It's officially time for the Astros to panic about Jose Altuve's outfield experiment

It all sounded so good on paper.

With Kyle Tucker off to the Chicago Cubs and Yordan Alvarez primarily a DH, the Houston Astros were set to enter the 2025 season with a sketchy (to put it kindly) outfield situation. The infield, meanwhile, was getting a little crowded, with Isaac Paredes and Christian Walker brought aboard, new top prospect Cam Smith banging down the door and maybe, just maybe, Alex Bregman considering a return in free agency.

Even if Bregman didn't come back, the roster seemed a bit lopsided. So the team hatched an idea: Why not turn Jose Altuve into a left fielder? The friendly confines of the Crawford Boxes figured to be a better defensive fit as he aged off of second base, and this would keep his potent bat in the lineup without exposing a replacement-level player too much. Altuve, true to form, was very much game, and before too long it became clear that the Astros were pot-committed to the new plan.

Except there's just one problem: As it turns out, playing the outfield is pretty hard, especially when you're learning on the fly at the highest level. The Altuve outfield experiment got off to a bit of a bumpy start, from throwing errors ...

... to fielding errors.

But hey: We knew there would be a learning curve, right? While those mistakes certainly aren't what you want to see so close to Opening Day, they were also easily explained away: Altuve has never had to make throws from the outfield or navigate foul territory before, and it makes sense that he'd need some time to pick up the particulars of the position.

At this point, though, we're well past particulars. Altuve isn't just exhibiting the typical struggles of a position change; his latest gaffe is as basic as it gets, and should have Houston questioning whether their franchise icon is really up for this.

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Jose Altuve's outfield bloopers are getting alarmingly bad

Again: struggling with the finer points of outfield play is one thing. Altuve is throwing ahead of runners, getting the sense of the warning track and learning where to go with the ball for the very first time. But you'd think that, no matter what position you play, any Major Leaguer wouldn't have too much trouble fielding a can of corn.

And yet:

We don't want to pile on here. Altuve is a future Hall of Famer, and he's accomplished more in baseball than 99% of players ever will. But if this is the sort of play that he's still struggling with, just a week before Opening Day, how can the Astros continue on with this plan?

This is as basic as it gets, the sort of fly ball he'll have to deal with multiple times a game. It's disconcerting, to say the least, that he's botching it, and no offensive upgrade in the world is worth that sort of defensive downgrade. Plus, it's not like Altuve is making room for someone of Bregman's caliber; is the above really worth stucking Dubon or Brendan Rodgers in the lineup? You have to respect Altuve's willingness to try something new, but at a certain point you need to know when to cut your losses.