WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Back where he belongs, Jose Altuve squared his shoulders, stopped smiling for a split-second and fired a baseball toward Javier Bracamonte, the bullpen catcher cameoing as a first baseman. Altuve repeated the routine a few times. Bench coach Omar López, one of Altuve’s closest confidants, conversed with him between double-play turns.
So signaled the start of another Houston Astros season, even if the club’s first full-squad spring training workout is still two days away. Altuve is the face of this franchise and the fulcrum on which its entire aura rests. Something is reassuring about his mere presence, a gravitational pull that teammates and coaches can’t quantify but can discuss for days.
Altuve’s arrival every February uplifts the entire complex and can be considered the unofficial beginning of spring training. Twelve months ago, Altuve marked the occasion by making a position change. The most decorated second baseman in franchise history found a temporary home in the outfield, fighting the Florida sun for fly balls in left field. He learned each day and, according to coaches, had more fun than many of the springs that preceded it.
Nothing about the subsequent season followed suit. Altuve authored his worst offensive season since 2013. He swung outside the strike zone almost 40 percent of the time, struggled against breaking balls and sported a .265 batting average. One of the sport’s premier contact hitters, Altuve had never finished a 162-game season with anything lower than a .276 clip.
“I didn’t know what to expect when I showed up,” Altuve acknowledged Saturday. “It could be (a) really good or really bad day.”
Injuries across the roster interrupted the Astros’ plan to install Altuve as their everyday left fielder last season. He started 44 games there, 61 at second base and 49 more at designated hitter. Manager Joe Espada has already re-anointed Altuve as the everyday second baseman, though Altuve said Saturday he will play left field if “they think it is good for the team.”
Positional clarity offers a continuity that eluded Altuve last season, but it obscures a broader point. All of Altuve’s value to the Astros is tied to his bat, and unless he can author an offensive turnaround, his defensive position matters little.
“Normally, my seasons in the big leagues are more consistent,” Altuve said. “I feel like last year I had some times where I was really, really bad and some times where I was really, really good. There was a big separation between those two. It doesn’t feel good when it goes really bad. I’m looking for more stability, more consistency.”
Altuve is the definition of a streaky hitter, even during his most dominant seasons. It can be one of his most endearing traits, but only when the team is winning and the entire lineup is producing. Last year did not feature enough of either, magnifying Altuve’s malaise. Even so, he had a 24-game stretch in July in which he struck 13 extra-base hits with a .363/.429/.626 slash line.
Altuve hit .226 with a .689 OPS across the season’s final 50 games, a stretch that ended Houston’s eight-year streak of postseason appearances. A right foot injury hampered him for most of September, but minor offseason surgery corrected the problem, and Altuve is “100 percent healthy” entering spring training.
Jose Altuve had an .801 OPS in the first half of the 2025 season and a .726 OPS after the All-Star break. (Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
This winter, Altuve found a flaw in his batting stance that he will try to correct this spring. As a pitch is coming, Altuve always steps toward home plate with his front foot. At times last season, Altuve said he did it “way too much.”
“To the point where my back was almost facing the pitcher,” he said. “I want to be more facing toward the field, see the ball, control my bat some. Something that I couldn’t do last year.”
Such a closed stance prevented Altuve from seeing pitches and using the entire field. He pulled the baseball at a career-high 52.5 percent clip last season and went up the middle at a career-low 31.3 percent rate. Altuve has sometimes criticized his propensity to become too pull-happy and sell out for power, something that became evident last season at the height of his struggles.
“I love pulling, but I have to control that a little more,” Altuve said. “I have to face more toward the field, hit the ball toward the middle and not always try to hit a big hit. A single is good, and then you can steal a base.”
Altuve will turn 36 in May, prompting wonder about how many bases he should be trying to steal in the first place. The man has defied odds for his entire baseball life, but age affects us all.
Last season, Altuve appeared in 155 games and played 870 1/3 defensive innings. Earlier this month, Espada maintained, “My job is going (to be) to help Jose have the right amount of time to be off his feet.” Asked Saturday whether he would be amenable to such a setup, Altuve replied, “Not really.”
“He’s the manager, and at the end of the day, he writes the lineup. One thing I’m really proud (of) and I love (to do) is playing,” said Altuve, whose pursuit of 3,000 hits cannot be overstated during this discussion.
Altuve will enter this season with 2,388 career hits. Only nine primary second basemen in major-league history have more. With 129 hits this season, Altuve will pass three of them: Red Schoendienst, Joe Morgan and Jeff Kent.
“I think I played more than 155 games (last season), which is a big number for me,” Altuve said. “I think that’s my No. 1 goal — to stay on the field, to play, stay healthy. I want to do that this year again. There may be some days where (Espada) wants me to maybe not play, but I’ll be trying to play. I love playing. Trying to play more than 150 games, for me, every year is my first goal. It’s what I want to do.”
And it is what his team needs.