Let’s get this out of the way up front – Jose Altuve will not be named the American League Most Valuable Player. Now we can talk about why Altuve should be considered for the award.
Popular sentiment would suggest that the likes of Mike Trout, Victor Martinez, Jose Abreu, Alex Gordon or Josh Donaldson are far more likely to win the award, and they all certainly have good claims to the title. That said, if the award is meant to honour the player who is most valuable to his team, it is worth noting that those players – Abreu aside – are on good teams that could withstand their absence and still succeed.
The Houston Astros are 65-83, still bad but not nearly as awful as many predicted. How bad would they be without the man who leads the AL in batting average, hits and stolen bases and is second in doubles?
Altuve got his 200th hit of the season on Wednesday, becoming the second player in Astros history to do so. The 146 games it took him to reach the mark were the fewest since Ichiro Suzuki did so in 144 games in 2009. Altuve has many parallels with Suzuki, in fact, and he is poised to become the first player since the Japanese star in 2001 to lead the AL in hits, batting average and stolen bases.
The second baseman has done all this while playing on a bad team and standing all of 1.65 metres tall. Even if the Baseball Writers Association of America elects not to put him on the ballot, Altuve deserves write-in votes for the excellence he has displayed this season.
pfreelend@thenational.ae
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