Jose Altuve's Little Changes Have Made a Big Difference

People who look like Jose Altuve just aren't supposed to hit like Jose Altuve. They're supposed to be wading tentatively into the shallow end of a swimming pool, hoping no one swamps them with a cannonball. The Houston Astros' young second baseman, however, is outhitting not only his taller teammates—and, as he's listed at a generous five-foot-six, that's all of them—but also pretty much everyone else in the league.

As measured by wRC+, a catchall offensive statistic that sets 100 as league average performance by default, Altuve's offensive explosion this year checks in 65 percent higher than the mean of his peers; he trails just a handful of other players, among them Mike Trout, in the category. When you factor in his increasingly impressive play on the basepath and in the field, Altuve's aggregate contributions to his team this year are rivaled only by Trout and Manny Machado. Not bad for a guy who can't get on a few rides at Magic Kingdom.

In a way, Altuve's success, in and of itself, is less interesting than how he has achieved it. Since his debut with the Astros in 2011, Altuve has made a name for himself as the kind of high-contact, low-power, bat-to-ball hitter that dominated baseball a century ago. Since Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in a season and changed the game, though, this type of star has been scarce; the most recent iteration is probably Ichiro Suzuki, who is a pretty sui generis talent himself. Still, it's not a bad approach on the whole: see ball, hit ball—on a line, if possible—remains a pretty failsafe idea.

For Altuve these past five years, it's worked: despite posting next-to-negligible power numbers every season save the most recent, Altuve led the league in hits in 2014 and 2015, and won a batting title in 2014. He carries a .306 career batting average into play against the Baltimore Orioles today. If Altuve kept moving down the path he was on before this year, he would still be well on his way to a fourth All-Star nod in six seasons. But he hasn't stayed on the same path. This year, he's gotten better. Much better.

The difference is power. Without it, Altuve was good. Not brilliant, really, except in the idiosyncratic way that all unusual things are attractive, and certainly not best-player-in-baseball good, but definitely good enough to clear the low bar for hey-that-guy's-pretty-damn-good-for-a-short-guy good. On a 2015 Astros squad that was both ascendant and filled with power hitters—five players topped 20 homers on the season—Altuve was the yin to the big boppers' yang. He played Gold Glove defense, got on base nearly 46 percent of the time, sold a few programs with his face on them, and was by all accounts an excellent teammate and a good baseball citizen, all while serving as a curious example of what happens when you drop a deadball-era hitter into a 21st-century game. It worked.

This year, instead of slapping singles around from short right-center to short left, Altuve just decided to hit the ever-loving shit out of baseballs. Through play on Monday evening, the young Venezuelan has slammed as many home runs (nine) as he hit in his first two seasons combined, and more, in fact, than he had hit through July 22nd of last year, when he finished the season with a career-high 15.

This power surge is not just about dingers, either: Altuve is on pace to set a career mark in doubles, and has somehow found a way to maintain the high batting average that made him stand out in the first place. Over just a shade more than 200 plate appearances in 2016, Altuve is hitting .319, walking more than twice as much as he did last year, and striking out only fractionally more often. He is, in almost every respect, a better and more complete hitter than he was before, and he was one of baseball's best hitters back then.

At the risk of belaboring the point, this doesn't really happen. Players hit like Altuve by being exceptionally good at putting the barrel of the bat on the ball, and they supplement that talent by sacrificing certain mechanics that might otherwise help the ball pop, like a steep bat path through the zone, which limits time to make contact with the ball, or a long stride, which lengthens a swing but hinders mid-swing adjustments. If you manage to increase your power significantly without diminishing your ability to put the bat on the ball, you're probably 2004-era Albert Pujols, honestly. And yet that seems to be exactly what Altuve has done this year.

The greater part of this is Altuve choosing to play to his strengths. While his quick first step remains as it did before, and is still optimized for mid-swing adjustments, he's added some strength to his frame and adjusted the angle at which his bat approaches the ball. The result has been more hard-hit balls, and significantly more line drives, than he produced last year. Most hitters don't have the skills to pull off that kind of transition without sacrificing power, but Altuve appears to have figured it out: his average launch angle this year so far is about 11 degrees, compared to nine last year. That's the difference between a ground ball and a line drive, broadly speaking, and it's happening for Altuve with no meaningful drop in contact ability. The American League is officially on notice.

And they have noticed. "To hit for power, most hitters have to generate maximum torque, which usually comes from hips opening early or through aggressive rotation," one scout for a rival team told VICE Sports. "Some hitters can backspin the ball without exaggerating the plane, but most can't. Altuve can generate power without selling out completely because his hands and wrists are so quick and strong." Quick, strong wrists that, however undersized, are attached to a player who is now among the best hitters in the game of baseball.

Not all of us can move past the limitations that bind us without losing something important in the bargain. Fewer still can see in those limitations the potential for extraordinary achievement, a new way of playing the hand we have been dealt. Jose Altuve appears to have found a way to do both this year. That's no little thing. That's big.