Houston Astros Jose Altuve Fastest Astro Ever to 1,000 Hits
The Houston Astros’ Jose Altuve became the fastest Astros player ever to reach 1,000 career hits.
Jose Altuve came into Tuesday’s game with 997 career hits and went 3 for 5 in front of the hometown fans to get to 1,000. He needed only 786 games to reach 1,000 hits and became the fastest Houston Astros player ever to reach that mark. The previous record holder was Cesar Cedeno, who notched his first 1,000 career hits in 889 games.
Altuve is having an incredible season. He currently leads all of baseball in batting average (.365), on-base percentage (.429), and hits (170), and is third in baseball with a .573 slugging percentage. He has firmly established himself as a candidate for the American League MVP Award.
Among active players, only Ichiro Suzuki reached 1,000 hits faster than Altuve. Ichiro accomplished the feat in 696 games. Because he didn’t play in the Major Leagues until he was 27 years old, he was 31 when he reached 1,000 hits. Altuve is just 26. The Fangraphs Depth Charts project Altuve to have another 50 hits over the rest of the season. If he hits this projection, he’ll have around 1050 hits at the end of the year. This would place him near the top 60 in career hits in baseball history for players through their age 26 season.
As a right-handed hitter, Altuve has a chance to join an elite club. Since 1940, there have been just two right-handed hitters to lead the American League in hitting with an average above .360. Nomar Garciaparra led the AL in hitting with a .372 average in 2000 and Magglio Ordonez did so with a .363 average in 2007. Altuve is currently hitting .365. That is elite territory for a right-handed hitter.
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Another area in which Altuve is having an incredible year is his batting average away from home. He is hitting .424 on the road. That’s almost 60 points higher than Martin Prado, who has the second-highest road batting average this year. He is also leading all hitters in on-base percentage on the road (.490) and is second with a .634 slugging percentage away from home.
Of course, it’s likely Altuve would be the first to say that it’s the success of the team that matters more than the individual. As good as Altuve has been, his team has struggled this year. The Astros made big leaps forward from 2013 (51 wins) to 2014 (70 wins) to 2015 (86 wins), but haven’t taken the next step this year. They are on pace to win 84 games and currently trail the Texas Rangers by nine games in the AL West. They are also behind the Seattle Mariners in that division. The wild card is a more likely path to the playoffs for the Astros, but they are 5.5 games back in the wild card race, tied with the Yankees.
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A non-playoff season for the Astros would likely hurt Altuve in the AL MVP voting. He is third in the AL based on Fangraphs WAR (behind Mike Trout and Josh Donaldson), and second based on Baseball-Reference WAR (behind only Trout). He’s having an amazing season and should get some love in MVP voting, but would likely lose out to a player from a playoff team. There’s a chance the top two players in the AL, Trout and Altuve, would both miss out on MVP recognition.