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Luis Arraez Could Win the Weirdest Batting Title Ever
Originally posted on Just Baseball | By Eric Treuden | Last updated 9/6/24
As we march on through the month of September, it’s go time for teams looking to cement their spots in the postseason. At the same time, it’s also to a lesser but just as important extent, crunch time for award races around the league.
We’ve been extensively covering the award races all year, but the coverage is starting to ramp up as some winners . The NL MVP, NL Rookie of the Year and AL Rookie of the Year races are all ones that could come down to the wire.
On the other hand, the AL MVP Award might as well already be in Aaron Judge’s trophy case. Tarik Skubal is likely going to win the AL Cy Young Award and Chris Sale is the frontrunner over in the NL to finally get his first career award for being the league’s best pitcher.
One of the less exciting ones that still deserves some love is the batting title. In the AL, Bobby Witt Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Judge are the three superstars that have separated themselves from the field. As of right now, it’s Witt’s lead to lose as he has a .339 average.
However, the NL’s leader in batting average is the pesky slap-hitter Luis Arraez, who’s hitting just .311 on the season. Should he hang on to his lead, it’d be the third straight batting title for him, and he’d also be the first player in the Modern Era to do so with three different teams.
Taking a closer look at what Arraez has going on this year leads to all sorts of confusion. Let’s dive in together and check out whatever the heck he’s got going on this year.
Luis Arraez and His Weird Chase For Another Batting Title
It’s been a whirlwind of a year for Arraez, as he was traded to the San Diego Padres after appearing in just 33 games for the Marlins out of the gate. Miami knew they were going nowhere in the standings, so they sold high on him after he hit .354 the year prior and finished eighth in the NL MVP race.
Arraez has continued to hit for a high average, but that’s … pretty much it. In fact, his OPS is just .734 on the season, which is borderline below-average. His OPS+ and wRC+ are both 107, which puts him just seven percent above league-average.
He’s got no power, he doesn’t walk, he doesn’t strike out and he doesn’t steal bases. He’s had an OPS flirting with the .800 mark in the past (.861 last year, which is his career-high) but really, this seems to be standard for Arraez.
We’re not here to write a hit piece on him though. He consistently sports one of the higher averages in the league and to his credit, he’s 14th in the NL OBP leaderboards right now.
The guy finds a way to get on base, even if it’s only in the form of slap singles and the occasional double in the gap. He is second in the majors in multi-hit games to this point – doing so 55 times – trailing only Bobby Witt Jr. (57).
For lovers of fun stats that don’t mean anything to non-baseball nerds, Arraez has struck out two times since the All-Star break. The last time he was struck out was back on August 10 against the Marlins.
