{"id":290614,"date":"2025-11-18T08:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T08:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/290614\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T08:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T08:10:08","slug":"jose-altuve-undergoes-minor-foot-procedure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/290614\/","title":{"rendered":"Jose Altuve Undergoes Minor Foot Procedure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jose Altuve<\/a> underwent a minor procedure on his right foot this afternoon, reports Brian McTaggart of MLB.com<\/a>. The aspiration drained fluid from an injury between his fourth and fifth toes. It should not impact his readiness for Spring Training.<\/p>\n

Altuve played through foot discomfort in the waning weeks of the season. The pain cost him a game in the middle of September, but Altuve wouldn\u2019t go on the injured list as the Astros battled for a playoff spot. It wasn\u2019t until they were officially eliminated with two games remaining in the season that he shut it down. Altuve wasn\u2019t particularly effective as he played through the injury, hitting .218\/.295\/.385 in the final month.<\/p>\n

It was something of a down season overall for the nine-time All-Star. Altuve still managed 26 homers with a solid .265\/.329\/.442 batting line, but his average and on-base percentage were his lowest in a full season in more than a decade. Altuve hit .363 with five longballs during a monster July but was otherwise a middle-of-the-road contributor. He had a .745 OPS or lower in every other month.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not surprising to see Altuve\u2019s numbers begin to trend down as he gets into his mid-30s. He\u2019s still a good hitter but no longer the MVP-caliber bat he was in his prime. The bigger question moving forward is how the Astros will minimize his defensive weaknesses. The Astros have increasingly soured on his second base work. They hoped to use him primarily in left field this past season, reasoning that the short porch with the Crawford Boxes at Daikin Park could compensate for mediocre range. Altuve didn\u2019t take naturally to the position, though, and skipper Joe Espada used him mostly at second base again by the end of the season.<\/p>\n

The Astros don\u2019t have great alternatives at the keystone. Rookie Brice Matthews<\/a> had decent overall numbers in Triple-A, but he struck out in 28% of his plate appearances against minor league pitching. He punched out 20 times in his first 13 big league games.\u00a0Mauricio Dub\u00f3n<\/a> is a quality defender with a light bat whose escalating arbitration salaries could make him a trade or non-tender candidate. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects<\/a> the switch-hitting utilityman to make $5.8MM in his final year of club control.\u00a0Ram\u00f3n Ur\u00edas<\/a> struggled after a deadline trade and is likely to be cut loose in lieu of a $4.4MM arbitration projection.<\/p>\n

At the moment, that leaves Altuve as their primary option at second base. They could continue to get him some left field work and use him more frequently at designated hitter if they\u2019re willing to play\u00a0Yordan Alvarez<\/a> semi-regularly in left (especially at home). An offseason acquisition could change the calculus. Their longstanding interest<\/a> in Cardinals\u2019 trade candidate\u00a0Brendan Donovan<\/a> continues. Tampa Bay\u2019s\u00a0Brandon Lowe<\/a> could also be on the move, while\u00a0Gleyber Torres<\/a> and\u00a0Willi Castro<\/a> are free agent possibilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jose Altuve underwent a minor procedure on his right foot this afternoon, reports Brian McTaggart of MLB.com. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,41056,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-290614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-jose-altuve","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}