Twins Daily 2022 Awards: Most Valuable Player

Luis Arraez is, in so many ways, not the guy you'd expect to finish atop a team's MVP vote – or alongside the absolute legends in Twins history who've preceded him as AL batting champs. 

You compare him to the other players on that exclusive list – Rod Carew, Joe Mauer, Tony Oliva, Kirby Puckett – and you're talking about thoroughbred Hall of Famers who looked the part. Many would count those four players among the five best in franchise history. 

Even comparing Arraez to the players who finished second and third behind him in Twins Daily's MVP balloting – Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton, respectively – is an amusing exercise. We're talking about preternatural teen talents who went 1-2 in the draft a decade ago – big-bucks superstars who smash the ball, and derive much of their value from premier defense at premium positions.

Then, you have Luis Arraez. The Venezuelan was not a highly regarded property when signed by the Twins as an international free agent in 2013 for a measly $40,000 bonus. Just looking at him, you can see why. He is small and stubby – generously listed at 5-foot-10 and 175 lbs – with neither the speed, nor power, nor defensive skill to impress any onlooker.

But Arraez brings one truly preternatural tool of his own, and it has become his signature. As Jake Mauer, his manager at Cedar Rapids back in 2016 – and a guy who has his own familial knowledge on the subject – said of a then-unknown Arraez back then: "He's got a knack for finding the barrel."

Oh yes. And it's carried him from anonymity to All-Star status. 

It doesn't matter where he's at. It doesn't matter who's pitching to him. It doesn't matter the count. Arraez just hits. He's irrepressible, with contact rates that top the charts. Virtually no one swings and misses less or strikes out less. Yet despite his ability to put the bat on everything, he is disciplined enough to pass on most out-of-zone offerings, and walked more (50) than he struck out (43) this season.

In a lineup that was prone to slumps, and often far too over-reliant on power at the expense of consistent quality ABs and rally-building, Arraez was a breath of fresh air. He was never an easy out, reflexively tapping outside pitches the other way for singles and then inviting pitchers to the inner half, where he could turn on the ball and unlock new levels of power. 

Arraez's .421 slugging percentage was nothing to write home about but he launched a respectable 40 extra-base hits, and doubled his previous career high for home runs with eight.

Now, before I go any further, a disclosure: I didn't have Arraez at the top of my team MVP ballot. In fact, I didn't have him among my top three. Because, analytically, it's hard to make that case. 

Yes, he led the league in average. But that's merely one piece of the value equation. Arraez ranked third on the team in fWAR behind Correa and Buxton, with a 3.2 mark that is one of the lowest for a Twins Daily MVP since we started awarding it. Baseball Reference's WAR formula viewed Arraez more favorably (4.0) but he was still second to Correa.

Even the seemingly more narrative-based Win Probability Added metric placed Arraez sixth on the team, behind Jhoan Duran, Jorge Polanco, Buxton, Joe Ryan, and Correa. But even WPA doesn't seem to capture the full narrative behind Arraez, and the positive impact that lifted him to the top of our collective balloting. 

It's true that Correa was difference-maker down the stretch – he had the sixth-highest WPA in the AL after July – and technically that portion of the schedule mattered a lot. It's also true that Arraez's bat went relatively quiet in those final months, as he battled a hamstring strain that limited him mostly to DH duty in September. 

But by then, it felt like the decimated Twins were engaged in an inevitably losing fight. When the team emerged early on and grasped first place, Arraez was the beating heart of the lineup. In the month of May, where the Twins went 18-12 to reach their greatest heights of the season, Arraez batted .377 with a .480 on-base percentage and 19 runs scored. He then flashed his emergent power in June, notching four doubles, three homers and a triple while driving in 15 runs.

Compared to the likes of Correa and Buxton, Arraez loses a lot of value from metrics like WAR because of his reduced defensive value. And that's fair: no one would argue that Arraez impacts games with his glove like Buck in center or C4 at short. 

But the Twins didn't ask him to, or need it. What they needed him to do, after Miguel Sanó and Alex Kirilloff went down, was take over at first base, a position he had essentially never played before. Arraez is not exactly physically suited for the position either. But sure enough, he adapted quickly and proved to be a perfectly solid defender at first.

Ultimately, I think that's what it came down to, and why the vote swung to Arraez. He simply showed up. He answered the call, time and time again. While the roster succumbed to injuries around him, he kept playing all year long, leading the team in plate appearances and games played (despite – as it's now easy to forget – being a healthy scratch on Opening Day!).

By season's end, Arraez was the only worthwhile attraction for Twins fans, who could tune in to watch him battle Aaron Judge down to the wire, for a superficial honor, amidst a Triple-A lineup in a lost year. Arraez kept on showing up through the very last day, barely able to run and clearly limping, because he wanted "to win the batting title fighting." 

He did just that, and it's the fight he demonstrated down to the bitter end that likely helped elevate Arraez as the unlikely Twins Daily 2022 team MVP.

FINAL BALLOTING POINTS TALLY

• Arraez: 55
• Correa: 46
• Buxton: 33
• Durán: 27
• Gray: 13
• Miranda: 11