Arraez finished his regular season hitting .334 in 366 Plate Appearances. He turned 22 in April.  

 

The entire list of players since 1961 who hit for as high an average over as many plate appearances in their age 22 season (defined by Baseball-reference as still being 22 on June 30):

Alex Rodriguez 1996
Vada Pinson 1961

 

That's it.  

 

 

Continuing the list back to 1901 (formation of AL) -- fun to look at.  [And I had forgotten Williams was only in his age 22 season in 1941 when he hit .406.

 

Al Kaline 1955
Stan Musial 1943
Pete Reiser 1941
Ted Williams 1941
Ted Williams 1940
Charlie Keller 1939
Joe DiMaggio 1937
Roy Weatherly 1936
Jimmie Foxx 1930
Mel Ott 1930
Jimmie Foxx 1929
Lloyd Waner 1928
Freddie Lindstrom 1928
Lloyd Waner 1927
Heinie Manush 1923
Tris Speaker 1910
Ty Cobb 1909
Eddie Collins 1909
Ty Cobb 1907
Jimmy Scheckard 1901

My early guess as to a player comp is Bill Madlock.  

 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/madlobi01.shtml

 

McCann managed a .333, Sandoval .330.

 

A pretty good list, but a lot of them had a lot more power, of course. (And a lot more PA.) Bogaerts might be a good low power comparable.

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=350&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=1961&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=14,22&filter=&players=0&startdate=1961-01-01&enddate=2019-12-31&sort=14,d

Edited September 29, 20197 yr by spycake

Matt Kemp managed .342 but in only 311 PA.

 

Matt Kemp managed .342 but in only 311 PA.

 

My favorite Matt Kemp moment is predicting 50/50 before the 2012 season and having yet to reach even 40 SB combined over the next eight seasons.

Great debut, to say the least. Best comp for 2019 Arraez that probably exists....Pete Rose. Really. Go look at Pete Rose's number in 1973, it's basically the same exact player that Arraez was this year. Neither hit the ball hard, but put the ball in play and sprayed it all around the place to achieve good BABiP/BA...neither could run much...neither was particularly good at any one position, but decent at several.

 

Not saying Arraez will be Rose (first, nobody will ever come close to getting those PA numbers; also an .838 OPS was more valuable in 1973 than 2019). But, fwiw...1973 was Rose's 6th-best in terms of OPS. On average, Rose was able to add more extra-base/slg that what Arraez has shown so far, and that will be what determines Arraez's future value. Rose had an identical BABiP in 1973 (.355) as Arraez had this year...but it was one of the highest in his career. That will probably regress for Arraez, as well.

Thanks for the Madlock comp. I hope that is accurate. I do think Arraez will hit for more power than this year eventually so could be Bill Madlock. I remember when Eduardo Escobar first came up he was not a power hitter but it has developed for him quite well. Really excited about his future

I made this comp in a different thread but he reminds me a lot of Jeff McNeil. 

Maybe his season continues. According to his instagram, he is in NYC.