Arraez: The Player Who Defies Explanation! MLB’s Most Confusing Talent Leaves Fans and Analyst Perplexed

The San Diego Padres are looking to shed payroll this season, and as a result, first baseman Luis Arráez has found himself on the trade block. Having led MLB in batting average for three consecutive seasons, Arráez has already been linked to plenty of interested teams across the league, and the Padres will almost certainly demand a steep return in any trade proposal.

Still, the 27-year-old is an interesting figure in baseball, often touted as a top player while only excelling in one very niche area. Arráez gets hits — that’s a fact — but a lack of power and underwhelming defense drag him down from being even passable in any other metric.

With the Padres now making Arráez available for trade, the batting champ’s stats are under a microscope, and it begs an important question — how valuable is a player who can only do one very specific thing and absolutely nothing else?

The Highs & Lows of Luis Arráez

Having signed with the Minnesota Twins as an international free agent in November 2013, Arráez made his major league debut in May 2019. In his rookie season, he slashed .334/.399/.439 in 266 plate appearances and finished sixth in AL Rookie of the Year voting, quickly establishing himself as a reliable hitter on the Twins’ lineup.

When the Twins traded Arráez to the Miami Marlins in January 2023, the infielder was a newly-minted All-Star and Silver Slugger, having finished the 2022 season with the best betting average in MLB. He repeated all three achievements — All-Star selection, Silver Slugger Award, and MLB batting champ — with the Marlins in 2023, and in May 2024, Arráez joined his third team in as many years when he was traded to the Padres. In a career-high 672 plate appearances split between Miami and San Diego in 2024, Arráez posted a .314/.346/.392 line with an incredible 4.3% batting average, earning the third All-Star selection of his career, and leading MLB in batting average for the third consecutive season.

Arráez has posted a batting average over .290 in each of his six seasons in the majors, and if it weren’t for his .294 average in 2021, he’d have all six seasons over .300. He’s ranked in the 100th percentile of all qualified hitters in whiff rate for the last four seasons, and the same in strikeout rate for the last three seasons (he was in the 99th percentile in 2021).

There’s no question that when Arráez walks up to the plate, he has an uncanny ability to land singles. In fact, the large majority of his hits are singles, and while it’s easy to say “any hit is a hit,” the unfortunate truth is that Arráez severely lacks power.

Despite winning the batting title in 2024, just 23.7% of his hits had an exit velocity of 95 mph or higher, ranking him in the bottom 1% — 247th out of 252 — of all qualified hitters in hard-hit rate, and his 10 home runs in 2023 are as the most he’s ever managed in a season. It’s not just that he can’t hit it out of the park, either — other than his career-high 6 in 2021, Arráez has never hit more than 3 triples in a season, and only 32 of his 200 hits in 2024 were doubles.

Arráez also doesn’t draw many walks, meaning that hitting singles is literally the only way he gets on base. His walk rate has actually declined year-on-year since his debut, from 9.8% in 2019, to 9.0% in 2021, 8.3% in 2022, and 5.7% in 2023. His career-low 3.6% walk rate last season ranked him in the bottom 3% of MLB.

Then there’s his defense.

Arráez recorded a woeful -13 Outs Above Average (OAA) in 2024, ranking in the bottom 1% of all qualified fielders. His Fielding Run Value (FRV) of -9 wasn’t much better, and he ended the season with -3 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) at first base, and -3 DRS at second.

The reality is that Arráez does one very specific thing and one very specific thing only — hit singles and hope to be driven in by everyone behind him. To be clear, he’s very very good at that one thing, but it’s still only one thing.

Who Needs Singles?

In his last season of arbitration eligibility, Arráez is estimated to make around $13.7 million, according to Spotrac, and even aside from their desire to shed payroll, the Padres will likely feel pressure to move the 27-year-old this winter before he becomes a free agent at the end of 2025. There is obvious value in being a three-time batting champ, but now that he’s on the trade market, Arráez isn’t an easy player to find a perfect home for. His disappointing defense means he’s not going to be an upgrade at first or second base, but his lack of power doesn’t exactly lend itself to being a particularly impressive full-time designated hitter.

In the interest of maximizing his effectiveness at the plate, there’s a discussion to be had about where Arráez would be best utilized in a batting lineup, especially since in 2024, he batted in the leadoff spot in 146 of his 150 games. Considering he only hits singles, moving him lower in the lineup would almost certainly give him more opportunity to drive in runs since earlier hitters could get on base before he gets up to the plate.

Still, finding an appropriate suitor for Arráez’s specific skillset really comes down to whether anyone needs a player who can just get on base (but not via walks — again, it’s a very specific skillset).

With their urgent need for offensive support, the Seattle Mariners are a possible trade partner. In 2024, the Mariners ranked 29th in MLB in batting average and dead last in strikeout rate, so adding a reliable hitter who can just get hits could be transformative.

The New York Yankees are another option since they’re still looking for a replacement at second base for Gleyber Torres. Arráez obviously isn’t going to be a game-changing defender for them, but he can’t be much worse than Torres, and the Yankees’ batting lineup needs a player who puts the ball in play, even if it means keeping Arráez in the leadoff spot.

Still, the Padres will likely leverage Arráez’s batting titles to demand a large return in a trade, which could result in them having to keep him until the 2025 deadline, if not all season. Even if a team is willing meet the Padres’ asking price and become Arráez’s fourth club in four years, the 27-year-old will become a free agent next winter unless a new deal is struck.

Regardless of where he ends up this season and beyond, Arráez is an interesting case study, excelling as a top hitter despite shortcomings that would derail most other players’ careers. His ability to put the ball in play is uncanny, and that means he almost certainly has a long career ahead of him in MLB, even if he never does anything other than hit singles.