College football heated up last weekend and some interesting story lines are developing. We’ll explore them tomorrow in our Ten Piece Nuggets. But today we want to explore a story in MLB that heated up just as summer heated up.
It was June 9th actually when Yordan Rubin Alvarez got a call from Houston and the Astros promoted him to the big show. He made his major league debut that afternoon, at the tender age of 21, versus the Baltimore Orioles. He went 1-3 with a two-run home run in his debut. And, he hasn’t looked back.
Alvarez, despite missing the first eight days of the month, was named AL Rookie of the Month for June. He garnered the award again in July. And, why not, he was given the honor again in August. He’ll be named AL Rookie of the Year when all is said and done, but it seems like he still has much to say and do in 2019.
Statistical comparisons with such a small sample size (he’s been active for only 70 major league games) are fun. But often they don’t exactly play out in the future as the recent past would lead you to believe. Undeterred, we’ll do it anyway.
Alvarez went 4-6 last evening in an Astros 21-1 romp of the hapless Seattle Mariners. He drove in six runs. That gives him 70 rbi’s in 70 games! Ted Williams was only 20 years old in 1939 in his rookie year. He drove in 145 runs in 149 games. That’s the MLB rookie record standing tall for 80 years and counting. Only four other rookies have ever had over 100 rbi’s in their rookie season, Joe DiMaggio among them at 125.
The Astros only have 18 games left, so Alvarez very likely won’t get to the century mark. But, how many will he get in a total of 88 games?
His OBP is .409. His slugging percentage is .655. And, his OPS is 1.064. Williams put up .436, .609, and 1.045 respectively in his rookie year. DiMaggio’s BEST year was .448, .671, and 1.119. Baseball is a numbers game. These numbers put Alvarez, again after only 70 games, in some thin air.
Allow us for a moment to add Alvarez’s stats from Triple A in 56 games to the 70 major league games that he has played. So in 136 professional games this year he has hit 45 home runs, driven in 141 runs, and hit for a melded .323 average. His OPS would rise to 1.123.
We aren’t suggesting that Alvarez is the next Splendid Splinter nor the next Yankee Clipper. His start suggests that he could be the next Yordan Alvarez. And, that might be very good unto itself.
He defected from Cuba, then established residence in Haiti in 2016. He signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers as an international free agent in June 2016. In August 2016, Álvarez was traded from the Dodgers to the Astros for middle reliever Josh Fields. Cuba and the Dodgers loss is America and the Astros gain.
If you haven’t seen his strong, smooth, balanced, left side swing, you should. And, you will. Alvarez will be right in the middle of a stacked Astros lineup when October playoff baseball takes center stage. The ball just sounds different jumping off of his bat.
May the comparisons never end.