Luis Arraez Is Good at Defense Now

Apparently Luis Arraez is good at defense now. This took me by surprise, and perhaps it also took you by surprise, or perhaps it is at least taking you by surprise in this exact second, as you ingest this blog. Because if there’s one thing you know about Luis Arraez, it’s probably… well, it’s that he is incredible at contacting the baseball with a bat. But if there’s a second thing you know about Luis Arraez, it’s that he is not very good at defense.

This fact is a key totem in the still-raging Arraez Wars of the 2020s. Those who like baseball played the old-fashioned way insist that he is an MVP-level talent, enraging most contemporary baseball fans who understand that singles are only so valuable, especially for a guy who can’t run well or hold down a defensive position.

When Arraez signed with the Giants this offseason under the condition that he would only play second base, the universal reaction was something like, “OK, well, good luck with that.” Such pessimism was warranted. In 2024 — his age-27 season! — he graded out as -7 outs above average at second base in just 42 games played there; given a full season, he would’ve easily been the sport’s worst defender at the position. In 2025, the Padres punted him down the defensive spectrum to first base. But even at first, Arraez looked nearly unplayable, racking up another -7 OAA at the notoriously easy position. (It’s not that hard, tell ’em Wash, etc.) Those lacking the range to play first base often find themselves consigned to designated hitterdom sooner rather than later.

Not so fast, Arraez said. On February 13, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle published a story with a shocking lede: “Luis Arráez’s fielding at second base is already vastly improved, at least according to San Francisco Giants infield coach Ron Washington, and Arráez agrees.” Slusser cited Arraez’s hard work over the offseason as the catalyst.

Strong claims in February have their way of softening by the time April rolls around. But here we are, a month-plus into the 2026 season, and who is it that leads all second basemen in defensive value? Yes, it is he, Luis Arraez, towering over the competition at +6 OAA. It’s not just among second basemen, either; his +5 fielding run value is tied for third among all defenders who don’t wear masks. Here is the non-catcher leaderboard: Pete Crow-Armstrong, Bobby Witt Jr., Nico Hoerner, and Arraez. In other words, the three consensus best defenders in baseball, and also a guy who looked like he couldn’t handle first base as recently as last season.

This, in my view, calls for a good old-fashioned investigation. How? Why? Through what means?

Perhaps Arraez hit the gym, injected some peptides, got swoll and speedy, and turned into a completely different athlete. But the evidence does not point in that direction. His sprint speed is virtually unchanged. His arm strength budged only a tick. He is the same guy. And so the peptides theory doesn’t hold much water.

In lieu of more invasive biodata, I figured the only other way to get to the bottom of this was by watching every play that Arraez has made (and not made) in the 2026 season. Longtime fans may remember my application of this method in the case of one Jorge Polanco upon his re-signing with the Mariners in the 2024-2025 offseason. In that article, I noted that there is no easy way to glean how much OAA a player gained or lost on any specific play. But I also mentioned a workaround in the back end of Baseball Savant, albeit a messy one. As I wrote then, the only identifying information given by Savant to conduct this analysis is the month when the ball was hit, the exit velocity, the handedness of the hitter, and whether the game was played home or away. This is not an amazing amount of information. But it is enough to narrow it down to three or four possible plays in most cases, and then common sense can be applied from that point to ascertain which of those is the relevant play.

And so I went through this process to better understand how Arraez is racking up crazy defensive numbers. Some of it was no doubt fluky, or at least suggestive of computer error. His “best” play this season looks pretty unremarkable to my eye; he crosses over the bag and then flips the ball to the shortstop. He was given nearly 0.85 OAA for this play. I’m not sure I see it.

Here’s another ostensibly quite valuable play, allegedly worth one-sixth of an OAA. I don’t see anything special in particular here, either:

But, like the best outfielders, my suspicion is that Arraez is grading out well because, by the time the camera cuts to him on the diamond, he’s done all the hard work to make a tough play look easy.

His speciality, it seems like, is squaring himself up on groundballs to his right. Generally, players can make this play look a little flashier by backhanding the ball and throwing with their weight moving away from the bag, like a shortstop in the six hole. But in the play below, Arraez gets to the spot early, negating the need for a tough backhand pick and an even tougher throw.

These high-quality anticipation skills have been on display in situations where Arraez is pulled in close to cut off the run at home. These plays make an argument that he’s been even better than his OAA, because he received virtually zero credit for these two excellent run-saving efforts:

Arraez hasn’t done anything too highlight-reel worthy, save for an impressive play he made to his left that was spotted by Ben Clemens a couple weeks ago. But Arraez has taken care of nearly every easy play. Here’s one glaring exception, according to Savant, at least:

This graded out as 90% likely to be an out, which feels a little harsh, given Jake Cronenworth smoked it 109 mph and Arraez had to field it on a short hop.

This play is more reflective of his potential weaknesses – he was given a 68% chance to make this play, and just didn’t have the raw speed to make up for a so-so jump:

Even with below-average footspeed, Arraez appears to have become good at second base defense by just improving his reflexes. There’s no Driveline for fielding (yet); that’s probably because, unlike with pitching and hitting, there aren’t any clear training exercises to improve the key performance tool (velocity for pitching, bat speed for hitting). Perhaps as a result, and also due to defense peaking earlier than all other skills, it feels like drastic defensive improvements occur less frequently, and there is less of a blueprint for this kind of turnaround. There is no clear smoking gun for Arraez’s improvement; he’s just more frequently in spots where he used to not be.

On the offensive side of the ball, the story is much the same as always. He’s managing just-above-average production by hitting the ball very softly, mostly between the left fielder and center fielder. He hasn’t hit a single ball harder than 98.1 mph. But the defense totally changes his trajectory as a player. He’s even stealing bases! He’s not relying on super speed or physical tools to pull this off, but the changes look real, and fixing these parts of his game is the smartest thing he could’ve done to reposition himself for a multiyear deal when he once again hits the free agent market after the season.