Luis Arráez Is Unlike Anyone Else in Baseball. Now He’s a Giant.
San Francisco finally found its second baseman, but Arráez brings as many questions as he does hits.
After months of trying and failing to land a second baseman on the trade market, Buster Posey and the San Francisco Giants finally gave up—and moved on. Over the weekend, reported Giants reportedly came to terms with Luis Arráez on a one-year, $12 million contract, ESPN’s Jorge Castillo was first to report.
Few players polarize evaluators quite like Arráez, making his addition either profoundly exciting—or boring and frustrating—depending on how you view the game.
On the one hand, Arráez is a three-time “batting champion,” three-time All-Star, and two-time Silver Slugger. Since he debuted in 2019, Arráez’s .317 batting average leads all 418 qualified hitters over that span. The two active players who immediately trail him are superstar hitters Freddie Freeman (.308) and Aaron Judge (.300).
On the other: Arráez’s .096 ISO (slugging percentage minus batting average) ranks 406th (Judge’s .332 ISO is 1st; Freeman’s .219 ISO is 51st). Defensively, Arráez’s minus-68.9 Def (FanGraphs’ defense metric, which combines fielding and positional adjustments and is expressed in runs above average) ranks 407th. He posts league-worst bat speeds, hard-hit rates, and barrel rates. He’s started chasing more and walking less in recent seasons.
Back to some positives: Arráez’s 3.1% strikeout rate in 2025 was the lowest by a qualified hitter since Tony Gwynn (2.6%) in 1995 (h/t to MLB.com’s Sarah Langs). He doesn’t swing and miss. He squares up the baseball better than anyone and has baseball’s shortest swing. He frequently hits the ball in an ideal band of launch angles.
Take a look at Arráez’s percentile rankings on Baseball Savant and see for yourself that we’re looking at a player of absolute extremes:
Arráez is frequently the best in baseball at certain skills, and the worst in baseball at others.
So… what should Giants fans make of this addition?
