The Changing Game

[The Hot Corner]

The recent free agent signing of Luis Arraez sparked my interest. As a 3 time batting champion with a career .317 batting average there seemed to be very little interest in him. In this age of "launch angle" and emphasis on home runs and little concern for high strike out rates, it seems that guys that consistently makes contact and piles up singles and doubles just doesn't have much of a market.

I decided to compare Arraez to 4 great contact hitters of the modern era. I know that Arraez is not in the elite company of Rod Carew, Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, and Ichiro Suzuki, but I wanted to see how closely his numbers aligned to theirs through his 7 year career.

I used the average production over a 162 game season for the career of each of the great hitters as provided by Baseball Reference.

-----------------------------AVG. / OBP / SLG. / OPS / OPS+/WAR

Rod Carew . (19 seasons) .328 / .393 / .429 / .822 / 131 / 5.3

Wade Boggs (18 seasons) .328 / .415 / .443 / .858 / 131 / 6.1

Tony Gwynn (20 seasons) .338 / .388 / .459/ .847 / 132 / 4.6

Ichiro Suzuki (19 seasons) .311/ .355 / .402/ .757 / 107 / 3.7

Luis Arraez ....(7 seasons) .317/ .363 /.413/ .777 / 115 / 3.2

First for clarification, I do not view Arraez as having the same value as the 4 Hall of Fame greats I am comparing him with. They are simply similar type of hitters, in that they consistently made contact with low strike out rates and hit for high averages. What I find interesting, is how closely at this point in his career Arraez offensive numbers match up with Ichiro's career. Ichiro's ceiling was certainly much higher and his career numbers, as did all of the HOF stars, tailed of at the end of his long careers. Ichiro also won 10 Gold Gloves inn Right Field while Tony Gwynn 5 Gold Gloves as an outfielder. Carew, Gwynn, and Ichiro also stole bases and brought speed on the base paths. These are additional skills that Arraez does not possess.

The closest match to Arraez that I could come up with off the top my head was Brett Butler. Butler had was a good player and had a solid career.

Brett Butler (17 seasons) .290 / .377 / .376 / .753 / 110 / 3.6 Butler again brought the stolen base and speed on the base paths.

Lastly, I was rather surprised to see how Ichiro's career offensive averages lagged behind those of his HOF brethren and how closely Brett Butler's numbers compare to those of Suzuki.

[Centerfield]

I think with Ichiro, his twilight lasted so long that all of his career numbers are skewed by years of replacement level numbers. More so than the 2-3 years at the end of most careers. He stayed in his prime until age 37, but played regularly until he was 43. (Not counting his last two years, which were basically symbolic).

As for Arraez. He’s unique in that he brings so little to the table besides batting average. Usually guys who have that bat to ball skill have some defensive value, or as you mentioned, some speed.

I’m sure in the 80s he would be more sought after than he is now. But with the modern numbers he doesn’t look great. He’s going into his age 29 season. And is coming off two down years. Low 700s OPS and a WAR of 1 and 1.2.

[Edgy MD]

Some of those guys shed their defensive and baserunning pluses over the second half of their careers also. Carew moved to first, Gwynn grew that belly, and both of them stopped putting up big basestealing numbers, while Boggs, of course was never fast. He became a good fielder in his peak, but it took him a few years to get there. And somewhat like Ichiro, he kind of had a long tail of averageness.

The key to such players is kind of believing they don't necessarily have to have those extras to have value. That just being high-average/high-contact guys is worth having. And seemingly, that is a minority opinion.

Certainly, though, the problem with any one-key-skill guy is that there is nothing to fall back on if and when that one key skill regresses to the mean.

For what its worth, I like Arraez. In today's pitch-count-critical game, it is always fascinating to see him turn a game on its ear simply by clocking in a 10-pitch trip to the plate, no matter what its outcome. And while I get that his game is trending toward averageness, my impression of his performance against the Mets has been Hall-of-Fame-worthy. (Checking his numbers against the Mets and OH! YES! he's gone a ballcrushing .417 / .462 / .524 // .986 in 94 plate appearances.)

[Frayed Knot]

Couple of things about Ichiro: I don't want to call him a 'compiler' because that has a more negative connotation than what I'm trying to say here, but a large part of the stats he put up was a result of playing just about every game/every year from the time he was 20 until he was 38. Ichiro averaged 159.3 G/yr over his first 12 MLB seasons (ages 27 to 38 from 2001 to 2012). That's what helps get the counting stats so high, not only the 3,089 hits in MLB but 1,728 in the JPL before ever coming to this side of the Pacific. Staying on the field regularly helped Pete Rose too.

Now for the somewhat negative side:

- he rarely walked. Look at the difference between his BA & OBA: 44 points where 70 is about league average so barely 60% as often as the typical player. Some guys just like to hit so much (and are good enough at it) that their walk rates are lower for it. Gwynn (50) and Arraez (46) also fall into this category. Nothing wrong with it really but it does temper their OBA even with often league leading BAs

- lack of power: of all the hitters on the 3,000 hit club Ichiro is 33rd of 33 in percentage of hits going for extra bases (81.3% singles). That's behind even dead-ball-era players Eddie Collins (next at 79.3%) and Cap Anson, as well as the more recent 'contact' hitters such as Carew, Gwynn, Rose, Jeter, Boggs and Brock (those are the bottom 9). All that helps to explain the relative lower WAR rates for Ichiro: 25 points of career OBA behind Gwynn, 38 in back of Carew, and 60 behind Boggs, plus less slugging than all of them.

Arraez is kind of in the same camp except worse because he brings little defensive value or speed (31 of 48 SB or 65% success rate). So that when his BA dropped below .300 in 2025, even to a still good .292, his OPS+ fell to a below average level. OK, just below at 99, but when you pair that with no positional value or speed I think it's safe to say that it's not like contact skills aren't valued in today's game, it's just that much less hangs on that one stat (BA) compared to the way it was perceived back when most of us were kids (and the way it still exists in Keith's head). So, following his first four seasons in Minnesota, Arraez will now be on his third team in four seasons since, and maybe more before the season is done depending on how the Giants are doing and who needs what when the 2026 trading deadline approaches.

* this took me a while to write so somewhat redundant with above posts

[Centerfield]

Another example of the changing game is Eugenio Suarez. He signed a 1 year deal for $15M. He comes off a year when he hit 49 HR and posted an .824 OPS.

Working against Suarez here are his age (going to be 34) and that he, like Arraez, is basically a one dimensional player. Good power, doesn't hit for average, doesn't walk, not fast, not a good defender. Another factor can be that his power seems to be mitigated a bit when not playing in Cincinnati or Arizona. He has a .424 SLG percentage over his time in Seattle.