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After the Minnesota Twins signed Carlos Correa last week, it quickly became apparent that there was a logjam in the infield and that a move would have to be made. Logically the name that made the most sense for a trade was Luis Arraez. After rumors swirled for weeks about the mutual interest between the Twins and Marlins, the two teams finally came to an agreement.
Luis Arraez is no-doubt an elite contact hitter, one of the best to ever put on a Twins uniform. Arraez’s elite contact skills helped to prop up a slumping offense all summer for the Twins in 2022. The Rod Carew comps, while lofty, are not exaggerated when it comes to Luis Arraez. He is a hitting savant who will always put together a good at-bat, and almost never strike out.
Arraez isn’t without his flaws, though. While an elite contact hitter, Arraez lacks much of any power at all with his left-handed bat, which severely limits his overall upside as an elite player. Additionally, Arraez has consistently struggled with knee issues and has gone from an all-around utility player to a first baseman/designated hitter.
Because of the flaws noted above, it has been a question of how much value Luis Arraez could bring back in a trade. Over the countless weeks of trade speculation between the Twins and Marlins, there was talk about López for Arraez being an even swap trade, or even that the Minnesota Twins might need to toss in prospects to make the deal work. As the trade details came in, though, the trade was much more favorable to the Twins than anyone imagined, with the Twins not throwing in prospects of their own, but instead receiving multiple prospects.
Pablo López isn’t a perfect pitcher by any means. His stuff doesn’t look like the stuff of an ace, and he has tended to wear down in the second half of seasons, but at 26 years old, López will slot right into the top of the rotation with Sonny Gray and Tyler Mahle heading into 2023. A young (26 years old), affordable (set to earn $5.5M in 2023) and controllable (under team control through next season) starting pitcher is the exact kind of pitcher that Derek Falvey likes to go after (think Tyler Mahle).
In addition to López, the Twins acquired a fringe top-100 prospect in José Salas and another prospect in Byron Chourio. (For more on Salas and Chourio, click here.)
This trade was a slam dunk trade for the Twins’ front office for three reasons.
First, they are doing what you always want to do in trades, selling high on their player. Luis Arraez just won the American League batting title, appeared in the most games in his career, and posted a career high in fWAR. There’s a good chance that Arraez’s value will never be higher than it is right now and cashing in on that value is really smart.
Secondly, the Twins traded from a position of strength (infield bat) and acquired a position of need (starting pitcher). They managed to find a trade partner that had a weakness in the Twins’ area of strength and thus dealt from a position of power. With rumors swirling for weeks about the framework of an Arraez/López trade, it's easy to connect the dots and see that the Twins knew they were holding the better hand and could hold out for the Marlins to toss in more assets, like they ultimately ended up doing.
Finally, the Twins made a slam dunk trade because they were able to recoup some of the value that they lost in 2022 when they traded away prospect depth in Chase Petty, Spencer Steer, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand, among others. With this deal, the Twins have added a B and C-level prospect to replenish the farm and give them more trade ammo for down the road.
It’s impossible to write a Luis Arraez trade reaction piece without talking about how big of a bummer it is to lose Luis Arraez. While I write about baseball in an era of advanced metrics and numbers, it’s impossible for me to not get caught up in the emotion of baseball and no player on the Twins encompassed the emotion of baseball and love of the game quite like Luis Arraez. Luis was a true throwback player who was a joy to watch and had more fun than anyone and losing a player like that is hard.
How would you assess the Arraez trade? Leave a comment and start the conversation! Be sure to keep coming back to Twins Daily for lots more trade reactions and content over the coming days.
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