Time to face the reality about a former Marlins player

Luis Arraez
Luis Arraez | Orlando Ramirez/GettyImages

I wrote about this before and we have plenty of evidence from industry insiders, but the fans really miss him. I'm of course talking about current San Diego Padres DH Luis Arraez. He of course used to play for the Miami Marlins in 2023 and in the beginning of the 2024 season. The fan favorite's trade to San Diego did not make the fanbase happy.

The reality about former Miami Marlins 2B Luis Arraez.

Luis Arraez had a nice run with the Miami Marlins. In the 2023 season, he batted .354/.393/.469, with 10 home runs and 69 RBI in 147 games and 574 AB. He was worth 4.9 WAR. He even chased the single season batting average record that season. This naturally made him a fan favorite and made his trade the following season unacceptable to many fans.

In his time with The Fish in the 2024 season, he batted .299/.347/.372, with 0 home runs and 5 RBI in 33 games and 137 AB. He was worth just 0.1 WAR for that time. Upon his trade to San Diego, he batted .318/.346/.398, with 4 home runs and 41 RBI in 117 games and 500 AB. He was worth 0.9 WAR for that performance.

The trade return was seemingly so bad, that fans couldn't believe it. Why didn't the batting champ bring top prospects in return? Why couldn't he be extended if his value was supposedly so low? The big issue is this is surface thinking and not looking at the big picture.

At the time of the trade, the Miami Marlins were not going to the playoffs that season. Arraez was hitting free agency after the following season, and we can see that Peter Bendix probably doesn't expect playoff contention next season. The problem with Luis Arraez is that he's a terrible defender, with no power and no speed. This makes his value rely completely on his contact skills.

His contact went down and so Bendix immediately traded him before it would get worse. He finished the 2024 season with a below average WAR of just 1.0. Why would a smart GM extend a player who has no value outside one skill? If that skill goes down, he has no value at all. This is also why he was never going to bring in any top prospects back either. The reality is that trading him was 100% the right call for the Miami Marlins.

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