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Recent trade talks with the Marlins have spurned eye-opening news: the Twins are actively discussing trading Luis Arraez. The reports are not entirely shocking. Teams value young, controllable pieces, and when you enjoy a plethora of pitching riches—something few teams can claim—you can demand the world in return; a ragtag combo of Nick Gordon and Josh Winder will not get the job done. That’s the price of doing business. The Marlins are maximizing the return on their valuable pieces.
But wait, it is shocking! Arraez is an All-Star just entering arbitration! What are we even talking about here?
There’s an aesthetic brilliance to Arraez’s hitting, one that baseball sorely lacks these days. He’s not a Chris Johnson BABIP fluke: Arraez possesses the unique ability to sniff out hits, spraying line drives across the field with artistic flair and shocking consistency; his hit chart is as democratic as they come. When paired with an impressive skill to resist swinging at bad pitches, his complete batting package is superhuman, only lacking in power because the good Lord wouldn’t want to create a player that unfair.
Throw in his age—he’s just 25 years old—and years of team control remaining, and it would appear crazy for a team to trade such a cornerstone.
There’s more to baseball than hitting. Only one player can claim the DH spot on any given day, making the other eight players a dual threat, someone who must field as well as bat. Arraez isn’t particularly adroit at second or third—the two positions Minnesota tried him out at the most—and playing him in the outfield is some real cursed stuff, but the Twins did find him a home at first in 2022. Advanced defensive stats applauded Arraez, and he finished 2022 with the highest UZR/150 amongst first basemen with at least 500 innings. A victory for short kings everywhere.
The standard for hitting at first base, though, is much higher than other positions. While Arraez is only behind Andrés Giménez, Jeff McNeil, and José Altuve, respectively, for wRC+ as a second baseman, seven first basemen are ahead of him in line; its defensive barrier of entry is lower.
It’s a tradeoff, as most roster decisions in baseball are, but it’s one the Twins could understandably dislike, especially as the team sits on a bevy of infielders with varying degrees of the same problem.
Think of it this way: what’s a peak Arraez season? His massive second half cool-down proves there’s still something left in his proverbial tank; perhaps a more consistent performance nets him a wRC+ in the high 130s, maybe touching 140. It would be an impressive season, but one that just hovers around the top 5 or so for first basemen, netting him around 4.0 fWAR. That’s a good player, but is it an unmovable one? Is it unreasonable to imagine a scenario where a healthy Alex Kirilloff bridges the gap, playing close enough to those totals that any value they get from Pablo López is gravy?
It’s not a terrible inefficiency—there are worse things to have than an excellent defensive 1st baseman who also doubles as a top-ten hitter at the position—so if the Twins choose to keep Arraez planted, they aren’t hemorrhaging wins. But teams avoid atypical archetypes at 1st for a reason—there's only one Keith Hernandez, after all—and once you start dissecting the roster, cutting deep into the margins to look for upgrades, Arraez appears expendable, and the Twins could be well-suited to stomach losing him.
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