The Most Bizarre Jose Altuve Stat
Jose Altuve has 18 steals in 19 attempts this season. No, that’s not the bizarre stat. That’s just an impressive stat. Jose Altuve is an excellent base-stealer! Among the 71 players with at least five steal attempts this year, Altuve’s success rate ranks third. Since he began receiving regular playing time in 2012, no one’s stolen more bases. He’s fast, he steals plenty of bases, and he steals them well. Which is what makes the bizarre stat so bizarre, and here it comes: despite being fast, stealing plenty of bases, and stealing those bases well, Jose Altuve has been a terribly costly base-runner.
It’s easy to assume that good base-stealers are also good base-runners. The best base-stealers, typically, are the fastest guys on the field, and the best base-runners, typically, are those same fastest guys on the field. But if you think about it, aside from simply being fast (which isn’t necessarily a requirement for proficiency in either skill), base-stealing and base-running really aren’t as similar as they might appear. Base-stealing is more about pattern recognition, acceleration, and timing. Base-running has more to do with risk/reward decision-making, fluidity, and instincts. A base-stealer runs in a straight line with a defined endpoint. A base-runner runs in angles. Speed and athleticism is all that really ties these skills together.
Altuve has the speed and athleticism. That’s for sure. But when it comes to his base-running company, he’s the only one:
| Name | Spd | UBR |
| Victor Martinez | 0.8 | -8.1 |
| Billy Butler | 1.5 | -7.9 |
| Miguel Cabrera | 1.9 | -7.0 |
| Nelson Cruz | 2.1 | -6.6 |
| Jose Altuve | 6.0 | -6.6 |
| David Ortiz | 1.3 | -6.4 |
| Prince Fielder | 1.0 | -6.4 |
| Kendrys Morales | 1.7 | -5.9 |
| Albert Pujols | 2.5 | -5.8 |
| Adam Lind | 1.4 | -5.3 |
UBR: Ultimate Base Running, FanGraphs’ isolated base-running statistic (steals excluded)
Look at that list of names. Look at it! It’s literally a list of nine old dudes whom way too many baseball fans believe they could beat in a footrace, and then Jose Altuve, one of the best base-stealers in the world.
Another way to look at this:
Negative seven runs over the last two years! Seven! Altuve’s (non base-stealing) base-running since 2015 has cost the Astros more than half a win. In fact, the negative value Altuve’s accrued from his base-running woes has actually outweighed the value of all those steals — his total BsR since the start of last year is -4.0.
I just had to reach out to Mitchel Lichtman, UBR proprietor, to ensure I wasn’t seeing things. Lichtman provided me a spreadsheet with the full outputs of the UBR calculations the last two years and assured me that, yes, this is indeed accurate. Jose Altuve really has been one of the five most detrimental base-runners in baseball since the start of last year, even moreso than David Ortiz.
So what gives?
We can start with the publicly available data. Baseball-Reference has some individual base-running numbers in their batting-splits leaders. And those numbers show us that Altuve’s taken the extra base in just over 40% of his extra-base opportunities since the beginning of 2015. That’s not terrible — right around league-average — but it’s sub-par for someone with Altuve’s speed. Someone like Elvis Andrus, who’s consistently among the best base-runners in the game, has taken the extra base in close to 70% of his opportunities.
The bigger issue is seen both in the publicly available numbers and in our UBR spreadsheet. The bigger issue is the outs made on the basepaths. Altuve’s made 23 outs on the bases since the start of last year, five more than anyone else. He’s made nearly as many outs on the bases (23) as he’s taken extra bases (28). Compare that to Josh Donaldson, a plus base-runner who’s been on base roughly as many times as Altuve the last couple years. Donaldson’s made just four outs on the bases while taking 43 extra bags. That’s 15 extra bases and 19 fewer outs for Donaldson, a massive gap which helps give some context to how his base-running (+3.9 UBR) could be worth a full win more than Altuve’s (-6.6).
Our UBR spreadsheet demonstrates just how costly the outs into which Altuve’s ran have been:
Negative value of outs on the bases, 2015-16
- Jose Altuve, -3.7
- Erick Aybar, -2.2
- Jonathan Villar, -1.6
- Shawn O’Malley, -1.6
- Bryce Harper, -1.6
You’ve got to add the second- and third-most costly figures in all of baseball just to reach Altuve’s. The difference between Altuve and second place is the same as the difference between second place and 39th place.
So how has this manifested itself? Is there a pattern to Altuve’s TOOTBLANs? Yeah, actually, there sort of is.
Of course, there’s still been the “what-can-you-do, he made a really good throw”:
And the “third base coach did me dirty”:
And the “literal statistical noise, in video form”:
But here’s where I think the pattern is. Remember that kid on your little league team who, every time he got a hit, only stopped running when he either (a) was tagged out or (b) scored? Altuve is kind of like the grown-up version of that kid. Of his 23 outs on the bases since last year, six came on balls in play that he hit.
He ran into one when Erick Aybar let this ground ball skip past him:
He ran into another two innings later when he incorrectly assumed Mike Trout wouldn’t hit the cut-off man (to be fair, this did at least buy enough time for another run to score):
Ian Desmond caught him trying to stretch a relatively routine single into a double:
Another instance of greed (and indecision) after a ball skips past a shortstop:
I don’t know what the hell this is:
It’s almost like when Altuve hits a ball, he’s just looking for something, anything to afford him an opportunity to squeeze an extra base out of it (which, for a player with his speed, isn’t the worst idea), and the moment something in the play goes awry, he just can’t help himself from turning on the aggression. Problem is, that instinctual risk/reward decision-making we talked about earlier has been broken.
Solely in terms of making outs on the bases, Erick Aybar has been the second-most costly base-runner over the last two years. But if you navigate to Aybar’s player page, you’ll see that his UBR, unlike Altuve’s, has actually been positive. How so? Well, because he’s made up for it with the value of taking extra bases on hits (+2.5 runs to Altuve’s -2.9) and tagging up on fly balls (+1.2 runs to Altuve’s -1.0). In other words, Aybar’s aggression has ran him into his fair share of outs, but his aggression has also paid off, and the value of those successes has outweighed the negatives. Altuve’s aggression has led to more outs than anyone, and it hasn’t resulted in enough successes.
It’s sort of hard to fathom. There’s probably some happenstance working against Altuve here; he was never this bad before 2015, though his base-running has never really been an asset. But maybe Altuve is just the bizarro-Ian Kinsler — a guy who’s remained one of the best base-runners in the game despite losing most of his base-stealing acumen years ago. For someone with Altuve’s speed, you want aggression. You want that single stretched into a double. For someone with Altuve’s history, though, maybe you just want him to pump the brakes.
August used to cover the Indians for MLB and ohio.com, but now he's here and thinks writing these in the third person is weird. So you can reach me on Twitter @AugustFG_ or e-mail at august.fagerstrom@fangraphs.com.
Thank you for putting to words what many Stros fans have known for a while.
What makes him great a collecting hits in bunches also makes him horrible at things like running up pitch counts, being a good baserunner, etc.
He’s a caveman. See the ball hit the ball. Usually the first pitch. And often he decides he’s going to swing before the pitch is thrown.
Need a SB? He’s going on the first pitch and half the time he is guessing and going on first movement.
Everything he does is a reflex. A blessing and a curse.
I’m having a hard time following along.
He’s horrible at running up pitch counts? He averages 3.66 P/PA, which is right in line with Cabrera/Machado/Cano/Mookie. He’s not elite in the category, but he’s hardly horrible at it in the general sense.
He’s a caveman? He has more BB’s than K’s this year (31/27), which is remarkable in the modern game with K’s rising. Certainly not the attribute of a guy who decides he’s going to swing before a pitch is thrown regardless of type or location. Over the past three seasons he has never struck out more than 67 times. While he hasn’t walked at the rate he has this year, he’s certainly shown an ability to take a walk this year.
Half the time he’s guessing and going on first movement? Over the past three seasons he has stolen 83% of bases he has attempted. Not elite, but certainly very good; when you break it down by halves, he is even more remarkable in the first half – it seems Altuve’s legs break down a bit in the second half of the season. This year he has stolen 18 bases and been caught once – hardly the numbers of a guy who is just guessing. Also, I fail to understand why going on first pitch is a detriment? In fact, going on first pitch is a very good thing. It is much better for the batter if he goes on first pitch, and it maximizes the potential for runs without putting the batter in a significant hole at the plate.
While Altuve may not be the best base runner once he is on the bases – I tend to believe the past two years is more statistical noise than actual truth and that he is around average as a base runner – he effects the game with his base running more than most players in the game. I know stolen bases are not as well received in the metric community, and the concept of disrupting a pitcher can’t be calculated so it isn’t something discussed here, but Altuve certainly does that.
You seem down on Altuve, but all your points, with the exception of him not being a great base runnner, just don’t seem true. He clearly doesn’t decide he’s going to swing no matter what – if he did, he’d strike out more. He clearly doesn’t swing at the first pitch every time, if he did he wouldn’t be averaging 3.66 P/PA along the lines with some of the games other elite players. He clearly does not just guess when stealing bases, if he did his success rate wouldn’t be as high as it is.
Overall, it feels like you are presenting a case that he has a lot of flaws when frankly he doesn’t have very many at all.
I love Altuve, so my comments may have been misconstrued. I think he has HOF-level contact skills and leverages that up even more by being aggressive and jumping on the first good pitch he sees. He going to shatter all of Biggio’s Astros records.
I also think he’s an awful baserunner
Like you said, a blessing and a curse. You learn to live with the curse because of everything else a guys does. Like Russell Westbrook’s turnovers being part of his hyperspeed game, for instance.
Just neighing.
Fair enough. I won’t call a guy with his base stealing abilities an awful baserunner in general, but I could understand arguing his instincts outside of base stealing may be too aggressive. I can not call a guy who has the impact he does on the bases an awful baserunner though.
Altering a pitchers rhythm, time to the plate, causing a slide step, and giving a pitcher another objective may not be something we can put a number on today but I have seen it effect a baseball game far too many times in my life to think it does not matter and is not worth something. Altuve is a disruptive force on first base and second base regardless of whether he steals the base or not. The threat he presents causes a pitcher to think about more than throwing the ball where he wants to. What he does once the ball is put in play can be debated, base running wise, but I don’t think it’s possible to be awful with how much he effects the game on the bases. I know this might not be a popular opinion here, but I know I loved hitting with a really good base stealer on the bases. Saw more fastballs, and never felt like the pitcher had my full attention.
Altuve is bad at decisions on the bases, but the Astros in general have seem to have gone crazy aggressive lately (though could just be confirmation bias seeing Altuve everyday). The third base coach, brought on in 2015, seems to dare outfielders and cut off guys into making accurate throws.
Jose Altufve, the KING of TOOTBLAN.
…also the Bizarro Ian Kinsler
I wonder if the base running data in isolation isn’t slightly biased.
If Altuve stretches a single to a double, that adds to his hitting and ISO, if he’s caught (happened 6 times per the article), that’s a single and a TOOTBLAN.
In that particular case, he hit himself on and stretched for extras, it’s only credited to baserunning when it doesn’t work.
Fantastic point. Too bad there’s not a clear way to tag the number of extra bases “stretched” successfully on hits. Probably the only thing that can be done is to separate out UBR on the player’s own hits from the total UBR.
This isn’t actually the case if I understand correctly. The UBR engine uses hit type, location and hardness of the hit to determine how often, on average, that hit type results in a single, double, etc., and credits/debits the player whether they advanced or not.
So for instance in the play where Desmond threw out Altuve, I think that batted ball pretty rarely turns into a double, so if Altuve would’ve been successful, he would’ve received the appropriate base-running credit for it.
From MGL’s comments on UBR:
“All of these situations are considered an “opportunity” for the base runner or the batter (except when a batter gets a hit, he is not awarded an opportunity unless a leading runner tries to advance an extra base and the batter has an opportunity to advance on the throw).”
Based on the part in parentheses, it looks like MGL’s excluding batter baserunning unless it’s taking an extra base in situations that wouldn’t change the definition of the hit type, or a batter getting thrown out trying for extra bases. This makes sense if we’re using UBR as part of WAR, because otherwise we’d be double-counting the impact of a guy stretching a single into a double (once in the batting runs calculation, then again as part of UBR).
So you’re right about the mechanics of the UBR engine, but successfully stretching a hit for extra bases is indeed excluded.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/ultimate-base-running-primer/
I stand corrected! OP’s comment remains thought-provoking.
Great point, and when you accumulate more hits there are more opportunities for you to stretch a hit into extra bases leading to more opportunities in which it doesn’t work.
I don’t get why he stops when he is in a rundown. If anyone can get out its him with his speed
It’s his risk-reward decision-making part of his brain finally reaching his limbs. He is suddenly in the “I should not have done that” mode.
I thought when a batter took an extra base on a hit, the added value was reflected in the hit, e.g., a double has more value than a single. This article seems to imply that stretching a hit in that way adds baserunning value. Surely one can’t get value in both ways?
I understand that if a batter is thrown out trying to stretch a single to a double, he loses baserunning value, but I thought the only way he can add value to his UBR is by taking an extra base on someone else’s hit. Thus a little value is obtained scoring from second on a single, a little more scoring from first on a double or going from first to third on a single.
Also worth noting that Altuve is also negative in wGDP, a recent FG metric that measures how often a player grounds into a double play. To be fair, this is not just a a matter of speed. Altuve has a relatively low K rate and a high GB rate, which means he hits more ground balls in DP situations than most other players. But the result is further to reduce his total BsR value.
Note that Mike Trout is currently the only player in MLB that has positive value of > 1 run in all three of the metrics that go into BsR–wGDP, UBR, and wSB–which goes a long way to explaining why he’s third in BsR, though well down the list in SB. Beyond his hitting and defense, he combines speed and good baserunning instincts withl lots of FB, and (though less this year than in most past years) a high K rate, so avoids a lot of DP,
Yep, Altuve’s aggressiveness does frequently backfire on the basepaths. This is true for many players on the Astros (Springer, Gonzalez, Gomez are top offenders), and it can be infuriating to watch. I don’t see pick offs explicitly broken out here, and I guess they don’t count as Caught Stealings, but Altuve and Springer must be among the league leaders.
He is tied for the league lead at 3.
Also, Villar was 3rd in the “Negative value of outs on the bases, 2015-16” table. I wonder if organizationally there is a “let our fast guys do their thing and don’t interfere too much” mentality when they could really benefit from some good guidance from the base coaches.
The Astros like aggressive base-running a little too well. I wonder what the break-even number is on stretching a single into a double.
Using 2015 wOBA factors, a single is worth about .43 runs, a double is worth about .73 runs, and an out is worth about negative .265 runs. That works out to a breakeven success rate of about 70% on stretching a single to a double.
I am thinking it’s higher than that because after a single, the next batter gets to hit with a runner on first. And it has to be at least as high as the stolen-base break-even. If I were a manager, I wouldn’t want any close plays at second.
Right, it is the same as the BE rate for a SB.
Right, UBR does not give credit for “stretching a hit.” The data doesn’t really tell us whether a player stretched a hit or not and obviously there is no clear cut definition of a “stretched extra base.” It could try and infer whether a runner stretches a hit based on the location of the ball, speed of the batter, etc., but it doesn’t.
We also don’t want to double count value. A batter already gets the appropriate credit in his batting stats when he stretches a hit. So we need to debit him runs when he gets thrown out trying to stretch and we sort of arbitrarily put in into the base running box.
So it is true that an aggressive player who makes some outs on the bases might be debited too much in his base running (which is made up for in his batting stats) even if his stretch attempts are above the BE point on the average or even all the time.
UBR is designed to be combined with the other areas of value, e.g. batting, SB/CS and fielding and that’s why it handles outs on the bases as it does.
In order to see whether a player like Altuve is getting “shortchanged” on base running (but not overall once combined with batting) for being aggressive one would have to look at all his hits and see how often he successfully stretches and how often he gets thrown out.
BTW, the “outs on the bases” part of UBR is based on how often the average runner gets thrown out attempting to stretch a hit, of course. So for example, if the average player gets thrown out 1 time at second for every 20 singles+doubles, and Altuve makes 2 outs at second per 20 singles+doubles, he only gets debited for one extra out.
All that being said, I think Altuve is probably an average base runner or so and makes a little more than his share of GDP due to his being a RHB, making lots of contact (low K+BB rate), and a slightly GB hitter.
If you want to infer how much noise there is in the UBR numbers (and clearly there is), one way to establish a Bayesian prior is to look at a player’s speed and SB/CS numbers. If Billy Butler has -5 UZR in one season and so does Altuve, it is extremely likely that Altuve’s -5 is not really a -5 but that Butler’s is. Same thing with fielding at least in the OF. If Kemp is a -10 and so is Cole Calhoun, there is a pretty good chance that Calhoun’s -10 is not “real” and Kemp’s is because the former is much faster than the latter.
Have you looked at Astros in general? You showed one clip of “third base coach did me a dirty.” I wonder if the base coaching in general is a problem. Maybe you can string the base-running values of players entering and leaving the Astros to see if a lot of this might be bad base coaching.
some of those outs are the third out of the inning, after driving in a couple of runs, with the lead. Next inning you have the heart of the order due up. I checked the game logs from those games and none of those decisions really had an impact on the final score so I don´t mind the extra excitement