I LOVE this kid. He looks like another Craig Biggio! Let's get 8 more players like him and we are going to be just fine!
It's hard to not get excited the way he's been raking this year. But I'm tempering my expectations until big league pitchers have a chance to adjust to his free-swinging ways. That being said, I think we got a keeper for the next decade, good hands, good speed, and a good bat.
I know, it makes me want to get mlb TV. Now if we can just get another stellar athletic hard-nosed defensive stalwart that can hit for average at SS to pair up with Altuve, man we'd have something.
Small sample size. Lots of guys start out hot when they reach the majors. Look at Chris Johnson last year, he was raking it and this year he has been one of the worst hitters in the league.
Yeah, but CJ sucked in the minor leagues. Altuve has been a consistently excellent hitter at every level. He's also a better defender than CJ, by far.
Yeah Altuve is the reason I have tuned in the last few games. It's awesome to watch with centerfield cam during this Cardinals series and see Altuve only about as tall as the catcher in his crouch position :grin:
A shorter, slower, Venezuelan version. Way too early to make any real projections for him, but I was half-way serious when I posted 2,999 more to go after his first ML hit. He is getting an early start on his ML career, and is a guy that if he is going to be a quality ML player, is going to be racking up 200 hit seasons, because his game is about putting the ball into play. I don't expect him to get there, but he is the type of player where it is possible. We'll see how he does once the league adjusts to him.
I'm pulling for him. I'm among those more excited about Astros baseball from the moment he was called up. Frankly, I'd love to see more Sanchez, Hernandez, and Martinez and less Barmes, Johnson, and Lee, too.
I don't want to see more of Sanchez. As much as I liked how the guy has performed, he is a below average SS defensively, and has a career OPS of .622 (.606 this season). I assume Hernandez must be Anderson Hernandez, who I don't want to see on the ML roster ever again. I would like to see Martinez.
Forget Jason Lane, JR Towles was basically an all-star at every level, and is playing well in AAA again, but for the most part has been terrible in the majors.
how soon we forget... * 2000 Midwest League All-Star OF * 2001 Double-A All-Star OF * 2001 Baseball America 1st team Minor League All-Star OF * 2001 California League Most Valuable Player * 2001 Texas League Most Valuable Player * 2001 Houston Astros Minor League Player of the Year * 2001 Texas League All-Star OF * 2001 California League All-Star OF * 2002 Winter League All-Star 1B Dude was highly decorated in the minors. In 2004, people were screaming to sit Biggio to let this kid play.
And clearly the Astros scouts saw something in him that they felt would not translate to the big leagues all that well. He actually wasn't "that" bad in the big leagues once he became a regular... but everybody knew that he "was what he was" at age 27, and he wasn't going to get much better. Altuve could go any direction... but he's hit well at every level thus far, and he's only 21. Again, his "power" is going to suprise a lot of people as his bat does have some nice pop.
yeah, I wasn't intending to compare Altuve to Lane, just making a wise-crack about "consistently excellent hitter at every level".
Hell, Hunsicker himself wanted Biggio gone and Lane up here back in 2002 or 2003. Drayton said no. One of the many things they disagreed on. Don't know who was right in the end, but it would have been a shame if they dumped Biggio just to bring up Lane who eventually wouldn't be more than a #6 hitter at his max.
