All Arráez

Programming Note

Starting on Monday, paid subscriptions to hanging sliders will be activated. What does that mean for you? Paid subscribers will continue to receive at least three posts each week. Free subscribers will receive at least one free post each week. I’ve priced the subscription at the lowest level allowed by Substack: $5 per month or $50 per year. I hope I’ll be able to run specials on occasion to lower the price even more.

I didn’t start hanging sliders with paid subscriptions because I wanted to see how much interest is out there. And I wanted to re-establish my cred after taking several years off from writing about baseball. After 5 weeks and 16 posts, I can see there is community for this newsletter and it’s growing steadily each day.

As much as I love writing about baseball, this isn’t just a labor of love. It’s my labor and I deserve to be paid for it—just as I was paid when I wrote for FanGraphs, ESPN, The Athletic, Sports on Earth, Vice Sports, Sporting News and elsewhere. I hope you agree.

Here he comes again

If you’re a casual baseball, or you pay close attention to your favorite team and not much else, you may not know of Luis Arráez. If you’re a Twins fan, congrats—you had the pleasure of watching Arráez hit the seams off the baseball day after day.

The Venezuelan-born infielder whose last name is pronounced “ah-rise” made his major-league debut with the Twins in 2019. In four seasons with Minnesota, Arráez batted, on average, .314, second only to Tim Anderson of the White Sox, who hit .318 over the same period. Arráez hit below .300 in only one season (2021) and even then he was close at .294. In 2022, he won the American League batting title with a .316 average.

But that wasn’t all.

Thanks to those prodigious offensive numbers, Arráez was selected as an All-Star last season and was awarded a Silver Slugger as a “utility” player because he played 529 innings at first base, 277 inning at second base, and 40 innings at third base.

Arráez does not hit for power. And that may be one reason why he doesn’t show up all that much in highlights and GIFs that go viral. He hit only 14 home runs and 8 triples for the Twins, along with 77 doubles. Okay, let’s give him credit for the doubles, as he played four seasons at Target Field, which is a completely neutral ballpark for doubles, according to Statcast.

In January, the Twins traded Arráez to the Marlins for Pablo López and two prospects. The Twins needed starting pitching and the Marlins needed offense so the teams traded very good players still under team control.

Then Arráez and López then played together for Team Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic in March. That’s a little weird. The WBC provided Arráez with an opportunity to get to know the Marlins home ballpark—loanDepot Park—before this season kicked off. Apparently he got comfy there real fast.

Through 13 games, Arráez is batting. 500. That is not a typo! .500! In 46 at-bats, he has 23 hits—17 singles, 4 doubles, 1 triple and 1 home run—along with six walks. The home run and triple came on Tuesday in a game against the Phillies, along with a single and double for the first cycle in the 30-year history of the Marlins franchise.

Now that Arráez has hit for the cycle and won a batting championship, could he be the first .400 hitter since Ted Williams?

Stay tuned.

Checking in

On Monday I wrote about the Rays, who were 9-0 to start the season. Four games later, the Rays are 13-0, tying the 1982 Braves and 1987 Brewers for the most consecutive wins to begin a season. All of the things I wrote about the Rays on Monday are still true—they do the big things right and the little things right. They are balanced and they are relentless.

A lot of folks want to discount the Rays start because they’ve beat up on the Tigers, Nationals, A’s and Red Sox. I think that’s nonsense. We’ll see what happens when the Rays travel to Toronto for a weekend series against the Blue Jays.

Heading into the season, I wondered whether the new rules and bigger bases wold lead a team to steal 200 bases this season—something we haven’t seen in the majors since 2007. Stolen bases are definitely up so far this season, but is any team on pace to break 200 stolen bags?

Yes. The Guardians and Orioles lead the majors with 19 stolen bases through 13 games. That’s a pace of 1.46 stolen bases per game. Multiply that by 162 and you get 236. They’ll have to pick up the pace if they want to challenge the modern record for stolen bases: in 1976, the A’s stole 341.

Have a great weekend. Go watch some ball.