“Jose Altuve will likely be an Astro for all times,” learn the membership’s announcement on Tuesday afternoon. Underneath completely different circumstances, that may very well be construed as a menace. However Altuve will likely be well-remunerated for the rest of his time in Houston: His new contract extension will run for 5 years, beginning in 2025, and pay him a assured $125 million.
That is the third long-term contract Altuve has signed with the Astros, the membership that signed him as a 16-year-old out of Venezuela all the way in which again in 2007. By the point it’s over, he could have spent some 23 seasons within the group, 19 of them within the main leagues. The phrasing of the announcement is a bit more concrete than any prediction about 2029 should be. It’s potential that Altuve will proceed taking part in as soon as his deal expires. However when it does, he’ll be seven months in need of his fortieth birthday. That looks like nearly as good a time as any to plan on wrapping issues up.
A month in the past, I famous with astonishment that 2024 was a contract yr for each Altuve and Alex Bregman. Shedding each can be a jarring shift in identification for the Astros — Altuve specifically. He’s been with the membership so lengthy he was an on a regular basis participant again when the Astros wore brick crimson and pinstripes and performed within the Nationwide League.
Altuve is already third in franchise historical past in WAR, pitchers and place gamers included. He’s fifth in residence runs, third in runs, third in stolen bases, third in hits, and fourth in video games performed. For all of the classes through which he ranks third, he trails, in some order, Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio. He’s within the technique of leapfrogging the likes of Lance Berkman, Jimmy Wynn, Roy Oswalt, and Jose Cruz within the others.
All of that is to say that Altuve is the type of participant whose contract doesn’t lend itself to simple critique. The Astros aren’t bidding for his providers towards different golf equipment, as a result of he’s value extra to them — and vice-versa — than another workforce within the league.
Houston goes to retire Altuve’s quantity. Primarily based on numbers and accolades, Altuve is on monitor to make the Corridor of Fame. It stays to be seen if the BBWAA voters maintain him out for his function within the sign-stealing scandal, and in that case, whether or not that public outrage subsides in time to get him in by way of a subsequent choose committee. Early returns on Carlos Beltrán recommend that Altuve pays some value, however with one other decade to course of these occasions, and Beltrán to absorb a lot of the opprobrium as the primary man excessive, possibly it received’t be sufficient to maintain him out.
Altuve crossed the two,000-hit threshold final season, and it doesn’t seem to be he’s wherever near achieved compiling. In 2020, amid the shortened season, the pandemic, and the height of public criticism after the banging scheme was revealed, Altuve hit simply .219/.286/.344 in 48 video games, and suffered a bout of defensive yips within the playoffs. However he’s since rebounded.
He hit 31 residence runs and was value 5.3 WAR in 2021, regardless of posting solely a 128 wRC+, which pails compared to his offensive manufacturing over the following two seasons. In 2022, he hit .300/.387/.533, a 164 wRC+, which was a hair greater than his MVP marketing campaign of 2017. Final yr, he broke his thumb on the World Baseball Traditional, then went again on the IL in July with a strained indirect. These accidents restricted him to 90 video games, however in these 90 video games Altuve was nearly as good as ever: .311/.393/.522, for a 154 wRC+ and 4.0 WAR. Greater than that, Altuve has advanced after his horrendous 2020 marketing campaign, buying and selling a little bit of that preternatural contact capability for extra thump as he heads into his mid-30s.
All of which is to say that he’s nonetheless an awesome participant, and will stay so for a short time. However the monitor report for handing out $25 million-a-year extensions that begin in a participant’s age-35 season — insofar as such a monitor report exists — is just not good.
I’ve delayed entering into the main points of Altuve’s contract, and the way he figures to carry out on this ultimate Astros deal, as a result of that is the uncommon long-term contract that isn’t actually about efficiency. It’s a victory lap for some of the essential gamers in franchise historical past, a uncommon little bit of sentimentality from some of the ruthlessly unsentimental organizations within the sport.
Altuve’s contract breaks down as follows: A $15 million signing bonus, adopted by a $30 million annual wage from 2025 to 2027, and a $10 million annual wage within the ultimate two seasons of the deal.
The deal being frontloaded doesn’t matter by way of the aggressive steadiness tax, nevertheless it does communicate to the chance that Altuve will most likely begin to decline fairly severely by the point 2029 rolls round. Don’t take my phrase for it: Right here’s what ZiPS has to say on the problem.
ZiPS Projection – Jose Altuve
| Yr | BA | OBP | SLG | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | OPS+ | DR | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | .277 | .352 | .467 | 469 | 86 | 130 | 27 | 1 | 20 | 67 | 50 | 82 | 10 | 126 | -3 | 3.4 |
| 2025 | .268 | .343 | .442 | 441 | 78 | 118 | 24 | 1 | 17 | 59 | 47 | 79 | 8 | 117 | -3 | 2.6 |
| 2026 | .264 | .339 | .428 | 402 | 68 | 106 | 22 | 1 | 14 | 50 | 42 | 75 | 6 | 112 | -4 | 1.9 |
| 2027 | .256 | .330 | .406 | 360 | 58 | 92 | 19 | 1 | 11 | 42 | 37 | 70 | 5 | 104 | -5 | 1.2 |
| 2028 | .244 | .320 | .375 | 299 | 46 | 73 | 15 | 0 | 8 | 33 | 31 | 61 | 4 | 93 | -5 | 0.5 |
| 2029 | .237 | .311 | .355 | 211 | 31 | 50 | 10 | 0 | 5 | 21 | 21 | 45 | 2 | 86 | -4 | 0.1 |
If Altuve stays wholesome, the outlook is extra optimistic. However whereas he has usually been fairly sturdy, and the late begin to 2023 was a one-off influence damage, we’d count on these nagging aches and pains to begin to add up over the following six seasons.
However the Astros aren’t actually involved with the following six seasons, and nor ought to they be. They’re on an unprecedented run of seven straight ALCS appearances, which incorporates 4 pennants and two World Sequence. Altuve will likely be a foundational piece of the bid for an eighth consecutive journey to the ALCS. If he’s wholesome, he’ll nearly definitely stay integral to Houston’s lineup in 2025 and possibly 2026 as effectively.
After that? Truthfully, who cares? Significantly when you think about that Altuve’s first long-term contract with the Astros, which ran from 2014 to 2017 and influenced the primary two seasons of the seven-year contract that’s about to run out, was one of many largest underpays of its period. When Altuve was AL MVP in 2017, he made simply $4.5 million. Within the ensuing two seasons put collectively, he made $12.5 million. The Astros owe him.
And even now, $25 million a yr isn’t what it was once. In 2024, that may be the Thirty first-highest contract AAV in baseball. As soon as Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger, and Jordan Montgomery signal, it’d get knocked down a pair extra rungs. By 2029, there’ll be a brand new CBA in pressure, and in all chance the aggressive steadiness tax threshold will go up as soon as extra.
Protecting Altuve within the lineup within the quick time period clearly helps the Astros within the quick time period. In the long run, this extension ends the uncertainty surrounding the way forward for a franchise legend, signifies a constructive and aggressive trajectory for the ballclub, and all however eliminates the opportunity of Altuve ending his profession with a kind of awkward Ichiro-on-the-Yankees experiences. It’s not ruthlessly environment friendly, nevertheless it’s proper.