Altuve is a World Seris Champion.
Harper is a 4 time NLeast Champion who can't stay healthy. Meh...
I'd trade Royce for Altuve in a heartbeat...
ZIPS has Altuve at 5.6 WAR this season, Bryce at 4.7. Altuve has outproduced Bryce 3 out of the past 4 years and has 24 WAR in those 4 years to Bryce's 19.2 WAR.
Of course, the difference is mostly due to health, although I don't know why anyone should expect better health from Bryce in the future than in the past. Altuve is 2 years older, but certainly next offseason probably 27 teams would rather have the roughly 6 years/$160 million left on Altuve's contract than the 12/$400 milllion you're going to pay Bryce. There's a lot of risk in having to pay for Bryce's mid to late-30s to get his late 20s and early 30s, and very little risk on Altuve's deal.
I don't mean to bag on Bryce, and he's certainly been a very good player even when he's not at his MVP level, but I have to say again - everyone is still valuing him based on potential rather than performance. If you want to use new-fangled stats he has one 5-WAR season in his 6 year career. If you want to use old-fashioned stats, he has one 30-HR season and no 100-RBI seasons. He's just an average defender and baserunner who mixes some good flashy things in with enough mistakes to ruin any potential value there.
He's likely going to get the next market-busting A-Rod type deal, but A-Rod had basically had Bryce's single MVP-type season in 3 of 5 years previous to free agency, rather than in one outlier season. Perhaps this will all come into focus this season if Bryce has another ridiculous MVP season and earns his big deal. I certainly hope that happens because it'll be fun to watch.
