Astros fans stunned as Jose Altuve undergoes post-season procedure — was this the real reason behind his late-year slump? DD
Altuve’s tough 2025 season culminates in ‘minor procedure’ on Monday.
By now, the story of the Houston Astros’ season is well known, but the context as to why they missed the playoffs is still important. They didn’t get the production they wanted out of prized free agent, Christian Walker, and Framber Valdez had a down season before free agency.
But the biggest reason their playoff streak ended was their frankly astonishing injury luck. Nearly every important player on the team missed an extended period of time due to injury, aside form Walker, Valdez, Hunter Brown and, ironically, Jose Altuve.
But now it’s clear that Altuve wasn’t all that healthy. MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart reported on Monday that Altuve underwent a ‘minor procedure’ on Monday for an injury he suffered during the last few weeks of the season.
Altuve Gets Healthy Headed Into 2026
According to McTaggart, Altuve had a ‘minor skin aspiration’ on Monday after experiencing a ‘sore right foot’ in the final two weeks of the season. In September, Altuve had another procedure to ‘remove fluid from a wound between his fourth and fifth toes’ on his injured foot. He eventually sat out after the team was eliminated.
Altuve will be ready for the Spring Training, McTaggart said.
It was an odd season for Altuve from the start. For the first time in his career, Altuve was going to play a different position. To create more flexibility in the lineup, and because he was a bad defender at second, the Astros moved him to left field.
That didn’t wind up working out the way either side had hoped. In an attempt to hide his defense more, Houston instead got the worst left field defense in baseball from Altuve. According to The Fielding Bible, he had -10 runs saved, the worst in baseball.
At the plate, Altuve smacked 26 home runs and drove in 77, on par with most of his career numbers, but he had a sub-.800 OPS for the second year in a row. Not counting the 2020 season, it was his worst OPS+ (110) since 2013. It’s also the lowest bWAR total of his career with 0.5.
It will be interesting to see how the Astros handle Altuve. They wanted to make his defense less of a liability, but he still posted -5 outs above average overall, according to Baseball Savant. He may need to play the field simply due to Yordan Alvarez still needing to be in the lineup, unless they move Alvarez to left full-time.
With everyone healthy, though, Houston will be a formidable lineup in 2026, and getting Altuve as healthy as possible is a huge part of that.
