“Jose Altuve can be an Astro for all times,” learn the membership’s announcement on Tuesday afternoon. Beneath totally different circumstances, that may very well be construed as a menace. However Altuve can 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 must 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 as if pretty much 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. Dropping 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 pink 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 dwelling 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 strategy 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 form of participant whose contract doesn’t lend itself to simple critique. The Astros aren’t bidding for his companies in opposition to different golf equipment, as a result of he’s value extra to them — and vice-versa — than another group within the league.
Houston goes to retire Altuve’s quantity. Primarily based on numbers and accolades, Altuve is on observe to make the Corridor of Fame. It stays to be seen if the BBWAA voters hold him out for his position within the sign-stealing scandal, and in that case, whether or not that public outrage subsides in time to get him in by means of a subsequent choose committee. Early returns on Carlos Beltrán counsel that Altuve pays some value, however with one other decade to course of these occasions, and Beltrán to take in many of the opprobrium as the primary man excessive, perhaps 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 anyplace near executed 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 dwelling 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 larger 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 pretty much as good as ever: .311/.393/.522, for a 154 wRC+ and 4.0 WAR. Greater than that, Altuve has developed after his horrendous 2020 marketing campaign, buying and selling a little bit of that preternatural contact means for extra thump as he heads into his mid-30s.
All of which is to say that he’s nonetheless an excellent participant, and will stay so for a short while. However the observe report for handing out $25 million-a-year extensions that begin in a participant’s age-35 season — insofar as such a observe report exists — shouldn’t be good.
I’ve delayed stepping into the small print of Altuve’s contract, and the way he figures to carry out on this remaining 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 necessary 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 remaining two seasons of the deal.
The deal being frontloaded doesn’t matter by way of the aggressive stability tax, however it does communicate to the probability 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 difficulty.
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 typically been fairly sturdy, and the late begin to 2023 was a one-off influence harm, 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 can be a foundational piece of the bid for an eighth consecutive journey to the ALCS. If he’s wholesome, he’ll virtually definitely stay integral to Houston’s lineup in 2025 and doubtless 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 might be the Thirty first-highest contract AAV in baseball. As soon as Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger, and Jordan Montgomery signal, it would get knocked down a pair extra rungs. By 2029, there’ll be a brand new CBA in power, and in all probability the aggressive stability tax threshold will go up as soon as extra.
Protecting Altuve within the lineup within the brief time period clearly helps the Astros within the brief 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 potential of Altuve ending his profession with a type of awkward Ichiro-on-the-Yankees experiences. It’s not ruthlessly environment friendly, however it’s proper.