Alvarez was selected by the Padres in the second round of the 1995 MLB draft. While playing in the minor leagues for the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes in 1995, he turned an unassisted triple play as a second baseman. He caught a line drive over second base, stepped on the bag to get one runner and tagged the other one coming into second from first.[2] He told the reporter covering the game that exactly the same thing had happened to him the previous year at USC, but he threw to first instead of tagging the runner to complete the triple play. He said a teammate had pointed out that he had missed a chance at an unassisted triple play, and he had promised himself if it ever happened again, he would do it differently.[citation needed]
Alvarez was taken by the Arizona Diamondbacks as the fifth pick in the 1997 MLB expansion draft, but was traded by the Diamondbacks with Matt Drews and Joe Randa to the Tigers for Travis Fryman. Alvarez made his major league debut for the Tigers on June 22, 1998, going 1–4. On July 17, 2000, he was traded by the Tigers to the Padres for Dusty Allen.[3] He finished his major league career with 59 hits, a .222 batting average, 29 runs, and an .877 fielding percentage.
Coaching career
In 2010, Alvarez became the assistant baseball coach at the University of Southern California (USC).
Alvarez served as the third base coach for the National League team in the 2024 All-Star Futures Game.[7]
On October 31, 2024, Tigers promoted Alvarez to become the new manager for their Triple-A affiliate, the Toledo Mud Hens. On May 5, 2026, Tigers fired Alvarez as the Mud Hens manager due to a violation of club policy. Mike Hessman will take over as the interim. [8] His two years as the Mud Hens manager he had 84–66 in 2025 and went 17–16 in 2026 coaching 33 games before getting fired.
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