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My favorite all-time baseball player to cover was Tony Gwynn. Great guy, great interview, great hitter. The Triple Crown on any scribe’s wish list, and he dominated on all three fronts.
We don’t see any Tony Gwynns anymore. Or Rod Carews. Or Wade Boggses. Batting averages no longer have the same value or appeal, and young hitters fashioning upper-cut swings are coming up hunting the long ball, strikeouts be damned.
I get it. On-base percentage is king. It’s not how you get on base. It’s how often. Makes sense. While a walk isn’t as good as a hit because a hit can advance runners more than one base and lead to defensive chaos, a walk does damage as well and drives up the OBP.
Somewhere along the line, amid the sabermetricians’ distaste for any emphasis on singles over homers, amid their lack of appreciation for two-strike approaches, Luis Arráez sneaked into the major leagues by making consistent contact and hitting ’em where they ain’t, all the way to three batting championships.
Arráez became a free agent this winter and got little love from front offices that don’t necessarily value batting average and bat-to-ball skills. Buster Posey was the outlier. It was no secret that the Giants’ president of baseball operations wanted more contact hitters to help offset the swing and miss of Rafael Devers, Willy Adames, and others.
As a result, Arráez will be playing his 2026 season at a ballpark near you. The Giants are signing the 28-year-old to a one-year, $12 million contract (pending a physical) presumably to be their second baseman and spark the lineup – in Bruce Bochy vernacular, “keep the line moving” – which way too often has been stale and boring.
With Arráez and energetic center fielder Harrison Bader, whose two-year, $20.5 million contract was made official Friday, the Giants suddenly have an intriguing and diverse lineup that should be far more aesthetically pleasing than last year’s.
Bader brings life. Arráez brings action. While most front offices don’t like him because he ranks so poorly with his hard-hit rate, average exit velocity, and bat speed, there’s no disputing his elite contact rate, swing-and-miss rate, and strikeout rate, all in the 100th percentile among big-leaguers.
To put Arráez’s anemic 3.1% strikeout rate in perspective, it’s the lowest in the majors for a qualified hitter in a season since 1995, turned in by a man named Gwynn. Posey no doubt digs this stat.
Arráez puts the ball in play, and when he does, good things tend to happen. His .317 career batting average is tops among active players, and he won three straight batting titles with the 2022 Twins, 2023 Marlins, and 2024 Marlins/Padres. He led the National League in hits the past two seasons.
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Friday, Jan. 23
By now, you might have concluded I like this signing. I absolutely do. As journalists, we don’t root for teams. But it’s OK to root for stories, and Arráez should bring a slew of compelling ones. He’s no Gwynn, but he’s a quasi-modern-day version, and that’s good enough from this corner, his defensive inefficiencies notwithstanding.
The Giants have had all of two batting champions in their 68-year San Francisco history. None at Candlestick Park, an extremely tough place to hit, far tougher than Oracle Park. No batting champ until Barry Bonds in 2002 and 2004, and the only other one was Posey himself in 2012.
It’s not that the West Coast Giants haven’t had excellent hitters. Willie Mays won a batting crown for the Giants, but that came in New York. Harvey Kuenn won a batting title in Detroit and shortly thereafter began a five-year run in San Francisco and never sniffed another. Matty Alou hit .231 in his final year with the Giants, then a league-leading .342 the ensuing year with the Pirates. Bill Madlock won two batting crowns with the Cubs then got traded to the Giants and didn’t win again until he was traded to Pittsburgh.
San Francisco is no easy place to hit. When you factor in the wind and cold to Oracle Park’s wacky wall in right field, it’s particularly tough on lefties. We can’t expect Arráez to win a fourth batting title in San Francisco. … can we? Well, “hitters hit, John,” as Posey told me when I asked Devers at his introductory news conference about the challenge of hitting at Oracle Park.
Where will Arráez bat in the Giants’ lineup? I like him leading off. Yes, his OBP last season in San Diego was a meager .327, but his lifetime OBP is a respectable .363 – .364 in the leadoff slot, where he has his most plate appearances.
Can you think of a better choice? Until Jung Hoo Lee learns to hit the other way, he’ll continue delivering too many 4-3s (groundouts to second base). Bader is a better fit at the bottom of the lineup.
My lineup:
2B Luis Arráez (L)
1B Rafael Devers (L)
3B Willy Adames (R)
DH Bryce Eldridge (L)
LF Heliot Ramos (R)
RF Jung Hoo Lee (L)
3B Matt Chapman (R)
CF Harrison Bader (R)
C Patrick Bailey (S)
This puts a lot of faith in Arráez to enjoy a bounce-back season and a lot of trust in Eldridge to succeed at cleanup, but sometimes you take chances if you believe in your guys. If Eldridge is the next Will Clark, let’s find out right away.
If the braintrust concludes Eldridge isn’t ready to make a splash on Opening Day, he could begin the season in Triple-A with Arráez serving as the designated hitter. Arráez could also get reps at first base (where he mostly played last year in San Diego) when Devers is the DH.
Or, because Arráez doesn’t hit lefties as well as righties, perhaps Casey Schmitt could play second when the opposition starts a tough lefty. Or Christian Koss, if Schmitt is traded for a pitcher.
Either way, the Giants have more depth with Arráez than without him, and depth was a serious issue across the roster when last season went down the tubes.
Arráez is an old-school hitter in a new-school game, a fascinating test study that solicits polarizing opinions from an analytic-driven industry, largely negative. Nothing more than a singles hitter, they say. Little power, they say. Not much for defending or running, they say.
Sure. But Posey doesn’t buy into all the industry’s modern-day conformities. He forms his own opinions using analytics but also using successful principles borrowed from the Giants’ championship heyday. He’s undoubtedly convinced his new hitting coaches will get the most out of Arráez and new infield coach Ron Washington will dramatically help Arráez’s glove work.
If nothing else, Arráez will be worth watching, a story waiting to deliver on any given night.
