Miami Marlins Season in Review: Luis Arcaya

Throughout the 2018/2019 offseason, Marlin Maniac will devote one article each for every player who appeared in the Miami Marlins system for the 2018 season. Every. Single. Player. This is Part 10…of 286. Stay tuned.

Luis Gerardo Arcaya is a 6’1″, 170 lb. catcher from Maracaibo, VZ. Born on February 26th, 1999, he signed with the Miami Marlins through free agency for a $220,000 bonus on July 2nd, 2015, when he was still just 16-years-old. How much did you make when you were 16? He began his professional career a year later with the DSL Marlins.

Very few players from each season’s Dominican Summer League squad ever eventually get a taste of the major leagues, somewhere between two-to-five percent. The expectation for these players is somewhere on the order of low-risk, high-reward. Arcaya’s chances at major league success are slim. Progression as far as the Gulf Coast League is more common, around 25 percent.

Defensively, Arcaya has appeared in 47 games at catcher, his natural position, and seven games at first base. In 278 1/3 innings behind the plate over his now-three-seasons, he has made 12 errors in 306 chances for a .961 fielding percentage. At first base, he’s got a perfect fPCT in 45 chances.

Arcaya joined the DSL Marlins for the start of the 2016 campaign, and made his professional debut on June 6th. In that game, an 8-2 win over the DSL Phillies, Arcaya went three-for-four with a double, a run, and two RBI. 10 days later, in a 13-10 loss to the DSL Rays1, he hit a single and two doubles with four RBI. In total through 33 games that year, he slashed .157/.243/.196 with four doubles, five runs, and eight RBI. He walked 12 time with 25 whiffs. An injury kept him from advancing in 2017. In six games he slashed .350/.350/.350 by going seven-for-20 with two runs and an RBI.

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A lateral promotion made Arcaya a GCL Marlin, in the Gulf Coast rookie-league for the 2018 season. He backstopped 19 games, and went nine-for-39 with two doubles, five runs, and five RBI. He drew three walks and struck out eight times.

Arcaya is currently advancing at the prescribed rate for a player out of the DSL. Next season should start with him playing with the short-season-A New York-Penn League Batavia Muckdogs.

Arcaya’s long range Miami Marlins projection, provided he continues to progress normally through the system, would see him in Miami some time around 2023.

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