The Thread with a Looming Expiry Date: Luis Arraez Aims for .400

He definitely warmed up as the season went along--almost a straight line north in the monthly splits for his career:

March/April - .302
May - .327
June - .329
July - .335
August - .330
Sept./Oct. - .337

I think the two most impressive seasons BA-wise since Williams might actually be the two catchers, Piazza's .362 in '97 and Mauer's .365 in '09. Piazza's year was aided by the PED offensive boom, but that was countered somewhat by him playing in Dodger Stadium; he had a .355/.368 home/road split, and probably would have hit over .370 most anywhere else. Mauer seemed to have a friendly home park--.388 at home--but overall offense throughout MLB had come down a bit in the intervening years. In any event, doing that while catching is incredible.

Didn't know he had a nickname: La Regadera ("literally, it's 'The Watering Can,' or 'The Sprinkler,' in this context for spraying hits all over the field").

And this is amazing:

6. Arraez has swung at 127 two-strike pitches in the strike zone and missed only two of them (with no foul tip).

https://www.si.com/mlb/2023/06/26/luis-arraez-batting-avg-hardest-accomplishment-baseball

Death by a thousand paper cuts--except for that wipeout in Seattle, he doesn't seem to take a lot of 0-fers, but enough 1-4s and 1-5s and it's over.

Thinking about that, I wondered how he compared to the others on that front.

Williams ('41): 30 0-fers/143 games (21%) - .406
Williams ('57): 29/132 (22%) - .388
Carew ('77): 24/155 (15%) - .388
Brett ('80): 23/117 (20%) - .390
Gwynn ('94): 20/110 (18%) - .394
Arráez (23): 13/75 (17%) - .396

The last four are pretty consistent; Williams, where 0-fer often means 0-1 or 0-2, is higher.

(Thing I don't get: in Ted Williams first five games in 1941, he had one PA only.)

Threw that together quickly before rushing out for golf...Brett is closer to Williams than he is to Carew; better to say all six seasons are more or less in line with each other.

Which means nothing without context, but I'm not energetic enough right now to see what the 0-fer percentage would be for, say, a group of .300 hitters.

Probably the one bit of random luck Arráez has had this year are the three 5-5 games; a lot has to go right for that to happen when you're mostly hitting singles. Rose had 10 five-hit games in his career; Gwynn had nine, Ichiro and Carew had 7 each. Arráez had three in a month. If you were to knock him down to 6-15 for those three games, he'd be hitting .365.

The Marlins have scored 25 runs in two games; Arráez, 2-8. Which is typical of his last couple of weeks. He had the two 5-hit games in three days after that Seattle series, and since then, he's hit in 14 of 15 games--but he's dropped from .400 to .385. I keep thinking of John Malkovich and his insane Russian accent in Rounders: "Hanging around, hanging around..." Hanging around, unfortunately, isn't good enough.

So of course he follows that by going 3-5 in a game where the Marlins are shut out. The two most realistic things to happen at this point: 1) I don't think anyone's ever won back-to-back batting titles while switching leagues; 2) largest margin over the runner-up. Not quite as exciting as .400...

Still exciting to me

He's still having a great season, and, leading a surprising playoff contender, he'd be a viable MVP candidate most years. Not with Acuna this year, though.

you’re right about the walks. if he walked just a bit more he’d have a real shot at this.

He may not even score 75 runs, which is just fucking weird (and, even with his modest walk rate, clearly has do to do with the people hitting behind him).

if he had better protection he'd walk a bit more too probably.

200 and 201st hits tonight. Are 200-hit seasons becoming rarer? Not sure, would have to investigate.

Only 70 runs scored...He'll get to 75, but I've got to believe that's the lowest total ever for a 200-hit guy, and maybe the lowest total ever for a batting champion.

in 2010 Ichiro had 214 hits and scored 74(!) runs

Kirby puckett went 215/75 in '89

but it's really rare. and i guess there's a chance Luis won't get to 75? one run every two games, if the guys behind him scuffle anything can happen.

garret anderson had a weird one: 201 hits, 29 HR, 49 doubles, 4 triples, 80 runs scored. it's hard to be a hitter w/80 plus XBH and that few runs scored.

There you go--thanks. Another famous one, although probably more common: Brook Jacoby in '87, where he played 155 games, hit .300 with 32 homers, and knocked in 69 runs.

Follow-up from stuff from the Elly De La Cruz thread: the thing you always heard about Carew, Boggs, and Ichiro, and I'm sure people say it about Arreaz, too, is that they could routinely hit 30+ homers if they wanted to. As much as I like them all, I'm skeptical about that.

Something I came across gives some context to how impressive .354 is in 2023: only 10 players hit .300 this year, the fewest in a season since 1968 (nine), the year of Gibson and McLain and having to lower the mound the following season.

i can't be bothered to look at the historical stats, and i've touched on this before, but there seems to be an unprecedentedly low number of active players with a career BA of .300 and above. right now, there are three. Trout, who seems likely to dip down below (he's at .301), Freeman is also at .301, and Altuve is .307 -- Arraez doesn't qualify per Baseball Reference yet, but he's presently at .326 and seems likely to be well above the mark when he reaches 3000 PA (two more seasons would do it.)

I might try to check this tonight (if there's a way), but I'm guessing that coming out of the PED era--at the end of the 2004 season, say--there were 15-20 hitters with 3,000 PA and a .300+ career average.

How's that for a guess? At least 19 players finished the 2004 season with 3,000+ PA and a career .300 average.

Todd Helton - .339
Vlad Guerrero - .325
Nomar Garciaparra - .322
Manny Ramirez - .316
Derek Jeter - .315
Mike Piazza - . 315
Edgar Martinez - .312
Frank Thomas - .308
Magglio Ordonez - .307
Ivan Rodriguez - .306
Mike Sweeney - .305
Chipper Jones - .304
Moises Alou - .300
Sean Casey - .304
Shannon Stewart - .303
Bernie Williams - .301
Roberto Alomar - .300
Barry Bonds - .300
Julio Franco - .300

Also, from the 2001 rookie class:

Ichiro Suzuki - .340
Albert Pujols - .333

Because of how I did this--a rough list from the all-time leaders, dropping down to .295, then checking their career average after the 2004 season myself--there's a decent chance someone was missed. It'd have to be a player who finished 2004 at .300+, then finished his career at .294 or lower. Which seems plausible.

I actually had spotted magglio's BR page earlier and saw that his final career ba was .309! that 2007 season where he hit .363 really helped him out.

ah man my old little league baseball coach shannon stewart, shoutout to shannon

i can't be bothered to look at the historical stats, and i've touched on this before, but there seems to be an unprecedentedly low number of active players with a career BA of .300 and above. right now, there are three.

And yet... advanced evaluative metrics say current players are as good as ever. Hang-ups on Boomer/pre-Boomer box score stats when even little leaguers are familiar with and coached launch angle (yet probably not hard-hit%s and barrel%s lol). While BA may have some old school charm, it's not going to get you in the lineup as fast as LA/HH/Bar or even gen-x stats like OPS. There may be a very good reason why we'll see less and less BA grinders in the future.

Nothing against Arraez of course, his impressive BA was a product of several factors of his skillset and I'd imagine not something he was focused on.

teams just value walking + power over contact and have for a while now. the incentives for any player who can access lift + power at the expense of contact are pretty clear

All true, it's just more of an interesting change than anything worthy of alarmism

Masataka Yoshida is a pure contact guy, even with a huge slump (completely gassed towards end of the season, not unusual for JP players especially as he did WBC as well) he finished with .289. His last two months tanked his numbers but I would consider him a safe bet after finishing the season and going through the grind once.

That list I compiled obviously has some all-time greats, but there also a handful of players who, in the context of their era, weren't all that valuable offensively: Sweeney, Casey, and Stewart are the three that come to mind. They had moderate power, took 50 or 60 walks a year. With guys routinely hitting 50 HR or .350+, or slugging .700+, their .300 averages weren't a big deal. I checked their OPS+ through 2004: Sweeney's was 122, Casey's 114, Stewart's 111. .300 then didn't mean what .300 now does.

In 1930, the NL hit .303 as a league!

The point I'm trying to make, I guess, is that I think Luis Arraez, right now, has more in common with peak Nomar than with Mike Sweeney or Shannon Stewart.

Arreaz OPS+ (2022-2023): 131
Nomar OPS+ (1997-2003): 135

It's just a case of, does he get even better, or have we already seen his peak?

Dante Bichette came frighteningly close to being a .300 career hitter*, along with a bunch of big power** years and loads of RBIs*** obv

luis arraez feels to me like nu-bill madlock, which is hardly a dis, he was very close to being in the hall of very good.

Interesting...I tend to group Madlock/Buckner/Al Oliver together; they were like the second-tier high-average hitters in the '70s, after Carew. Arraez isn't Rod Carew, so that be a reasonable comparison.

"might be"

Peak Madlock (1974-83): .316, 129 OPS+
Peak Buckner (1972-82): .300, 106 OPS+
Peak Oliver (1972-83): .322, 127 OPS+

I've just shown Bill Buckner the door...the other two, very good comps.

Last one. Fewer walks, more HR, briefer peak, and more children scattered here and there, but also not bad (and a tough hitting environment):

Peak Garvey (1973-80): .311, 129 OPS+

the Yoshida example is instructive. If he worked on improving launch angle and lifting the ball, his average would probably go down but he also wouldn't hit into so many got-danged double plays

According to his coaches in Japan when he starts hitting grounders more then it means he’s tired. He’s supposedly working on stamina this year for the long season.

btw he’s hit over 20 home runs several times in Japan, really think it’s being gassed to blame

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=yoshid002mas

Going to the Pad's apparently!

The return, per source: Dillon Head, Woo Suk-Goo, Jakob Marsee, Nathan Martorella. On it: @CraigMish https://t.co/VnxhAkLdyT

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) May 4, 2024

does this make the marlins the first to (understandably) throw in the towel on the season?

I think the A’s threw in the towel before the season started

Since the start of the season? Sure. Kinda wild to go from making the post-season to giving up at the start of May the following year

Can't seem to google an answer, but my guess is he could be the first guy ever to win batting titles with three different teams--lots of time.

Probably even be difficult to find someone with a .320+ lifetime average about to play for his third team before he's 30.

forget strikeouts, how long can he go without any of the three true outcomes happening

sad to say, because i like the empty .300 hitter archetype (good contact, zero power, just like me) and i want them to succeed, but i'd guess the looming expiration date for arraez is his early 30s. it's not just the lack of power - he is one of the worst defenders in baseball, already moving down the positional slide to 1B, and even then, he's one of the worst fielding first basemen. since he doesn't have much speed either, he's soon going to have just his one skill: contact.

juan pierre had a very similar hitting profile to arraez - both of them walk and strikeout at incredibly low rates, with zero power and high contact rates. the difference is, juan pierre was very fast and also an average OF. arraez is an average/slow runner and already stuck at 1B/DH at 27. :-o

i do want him to hit .400 though!

.322 hitters can’t catch a break these days

xp re: lofton and arraez, i think it comes down to three things:

1) lofton was very speedy - imagine all those times he was able to score going from 1st to home on a double, or 2nd to home on an iffy single, where arraez wouldn't have the speed to score

2) lofton had a bit more power (around .130 ISO for most of his career, whereas arraez is around .100) which put him in scoring position more often

3) just going by memory, but i think some of those mid-90s cleveland teams were probably more likely to drive him in than the early 2020s twins/marlins

bonus possible 4) run scoring environments in lofton's career vs now? runs scored per game are down to about 4.41 this year (https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/bat.shtml), whereas in lofton's era it was more like 4.8 - 5.1. it doesn't seem like much of a difference, but that's about 10% more runs scored per game

this concludes this edition of "i haven't actually seen him play more than twice but i'm consulting statistics make big guesses"

was kenny a good base stealer?

>I used him on Immaculate Grid this morning.

dude.

he ended up with a success rate of 80%, so not phenomenal but enough to make it a positive. but i was paying more attention to his overall running (including first to home, second to home and making good baserunning decisions) as measured by the fangraphs BsR stat (which includes SB and CS too). for his career, lofton ended up at 68.5 BsR runs above average, which is 18th all-time (just above beltran and just below gardner. fun list!). and even at age 36 in 2003, lofton was 7th in the league in BsR, so it was something he was able to maintain through his 30s.

(juan pierre 4th all-time on that list! and on a per-game basis, he was a Rickey-level runner on the basepaths.

career BsR

1st: rickey henderson, 13,346 PAs, 144.4 BsR (0.0108 BsR/PA)

4th: juan pierre, 8280 PAs, 89.4 BsR (0.0108 BsR/PA)

2,824th: arraez, -2.7 BsR (obviously still playing so the number will change, but not likely to tip into the positive region)

just for fun, here's the worst 5 career baserunners:

https://i.imgur.com/TMjTUvx.png

That was the first thing I thought of after posting, that Lofton's career was encompassed by the PED era, so a 108 OPS+ then meant more in terms of actual runs than a 108+ today. I still like Arraez a lot, but I'm thinking he's probably more Willie Wilson/Mickey Rivers/Ralph Garr than Carew/Gwynn.

(I used him in the most obvious way imaginable on the grid this morning Thermo, one you'd want to avoid anyway.)

i honestly hadn't thought of him (was in the mulling over phrase in a busy/stressful day for me) went on to make a pick i think is likely way less popular

congrats on this thread for putting the jinx on arraez (3rd strikeout since asb)

he was also thrown out at home by a country mile (again thanks to the jinx of this thread)

But up to .323 and pulling away for another batting title!

Luis Arraez went 141 plate appearances without a strikeout, before finally doing so on Monday. That’s the third-longest streak of consecutive PA without striking out since 2000, per Elias. He trails only 2004 Juan Pierre (147) and 2001 Pierre (143). If you’re curious, the record in the expansion era (1961) is 223, by 1976 Dave Cash.

Are there stats that capture the value of not striking out?

capt obvious here but OBP (ie, not making an out during a PA) does this (and more!)

Right but I mean say, grounding out (and potentially? actually?) moving a runner 90 feet closer to home vs a K

what's the value of tiring out a pitcher? does anybody track average number of pitches at bat for hitters?

Of course, sometimes striking out is better than grounding out, for example, those guys who come to the plate with someone on first and wind up grounding into a double play. The strikeout would’ve been better at that point. You could probably dig deep into the statistics and find situational value in the outcome of every at bat. All the way down to the speedy dude who comes to the plate with a slow-ass statue on first, grounds out and gets the force at second, but beats the throw to first, and has replaced the slow runner with himself. That’s probably the type of overanalysis that leads to becoming a crazy person though.

Also, it’s not necessarily reflective of actual real-life value, but in our fantasy league Arraez is a player whose value is pretty negligible. He contributes nothing except on base percentage (we don’t do BA.)

I would think the combination of hitting the ball hard and not striking out much--DiMaggio, Mattingly--would be valuable, less so with a bat-control guy.