2021 Comeback Hitter
With the comeback players of the year announced recently, it is time to look at a hitter who has the potential for this award next year. In this article, I will be looking at Jose Altuve. I will be analyzing his past season numbers, age, and injury status to determine the likelihood of him having a comeback season.
I created this chart, using Plotly in R, looking at the three hitters who had seasons that were below their expectations. I chose to look at WAR (wins above replacement) because I wanted to use an advanced metric that takes into account a player’s value compared to other players on their team. You should always use more metrics to determine a player’s worth, but WAR is an all-inclusive reference point for comparing players.
There is no arguing that Jose Altuve has been great, even if the Astros may have known certain pitches were coming in years past. With a career WAR of over 35, he has proven his worth to the Astros through the years. Next year, Altuve will be going into his 31 year old season, he may be an older player, but he still has a lot left in the tank. Altuve had the lowest average of his career by nearly 60 points; he also had career lows in wRC+ and wOBA in 2020. About the only plus was Altuve had a positive defensive metric, meaning he still provided value to his team on that side of the ball. He also had his third highest UBR (ultimate base running) of his career; UBR measures the number of runs above or below average added by a players base running. So, what was the difference? Analyzing July 24th-September 26th of 2019 and 2020, his barrel % was down about 5% and his SLG on contact was down almost 300 points. Altuve was thrown the highest percentage of sliders for his career in 2020 and most of them were thrown low and away. In 2019, most of his sliders were thrown down and away, but he was also thrown many sliders in the lower-middle part of the zone and Altuve’s highest barrel percentage for the slider was in the same spot. This year, his highest barrel percentage was low-middle, but less sliders were thrown in that spot. Throwing more sliders low and away may lead you to think he had a higher ground ball %, however, Altuve had a normal percentage of ground balls compared to other years. Altuve did have the second lowest fly ball % of his career. To add more support to the fact that the increase in sliders could have had a negative effect on Altuve, look at this graph. It shows the percentages of sliders through his career along with wOBA.
Looking at his 2020 spray chart (which you can find/create here) you can see that when Altuve hits the ball on the ground he pulls the ball, but when he hits the ball in the air he spreads it out to all fields. Arguably his best year was in 2017 where he had a career high in balls hit to the opposite field. For Altuve to get back to his former self, I believe that he needs to go back to hitting balls to the opposite field and lower his chase rate. Altuve’s chase rate was the second highest of his career, the only year it was higher was his rookie season. Looking at Baseball Savant you can see that Altuve had a negative 10 runs created in the heart of the zone. 68% of Jose’s pitches were in and around the strike zone, this includes the heart, but he had a negative 16 runs created. This could tell us that he is guessing when going up to the plate. Over 50% of the time Altuve was thrown a breaking ball but with a high chase rate, pitchers didn’t need to throw these pitches in the zone to get outs. To add to this point, look at Altuves wOBA through the years compared to his O-Swing% (chase rate).
Also see Altuves wOBA to his Z-Contact% (contact made inside the zone)
If Altuve can start being more selective at the plate and trying to take the pitches he is swinging at to the opposite field, he will be back to form.
Baseball is a game of adjustments; season to season hitters need to change to offset what pitchers are throwing to them. With today’s technology and data available, Altuve should have all he needs to make these adjustments. In a regular year, maybe Jose makes the necessary changes and ends with a successful season, but the pitchers had the advantage in 2020. I am interested to see if Jose Altuve can make adjustments to have a comeback season to get to his former self.
Written by Hayden House