Luis Arraez is in the midst of his first season with the Miami Marlins and he has been making the most out of playing with a young and inexperienced team. Currently the Marlins sit at 10 games above .500, 74 games into the season, but how much does Arraez have to do with that?
The answer is plain and simple. Arraez has everything to do with their success. The Marlins have been looking for an offensive star ever since they traded away Giancarlo Stanton back in 2018. In the last 5 seasons for the Marlins, their offensive numbers have been miserable and rank towards the bottom of the league.
Arraez totally flipped those numbers around with his ability to put the ball in play almost every single at bat. He was acquired in the offseason from a trade from the Minnesota Twins in exchange for pitcher Pablo Lopez. Lopez was high up on the Marlins rotation and it was hard letting him go, but the trade was a win for both teams.
The Twins desperately needed good pitching and got that in Lopez, and the Marlins needed a consistent bat and are getting that and more out of Arraez. People around the league will tell you that the deal was a win for both teams, but Arraez has had so much more to do with the turnaround of the Marlins than Lopez could have ever had.
Just to show how good Arraez has been lets look at a simple stat, batting average. Batting average is based out of 1.000 and Arraez currently leads the league with a .398 batting average. That means that every 10 at-bats Arraez has, he's going to get a hit in at least 4 of them. There are only a select few players around the league that bat over .300 and aren't close to .400 in the slightest.
The average batting average around the league is in the mid .200's. So that means for the average player, in every 10 at-bats they get at least 2 hits, while Arraez is doubling that with 4. It's simple, the man is on a different level with how productive he has been from the left side of the plate.
Also, it's not like he's trying to go out of his way to get on base and get hits. He simply has the goal of lining a base hit over the head of the shortstop and goes up to the box every time with that intention. Not many players around the league have this intention when stepping into the box, but maybe they should pick this up from the hottest hitter in the league.
Arraez is on pace to win the batting title in the NL, leading the other leaders in batting average by wide margin. He also won the batting title last season in the AL for the Twins. A select few players have changed leagues and won batting titles in both of them, but Arraez is well on pace to accomplish this feat.
It's fun seeing what Luis Arraez can do and how drastically he has changed the outlook of this Marlins team. You have to go back to two logo changes ago when the Marlins had a record this good and were on pace to have success. They've only made the playoffs three times in their brief history as a franchise and Luis Arraez is making a great case to make it a fourth time for this Marlins ball club.
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