After a scorching-hot start, the Houston Astros’ DH is your second AL Player of the Week. However, that award doesn’t even begin to respect the Yordan Alvarez Show that we saw this past week.
“Air Yordan” has been so hot at the plate, he’s almost producing the offense of two average players. According to a fancy Statcast metric, xwOBA, Alvarez’s batted balls are worth 1.92x of the average hitter’s batted balls.
xwOBA takes into account exit velocity and launch angle in order to evaluate the value of every ball in play. So in simpler terms, a ball off of Alvarez’s bat is nearly twice as valuable than an average hitter.
This can get crazier too. Right now, Alvarez’s batted balls are 2.89x as valuable as the struggling Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s. Imagine you have to get Jazz Chisholm Jr. out three times, in order to secure one out for your team. Right now, that’s almost just as bad as having to get Yordan Alvarez out once.
Barrels on barrels to right field
We know Alvarez is producing the most valuable batted balls of anyone in the sport right now. However, what do these dominant numbers actually look like on the field?
In short, everything is pulled to right field. Alvarez— a 6′ 4″, 237-pound behemoth of a hitter— gets his best results when he’s able to catch the ball out in front and use his raw strength. But that’s pretty obvious. Let’s go deeper into what Alvarez is looking for at the plate.
There’s a simple timing strategy that Alvarez uses to get the most out of his thunderous swing: Attack the fastball to the gap, and pull breaking and offspeed pitches down the line.
Against fastballs, Alvarez is always looking to drive the ball to the right-center field gap. At this point of contact, Alvarez unleashes a vicious swing to meet the high-velocity pitches on time. His typical bat speed on a home run versus a fastball is about 78-80 MPH.
This heat map of his career home runs against fastballs reflects this approach:
However, against non-fastballs, he makes a simple adjustment. Alvarez slows down his bat, and takes a more lofty swing to meet the plane of the breaking/offspeed pitch. Not only does this lift home runs, but it also allows Alvarez to avoid a high whiff rate on non-fastballs.
Here’s a different heat map, displaying all of Alvarez’s home runs against non-fastballs:
It’s clear what Alvarez is thinking at the plate. If if comes in hot, send it back where it came. If it’s slow, stay back and take a smooth hack at it.
His remarkable strength feeds into both the contact and power department. He’s powerful enough to catch up with any fastball, but he’s also strong enough to take a slower swing that can still lift homers to the corner.
What the highlights don’t show you: The on-base skills
Nowadays, there’s plenty of extreme power hitters scattered throughout the Major Leagues. However, despite boasting enticing advanced metrics, very few of these power hitters make enough contact to actually maximize their high-octane swings.
Yordan Alvarez is an outlier in this sense. Despite his flaming exit velocities, he also avoids the strikeout at an impressive clip. This is why he hit .308 in 2024 and .306 in 2025. He’s not just a power hitter, he’s a complete hitter.
In 2026, Alvarez easily holds the best combination of average exit velocity and strikeout rate. He’s such an outlier, I could’ve verbally pointed out his dot on the graph. But just for good measure, Alvarez is highlighted on the scatterplot below.
The 2026 AL All-Star Designated Hitter?
The Astros truly have the complete package at DH. While he’s only played three games in the outfield so far, he leads the MLB in Wins Above Replacement with 1.0. Keep in mind, WAR is both an offensive and defensive stat.
It’s extremely unlikely that Alvarez will remain the best player in the sport for the entirety of 2025. However, he’s looking like an early lock to become the starting DH in the 2026 All-Star Game.
Alvarez earned the nod in back-to-back-to-back seasons from 2022-2024. Still just 28 years old, Air Yordan could add a fourth ASG to his resume.
More importantly, the Houston Astros have their guy back, and suddenly look like a contender. The early impression of the AL West is, well, murky.
Historically, when no one team stands out, the Astros’ winning culture usually takes its course. It’s far too early to count out Seattle or Texas, but neither have impressed to this point.
The point being, if there’s a tip of the scale in Houston’s favor, you can bet that Alvarez is behind it. “The Big Man”, as the voice of the Astros Todd Kalas calls him, is one of the few players that can drastically alter the trajectory of a season.
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