How Will the Astros Handle Jose Altuve's (Reportedly) Broken Thumb?
I examine how long he is likely to be out, whether the Astros should sign Jurickson Profar as a replacement, and whether Dusty will hit the 2B leadoff.
The 2023 World Baseball Classic has been a raucous demonstration of the joys and beauty of baseball. The center of that excitement has been in Miami, where the WBC’s deepest group—led by three Latin American powerhouses, the Dominican Republican, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela—and their prideful, loud, and boisterous fans have provided a different soundtrack to baseball than we usually hear.
That joy came to a crashing halt for Astros fans in the 5th inning on Saturday night when Jose Altuve took a Daniel Bard fastball off of his hand, and immediately left the game.
Initial reporting on Saturday night suggested that Altuve had broken his thumb.
General Manager Dana Brown released a statement saying that the Astros would provide an update on Altuve’s condition tomorrow.
Altuve himself did not say anything to reporters while he departed Venezuela’s clubhouse after the game.
Dusty Baker tried to sound a hopeful note when asked about Altuve’s injury in his media session after the Astros Spring Training game against the Mets last night.
But Omar Lopez, who is not only the manager of Team Venezuela but also the Astros first base coach, spoke for a lot of Astros fans in his post game media session in Miami.
How Long Will Altuve Be Out?
One answer to that question is that we don’t really know. We have unconfirmed reports that Altuve broke his thumb. We all want to learn more details, but for right now, that is all we have to go on.
To try to answer this question, I turned to The Recovery Dashboard, which is housed at Baseball Prospectus’s website. This is a database lists every reported injury among Major League players and for how many days the player was out.
I was able to find every player who had a fracture or break on their hand. I posted the results to Twitter last night, noting that a player who breaks a bone in their hand is out a median of 44 days.
Of course, that is for all types of hand injuries. But the reporting at the moment is that Altuve has broken his thumb. Is it different to break a thumb than another finger bone or something in the meatier part of the hand?
To address this question, I found in the listings every player since 2016 who has broken a thumb.1 You can see a list of them in the table below with a column on the right that shows the number of days missed.
All told, 18 players have broken their thumb since 2016. They have missed a median of 34 days. So that is 5 weeks. Altuve is a durable player who has suffered few injuries in his career. So that presumes he will be back before May begins.
But looking at the list of players who have broken their thumb shows large variation in the amount of time a player who breaks his thumb spends on the injured list. Billy Hamilton came back in less than 2 weeks from his broken thumb, while Glenn Sparkman was out the longest of this group—89 days. Other players have been out for more than two months include Bryce Harper (out 61 days) and Juan Lagares (55 days).
So on average, a player misses 5 weeks for a broken thumb, but there is a large spread on how long players are out with this injury.
Should the Astros Sign Jurickson Profar?
The Altuve injury sent Astros fans to quickly think about a possible replacement—Jurickson Profar.
Profar is a free agent who still has not signed with a major league team, though he did play with the Netherlands in the World Baseball Classic.
Profar was a productive player for the Padres last season, who had a slash line of .243/.331/.391 in 658 plate appearances. That’s good for a .723 OPS, a 111 OPS+ and 3.1 bWAR. That production could be helpful.
There is one problem with signing Profar to play second base for the Astros. It is not clear that he can play second base anymore.
Profar played no games at second base in 2022 with the Padres. He played all 146 of his games in left field. In 2021, he played only 10 games there, while playing 81 games in the outfield and 20 at first base.
Profar did come up through the minor leagues as a second baseman, and was the A’s every day second baseman in 2019.
One big reason that the Padres moved Profar off of the dirt was that he is a poor defender at second base. For his career, Profar is -29 in defensive runs saved at second base. Other defensive metrics show are not as strongly negative, but still show Profar to be a poor defender at 2nd base. He has -16 Fielding Runs Above Average and -8 Outs Above Average in his career.
Profar is likely to be helpful at the plate in 2023—ATC projects him to for a slash line of .242/.328/.377 and a 103 wRC+. But the question is whether he will give back most or not all of that production with a poor glove at second base.
The current 40-man roster has three players who can play second base: David Hensley, Mauricio Dubon, and Rylan Bannon. Each brings a particular strength—Hensley has elite level plate discipline; Dubon plays elite level defense; and Bannon has a name that sounds like he’s a character played by John Wayne.
If Altuve is out for a couple of months, it makes more sense to sign Profar. The Astros would likely be playing Dubon less in the outfield and Profar could contribute there. And if Michael Brantley is not ready for Opening Day, the need for Profar increases.
But if it is a short term injury (5 or 6 weeks), then I don’t think the Astros need to bring in Profar.
Who Is The New Leadoff Hitter?
Altuve has started 281 games since George Springer left as a free agent and in all 281 of them he has hit leadoff. Dusty Baker will need a new player to hit at the top of the order.
Michael Schwab, in the tweet above, suggests two possible leadoff hitter replacements in Kyle Tucker and Jeremy Pena.
Cody Poage adds Alex Bregman as a candidate in the tweet below.
Sabrmetric studies have found that lineup effects are minimal. Well, you can hurt your run production greatly by about a run per game by doing something inexplicable like hitting Martin Maldonado leadoff all season, but nobody does that. I don’t talk about the lineup too much because it is not worth it to do so.
But Poage also expresses the biggest concern Astros fans should have about the lineup—that Dusty will just put his second baseman in the leadoff spot.
Dusty values stability in his lineup. He is willing to do things like bat Dubon leadoff when Altuve gets a rest day—Dubon batted leadoff in 4 games in 2022. But the Dusty’s goal in these situations is to promote stability and consistency for the rest of his players. They know their role.
Thus, I have less concern that he will simply put Hensley or Dubon in the leadoff spot for a long period of time. I expect that Dusty will re-jigger his preferred lineup to get one of his better hitters in the leadoff spot.
Of all the concerns I have about the Altuve injury, who bats leadoff is the least of them.
Where Does This Leave the Astros?
Jose Altuve remains one of the Astros best players. They are of course worse off with him out of the lineup. But losing a player, even one of your best players, for a six week period is not fatal. This team has a large number of high quality major league players and a number of contributing players who can fill a hole for a short period of time.
The biggest concern is not that Altuve is out, is that Altuve is one of several players who is, or could be, out for Opening Day. We already know that Lance McCullers will start the season on the injured list thanks to an elbow strain. Michael Brantley seems more likely than not to start the season on the IL recovering from shoulder surgery last season. And Yordan Alvarez has not appeared in a Spring Training game due to a hand injury.
Being out one player is survivable. But being out four of your dozen or so best players is a big problem. The good news is that McCullers, Brantley, and Alvarez are all making progress toward playing in April, even if one or all of them miss Opening Day.
So here’s to a quick recovery to those those three and to Jose Altuve. Come back soon.
I excluded players who broke their thumb late in the season and missed the rest of the season as this would skew the data downward. For example, Evan Longoria broke his thumb on October 3 of last season, but is credited with only 3 missed days.
Great work, Brian, especially with the rapidity you pulled all this together! I love the stat-work of thumb/hand injuries....still fun to know even before we know if/what/how bad, etc! I agree with Marty that it makes little difference who "leads off," because everybody in the lineup can lead off an inning at some point in a game!
I sense, though, if Dusty's anything like Hinch, he'll use pitching match-ups to dictate a game-to-game leadoff hitter, as it's pointless to adhere to "everyone has a role" if the goal is to simply weather the Altuve-less storm (and whomever else ends up not ready to go)!
That was my exact same reaction - Dubon leading off. Not optimal, but the leadoff hitter is only guaranteed to lead off one inning each game, the other 8 innings are random. (would be a good study to do if it hasn't been done).
On the flip side, batting Tucker first would get him to the plate more often (not sure how much).
You want your run producers (Tucker, Alvarez, Bregman) to come to the plate with runners on and if one is moved this would seem to reduce those odds a lot not just because the first at-bat won't have anyone on, but they will follow 7-8-9 hitters who are less likely to reach base. Altuve hit 28 HR and had only 57 RBI last season because the bottom of the lineup was bad most of the season.
It would also mean someone who has not performed well enough to earn middle-of-the-lineup status, be shifted to that role. Do you want Kyle Tucker up with men on or Chas McCormick, for example?
The study you cited seems to refute my thoughts, if I understood correctly.
I appreciate the perspective on the time Altuve will likely miss.