2024 Houston Astros Starters: DH/LF Yordan Alvarez

Good afternoon, y'all. Sorry for the delay; life has gotten busier for me recently but I finally had some time to do some research and fortunately, today's player really doesn't require much of that to come to the final conclusion of him being an absolute stud. Still though, it's always nice to see the numbers to really appreciate an elite player's talent. So enough of that, let's dive right into it and grovel over Yordan Alvarez.

DISCLAIMER: this isn't meant to be a deep-dive but more a snorkeling-dive, to get the conversation going on how we feel about the position/player and what we expect out of them. Please feel free to comment on formatting, stats presented, etc.

2023 Stats

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Stat	Value	Ranking Among DH*
Games Played	114	22
Plate Appearances	496	15
AVG	.293	3-tied
HR	31	7
RBI	97	4
R	77	9-tied
OBP	.407	2
SLG	.583	3
OPS	.990	3
OPS+	170	3
wRC+	170	3
K%	18.5	8
BB%	13.9	8
BABIP	.306	14
fWAR	4.5	4
bWAR	4.6	NA

*Rankings based on DH w/ at least 400 PA (30 total) in 2023. Placement may be off by a spot or 2 due to different positions being played by qualified players last year but you get the idea.

Baseball Savant Page

Surprising Stat: Yordan's OPS trends up the more times he faces a pitcher. In itself, that is not surprising at all but he is only the 2nd Astro in this series to follow that trend (Diaz is the other).

Interesting Stat: The only part of this post I had to put some effort into b/c all the stats lead to "YoRdOnG gO BrRr"; Yordan is human against pitches high and inside. However, if a pitcher misses that small target, even by throwing further inside, Yordan will mash that s**t.

What To Look Forward To

Legitimately what can I say that hasn't been said about Yordan? The #8 player in MLB's top 100, arguably the scariest hitter in the game. Opposing fans will either boo their lungs out or not even let out a peep in the hopes the bad man will leave them alone (he won't). Old-school and new-school can agree that Yordan is a special player. And while is he below-average on the field, it's not like he's a liability with his defense and he's even got a decent arm on him. And with Ohtani in the NL now, Yordan is a serious favorite to win AL MVP.

What To Be Concerned About

Can Yordan stay healthy? This is really the only possible knock against him. We can throw away 2019 (called up midway through the season) and 2020 (that year is nonexistent to all humans at this point). 144 games in 2021, 135 in 2022, and 114 in 2023. I think we'd all like to see that downward trend end this year. At least it hasn't been a same lingering injury throughout the years. So there is reason to be optimistic this has just been bad luck.

My Conclusion/Prediction

Call me crazy, but I feel really good about Yordan this year. I think he'll play more than 140 games, hit over 40 HRs, with 120+ RBIs and 100+ runs. An All-star and top-3 finish in MVP voting. I wish I could say something more interesting but this was such a straightforward write-up.

But what do y'all think? Think he'll break Astros records this year? Maybe even top 50 HRs? Triple Crown threat? Further destroy Mariners fans hopes and dreams? Thank y'all for reading and have a nice day.

Next post: OF Chas McCormick