Altuve is short. And good.

The Lexington Herald-Leader's Mark Maloney has a nice profile on Legends 2B Jose Altuve, who is wee.

Rodney Linares:
"One thing going for him is that people see him, and he looks short. He can swing the bat. His biggest thing is that he drives the ball to right-center. He can drive the ball out of the park ... and he's a good hitter."

Ricky Bennett:
"He makes up for his stature by the way he plays the game. He's a little energizer. He plays hard, runs the bases hard, hits in the leadoff spot, and he just goes about his business every day, willing to work hard to be a better player...

...I want him to cut down on his strikeouts because, like I said, sometimes his swing gets a little too big at times. But if he can shorten his swing, put the ball in play, continue to bunt a couple times a week to use his speed that way offensively. ... And just become more consistent defensively — making the routine play, turning the double play at second base. The smaller things we're looking for out of him the second half."

Altuve has already played in a career-high 70 games this season, after hitting .302/.387/.451 between Greeneville and Tri-City, though that was brought down by his 21 games in Tri-City where he hit .250/.337/.316 (and .324/.408/.508 in Greeneville.)

His K:BB ratio is currently 1.63 - the first time in his four professional seasons that it's been higher than 1.00, and his 27.9% extra-base hit rate has dipped a touch from 32.1% coming into this season.

Ahead of him in the organization at 2B (while fluid) is Albert Cartwright at Lancaster (.303/.370/.523, .952 Fld%) and Jose Vallejo and German Duran.

It'll be interesting to see how he fares from here out, as he extends his season past the 66 games he played in during 2009.