Does Alvarez have an even higher gear? 'He wants more'

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – When Yordan Alvarez, one of the premier hitters in baseball, says his best baseball is yet to come and there’s another level he still hasn’t reached, that’s enough to get anyone’s attention.

“When the big boy says that, you get excited,” Astros manager Joe Espada said.

Alvarez is coming off his fourth consecutive 30-plus-homer season, one in which he slashed .308/.392/.567 with 35 homers and 86 RBIs. He earned his third consecutive American League All-Star nod and was named the team’s Most Valuable Player. Alvarez was ranked eighth on MLB Network's Top 100 Players Right Now list, so how can he possibly get better?

“The numbers are there right now still, but it’s still something I think about throughout the season,” Alvarez said. “There’s injuries, there’s cold spells, there’s inconsistencies that might happen. Knowing myself as a ballplayer, and people that know me as a ballplayer, still know I have more in me.”

That includes Astros hitting coach Alex Cintrón, who said the 27-year-old Alvarez is more focused this year on making sure the lower half of his body – his hips and backside – is on time as he loads his swing, which should help him be better in sync with his hands.

“I just feel like he’s a 40-, 50-homer guy,” Cintrón said. “I think with him talking about it, he’s a guy who has to be every year an MVP candidate because of how talented he is. He has a great approach, he’s smart, he’s powerful. When he’s hot, he’s one of the best hitters in the game. He can carry a team by himself.”

Alvarez’s quality of contact metrics suggest he was even better than his actual numbers show – his .595 expected slugging percentage was nearly 30 points higher than the actual figure and ranked in the 99th percentile of qualified hitters. Still, Alvarez has never had a 40-homer season and has reached 100 RBIs once.

“He wants more,” Espada said. “He can drive the ball more. He said at times there’s [only] singles, doubles, not really slugging the way he’s capable of. So he identified some areas in his swing and with his mechanics that he can maintain his swing through the whole entire season.”

Perhaps the biggest factor in being able to put up career-best numbers for Alvarez this year will be health, which is why the Astros want to make him a full-time DH – or close to it – and limit his exposure to left field. As a result, Jose Altuve is working out in left field this spring.

Espada said the 53 games Alvarez started in left field last year were “way too many.” Alvarez underwent arthroscopic surgery on both knees in August 2020 after enduring knee problems the first two years of his career, and last year he suffered a right knee sprain when sliding into second base late in the season.

“We need this guy in the lineup,” Espada said. “If you ask him, he’s going to say all the right things -- ‘Joe, I’ll go out there if you need me’ -- but I need him to stay healthy, so the 50-plus starts I gave him last year [in left], I’m really going to try hard to stay away from him. For him to go out there, things are going to have to be awful for us to be running him out there that many games.”

Alvarez batted primarily second (54 times) and third (93 times) last year and will be in the top third of the batting order again this year. He’ll either hit second behind leadoff hitter Altuve or behind Altuve and newcomer Isaac Paredes in the three-hole. Alvarez just wants some consistency on where he hits this year.

“Obviously, I’ll bat wherever the team wants me,” Alvarez said. “It’s one of those things for me, it’s a superstitious thing, too. If I’m going to bat second, I want to know I’m going to be second consistently, or if I’m batting third. It’s just something I want to feel good going to the field.”

Espada isn’t going to argue about getting Alvarez as many at-bats as possible. Especially if his best is yet to come.

“If he gets 20, 30 [more] at-bats in the second spot compared to that third spot, I want those 20, 30 extra at-bats to go to Yordan instead of anyone else,” he said.