Yordan Alvarez Is Carving Out a Cool Place in Baseball History

This article was originally published as part of Verducci's View, a new weekly baseball newsletter from Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci. Every Monday, Tom empties out his notebook over email and covers MLB's hottest topics, provides in-depth analysis through both text and video breakdowns, looks forward to what's worth watching during the week and more. This week, we're focusing on the best hitter in baseball and more.

Tuesday marks the seventh anniversary of the MLB debut of Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez. With Aaron Judge out at least two months, it's a good time to give the underrated Alvarez his proper due. So, let's be blunt about it. Alvarez is:

1. The AL MVP frontrunner, along with Bobby Witt Jr.

2. Better than he's ever been.

3. The best hitter in baseball.

Alvarez is slashing .316/.431/.650 with a league-leading 22 homers and nearly as many walks (43) as strikeouts (49).

Quietly, Alvarez is on an all-time great path. With his grand slam Saturday, Alvarez became only the sixth player with 192 homers in his first 741 games. Among those six sluggers, Alvarez has the highest batting average.

Highest BA with 192+ Home Runs, First 742 Games

Looking ahead, only 12 hitters reached 200 homers in 800 games. Only Albert Pujols (.332) and Willie Mays (.316) did so with a higher batting average than Alvarez has now.

Not just a slugger, Alvarez always has been a pure hitter-which makes him one of the greatest mistakes the Dodgers ever made. They traded him at the 2016 trade deadline for reliever Josh Fields before Alvarez, an international free agent signee, ever played an affiliated game for them.

Yordan Alvarez grand slam for his AL-leading 22nd home run of the season! pic.twitter.com/7q8qIkv7Va

- Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) June 6, 2026

To watch Alvarez this year is to see a pure hitter elevating his game even higher. He is getting the ball in the air more and pulling it more than ever in his career. So, I asked Astros manager Joe Espada if he sees the same thing: that Alvarez is better than ever.

"He's a smart hitter," Espada says. "I think what people don't really see is what we see-how intelligent he is. He uses left field better than anyone. He doesn't try to do too much. He knows what they're trying to do, and he stays in the zone, and he uses the other part of the field.

"He uses his hands more than any other power hitter I've ever seen. The sluggers, they torque and tilt when they try to hit the ball and you see a big effort. He's got just a very handsy swing. And yes, this is the best I've ever seen him in a stretch of sixty-plus games."

Espada says the key to Alvarez going to the next level was finding a better training regimen after he played only 48 games last season due to hand and ankle injuries. Espada also has limited Alvarez's time in the outfield to 10 games, or about once a week.

"One thing about him is he is in really good physical shape," Espada says. "He carried it into spring. He has a personal trainer, he's eating much better, it's how he's working out, resting ... stuff like that. He's really bouncing back very well. And the fact that he's DHing also helps him recover a lot better than years past."

Since June 9, 2019, the day Alvarez debuted, only Judge (.638) and Shohei Ohtani (.589) have a higher slugging percentage than Alvarez (.580). What makes Alvarez such a great hitter, especially to the opposite field and against lefthanded pitchers, is his incredible ability to keep his front side on the baseball longer than any other hitter. Almost never will you see Alvarez fooled where the barrel is through the zone before the ball arrives, the top hand comes off the bat and his weight is "out in front."

Alvarez hits with a closed stride, which is exceedingly rare for a power hitter. He begins with an open stance, with his back foot closer to the plate than his front foot, but when he strides his front foot lands closer to the plate than his back foot.

Here is a remarkable visual comparison: Alvarez's first home run, which came in his second at-bat of his debut, and his 191st home run. Nothing has changed. You can see the closed stride. Both home runs resulted from taking low fastballs out to left field.

This closed-stride position helps make Alvarez the best left-on-left slugger this side of Babe Ruth:

Highest SLG by LHH vs. LHP (Min. 1,000 plate appearances)

His greatness has been in our midst all along, if not always fully recognized. Alvarez has a career postseason OPS of .944 in 60 games. (Judge has a .822 OPS in 65 postseason games.) He has been Rookie of the Year, ALCS MVP and been named to three All-Star teams. But Alvarez has finished in the top eight in MVP voting only once, a third-place finish in 2022 behind-you got it-Judge and Ohtani. Overshadowed by Judge, Alvarez now has an open path for more recognition - and maybe his first MVP award.

Alvarez has two more years remaining on a six-year, $115-million bargain of a deal with the Astros. If you think Houston should trade him at the deadline, stop. This is the kind of generational hitter who simply is too good to trade.

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This story was originally published June 9, 2026 at 7:00 AM.