Luis Arraez has evolved from longshot to oddity, from entertainer to achiever, from Twins utility player to All-Star. His evolution may not be complete.
Named to his first All-Star team on Sunday, Arraez is having a career year. If it proves more the norm than an aberration, he could become one of the best line-drive hitters in modern baseball history.
He leads the American League in batting average, at .348, and on-base percentage, at .420. In 2022, he is a leaner, better version of himself. He is also a .322 career hitter through 3 ½ seasons, a mark that puts him within reach of some of the best pure hitters in modern (post-integration) baseball.
Scroll through the highest career batting averages in baseball history, and you'll find a lot of old-timers who slapped the ball through drawn-in infields and didn't have to spend their entire career facing someone who looked like Bob Gibson or Pedro Martinez.
Of the modern-era, smack-a-single and draw-a-walk style hitters, there are three obvious standouts: Tony Gwynn, Rod Carew and Wade Boggs. For provincial purposes, we can add Kirby Puckett, who didn't fit into this group stylistically because he hit for more power and had little interest in walks.
Gwynn hit .338 for his career with an OPS-plus (on-base plus slugging percentages combined and compared to the league average) of 132.
Boggs and Carew hit .328 with an OPS-plus of 131. Puckett hit .318 with an OPS-plus of 124.
All four are in the Hall of Fame, with Puckett making it despite an eye condition that shortened his career and kept him from reaching career milestones like 3,000 hits.
Arraez's career average is .322 with an OPS-plus of 123. His numbers this year: .348 with an OPS-plus of 154.
If this year isn't a one-off, Arraez could be building a Hall of Fame resume. If he returns to being a .320 hitter, he'll still be valuable and unique.
Arraez has already achieved something indelible. He's become one of the most endearing and entertaining players in Twins history.
Puckett, with his buoyant personality, sheer hustle and status as the best player on two World Series champs, will always lead that pack. How many other players signed and developed by the Twins have offered the same level of refined skill, relentless competitiveness and showmanship as Arraez?
There is one, clear, post-Puckett precedent.
Eddie Guardado was a 21st-round draft pick out of high school. He lacked size and velocity. He failed as a big-league starter, then reinvented himself as a lefthanded relief specialist, then a setup man.
When Ron Gardenhire became the Twins' manager in 2002, he named Guardado his closer, despite Guardado's 90-mph fastball. Guardado would create a bullpen entrance and pre-pitch ceremony that looked borrowed from the world of professional wrestling. He would also become one of the Twins' most important players as they returned to the playoffs after a nine-year drought, and would turn himself into an All-Star.
Arraez's career path is similar. He was signed as an international free agent and given a pittance of a signing bonus. He built a reputation for skill and gamesmanship, shaking his head at pitches out of the strike zone and swinging the bat with childlike joy.
Like Guardado, he is undersized, at 5-10, 175 pounds, and lacks the power that most scouts drool over.
Arraez is proof that there will always be a place in the game for skilled line-drive hitters.
When Arraez first arrived in the big leagues, in 2019, and began performing his one-man play at home plate, he looked more like an oddity than a prospect. The Twins were on their way to hitting a major-league record 307 home runs, and here was a longshot filling in for injured teammates and mashing sharp line drives through the infield.
I asked Twins manager Rocco Baldelli then if Arraez could become a regular, given his limited power.
Baldelli smiled and said, "Oh, Luis Arraez is going to play in the big leagues for a long, long time.''
