Too Soon?

Yordan Alvarez has been an absolute monster for the Astros in his brief tenure with the big league club tallying 7 homers and 17 RBIs through his first 13 games. Add in his AAA numbers with Round Rock and Alvarez has 30 homers and 88 runs batted in and he's only appeared in 69 games in 2019!

Now obviously it's too soon to start touting Alvarez as a Hall of Famer. We've seen this before after all. Remember Kevin Maas? Shane Spencer? If you're not a Yankees diehard, then the answer is probably no. 

Maas hit 10 homers in his first 72 at bats and finished his rookie campaign with 21 homers in 254 at bats, good enough to finish second in the AL Rookie of the Year balloting in 1990. In his first full season in 1991, Maas managed just 23 homers and hit only .220, and in parts of three more seasons he managed only an additional 21 homers to finish his Major League career with 65. Maas never appeared in the big leagues after 1995.

Spencer burst onto the scene in late 1998 and hit .373 with 10 homers in just 67 at bats and even earned the nickname "Roy Hobbs." However, despite winning 3 World Series with the Yankees, Spencer's power never returned to the level of his rookie campaign and he finished with just 59 homers and his MLB career was wrapped up by 2004. 

So back to Alvarez. As an Astros fan, I want to believe that this guy is the second coming of Jeff Bagwell in that he's an incredible talent who Houston was able to snag in a back page deal for a relief pitcher. In July of 2016, a 19 year old Alvarez was acquired from the Dodgers in exchange for right handed reliever Josh Fields. While Fields went 8-2 with a 2.61 ERA in parts of three seasons with the Dodgers, he was released by the club in March and is currently pitching in AAA for the Nashville Sounds (Texas Rangers). Adding more insult to injury, Fields faced off against the Astros in the 2017 World Series, and failed to record an out in his only appearance yielding homers to Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa, and then a double to Yuli Gurriel. The Astros won the Series in seven games.

In August 1990, the Astros famously acquired Jeff Bagwell from the Red Sox for relief pitcher Larry Andersen and we all know how that turned out. While Andersen had a productive career that spanned 17 Major League seasons, logged 699 appearances and helped the Phillies reach the World Series in 1983 and 1993, he's arguably most famous for the Bagwell trade. Could Josh Fields be the next Larry Andersen? Only time will tell.