ARLINGTON, Texas — Baseball’s best hitter is sometimes miscast, be it because his home runs are mammoth or his prodigious power is propelling the Houston Astros back into relevance. No player in this franchise’s 65-season history has required fewer games to hit 20 home runs, but those who first scouted Yordan Alvarez saw something more than the masher many presume he is.
“You can get guys that have bat speed, you can get guys that have big raw power,” Charlie Gonzalez once said. “And they’re speeding the game up and going 100 mph in the box. They don’t have that thing that holds it all together. And the good ones do.”
Gonzalez, now the Astros’ senior scouting adviser, discovered Alvarez more than a decade ago. He wrote him up for Oz Ocampo, Houston’s former international scouting director who has long described Alvarez as a “hit over power guy.” Alvarez’s plate discipline doesn’t get enough attention. Nor does his pitch recognition. The swing-and-miss that plagues other sluggers doesn’t affect Alvarez, who whiffs just 19.7 percent of the time, well below the league average of 25 percent.
“He’s a contact hitter with the most power in the league,” Astros starter Mike Burrows said. “He can get to every ball. There’s no cold zone.”
None of baseball’s 168 qualified hitters have a higher slugging percentage than Alvarez’s .663 mark. Twenty-one others are slugging at least .500, but none of them have a higher batting average than the .312 clip Alvarez has amassed across his first 202 at-bats.
Alvarez is one of seven men in the sport with an on-base percentage of at least .400. The six others have an OPS lower than .975. Alvarez’s is 1.085.
“He’s not running into baseballs. He’s just that good at covering both sides of the plate in any speed range,” Astros right-hander Spencer Arrighetti said. “We’ve seen it. It doesn’t matter if you throw 100. It doesn’t matter if you throw 90. It doesn’t matter if you throw the best sweeper, best curveball in baseball, he’s going to f—ing hit it.”
Arrighetti is convinced Alvarez “is the purest power hitter that’s ever been, other than Barry Bonds.” As a result, some in the Astros’ dugout have begun to call him “Barry.” After a walk began the ninth inning Wednesday night and guaranteed Alvarez another at-bat, Arrighetti shook his head toward the Texas Rangers reliever who issued it.
“Congrats man,” Arrighetti said aloud, “you have to face Barry now.”
Being mentioned in the same breath as Bonds is baseball nirvana, a state in which Alvarez seems to always reside. He is authoring the sort of season that will reignite debate about a designated hitter’s place on Most Valuable Player ballots. Bonds won the award seven times as an outfielder.
Alvarez has thrice been voted within the top 13. He finished third for the award in 2022, the season he slugged .613 and struck a career-high 37 home runs. Both of those benchmarks should be shattered this season, barring the nagging injuries that have plagued his otherwise prolific career.
“He’s not just a power hitter,” shortstop Jeremy Peña said. “This dude is a complete hitter and, when he’s healthy, he’s one of the best hitters in the league. His ability to just square up everything and hit it 110 (mph) on a consistent basis is impressive to watch.
“It definitely does not go unnoticed here in our clubhouse, but I feel like in the league, he is very underrated. He does not get the credit he deserves.”
On Wednesday, in Houston’s 57th game, Alvarez became the fastest player in Astros history to hit 20 home runs in a season. His first home run tied the score. The second broke the tie. Both traveled at least 428 feet and banged off the batter’s eye at Globe Life Field, where Alvarez has hit 17 home runs in his career. No visiting player has hit more in the venue.
“There is a level of intelligence and calm through his at-bats that I have never, ever seen in my career,” said manager Joe Espada, who came to Houston nine years ago from the New York Yankees, where he worked on teams that featured Alex Rodriguez and Aaron Judge.
Yordan Alvarez’s home runs on Wednesday traveled 428 and 448 feet. (Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)
Alvarez has already missed one game due to back spasms, but presuming he appears in all that remain, he is on pace to hit 58 home runs. No Astro has ever finished a season with more than 47.
After winning American League Player of the Month in April, Alvarez fell into a rare funk to begin May. He had just five extra-base hits and struck out 24 times across his first 86 plate appearances. “Tiredness comes into play and that reflects when I take my at-bats at home plate,” Alvarez said Wednesday through an interpreter. “That’s what happened.”
Perhaps, then, the back spasms that befell him on May 23 were a blessing. Alvarez had played each of the team’s preceding 52 games. Espada gave Alvarez the entire game off on May 24. He has hit five home runs since. After the final one, Arrighetti approached Alvarez in the dugout.
“Dude, respectfully,” he told him, “if you ever play for another team, I’m not pitching to you.”
Such a possibility seems silly but has still been bandied about in early trade-deadline discussions. Trading Alvarez, who has two more seasons of team control remaining, would yield Houston the sort of prospect haul required to restart its competitive life cycle. It would also signal the close of this one, something Jim Crane has claimed will never happen while he owns the team.
“While I’m here,” Crane has said, “the window will always be open.” Whether the 72-year-old logistics magnate really views that as feasible is a fascinating question.
That his general manager, Dana Brown, is working in the final year of his contract lessens the already slim likelihood of Houston dealing Alvarez. Why would an executive seeking another contract — one who has said he wants to “retire here” — make a decision that runs counter to Crane’s longstanding claims of sustainability?
If Houston enters a precipitous free fall, or if Brown isn’t in charge at the trade deadline, perhaps the tenor of this conversation could change. Even then, it would feel far-fetched.
Despite Wednesday’s Alvarez-aided victory, Houston remains seven games below .500. FanGraphs gives the Astros just 16.5 percent odds to reach the postseason, but they are still within three games of first place in an American League West they’ve long dominated.
Alvarez is an integral reason why — and an irreplaceable piece if they hope to continue.