Fantasy Baseball Second Base Player Profiles: Jose Altuve

Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

Jose Altuve is one of the few bright spots on a woeful Houston Astros team. Unfortunately he was a slight disappointment last season for most owners.

As toy can see, his RBI and steals were up from 2012, but his runs were way down. While the regression wasn’t as big, he had a step back in both HR and AVG, as well.

It’s often nice to get a spike in the RBI category from an unexpected source. But you don’t want to see that when it comes at the cost of a large decrease in another area, which is what happened to Altuve.

The Dream

Jose Altuve had the makings of a real stud leadoff hitter and from a weak position—second base.  I am sure some fantasy owners had dreams of Altuve touching 100 runs, 50 steals and busting past .300 average.

Now, those numbers would have been a dream season, especially with a dismal team around him like is in Houston. Surely 90 runs, 40 steals and an even .300 average was a reasonable ceiling for the kid going into 2013.

The Reality

After this season, I am not sure that Altuve is going to be in the position to be that type of guy for his current team the Astros. Jose had to hit primarily second and third for Houston this season because of their lack of quality bats.  The emergence of Jason Castro could help a great deal as he manned the 3-hole quite a bit.

Brett Wallace manned the 2-hole the second most times for the Astros and in 2013, had a .221 average with a .284 OBP, not exactly what you want to see from a 2-hole hitter. So, the chances of Wallace getting Altuve back to the lead-off spot are slim to none. If Matt Dominguez or Marwin Gonzalez could get themselves into the two-spot then perhaps Altuve can reclaim his seat atop the order and get back to being who he is most comfortable being, and where fantasy owners should want him.

The Many IF’s 

• IF Jose Altuve can go back to leading off for Houston
• IF Houston puts a little more behind him
• IF he stays healthy and gets around 625 at bats
• IF he plays well

The THEN

THEN…I would fully expect close to these numbers for Altuve:

The Assessment

Altuve is a fine player and at a weak position.  He brings a lot of steals and run potential with a solid batting average. So if you can couple him together with a guy like a Jay Bruce, then you could have the equivalent of 2 more well rounded players.  Actually, let’s look at what those two did in 2013:

That’s an average of better than 75 runs, 17 HR, 80 RBI, and 20 steals, which isn’t bad.

The problem is that if Altuve does do what I said above, or if he repeats 2012, 40 or so RBI will give you a bit of a hit in that area overall. So you may have to go a little heavier in the RBI department at a few different positions to make up that ground.  OR you can settle for middle of the road on RBI, say 6-9 points depending on size of your league, and hope to run away with categories like steals and runs.

The Early Verdict

All in all, Jose Altuve is a just a guy that you have to tailor your team around too much to get that excited about.

In my opinion, Altuve is a MUCH better Roto style player than he is a head to head guy. The reason being is that his season stats are pretty bankable—although his career has been all of two (plus) seasons long.

In a Roto league, bankable 35-40 steals and a near .300 average help a lot, and you can build around his deficiencies.  Whereas in a head-to-head league, he may get you 9 steals in a week and zero in another. In the weeks he gets little to no steals, he is pretty much dead weight for your team.

In a snake draft, I am letting him fall to the 15-16 round range and I really wouldn’t spend more than $10 on him in an typical auction league.

The P.S.

Altuve will turn 24 in May, so he does have his prime coming. His potential could be great, he very well could be a: 100 runs, 50+  steals, over .300 average type player.  hen again, he can end up like Erick Aybar and just fall apart. Only time will tell.