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.
Michael Rosen is a transportation researcher and the author of pitchplots.substack.com. He can be found on Twitter at @bymichaelrosen.
I think he has put himself in position to get a longer term contract from the Giants.
But without something much clearer than this I would be concerned that this is a story about something the Giants are specifically doing with him rather than a skillset he is going to carry over to a new team.
The Giants seem to like signing these mid level free agents anyway, and if it’s a good fit now they might as well keep it going.
Yeah any team that would want to sign him long terms other than the Giants has to factor in that they will need to poach Ron Washington from the Giants as well.
Adding two more things to this:
1) At least half of the teams that might be looking for a veteran second basemen on a multi year deal are also teams that get outsized benefit from a guy who pulls the ball in the air. And that is something Arraez doesn’t do much.
The Yankees and Pirates have a clear preference for left handed power, the Red Sox have explicitly committed themselves to finding players who can bounce hits off the wall, and the Phillies have a stadium that rewards power.
That leaves…the Mets? The Rangers? The Royals? The Padres have already tried this once and will need pitching, so they’re almost certainly out on him. I think the pool of teams that will have him on their wish list is pretty short.
2) The Giants are 13-18. They’re 5 games out of the wild card spot and it’s only April. And they’re projected to go about .500 the rest of the way. This is a team that is likely to be a seller in July. Arraez currently leads the team in fWAR (tied with Landen Roupp) and he’s an impending free agent.
I am very curious to see what happens here. Maybe the Giants just sign him to an extension. That would be very much in character for them, and maybe Arraez would be happy to not have to worry about any of this in the future.
If not, I am very curious to see who would value him with the concerns mentioned earlier about his defense and whether his lack of power / hitting balls in the air limits his impact. I think the Rangers are the most likely team to try and trade for him since they are likely to still be in the playoff hunt and they’ve been aggressive at the deadline in the past. After that it’s hard to find logical trade partners, although I’m sure someone else will emerge.
And if he does get traded, I have to imagine that other teams will be watching how his defense is very closely.
Please do not speak this into existence, they already have enough problems
I don’t think they would be interested in him anyway. They’re more likely to do something like trade for Daniel Schneeman or David Hamilton to platoon with Semien and serve as a utility guy.
Although the price would be way too steep for Schneeman if he keeps running an ISO over .200 and an OBP over .350.
Signing Arraez would also feel like a very Arte Moreno thing to do.
After spending an offseason getting More Athletic and worse, maybe the Mets will course-correct this winter to become Less Athletic, and sign Arraez to a nine-figure deal.
It makes me think of Chase Utley who had a visual reputation as a poor fielder (his actions in the field looked janky) to go with data-darling run values. Over time, it came out that Utley and the Phillies just understood second base positioning much better than the rest of the league.
Many of these Arraez plays look like he was positioned in a way to make hard-to-field grounders easy. I also suspect he’s had some luck. Most of the swings highlighted above were off-balance and resulted in soft contact with friendly hops. Like Utley, Arraez’s actions looked less than smooth at times.
While I expect around 0 OAA going forward, that in itself is a win for Arraez and the Giants!
Utley really DID transform himself completely as a defender. No idea how he was able to do that (and sustainably), but he did.
This is 100% the answer. In the first clip, Arraez is positioned almost behind second base when the pitch is thrown, allowing him to a reach a ball hit on the shortstop’s side of the bag. It wasn’t a difficult play because of where he started from, but OAA is valuing the play based on how many second basemen would get to it from the average starting position.
I went back and looked through his errors from 2024 and Arraez really struggled with fielding the ball on the move. The Giants have changed his positioning not only laterally, but also much deeper than he played with the Marlins. That allows him to get in front of the ball and secure it with proper technique rather than attempting to scoop or lunge.
“OAA is valuing the play based on how many second basemen would get to it from the average starting position” Is this true? I thought it was from where the fielder started.
I’ve read conflicting reports on that, but it’s the only plausible explanation for the first video. Arraez makes five sliding steps to his right before he fields the ball. There is no way that play could be awarded 0.85 OAA if it was measuring from where Arraez started, as you would expect any second baseman to do that. But if it is measuring from an average starting position, that fielding the ball successfully on the shortstop’s side of the bag would be an incredibly rare result and giving it such an extraordinarily high score would make sense.
From Baseball Savant “The Statcast technology allows us to know exactly where each fielder stands, which is helpful in a baseball world where shifting and out-of-position defenders are commonplace. What that means is that every tracked play is accounted for, regardless of if the third baseman is standing in his regular spot, at shortstop or in short right field. It allows you to know exactly “how far” and “how much time,” regardless of shifts. It also allows for an OAA breakdown by fielder role.” (Obviously not updated when the “shift” was banned.)
It’s possible we don’t see “where Arráez started” in the video.
Maybe he recognized where the pitch was going and started moving.
This, or there might still be some hinkiness for “out-of-zone” plays. I’d like to know how often 2B field the ball at least that far on the shortstop side of the bag (and make the out) along with the average OAA assigned to those plays. Might just be a hole in the algo.
I would imagine a contributing factor could be that, even for second basemen starting nearer the bag, they’re less likely to make that play because it’s getting made by the shortstop.
I have been thinking about this and I think you are right that positioning him deeper is part of the story. That’s something that limits what they can do on defense but if it allows him to avoid doing something he was really bad at before than that could help a lot.
The other part is likely that they have taken some responsibilities off of Arraez’s plate, which allows him to move more decisively to what responsibilities he has left. This is a lot of what they did with Semien IIRC, letting Chapman take over things going to the third base side of him at shortstop.
For the specific example you reference I think my theory works a bit better if Schmitt is playing first base than Devers. Schmitt is a legitimately good defender at third base, and putting him at first base feels a bit like overkill but it could allow them to shift Arraez towards second base. They *could* do that with Devers but it doesn’t seem to be as good an idea.
He looks like a good defender in the photo. He wants the ball hit to him unlike Pedro Guerrero.
This is not a knock against Arraez, who’s clearly put in a lot of work to improve his defensive instincts, but this piece is a good reminder of how imperfect even cutting-edge defensive metrics still are.
And maybe the importance of good positioning, as taught by Ron Washington.
Just noticed Arraez’s WAR through 30 games (0.9) is the same as it was last year in 154 games
I really thought this was going to be a Ron Washington story.
It almost certainly is if we dig any deeper. Ron Washington should start that defensive Driveline that was mentioned.
Yeah, my takeaway from this column is that a followup from Jay Jaffe is needed, perhaps entitled: “Ron Washington, Hall of Fame Coach”
My takeaway is that the day they open the Position Coaches wing of the HoF, Wash should headline the inaugural class.
Wash: It’s incredibly hard – unless I’m your coach, then it’s easy.
Didn’t Wash completely turn around Marcus Semien’s defense about 8 years ago?
A lot of hard things are “easy” once someone shows you how to do them. Washington clearly excels at that.
That’s only part of the story. The other part is that Matt Chapman started playing third base next to him, letting Semien stop worrying entirely about moving toward the third base side. And the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that something similar is happening here.
His work in Atlanta was hard to dispute, too.
I thought we we’re supposed to read too much into short-term defensive stats?
This is immediately where my mind went too.
If we rewrote this article as “So and so is good at hitting now” with one month of good performance and a tenuous explanation of what hitter is doing different wouldn’t we all be having a big April/SSS laugh?
I think the analogy here would be to another Statcast metric, like xwOBA or Barrel% or something with plate discipline. Something that is hard to measure.
We know for a fact that Ildemaro Vargas has been a good hitter, but his xwOBA is nowhere near his wOBA (still impressive, just not Top 5 hitter in baseball level).
You know what is super weird and freaky? Andrew Benintendi–that Andrew Benintendi–has a 61.4% Hard Hit %. Fifth in baseball, in between Oneil Cruz and Ben Rice. Last year he was at 36.8%. His career Hard Hit % is 35.5%. Something is wrong.
Turns out the “something” that is wrong is that he has completely lost the ability to make contact. His contact rate fell from 77.4% all the way down to 66.0%. His strikeout rate has more than doubled.
There’s usually some sort of evidence of the player not actually being “better” when you dig into this. I think that’s what this article is doing–trying to find that evidence. But we haven’t found it yet.
Yes. It’s maddening how often people are doing it, I’m shocked to see it here.
This is a Ron Washington article.
The Ron Washington effect is real!
Having watched most Giants games this year (yikes) I agree with you. His range is only okay but his hands and actions have been surprisingly great. It’ll play.
To your eye does Devers look like he’s getting more comfortable at 1b by the day? It seems to me he is.
Same kinda deal. His range is pretty poor (hard to imagine he was playing 3B fairly recently) but his hands and everything are fine. Hes fine.
A quick perusal of the clips shown above only reinforces my belief, and by a considerable amount, that defensive metrics simply do not give an accurate measurement of anything even closely related to the player’s ability. The first three plays are nothing more than routine while the two plays at the plate are solid major league and have value yet these are not scored as high as the plays I could still make. Then to be penalized for not handling the screaming liner that explodes at his feet is absurd. Until something better comes along I don’t need help to know that
Bobby Witt, Jr., Nico Hoerner and Cedanne Rafaela can play and that Juan Soto is really an overpaid DH.
Soto might be a DH…but he’s not overpaid, haha!
Not everyone DHs well – the positional adjustment should probably be closer to a 1B
Don’t get me started on the 1st base penalty. In just 31 games I have been treated to clear evidence of the value of a great defender at 1st. Willson Contreras actually has a positive defensive fWAR which is next to impossible in the present structure by which defense is calculated. The idea that any stiff can play there only needs to compare Contreras to Tristan Casas and see, immediately, how valuable outstanding defense is at this important position. We are talking lots and lots of runs.
And even then, Statcast doesn’t have a true way to valuate a scoop, as far as I can tell!
I love putting a number value on a 1B’s lateral mobility…but if you don’t evaluate his vertical mobility, you’re betraying the empirical research that tells us reaching on an error is worth more than hitting a single!
There’s a reason data-driven teams valued Hosmer over his UZR/DRS.
Sean Casey, during the MLB Top 10 lists, said, unequivocally, that scooping was the most important duty of the 1st baseman. Limited range is a trade-off that teams have to make to get a good hitter into the lineup but that specialty skill that Pete Alonso, the best there is, clearly shows is also of great value.
You can throw out all the anecdotes you want, but you know as well as I do that 5 plays are not a representative sample. These stats can be made better, but it would be nice if the criticism were more constructive — what about these stats would you change to make them fit the eye test better?
I wish I could help make the defensive metrics better but during all my years on this site the only consistent thing about the various defensive metric systems, DRS, OAA, FRV is that they lack any type of consistency or even reasonable similarity. The above plays all seem to be almost comical in their interpretation of what appears to be relatively straight forward. I see far too many instances that make me question the information that is being presently available.
I have replayed the scorcher that exploded at Arraez’s feet several times and I need to know where the idea that this is a 90% chance of being an out was generated. “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.” A little harsh. Did a computer make this call or did a human decide this was an easy play? This is so far beyond being just a little harsh that it could easily be used as the cornerstone of why I question, and ignore, defensive metrics.
I put a like by all the comments on Ron Washington. Arraez is the most recent example but Washington has had positive influence on Marcus Semien, Matt Olson, Elvis Andrus, Dansby Swanson, etc.
Yeah it feels like we have 30 years of him now floating around the league and turning formerly bad infielders into good ones. The track record is impressive.
Honestly if Ron Washington started a private school for “infielders who can’t field good and who wanna learn to do other stuff good too” he’d make a lot of money. I mean, he probably still makes lots of money as a position coach but seems a waste.
Honestly, this article and other comparable players are making me truly question the defensive side of the WAR calculation in FanGraphs and elsewhere. Admittedly, I haven’t watched a lot of Arraez this season, but I have watched a lot of Cole Young (as a positionally comparable example). And the fact Arraez’s defensive contributions are more (and that much more) than Young just doesn’t compute.
How do you get access to the OAA values at the batted ball level?
i gave a fuller explanation in the linked jorge polanco article, but in short, there’s a link where you can just paste the savant ID to get a full list of all plays that a guy is responsible for. i don’t know why this page exists or why they only include some info, that would be a question for tom tango
here’s the arraez link:
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/visuals/oaa-data?type=Fielder&playerId=650333&startYear=2026&endYear=2026
you can replace “650333″ with any infielder savant ID
Thank you so much! I was hoping there would be some easier way to retrieve this information without writing a script, but alas…
Curious as to why just a short sample of about 30 games changes how we view a players abilities? Can it be true that he’s had a 30 game stretch in his past where he showed better than average defensive traits?
There’s been chatter about emphasis on ‘pre-pitch movement’ producing much improved defensive results for some other slow-footed infielders. Colson Montgomery was supposed to be damn near unplayable at SS per scouting reports, yet he’s 6th in Statcast FRV at short since the beginning of ‘25. This is also despite being called up last July & getting part-time work at 3B, so everyone above him has 52% to 126% more innings at SS over that timeframe.
Full tilt sprint speed matters much less than first step for an infielder. If you really can teach a guy to read a swing and react to where a grounder is going before contact. FWIW I think it’s totally possible, some players have developed that naturally.
It’s the Andruw Jones effect!
Even more than Andruw Jones, it is the Brooks Robinson effect. He had a magical, mystical way of recognizing as the pitch was approaching the plate and the batter was beginning his swing that indicated to him whether he would need to go towards the line or the hole. Still the best defender, position wise, that I have ever seen.
Willie Mays did that too. He used to read the pitch and the swing from CF start moving in the direction of the fly ball before it left the bat.
Even with five hot SS prospects in the pipeline, I want SFG to make that long contract deal for Arraez. After all, prospects are prospects. Arraez is Real.
Arraez is real based on 30 games of pretty good defense preceded by several years of below average defense. Also, despite hitting .300 again, his wRC+ is a tick below league average.
I read somewhere, that when Jeter was in his mid or maybe late 30s, the Yankees were going to insist that he move off of shortstop, but he worked really hard over the offseason on his lateral movement and positioning, and improved at SS. Anyone have any more detail on that?
I am rooting for Arraez. I am a Padres fan and I was surprised that when the Giants came to SD This year, they played a video tribute to him. He only played less than 2 seasons in SD. But the team made the playoffs both years, and he won the batting title the first year and the hit title the second year.
He’s the funnestest player in baseball!
Not a critique or a complaint, to be clear – love that dude.
I hate to state the obvious but…. Ron Washington is an excellent defensive coach in the infield. He turned Semien from a terrible 2B/SS to an excellent one. He taught Scott Hatterberg how to play 1B in a season. It does not surprise me at all that he taught another player to be at minimum average at 2B
I just want to add, for purposes of Washington’s time on the Braves, he not only helped poorer defensive players like Riley improve, but he also improved good defensive players. I do think a big thing he was able to do was convince guys that consistent practice and hard work would pay off. He’d have guys out early just doing drills, often low physical demanding drills, and it seemed to help a lot. So hard to tell but everyone believed it was true up and down the organization.
This all feels like a gross overreaction. Arraez has one month of good defensive metrics and suddenly he should get a long term deal.
Certainly if Arraez is an average defensive 2B and league average hitter that has a lot of value. But let’s give him 3-4 months before we draw any real conclusions about his future value. Defensive metrics have limitations and it’s common to have a fluky “good” or “bad” month.
Late to this but I remember something similar happening with Jhonny Peralta. He was also 29 and he suddenly went from meh to above average (as a SS no less). He held onto it for a few years until age caught up.