Back when I was spending time on baseball stats I noticed that there were a lot of players like that - good players who had a year at the end of their career with oddly high walk totals even though they were otherwise showing signs of getting old. I figured it came from hitters recognizing their diminished ability before pitchers (and the league in general) recognized it.
Does anyone else have Altuve? Both of my teams have him from initial card packs. At bronze he’s great. At silver he’s ok to good offensively but he’s a defensive problem. I haven’t been willing to sell him because there are tons of copies available. On the other hand it seems to be a waste to have a 89 OVR player sitting on the bench to pinch hit and back up 2b, 3b, 1b, and dh.