Jose Altuve's Wilson A2000 Glove

Jose Altuve is everywhere you look…

Each year around October time, you look up at the television to watch the Playoffs and sure enough, Houston is in it. A quick scan of the MLB site and postseason history will tell you that they’ve been in every AL Championship Series since 2017 (and advanced to the World Series in over half of those years). And Jose Altuve has been in every single one of those League Championship matchups.

In his book, The Baseball 100, Joe Posnanski says that he believes Derek Jeter is "the most seen player in baseball history" . But if Houston continues their dominance  for a few more seasons, one might be able to argue that Jose Altuve has taken Jeter’s title.

With every photo, profile and highlight of Jose; not only is his face becoming increasingly familiar, but it also gives his gear some time in the spotlight too. His Victus brand bat is definitely worth a note, but in JustGloves’ opinion, we think it is his Wilson A2000 that is the show stopper!

Keep reading to learn more about Jose and his glove!

How Big Is Jose Altuve’s Glove?

Jose Altuve uses an 11.5 inch Wilson glove to handle his defensive duties at second base which is pretty standard for a middle infielder (shortstop and second base). 

And some might be wondering: Isn’t Jose Altuve pretty short? Why doesn’t he use a bigger glove? Baseball Reference lists Jose Altuve’s height as 5 feet and 6 inches which is shorter than average for a male in the United States.  A lengthier glove at 11.75 inches or 12 inches (or even longer) would definitely increase his reach on the infield and some infielders are starting to look more towards lengthier gloves with deeper pockets. But with Jose being a middle infielder, we imagine his thoughts regarding glove size reflect something like the following…

A baseball is small. If you have a large glove (12 inches or bigger), there is a lot of room within the glove for the ball to move around after you field or catch it. On the infield, the emphasis with throwing is to get the ball out of the glove and to its target in the shortest time possible (velocity is important on the infield…but not as much as it is in the outfield or even at third base). A shorter glove (11.5 inch and shorter) provides less area in the glove for the baseball to move after catching or fielding it. Thus, an 11.5 inch glove is often the best option for getting the ball out of the glove and to its target in the shortest time possible.

And if you’re still wondering about why he doesn’t use a bigger glove to counteract his lack of height, you can think of this in-game application:

If he had a longer glove, dove for a baseball and fielded it due to the extra length in his glove; he may not be able to locate the ball within the glove in quick enough fashion for him to get the runner out at first base.

Furthermore, Jose (and many other professional 2Bs) are extremely quick and can reach a high amount of ground balls hit to their left and right. The amount of balls he can reach, transfer to his throwing hand and fire to a base successfully with an 11.5 inch glove is extremely high. Maybe he could reach a few more balls if he were to lay out with a lengthier glove, but he may not be able to get the throw off (as demonstrated above) -PLUS- the extra length would most likely hurt his fielding ability on balls his straight to him as he would again be less proficient in his ability to get the ball from his glove to his throwing hand in the most efficient manner.

Jose Altuve's A2000

Over the course of four seasons from the 2017 through 2020 seasons, Wilson made a signature A2000 for Jose that was commercially available for amateur players to buy. Check all four of them out:

If you look closely at the image above, his first model (located on the far left) actually featured a Wilson H-Web (commonly called an I-Web). Although not confirmed, that model looked extremely similar to the popular Wilson 1786 pattern. 

However, the next release of the Altuve glove featured Wilson’s Chevron Cross Web (often called a single post). Ryan Smith of Wilson gloves has commented that this next model actually mimics the Wilson 1716 pattern completely as it has that unique webbing and the 11.5 inch length we discussed above. However, when the glove was built with Jose’s chosen colorway, they called it the JA27 pattern (Jose Altuve #27)

The next model added SuperSkin to the backing. The benefits of SuperSkin have long been documented and we’ve got an awesome blog post on the SuperSkin material that will list them out for you.

And then the last model that was released for amateur players to purchase featured Super SnakeSkin. The Super SnakeSkin material delivers the same benefits as regular Super Skin, but instead of a pebbly, basketball leather look; it takes on more of a scaly, reptile look.

This writer thinks this latest model (which was produced for the 2020 season) has an incredible look and we even have a stock of inventory of this glove still available. You can shop it below:

Shop Jose Altuve's Glove

If you were to take a look at the A2000 that Jose Altuve is taking into games currently, you might notice some differences between it and the last commercially-made Altuve model (recently, it looks like Altuve has gone back to using an I-Web). Oftentimes, there will be some small differences between the authentic game day model used by the pro player and their commercially available glove. However, if you happen to catch an up-close view of Jose’s gamer when you’re watching him on TV or at the ballpark in Houston, we think you’ll notice some similarities between the four Wilson gloves shown above and what you see on his glove hand!

How Many Gold Gloves Does Jose Altuve Have?

Jose Altuve has been awarded with one Gold Glove as a second baseman during his career. He earned it at the culmination of the 2015 season. 

During that season he led American League 2B’s in fielding percentage as he committed only five errors. He also was the second base leader in the American League with 13 Total Zone Runs. According to Baseball Reference (bRef), this indicates that he was 13 runs above average based on the number of plays he made. Oddly enough, bRef only rated him as having a 0.1 Defensive Wins Above Replacement (dWAR) rating for 2015. In other words, bREF’s dWAR rating would say that Jose was only 0.1 wins above a replacement level Major League second baseman.

Although bREF leaves some room for interpretation on how valuable Jose’s defense was during the 2015 season, that season did mark a run of seasons where Altuve played 2B at an above replacement level clip. From 2015 - 2019 Jose’s bREF dWAR ratings read as the following:

It is interesting to see that even though he won the Gold Glove in 2015, it actually looked like he technically played his defensive position a little better in the four following seasons, but came away with no hardware.

Since 2020, it appears that Jose’s quality of defense has slid a little bit. But when you consider Jose’s contributions as a hitter who plays second base (a traditionally weak offensive position), you’ll take a little less defense for a career .300 hitter who also gets on base at an above .360 clip. Throw in nearly 20 homers a season and you’ve got a 2B that any professional baseball team would take!

And since we all love a good web gem highlight reel. Here's one of Jose for you to enjoy...

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We hope that you've come away from this blog post a little more knowledgeable about Jose Altuve, the A2000 that he uses and how he defends on a professional infield. If you've gotten to this point and need some help making a purchase, please reach out to our trained team of Glove Experts. They can be reached on the phone at 866-321-4568, through email via experts@justgloves.com or by LIVE CHAT!