Comparisons to Tony Gwynn started to observe Luis Arráez when he first established himself within the massive leagues, rising extra prevalent because the hits piled up and the batting titles adopted. Arráez wasn’t as prolific, however his abilities and the best way he utilized them — constantly spraying baseballs to unoccupied areas all around the discipline, barreling pitches no matter how or the place they have been thrown — made hyperlinks to certainly one of historical past’s most gifted hitters appear inevitable.
Tony Gwynn Jr., the late Corridor of Famer’s son, usually heard them and largely understood them. However it wasn’t till the evening of Could 4, whereas watching Arráez compile 4 hits in his debut with the identical San Diego Padres group his father starred for, that he really felt them.
“I actually had goosebumps watching him put collectively at-bats,” stated Gwynn Jr., a retired main league outfielder who serves as an analyst for the Padres’ radio broadcasts. “It took me again to watching movie with my dad as he was principally doing the identical factor.”
Gwynn was universally celebrated all through the Eighties and ’90s, however Arráez stands as a polarizing determine within the slug-obsessed, launch-angle-consumed period by which he performs. Some, just like the Miami Marlins group that traded him away earlier this month, see a one-dimensional participant who does not present sufficient velocity, energy or defensive acumen at second base to construct round. Others, just like the Padres, who used 4 prospects to amass him at a time when trades hardly ever occur, see the kind of offensive mastery that greater than makes up for it.
What’s inarguable is that Arráez is the last word outlier.
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Working example: The publicly obtainable bat-speed metrics lately unveiled by Statcast characteristic a graph that locations hitters primarily based on their relationship between common bat velocity (X-axis) and squared-up price (Y-axis). On their own on the highest left nook, far faraway from the opposite 217 certified hitters, is Arráez. He has the slowest swing within the sport but in addition its best, theoretically, as a result of he meets pitches with the candy spot of his bat extra usually than anyone else.
Arráez has solely 24 house runs in 2,165 profession at-bats. However his .324 batting common since his 2019 debut leads the majors, 10 factors larger than that of Freddie Freeman, the runner-up. He walks at a below-average clip, however his main league-leading 7.5% strikeout price is a couple of third of the MLB common throughout that stretch, cartoonish in probably the most strikeout-prone period in baseball historical past.
He’s elite even when he chases: The foremost league common on pitches outdoors the rulebook strike zone because the begin of the 2023 season is .162. Arráez’s: .297.
“Now with the analytics they give attention to house runs, they give attention to guys hitting the ball laborious however hitting .200,” Arráez stated in Spanish. “However in my thoughts, and with all of the work that I do, I keep targeted on simply doing my job — not attempt to do an excessive amount of or attempt to do what they’re telling me to do. Analysts say my exit velocity is [among] the bottom within the massive leagues. Amen. Allow them to maintain saying that. So long as I’ve my well being, I maintain doing issues to assist my group, I’ll be effective.”
Arráez turned the primary participant to win a batting title within the American and Nationwide leagues in consecutive seasons final 12 months. However commerce rumors surrounded him from the onset of 2024, his second-to-last season earlier than free company. As a 27-year-old two-time All-Star with a .324 profession batting common, a sterling fame and a said need to stay in South Florida, he was a participant the directionless Marlins franchise may construct round. However a brand new entrance workplace thought-about him expendable. A 9-24 begin to the season created a gap. And on Could 3, 5 minutes earlier than the primary pitch was thrown in Oakland, Marlins supervisor Skip Schumaker known as Arráez into his workplace.
“I am not going to mislead you,” Arráez stated, “I wasn’t able to be traded.”
Schumaker advised Arráez he’d must take away him from the lineup as a result of a cope with the Padres was shut. He gave him the choice of returning to the clubhouse or going into the dugout for one last second along with his teammates. Arráez stayed till the fifth inning, retreated to his resort room, waited on a name from Padres officers and hopped on a flight at midday the next day to fulfill his new group.
Arráez did not have sufficient garments for the extra six days of the Padres’ highway journey. He wore his Marlins-colored cleats by stops in Phoenix and Chicago and compiled eight hits in 20 at-bats throughout that stretch. After the group obtained again to San Diego, he used the Could 9 off day to seek for an condominium and spend time along with his mother, spouse and three daughters, who flew in for a weekend go to, then delivered a walk-off single towards the rival Los Angeles Dodgers in his house debut the next evening. He is nonetheless dwelling out of a resort room filled with unopened containers, however he already feels wished. Embraced, even.
“They’ve welcomed me right here with open arms,” Arráez stated. “I really feel as if I have been right here since spring coaching.”
Arráez was a 4-year-old in Venezuela when Gwynn performed the ultimate season of his 20-year profession in 2001. When Gwynn died in 2014, Arráez was nonetheless a young person on the Minnesota Twins’ Dominican Summer season League group. Listening to comparisons to Gwynn made him curious sufficient to search out outdated clips of a participant who was principally international to him. He started to review his method to hitting, marveling particularly at Gwynn’s means to let pitches journey deep into the strike zone earlier than driving them to the alternative discipline.
Conversations with certainly one of Gwynn’s most essential mentors, Twins icon and gifted batsman Rod Carew, introduced Arráez extra perception. Now related conversations are happening with Gwynn’s solely son. When the Padres return from their seven-game highway journey by Atlanta and Cincinnati, Arráez plans to go to the Gwynn statue that sits simply outdoors of Petco Park. He is not essentially leaning into the comparisons, however he is not working from them, both.
“It is such an important expertise when followers embrace you with open arms and inform you that I am a mini Tony Gwynn, and that I’ve lots of traits that remind them of him,” Arráez stated. “It is good to listen to individuals say issues like that.”
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Maybe the standard Gwynn and Arráez share most is self-awareness. “Know thyself” is a line Gwynn Jr. heard his father say repeatedly rising up, one which translated on to how he approached his occupation: He knew his strengths, labored relentlessly to maximise them and by no means tried to emulate others. Arráez’s new teammates already see the identical in him.
“It is not like he goes up there and simply does it,” Padres third baseman Manny Machado stated. “He places lots of work within the cage, earlier than video games, even earlier than BP and stuff like that. He is aware of his energy, and he works on it.”
Baseball’s evolution has made it tougher than ever for somebody like Arráez to exist. Pitchers have by no means thrown tougher, knowledge has by no means been extra prevalent, batting averages have infrequently been decrease. However Padres supervisor Mike Shildt is adamant that Arráez should not be an anomaly.
He recalled an outdated San Diego Union-Tribune article that re-ran Could 9, on what would have been Gwynn’s sixty fourth birthday. It detailed the period of time Gwynn spent engaged on hitting, and it validated one thing Shildt had lengthy believed: That extra gamers may hit .300, even at present, in the event that they labored on the craft of doing in order diligently and as pointedly as Gwynn did. As Arráez does.
“When you’ve gotten a capability to hit a ball to all of the totally different areas, you are going to hit,” Shildt stated. “And massive image, our business hasn’t taught that anymore. It is not valued anymore. It is not monetized anymore. You’ll be able to’t quantify this, nevertheless it’s a disgrace what number of beginner and lower-level skilled gamers have been excluded from persevering with to play as a result of they do not meet a measurable. They do not meet an exit velocity or bat velocity or launch angle, or all of these issues that this sport is now principally recruiting and monetizing blindly. They’re simply getting hits. And by some means that turned out of vogue in our business generally.”
However these at the moment are another person’s issues. The Padres will gladly take Arráez, all he his and all he is not, and slot him forward of Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Xander Bogaerts in hopes of using his singular bat to the playoffs.
Arráez continues to be six batting titles away from catching Gwynn. He is not anyplace close to pretty much as good a defender or as deadly a baserunner as Gwynn was early in his profession, and he wants one other decade-plus of comparable manufacturing — heightened manufacturing, really, given the .345 batting common Gwynn boasted between his ages 27 and 37 seasons — to even method him as a hitter. However Arráez’s type is the closest we have.
And if there’s one place that may respect it, it is his new one.
“This fan base goes to fall in love with him,” Gwynn Jr. stated. “It is how lots of them grew up watching baseball.”