defense, you know, when it was going down,
01:34you could lean on some other things to make it up,
01:36and those things feel like they're going away somewhere.
01:38Yeah, look, we've got to talk about this, you know,
01:41because we are eventually, and now's as good a time as any
01:44because, and this is not just because he turned 35 yesterday,
01:49which is one of those numbers.
01:50Yeah, that was also one of those weird things.
01:51Hey, it's your birthday.
01:53What are you doing?
01:53Yeah, that's right.
01:54Why are you playing like that?
01:5635 is one of those numbers where in any sport, you know,
01:59baseball, you know, tend to be maybe a little longer.
02:02You know, at 35, you're like, oh, people, there's that term,
02:05the wrong side of 35, you know.
02:07And so I tried to look at this not as, oh, he's 35.
02:12Well, he must be slowing down.
02:13So I did a little digging on here.
02:15The most obvious numbers, well, I often say, watch what they do,
02:21not what they say.
02:22What they say is.
02:24It's the best shape of my life.
02:25Yeah, best shape of my life.
02:26He's still Jose Altuve, et cetera, et cetera.
02:29What they did was they moved him.
02:31What they did was they moved him from second base to the outfield.
02:33That wasn't an accident.
02:34You know, he moved.
02:35They moved him, however you want to put it.
02:37And then you look at the numbers since April 18th,
02:39because he started out horrific.
02:41I mean, we were looking at Jose Altuve as the only guy
02:45that was really doing anything offensively.
02:47Well, since April 18th, what's that, three weeks now at least?
02:51Yeah.
02:52He's batting 170, on-base percentage of 230, slugging percentage of 344.
02:58Not good.
02:58Not good, Bob.
02:59Okay, not good.
03:00But also maybe a little rough patch.
03:03And you mentioned it.
03:04When we were, is it just a rough patch, or is he starting to show signs?
03:10That's why I want to talk about it.
03:12I want to talk through it, so to speak, as people like to say.
03:14Because even if you set aside the base running blunder last night,
03:18which was typical Jose Altuve,
03:20things about him right now are just kind of signs.
03:24You know, he's played in 105 playoff games in his career.
03:31Since he's turned 30, he's played in 55 playoff games.
03:36That's a lot more wear and tear.
03:39Oh, I hadn't seen you going from that perspective.
03:41Yeah, playing deeper into September and even into October.
03:45October, occasionally.
03:46Since he's turned 30, he's played 55 high-pressure more games,
03:51which is a good thing because they've won a World Series,
03:54two World Series.
03:56Should have been three.
03:57Should have been three.
03:58But that's a lot, 105 extra games on a guy that's now 35 years old.
04:03So there's that.
04:04And then I did the trademark Reggie Atatula deep dive into advanced numbers.
04:09Why is that my trademark?
04:11Okay, whatever.
04:13Here's the Atlantics.
04:15Wow.
04:16So I sound, that's me?
04:16Oh, no, no, that's not me.
04:17That's how I sound now.
04:18No, no, I'm taking notes.
04:19I see you.
04:20I think people sound like that whenever they bring up stats,
04:23like deep dive stats.
04:24Yes.
04:25No, that's one.
04:25Like Adam Spill.
04:26You can't make it sound cool.
04:28That's strike number one figure.
04:29I see you.
04:30He's writing it down.
04:31Oh, man.
04:31He's writing it down.
04:33So this is a number that I buy into occasionally,
04:37and it's the hard hit rate.
04:38Yes.
04:38The ball coming off his bat, 28.6% of his contact is great.
04:48Strikeout rate, 18.6%.
04:50His legs are not what they once were either.
04:53Jose Altuve, the one thing you could say, he had bad base running,
04:56but he could steal some bases.
04:58He was super fast.
05:00You know where he ranks right now today in StatCast, what they call,
05:04it's basically speed.
05:05They call it sprint speed.
05:06Mm-hmm.
05:08218th.
05:09Yeah.
05:10He's not running like he used to.
05:1244th percentile.
05:13He's below average as well.
05:15Yeah.
05:15He's not running like he used to.
05:16He's moved from second base.
05:18He was a defensive liability there.
05:19We'll see how it goes.
05:20It's going okay, I guess, in the outfield.
05:23He still makes base running errors.
05:25His batting average, it could be a bad stretch, a rough patch,
05:28as you called it, is way down.
05:31Is that a sign?
05:34It feels like there's a lot of things that you're adding together
05:38that makes me go, ooh, this is scary, right?
05:42Like this is, we're getting to a place where it's bad.
05:44The things that I'm trying to use to wipe away or bat away the possibility
05:49that we are seeing just larger decline as opposed to kind of rough patch.
05:55One is that I go back and I look at some of these things.
05:58Like one of the things I was looking at was also just like general bat speed.
06:01Like how fast is he swinging the bat?
06:02And when it comes down to that over the last couple years,
06:06it has been slower than I realized when it comes to like his bat speed.
06:08I didn't notice it.
06:10And that's the thing.
06:11It's like that might be where just kind of veteran savvy has allowed him,
06:16like with just the knowledge and the know-how of how to use the bat,
06:19especially with his particular, the size of the bat relative to his body
06:23and everything, the ways that he is able to maybe just figure out the way
06:28to handle that.
06:29So that helped me kind of ease this way.
06:31And I guess the other one is more of a question.
06:33How much do you think the move and the ways in which he is almost
06:36with like a childlike glee throwing himself into the new challenges
06:39playing in the outfield might be taking some of his effort
06:43and energy mentally away from the offensive pursuits
06:46that he typically is giving you?
06:48Maybe.
06:49No, I think that's definitely on the table.
06:50And one thing we have all learned is don't count out Jose Altuve.
06:54And so that's why I'm making it more like, hey, let's talk through this here
06:57because I don't want to count out Jose Altuve.
07:00But what's the one thing that stands out of all those things I listed?
07:04He's 35 now, all these extra playoff games, his batting average
07:08and on-base percentage and slugging percentage since April 18th,
07:12the move from second base, et cetera, the hard hit rate.
07:16The one thing that –
07:18It's the speed.
07:18Yep.
07:19It's the speed.
07:19Yep.
07:19Right, because that has been –
07:21Like with it being a smaller body,
07:23that has been kind of the equalizing force for him, right,
07:26is the ways in which he could use that speed to light some things out.
07:29I know that the hard hit rate is probably one of those ones that is up there,
07:32but it feels like everybody on this team isn't hitting the ball hard,
07:35which makes me wonder like if this is something team-wide.
07:39Like these are the things that I imagine people look at
07:41when they start clamoring for the hitting coach to be fired
07:45is that there's something across the board that you're not seeing from this team.
07:49And so maybe you can put that there.
07:50The sprint speed is just one of those things that, hey, man,
07:52eventually you get slower.
07:54And it's showing up right now in that eventually he is indeed getting slower.
07:59And that might be the thing that also just makes it untenable
08:01with all the other stuff, right?
08:03All the other stuff that is kind of inherent is that you can't make out things.
08:08Yeah.
08:08And you also can't make up for –
08:11Like with all sorts of players,
08:12and I'll go to two players that immediately jumped to mind for me
08:16in a different sport, cross sport,
08:17is quarterbacks Cam Newton and Peyton Manning, right?
08:21Cam Newton was a dude who was a physical specimen, right?
08:25And he never was a great thrower of the football.
08:27Well, he was a great thrower of the football.
08:28He was never like mechanically super sound.
08:30He was just super strong.
08:32He was able to use that strength to overcome the lack of the strong mechanics.
08:36Up until them injuries took away some of that youthfulness,
08:38and then all of a sudden it was very evident
08:40because we remember him in New England.
08:41Like this just isn't good anymore.
08:42And I remember that vividly because I was a dude who was like,
08:46no, no, he's just injured when he gets healthy again.
08:48Like the mechanics were never great.
08:49The strength will be there.
08:50No, the strength wasn't there, and it was just done for him.
08:52Juxtapose that with Peyton Manning where he never had a great arm,
08:55and one of the things that he did was he fought his way through the game,
08:58and he was able to use like the brain portion of this
09:00to overcome the physical limitations.
09:03Which of those dudes feels more like it speaks to what Jose Altuve is,
09:07especially when it comes to that speed?
09:08Yeah.
09:09It feels like it's more Cam Newton.
09:10It's more Cam Newton.
09:10And it feels like if that's starting to go, I do wonder like,
09:13especially when you talk about his base path etiquette,
09:17which has never been good.
09:19Yeah.
09:19You're not making up for that.
09:20Base path etiquette.
09:21I like that.
09:21You're not going to make that up with the speed,
09:24and I'm not saying that he's not smart enough or anything
09:26because that'd be asinine, but I do want like,
09:28at what point do you get to the place where he's an old dog
09:30and not going to learn the new tricks of how to do this problem?
09:32Figgy, it's the speed, man.
09:33Like all these other things, we've seen him have these patches
09:37and overcome them.
09:38Even the bat speed, he's got the savvy.
09:41He's got the Peyton Manning, you know, sort of knows where the pitches are,
09:44can hit anything.
09:48But here's the thing.
09:50The calendar just turned to May.
09:52It's May.
09:54It's early.
09:55That's me saying that.
09:56And his speed is already ranking him 218th, you know, in the bottom half.
10:01And that was one of his calling cards.
10:03Yeah.
10:03And this is the part of the season where you're supposed to be kind of fresh.
10:06This is the part of the season where you're supposed to have some juice to you.
10:10And so, yeah, man, I'm starting to get concerned just all the way around.
10:14But him in particular, because, again, one of the things that I keep looking at
10:16is he's supposed to be one of the guys that you hang this offense on.
10:19And even then, like, that was part of the impetus for kind of moving him back
10:23to kind of have him be in a place where he can be more of a guy that you lean on.
10:28And that's sliding.
10:29And it feels like as a team you're sliding and the things that, you know,
10:32I guess in a way the hooks that are supposed to keep you in those slide moments
10:36for the entirety of the team are also sliding.
10:38And that's real disconcerting.
10:39On top of the fact that what the hell was he doing with that bunt?
10:42Did you see?
10:44That's the second day in a row in Astros.
10:46I forget who did it the day before.
10:47It was like, why are you bunting number one?
10:49And then it's a pop-up.
10:51That was the thing more than anything.
10:53That's the worst way to go out, too, man.
10:54Oh, my gosh.
10:55You might get me on the idea that the offense, because the offense has been bad enough to
10:59where it's like, yo, we need to get to this small ball, get him on, get him over, get
11:02him in.
11:02All right, cool.
11:03What the actual hell was that bunt, though?
11:07Like, I feel like you got to be able to put something better.
11:09Like, where's the pop?
11:10That's second words to a bunt strikeout.
11:12Oh, yes.
11:13You missed the ball.
11:16So, anyways, I don't know that we have an answer, but it seems like 9-3, so there's people
11:19that are holding out hope that it's a rough patch for him.
11:22And, I mean, you've got to hope that, because otherwise, like, what's
11:25the alternative team?
11:28It's probably a rough patch, and I think he could kind of come back from this, but you
11:32got to remember, he is 35, man.
11:34And we talked about the mileage.
11:36So, I'm not saying they need to move on from him, but you kind of got to start.
11:42Again, it's just one of those things you go, ooh.
11:43You got to start thinking, like, he ain't going to be here forever.
11:46Yeah.
11:46Right.
11:47And the 2A1, move out 2A to DH, at least until Yordan comes back, and it does feel like
11:51that's probably what's happening here.
11:52Yeah.
11:52And you hope that maybe that ends up being the jumpstart.
11:55Saves the legs a little bit, too.
11:55Yeah, maybe that's the jumpstart of what gets him back going the way that you need to with
11:59the bat.