Don’t understand why the Twins traded him so soon. He comes up as a 2B, but not a great defender so he ends up playing a lot of first. Incredible bat skills with no power. He was a Twin. Other than his lack of speed, everything about him says he’s the 2nd coming of Rod Carew.

So why not wait 7 years, let him collect a few batting titles and an MVP award, and then trade him to the Angels?

Don’t understand why the Twins traded him so soon.

Because it was pretty easy to believe that Arraez was coming off a career year that he wasn't likely to reproduce, and the Twins, who finished 2022 21st in SP WAR really needed some help in the rotation.

Forget the xBA from the article, and use xwOBA, and we'll see that Arreaz's wOBA exactly matched his xwOBA from 2019 to 2021, and then the former outperformed the latter (which stayed near his career average) by 17 points in 2022. It seemed more than reasonable to believe that Arraez was really more like a 115 wRC+ hitter who caught some breaks than a 130 wRC+ hitter in 2022, and not a guy who figured out how to game the system to outperform his x-stats.

Don’t understand why the Twins traded him so soon. He comes up as a 2B, but not a great defender so he ends up playing a lot of first. Incredible bat skills with no power. He was a Twin. Other than his lack of speed, everything about him says he’s the 2nd coming of Rod Carew.

They already had Jorge Polanco at second, Carlos Correa at short, with Royce Lewis and Austin Martin coming up soon, it seemed like Arraez was a bit wasted at 1B/DH (where they were expecting to use Jose Miranda and/or Alex Kiriloff). Perfect use of trading a guy from a surplus to fill another need, and the same goes for the Marlins - they're teeming with starting pitching but needed a lot of help on offense. Great to see the trade working well for both teams.

Arraez’s BABIP is… huge! It’s enormous! It’s gigantic! That .405 mark is the second-highest BABIP among 161 qualified hitters

That is not my idea of "gigantic."

In the past decade, only Yoán Moncada in 2019 has posted a higher BABIP as a qualified hitter in a 162-game season. The only other hitters to break .390 in that time were Tim Anderson that same season and Avisaíl García in 2017

Murderers row.

Don’t understand why the Twins traded him so soon.

Lopez kinda having the opposite season with an ERA 0.75 higher than his FIP (but his BABIP allowed is quite normal).

The Twins (from what I heard) didn't think he could keep playing 2nd for much longer, largely because of his knees.

I supported the trade and still do. I hope it helps both teams.

Don’t understand why the Twins traded him so soon.

Because, like OJ, he was Not A Jew.

That is not my idea of "gigantic."

That's what she said (tm).

So why not wait 7 years, let him collect a few batting titles and an MVP award, and then trade him to the Angels?

This comment infuriates me. Nicely done.

* s l o w . c l a p *

People kept waiting for Ken Landreaux to turn into something big but he never did

He's up to .399 after a 3-4 day.

He's up to .399 after a 3-4 day.

K% down to 4.8%! The article references Tony Gwynn and he struck out 4.2% (in a much lower K% era). I honestly thought his run was over in the middle of May when he slumped. Then he got hot again!

Of course he's not likely to .400, but he's the only guy in baseball who has a plausible chance at hitting .370+ right now and I'm glad he's getting written about.

Sure seems like the Twins gave up a LOT of talent last year between this guy and the prospects the Reds got. I've been checked out the last couple of years, don't really know the context but...eesh.

Hombre,

I wasn’t even trying to bust on the Angels. Carew was a good trade for them. They gave up 4 guys, but only Ken Landreaux was good enough to be a regular, and despite the age difference only barely outlasted Rod as a big leaguer. If they had kept him, maybe they never bring in Freddie Lynn for 82.

Sure, would have been a lot better if Angels had gotten him before 1977, but as is, watching Carew hit was an enjoyable part of my childhood.

“Because it was pretty easy to believe that Arraez was coming off a career year that he wasn't likely to reproduce“

Not to me. The guy hits .313 combined for his first 3 seasons, then hits .316 and it’s a career year? Maybe these younger execs don’t have the range of experience to appreciate a guy who just hits for average and doesn’t do anything else. I’ve seen this player type before, and am happy that one still walks the earth.

I dont understand how anyone can think Arreaz's last season was some sort of outlier. He's doing the same things he's always done namely; hitting a bit more line drives than most player and not striking out. His K rate, his ba, his babip last year were all in line with what he's done previously. And he was 25 years old.

The thing I keep seeing with peripheral stats is that they dont seem offer much predictive value or whatever value when a team or a player is more or less an outlier. So sure, an average guy who's suddenly babip'ng more than usual might be something to beware of. but there are guys who are consistently above average or below average with babip and that doesnt mean they are about to fall off a cliff or due for a break out.

Moncada came up in one of the threads and in his break out year his babip was .404 which was unusual for him as well as for MLB so sure that was probably an outlier.

I dont want to dismiss xwOBA out of hand. How is it any different than wRC or wRC+?

@theaceofspaeder

Through 445 career games:

#Marlins Luis Arraez
527 hits - .325/.384/.421

#Padres Tony Gwynn
548 hits - .324/.375/.411

#Reds Pete Rose
507 hits - .286/.347/.385

The difference is that Arraez is 26, Gwynn was 25, and Rose was 24 upon reaching 445 games.

Does anyone else in the game today even try to hit the way he hits? He seems so focused on contact and hitting through or just over the infield, and so uninterested in hitting the ball hard or power. As a Red Sox fan, the closest I've seen is Alex Verdugo. When he's going good, he sprays liners and hard grounders all over the field, often going to opposite way to take advantage of a big hole (if there is one). But even he swings for power fairly often.

Is there anyone? Should there be more hitters like this?

I like that so many posters were sincerely debating with Rally about whether the Twins should follow the exact path with Arraez that they did with Carew.

I dont understand how anyone can think Arreaz's last season was some sort of outlier. He's doing the same things he's always done namely; hitting a bit more line drives than most player and not striking out. His K rate, his ba, his babip last year were all in line with what he's done previously. And he was 25 years old.

Doing the same things you've always done, but suddenly finding an extra 15 points of wRC+ is exactly what looks like an outlier.

The thing I keep seeing with peripheral stats is that they dont seem offer much predictive value or whatever value when a team or a player is more or less an outlier.

I'm not sure what data you're looking at, but I'm not seeing why we'd be any more dismissive of their predictive value than anything else.

but there are guys who are consistently above average or below average with babip and that doesnt mean they are about to fall off a cliff or due for a break out.

It's not that Arraez is above average in an x-stat, so he's more likely to regress, it's that his x-stat isn't in line with the non-x-stat. It's like when a pitcher has a 4.50 FIP and a 3.50 ERA. We understand the underlying performance isn't in line with the end results.

I dont want to dismiss xwOBA out of hand. How is it any different than wRC or wRC+?

It focuses more on the "process" than the results. Take two guys on any given day - one who hits four 100 mph line drives, and one who hits four 60 mph bloopers/six-hoppers. Say all four of the former's go right at fielders, while two of the latter's sneak in between defenders. Which of the two guys would you expect better numbers from going forward? Numbers for example purposes only, but wRC+ goes "you ended up on second so you generated 100% of the value of a double", while xwoba goes "you hit the ball 100 mph at an angle of 10 degrees, that's a double 80% of the time, a home run 10% of the time, and an out 10% of the time, so you get 80% of the value of a double, 10% of the value of a homer, and 10% of the value of an out"

I like that so many posters were sincerely debating with Rally about whether the Twins should follow the exact path with Arraez that they did with Carew.

It’s a challenging argument. I’m glad we have people up for the challenge. One difference is that in say 1970, there was no major league team in Miami. If there was, they might have been the team to have Doc Ellis (randomly looking for a young decent pitcher that could have been the 1970 version of Pablo Lopez), and they trade him to the Twins for Carew. This probably doesn’t prevent Carew from ending his career with the Angels, because Marlins never keep anybody, and Arreaz might end up there too, eventually.

Could add in the first 30 games of 1985 for him to get to 445, but I’m lazy and it won’t change things that much.

Through 415 games Wade Boggs had 531 hits on a 344/421/448 slash. He was also 26.

It focuses more on the "process" than the results. Take two guys on any given day - one who hits four 100 mph line drives, and one who hits four 60 mph bloopers/six-hoppers.

oh ok are they using some standard formula for weighting these events? Cause the article I read didnt make it too clear saying

"For instance: In 2014, a home run was worth 2.101 times on base..."


like what does that even mean? Its worth 2.1 times the value of an average event that ends up on base???

from this site: https://www.mlb.com/glossary/advanced-stats/weighted-on-base-average

Batting average may not be the most important statistic anymore, but hitting .400 would still be a Big Deal, so I hope Arraez makes it interesting. Maybe a .400 campaign would have an effect on attendance & TV ratings in Miami?

Maybe a .400 campaign would have an effect on attendance & TV ratings in Miami?

I can't imagine it wouldn't, even in Miami.

It's not that Arraez is above average in an x-stat, so he's more likely to regress, it's that his x-stat isn't in line with the non-x-stat. It's like when a pitcher has a 4.50 FIP and a 3.50 ERA. We understand the underlying performance isn't in line with the end results.

I'm not sure that's always right. It means the current results are not likely to be sustainable, not that the underlying performance wasn't inline with the results. You get a bunch of weak grounders one day, you deserve to keep runs off the board even if you can't count on all your contact always being weak grounders (unless you are Justin Steele).

Anyway, I'm not sure it's right to say Arraez is the same guy or that what he's doing isn't inline with his results (if that's what people are saying, I'm having trouble following which years we are talking about). His swing percentage is up 6%, which seems like a significant adjustment that has allowed him to get a leg up on pitchers and meaningfully cut down on his K-rate while not hurting his quality of contact.

Is it sustainable? Not likely, although I'm hardly a savvy enough observer of baseball to be sure. But I don't think we can challenge the underlying performance. Dude outsmarted everyone by changing his approach to maximize his skillset and the league is still figuring out how to adjust back. That seems to me like better performance, not simply better results.

Doing the same things you've always done, but suddenly finding an extra 15 points of wRC+ is exactly what looks like an outlier.

15 points of wRC+ is nothing. That's just pretty standard season-to-season bouncing around.

Anthony Rizzo the last several years: 145, 134, 126, 140, 103 (2020), 113, 132, 138. That's not an "outlier", that's a few extra balls going over the wall or not; that's a few more days playing banged up; that's something going wrong in your personal life or not; or whatever it is that keeps players from being metronomes. His xWOBA: 391, 380, 359, 367, 388, 355 (2020), 347, 349, 340.

So his wRC+ ranged from 103 to 145 with 3 seasons where it changed by 14 points or more. His xwOBA has ranged from 340 to 391 with 3 seasons where it changed by 20 points or more. Who knows how meaningful those changes in xwOBA even are since it is "scaled" to that season's OBP so a player's xwOBA and wOBA can change just because these league factors change ... but they don't usually change much from one season to the next ... they can change a lot across eras but I don't know if that's been looked at. The weights applied to each event also change each year. These contextual adjustments are necessary (depending on what you're doing with the stat) but there will also be players whose performance was stable across contexts.

As an extreme example, Juan Pierre's career ISO in Coors was 070; his career ISO overall was 066. Coors provided no power boost for Juan Pierre because of the type of hitter Pierre was. It did give a big boost to his BA (343, some of that age-related) and therefore to his overall offensive performance but it didn't budge his ISO.

Arraez is probably similar. Whatever park, whatever era, he's probably gonna be about the same. He K's 8% now -- switch him to a 15% K environment and he's gonna K 6-8% (and so what). A line drive is a line drive in any park; a hard GB to the hole is a hard GB to the hole. Luckily for Arraez it's not the height of sillyball when everybody (but Juan Pierre) had a 800 OPS. To the extent we might think Arraez is better than similar hitters of the past, it's based on an assumption (probably correct) that today's pitchers are harder to hit. Arraez also has the problems that modern teams probably won't let a 1B/DH hit an empty 310 in his mid-30s so he's even less likely to get the 10,000 PAs he needs for 3000 hits.

Anyway, sure, he's very unlikely to keep this (or anything close to it) going. His BABIP is 414 which is really high but, more importantly, 70 points higher than his career BABIP. So sure, his BABIP for the rest of the season will probably be closer to 345, his BA therefore closer to 320 and 40% at 400 and 60% at 320 comes out to around 350 and we're only noticing because his hot streak has come at season's start. But you know, when Carew hit 388, his BABIP was 408, about 50 points above his norm. Same for Gwynn in 1994 and Brett was about 60 points higher in 1980. Such is the nature of flukes. :-)

Here's an interesting factoid:

Brett BABIP pre/post-1980: 313/299
Gwynn pre/post-1994: 337/344
Carew pre/post-1977: 362/346

Similary for sluggers of course. Upon arrival in StL, Mac's HR/FB jumped to 33% and stayed there for 2.5 years (well, 3.5 but the last one he was hurt half the year). His career average was 22%. Judge has a career 22% rate but 26% for 2022 (and 2023 so far) and it was 26% for his 50-HR season too. But Thome was pretty much 18-22% every year so never made a real run at 60.

like what does that even mean? Its worth 2.1 times the value of an average event that ends up on base???

Yes. Going 1-4 with a HR has the same value as the hypothetical situation where a batter can go 2.1-4, and without knowing what the outcomes of those 2.1 events were, we assume they were distributed among the possible events in the same distribution they were for the period being looked at.

15 points of wRC+ is nothing. That's just pretty standard season-to-season bouncing around.

Sure, by a stricter definition of outlier, as in a datapoint so different than the rest of the set that it can be deemed not useful, no its not an outlier. But i interpreted sundays meaning, and he can correct me if I'm wrong, more loosely in that it wasnt representative of his true talent level. Having pretty much the same underlying ability to hit line drives, draw walks, etc, which is what xwoba said about Arreaz in 2022 compared to previously, but finding an extra 15 points of wRC+ isnt unprecedented at all, but it also isnt too helpful in gleaning his true ability.

to rephrase what I should have said is I object to the idea that Arreaz's age 25 season is a "career year" and "unlikely to be repeated".

I think you have to dig pretty deep into the smorgorsbord (sp?) of peripheral stats to come up with xwOBA to suggest that. He OPS+'d 124 at age 22 and 128 at age 25. His rOBA age 22 was 359 and 355 at age 25. Rbat+ was 123 age 22 vs 132. His Rbat was 11 in 92 games age 22 and 23 in 144 games age 25. None of those stats suggest to me, for one, that his age 25 season is the only time he's going to repeat those numbers.

is there something about OPS+ or Rbat that you feel are not representative? Nearly all of the discussions we have here usually focus on these measures of batting ability. These are two basic measures. No one comes along and says "Aha xwOBA trumps all!"

He was 25 years old, does that have any effect on his likelihood to exceed or repeat that season? All the other ratio stats we mentioned above: K, BB, ba, babip, HR% those are all very much in line with both years.

If Arraez somehow hit .400, he's winning the NL MVP without question. Numbers generate powerful narratives.

Miguel Cabrera, in his Triple Crown season, was demonstrably less valuable than Mike Trout yet won easily. Ohtani/Judge last fall was (IMO) a coin flip and the vote broke 28-2 for Judge.

this is a minor nit to pick at, and I dont mean to detract from your posts Walt. They were very interesting to read as always:

Arraez also has the problems that modern teams probably won't let a 1B/DH hit an empty 310 in his mid-30s so he's even less likely to get the 10,000 PAs he needs for 3000 hits.

Does it really matter how old he is? Other than very young player who one would hope would develop more power or a more rounded game. But Arreaz's basic skill set, and assuming he's playing 1b, that's always going to be problem at age 25, 30 or 35 yes? again just a question, I did enjoy the posts.

If Arraez somehow hit .400, he's winning the NL MVP without question. Numbers generate powerful narratives.

Didn't work for Ted Williams, who hit .406 in 1941 while finishing 2nd to Joe DiMaggio in the MVP vote. Of course, Joe had the 56-game hitting streak going for him, so there were dueling narratives that year.

Ohtani/Judge last fall was (IMO) a coin flip and the vote broke 28-2 for Judge.

Judge had a season for the ages in 2022, and bested Ohtani 10.6 to 9.6 in BB-Ref WAR and 11.5 to 9.5 at FanGraphs. Not really a coin flip, although the AL HR record probably helped but I doubt it would have been much different in the NL.

Ohtani is a unicorn.

maybe he should be MVP every year.

but if a batter has a season like Judge did, they'll give it to that guy - and yes, the "chasing Maris for AL homer record" narrative helped bigtime - but it's not like that's all he did, or that he was a bad defensive player or a DH.

Ohtani is a unicorn. maybe he should be MVP every year.

I’m reluctant to make the MVP all about WAR, but Ohtani probably has to lead in the one stat that measures both hitting & pitching to win the MVP. His unicorn status probably guarantees him top 5 every year, although there is also the inconsistently applied ‘How valuable are you if you don’t make the playoffs’ factor.

A 2-for-4 night puts Arraez at .401. Nice, but a long way to go.

I love Arraez. He was a great Twin and I wish him the absolute best. I would love to see him hit .400. However, he has old man knees and is not a good bet to have a super long career (sadly).

#30: Voters often did not seem to like Williams, perhaps partly due to his relationships with the reporters/voters. Not only in his .406 season but his later .388 year and both triple crown years found him in second place. 1947 was especially egregious, as he lost to DiMag by a single point despite twice the WAR (BBRef) and .220 higher OPS. IIRC, 2 voters that year didn't even have Williams on their ballots.

Batting averages have plummeted so far in the past decade that someone still hitting .400 on (gasp!) June 7th actually feels like a big deal.

I miss the days when players were still flirting with .400 at or even beyond the All Star break (even if half of them were Coors fueled). Gwynn in 1994 obviously, but also Olerud and Galarraga in 1993, Walker and Gwynn in 1997, Helton and Nomar in 2000, etc. Probably more that I'm forgetting (of course Brett in 1980 and Carew in 1977 if you want to go even further back).

I think you have to dig pretty deep into the smorgorsbord (sp?) of peripheral stats to come up with xwOBA to suggest that.

xwOBA ain't that deep, and that type of analysis is where front offices have been moving for at least a few years now. No, going from OPS+ to xwOBA isn't as big a deal as going from RBI to OPS was 20-30 years ago, but it's still an improvement. This guy, a former astrophysicist, built a model to predict result based off pitch "quality". The Guardians, a team with a fantastic pitching development system snapped him up almost immediately. Using the spin and release point out of a pitcher's hand, or exit velocity and launch angle off a hitter's bat instead of just looking at where the batter is standing when the ball comes to rest is not the future, but the present of quantitative, not just qualitative, analysis.

"unlikely to be repeated" ... All the other ratio stats we mentioned above: K, BB, ba, babip, HR% those are all very much in line with both years

This is just the same thing from before, in different words. As Walt points out, wRC+ bouncing around 15 points isn't unprecedented and xwOBA and actual wOBA aren't guaranteed to meet up at the end of the year, but when a player's ratio stats all stay the same, and xwOBA agrees with you that they did, getting different results probably does come from something(s) that is/are unlikely to be repeated.

Maybe a .400 campaign would have an effect on attendance & TV ratings in Miami?

I can't imagine it wouldn't, even in Miami.

It doesn't help that the Panthers are in the Stanley Cup Final(s), the Heat are in the NBA Finals, and this guy is coming to play for the soccer team. (Hell, even the Dolphins managed to make the playoffs last year!)

Another 2-for-4 night puts Arraez at .403.

What's the deal with this headline? Is it a pun? I don't get it.

Arise and let us sing, I assume.

40: To add to post 41 it’s a common phrase in a church service.

I only know from visiting grandparents for Christmas and had to attend Christmas Eve. Heard that phrase regularly

1st inning single to RF, Arraez now at .406.

Arraez ‘slumped’ a bit, and his batting average was down to ‘only’ .378 on June 14, but he’s gone 10-for-13 since then to get back to .398. Don’t count him out yet, as difficult as it may be to bat .400 over a whole season.

EDIT: Another hit for Arraez makes him 5-for-5 tonight, and 11-for-his last-14, to put him at .400 again.

Arraez ‘slumped’ a bit, and his batting average was down to ‘only’ .378 on June 14, but he’s gone 10-for-13 since then to get back to .398. Don’t count him out yet, as difficult as it may be to bat .400 over a whole season.


Dang, beat me to this update by minutes! 10 for 13 is just stupid and I feel like he's had a couple of runs like that this season.

#45 - Yep, this is the 2nd time this month he's done that; slumped down to the .370's, and then reeled off some 5/5 games to get back up to .400 where he belongs. This was his 3rd 5/5 game in June.

Updating this list I posted in Omnichatter a week and a half ago when Arraez was at 60 personal games played:


Most personal/team games played in a season post 1941, still at .400 or above (final avg in parenthesis):

1) 105/107 - John Olerud 1993 (.363)
2) 104/148 - George Brett 1980 (.390)
3) 92/96 - Larry Walker 1997 (.366)
4) 87/92 - Tony Gwynn 1997 (.372)
5) 81/85 - Rod Carew 1977 (.388)
6) 76/76 - Stan Musial 1948 (.376)
7) 75/91 - Nomar Garciaparra 2000 (.372)
8) 67/73 - Luis Arraez 2023 (???)
9) 66/73 - Chipper Jones 2008 (.364)
10) 64/84 - Rod Carew 1983 (.339)
-) 64/81 - Andres Galarraga 1993 (.370)


Arraez was at 11th when I originally posted this but has now moved to 8th. Also, passing Chipper's 2008 means that it's the latest .400 streak in 23 years rather than "only" being the latest in 15 years. ;-)

* Todd Helton in 2000 deserves a mention; he barely missed this list cuz the last time he FINISHED a game at .400 or above was in his 56th game, but if we were looking at being above .400 at ANY point during a game, he'd take the top spot by a mile. On August 21st in his 123rd game, he entered the game hitting .398, then started 2-3 to briefly sit at an even .400, before going 0-2 the rest of the game and dropping back down to .398.

I think selling it is a hasty Lego 2k drive decision

Darren asked an interesting question in #14; Should there be more hitters like this? I wonder if one answer is that it's very difficult to hit the way Arraez does, and not that many guys have ever done it at his level.

I searched for careers, ≥1500 PAs, with Hits ≥ 25x Home Runs, since 1947 (so this gives some less-relevant cases, like the last couple of years of Luke Appling's career, but it's arbitrary).

It's uncommon to be a significantly above-average offensive player using this kind of style, in any era that features power hitting. Arraez (to this point) is quite an outlier, and of course may eventually drop well down the list if he plays a long time. Only 35 players were at 100 OPS+ or above.

You have to hit for a really high BA relative to league to stand out this way. Sometimes a hitter will do that for a year or two: Matty Alou is further down the list. When Matty was hitting .330 in a .250 league, he was really good for a few years, but only at his peak. When Willie McGee (still further down) hit .353, he was great (plus he hit 10 HR that year); when he hit lower, he wasn't. Much lower are guys like Phil Rizzuto, the late Dick Groat … they had a fine offensive year or two, but they put together long careers because they played shortstop.



Provided by Stathead.com: View Stathead Tool Used
Generated 6/21/2023.

Sadly guys who hit like this often become Nick Madrigal. Chasing a return to that elusive .300 season while OPSing around .600.

Or to look at it another way: 103 times since 1947, a hitter has had a single qualifying season where he gets 25x as many Hits as HR, with OPS+ 120 or better (including Arraez so far this year). So on average, one guy a year, sometimes two; and a lot of those times it was Carew or Boggs or Tony Gwynn. There has never been an era post-WW2 where it's been very common, though six did it in 1976 and another six in 1981 (strike-shortened).

Tony Gwynn should be on the list in #48 but I think it's a rounding thing in Stathead. He had almost exactly 25x as many times Hits as HR and would have the highest career OPS+ on the list at 132.

Tony Gwynn should be on the list in #48 but I think it's a rounding thing in Stathead. He had almost exactly 25x as many times Hits as HR and would have the highest career OPS+ on the list at 132.

No, it's an old player power spike thing. He finished at 23.3X

Dale Mitchell 113 1225 41 1947 1956 .311 .367 .415

the longtime Cleveland OF only struck out 119 times in 4358 career PA.
his OPS+ tumbled every year from 1953-56 - including to an awful 17 as a bad PH (4 for 30, all singles) for the IndiGuards in '56.
the Brooklyn Dodgers picked him up off waivers for the stretch run, and he went 7 for 24 (with a double but no walks) as he made his only 2 starts of the season.

in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series, Mitchell pinch-hit with 2 outs in the 9th inning. he was caught looking on a pitch said to be outside, and Don Larsen had his perfect game.

Mitchell hit just .138 in 29 AB in 3 WS - but that was the lone strikeout.

Yankees won in 7 games, and Mitchell retired to go into the oil business.

If Arraez somehow hit .400, he's winning the NL MVP without question. Numbers generate powerful narratives.

I doubt it. Instead they’ll give the award to Acuna, who currently has a 3 game hitting streak but will stretch it to 57 by late August.

I doubt it. Instead they’ll give the award to Acuna, who currently has a 3 game hitting streak but will stretch it to 57 by late August.

Nothing would be more fun than a legitimate run at Joe D's record.

#54 - Except a legit .400 run. .400 > 56 game hitting streak. ;-)

No, it's an old player power spike thing. He finished at 23.3X

Yes, Gwynn's power went up in his 30s. And my math ability is going down in my 60s :-D

Rank the following accomplishments according to how exciting they would be to y'all as baseball fans:

.400 avg
57 game hitting streak
74 homers
Triple Crown
263 hits
131 stolen bases
30 wins (nearly impossible now, I know)
1.11 ERA
384 K's (for a pitcher; Joey Gallo doing this would NOT impress me)

Feel free to insert anything else I missed

#54 - Except a legit .400 run. .400 > 56 game hitting streak. ;-)

I think a .400 push would be the next best thing, but it still wouldn't match the nightly suspense that a really long hitting streak holds. I was around for Brett's and Carew's runs at .400, but Pete's 44-gamer was even more exciting, and he finished 12 games short.

@Booey

First off, thanks for the updated count in 46.

I think the rate stats would top my list, either as a qualifier feels impossible but isn't actually impossible (like wins). It would make either player a must watch for the second half of an entire season.

Hitting streak would be next but I understand why it would first for a lot of people. The tension would just build and build. One bad game and it's over. Maybe I'm underestimating it.

SBs/Ks/hits would be really cool.

I don't need another HR chase in my lifetime honestly. Pass.

Don't care about the triple crown or wins.

The SB record would be the best. Especially since it would mean getting to hear Rickey saying he would've stole 200 if they had pizza box bases in the '80s.

The hit streak would also be fun to follow, but I'd really like to see someone give Ted Williams' on base streak a run.

First off, thanks for the updated count in 46.

No problem, although thanks to a great Sarah Langs article I found tracking the last .400 hitter in every season post 1941 (it's worth a Google), there's actually a few seasons that I missed. How did no one here remember Tony Fernandez in 1999? I was at my absolute peak of baseball fandom in the late 90's and yet I have no memory of this at all. I could say that we were all distracted by HR chases at the time, yet I remember Gwynn and Walker's .400 runs 2 years earlier and Nomar and Helton's .400 runs a year later quite clearly, so...I don't know what to tell you. Anyway, Arraez still has the longest .400 run in 23 years, although it's currently only the 10th longest run since 1941 now rather than 8th like I thought. Here's the updated list, with the new additions in bold:

Most personal/team games played in a season post 1941, still at .400 or above (final avg in parenthesis). All seasons over 60 personal games played (I still prefer personal games rather than team games):

1) 105/107 - John Olerud 1993 (.363)
2) 104/148 - George Brett 1980 (.390)
3) 92/96 - Larry Walker 1997 (.366)
4) 87/92 - Tony Gwynn 1997 (.372)
5) 81/85 - Rod Carew 1977 (.388)
6) 76/76 - Stan Musial 1948 (.376)
7) 75/91 - Nomar Garciaparra 2000 (.372)
8) 74/74 - Tommy Holmes 1945 (.352)
9) 71/78 - Tony Fernandez 1999 (.328)
10) 67/73 - Luis Arraez 2023 (???)
11) 66/71 - Rod Carew 1974 (.364)
--) 66/73 - Chipper Jones 2008 (.364)
13) 64/84 - Rod Carew 1983 (.339)
--) 64/81 - Andres Galarraga 1993 (.370)

The great Rod Carew adds a 3rd season to the list. According to the Langs article, he was the last .400 hitter in a season 6 times (he also had streaks of 56, 44, and 40). While still being at .400 60 games into the season is pretty rare (as shown above), there's been more players still doing it after 50+ games than I thought, including some that you would have never guessed based on their final average. For example, Carney Lansford was hitting .402 55 games into the 1988 season...yet finished at just .279. Blows my mind.

How did no one here remember Tony Fernandez in 1999?

Probably because everyone on the planet knew a 37-year-old Tony Fernandez wasn't a guy who could suddenly make a run at .400.

Arraez 1-for-3 with a BB today, so he’s ‘down’ to .397. Close enough to be over again tomorrow.

#45 - Yep, this is the 2nd time this month he's done that; slumped down to the .370's, and then reeled off some 5/5 games to get back up to .400 where he belongs. This was his 3rd 5/5 game in June.

Not sure if anyone has noted this already, but I saw on Twitter that the record for 5-hit games in a *season* is 4, set by Cobb, Musial, Ichiro and Gwynn. Arraez having 3 in less than a month is pretty amazing.

Arraez 3-for-4 tonight against the Pirates, to put him at .402, with the Marlins up 1-0 in the bottom of the 7th. Might get one more PA, if the Marlins fall behind and bat in the bottom of the 9th, or have a long 7th or 8th. Be pretty cool to make it to the All-Star break.

Only 1 for 4 today, with a HR and a BB. Bum's gotta stop swinging for the fences, he's barely hitting .401 now!

Man, just looking at his splits...if Miami wanted to put their thumb on the scale and bench him against tough lefties, the odds sure seem like they would go up. He's hitting .410 against RH pitchers (not counting today) in 212 ABs. 18 BBs to 7 Ks against righties.

if Miami wanted to put their thumb on the scale and bench him against tough lefties

Unfortunately, Miami doesn't suck this year.

#66 - Yeah, cuz he's hitting only .373 against lefties. What a scrub! ;-)

Unfortunately, Miami doesn't suck this year.

They don't suck...yet! Eury Perez can't have many innings left in him.

But yeah, as long as they're playing for a playoff spot they'll have to get him out there everyday. He's definitely gonna have to earn it, he's on pace for a lot of ABs.

Whoops, wrong thread.