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The above graph plots the whiff rate (fraction of swings that are swings-and-misses) with average exit velocity for all MLB hitters in the top 10 percentile for whiff rate. A few takeaways:
- Among hitters with sufficient plate appearances, Arraez leads the league in whiff rate. Less than 7 percent of his swings result in misses. Only four hitters are even below 10 percent. (note that the plate appearance cutoff is not really driving this result ... the only hitters with lower whiff rates than Arraez have seen less than 40 pitches this season).
- Arraez's exit velocity is uniquely high for hitters with such low whiff rates. You have to get all the way to Michael Brantley to find a hitter who hits the ball harder than Arraez, and Brantley whiffs almost twice as often to accomplish that.
- Does exit velocity even matter? Of course. The league leaders in exit velocity are Yordan Alvarez, Aaron Judge, and Giancarlo Stanton. A real who's who. And the hitters who most closely resemble Arraez in whiff rate while sacrificing exit velocity (Steven Kwan, Luis Guillorme, and Nick Madrigal) own OPS values of 0.771, 0.712, and 0.581 compared to 0.841 for Arraez.
No other hitter in the big leagues combines plate control and exit velocity like Arraez does. Imagine a Brantley or DJ LeMahieu who whiffed at pitches half as often without losing any of the power. And was only 25 years old. That's Arraez. Pretty good!
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