{"id":574525,"date":"2026-02-15T21:38:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T21:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/574525\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T21:38:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T21:38:17","slug":"jose-altuve-reveals-batting-stance-flaw-hes-fixing-after-brutal-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/574525\/","title":{"rendered":"Jose Altuve reveals batting stance flaw he&#8217;s fixing after brutal season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time since 2016, the <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/mlb\/mlb-stories\/clutchpoints-2026-mlb-power-rankings-vol-3-pitchers-catchers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Houston Astros missed the playoffs in 2025<\/a>. Their string of consecutive ALCS appearances is long over now, and they are looking for any way to extend the dynasty. That commitment has shown up at <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/tag\/spring-training\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">spring training<\/a>, by the way of Astros star <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/mlb\/players\/a7c00967\/jose-altuve\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jose Altuve<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7047131\/2026\/02\/15\/astros-jose-altuve-second-base-consistency\/?source=emp_shared_article\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">who is working<\/a> to fix a batting stance flaw.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis winter, Altuve found a flaw in his batting stance that he will try to correct this spring. As a pitch is coming, Altuve always steps toward home plate with his front foot. At times last season, Altuve said he did it \u2018way too much,&#8217;\u201d Chandler Rome of the Athletic reported.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo the point where my back was almost facing the pitcher,\u201d Altuve told Rome. \u201cI want to be more facing toward the field, see the ball, control my bat some. Something that I couldn\u2019t do last year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA right foot injury hampered him for most of September, but minor offseason surgery corrected the problem, and Altuve is \u2018100 percent healthy&#8217; entering spring training,\u201d Rome reported.<\/p>\n<p>Altuve had one of his worst offensive seasons in 2025, with a .265 batting average and .771 OPS. That batting average is the second-worst of his career, ahead of only a sluggish 2020 campaign. Rome reported that Altuve was back at second base to open spring. Last year, an ill-fated run in left field started in spring training.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNormally, my seasons in the big leagues are more consistent,\u201d Altuve said about heading back to second base. \u201cI feel like last year I had some times where I was really, really bad and some times where I was really, really good. There was a big separation between those two. It doesn\u2019t feel good when it goes really bad. I\u2019m looking for more stability, more consistency.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/mlb\/detroit-tigers\/tigers-news-framber-valdez-115-million-contract\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Astros lost Framber Valdez this offseason<\/a>, another piece of the championship core to leave. But unlike Kyle Tucker, they went out and replaced Valdez in free agency. Tatsuya Imai will be one of the players to watch in Astros spring training as he acclimates to MLB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time since 2016, the Houston Astros missed the playoffs in 2025. Their string of consecutive&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[42,5,139,54,3211,817,4,151],"class_list":{"0":"post-574525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-astros","8":"tag-astros","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-astros","12":"tag-houstonastros","13":"tag-jose-altuve","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-spring-training"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116076813017162980","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}