Let's Try to Align a Defense Against Luis Arráez

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Twins' second baseman is profoundly difficult to gameplan against. Then again, we've got some unexpected free time in which to try it.

 

It’s nice to have a knack for making contact, and especially nice to be elite in that regard. Twins second baseman Luis Arráez isn’t the projected American League batting champion, though, simply because he projects to strike out less than 10 percent of the time, in a league that could whiff in 24 percent of all plate appearances.Plenty of batters who make frequent contact do so on the ground, or towards predictable and easily defended areas of the diamond. In his stellar rookie season, Arráez avoided those traps. He showed an almost Joe Mauer-like ability to smack medium-strength line drives into the areas just beyond infielders and in front of outfielders, especially on the left side of the diamond. He’s excruciatingly hard to defend.

 

Even Mauer, however, eventually saw opponents begin to realign their defense, swinging their outfielders well toward left field in an effort to foil his opposite-field approach. Let’s ask ourselves, then, how teams might adjust to Arráez, too. Since he’s both slow-footed and lacking in power, there are certain ways they can do so, but it will take something we’d normally regard as radical and irrational, and it might well be that Arráez could counteradjust and foil those defensive strategies.

 

Above is Arráez’s spray chart, color-coded by batted-ball trajectory, for 2019. It is extraordinary. The sheer number of line drives, which are hard to defend even for a well-positioned team, is impressive, and the way he both peppered the shallow outfield area with liners and drove the ball to the alleys with relative consistency makes for headaches for any outfield coordinator. Arráez even sprays his grounders a bit more than most left-handed hitters do, deterring would-be defensive shifts.

 

One strategy teams frequently used against Mauer, however, could also allow them to pose problems for Arráez. Because Mauer didn’t run well, aggressive teams would move their second basemen a handful of steps out into right field, despite keeping both their third basemen and shortstops in standard positioning on the left side. Since Arráez doesn’t hit many balls hard, a second baseman could play him quite deep, widening his lateral range, and still have plenty of time to both reach the ball and throw out the plodding youngster.

 

Meanwhile, whereas Mauer was capable of pulling the ball hard down the first-base line at times, Arráez did little of that last season. Thus, the first baseman could plausibly play well off the line, further cutting down the space into which Arráez might fit a hit on the right side. On the other side, teams have a chance to get even more radical. Again, Arráez doesn’t exactly scorch the ball most of the time, especially when going the other way with a pitch on the outer part of the plate. That could allow the third baseman to play drastically shallow, cutting off many grounders that would otherwise become hits.

 

In turn, that would permit the shortstop to play much deeper than normal, handling hot shots to the left side of the infield and in position to go back on and snag some of the lofted line drives Arráez turned into singles last year. Both middle infielders, in fact, would essentially be playing rover roles, taking hits that fell between the infield and outfield last year and turning them into outs.

 

That leaves the outfielders. The right fielder would, in all likelihood, do well to play Arráez more or less straight-away. Like Mauer, Arráez tends to drill the ball when he does turn on it and elevate, so the only high-percentage play to that field is to play it straight and be ready to catch those line drives when they’re close enough.

 

The center fielder’s job is harder. Arráez puts pressure on them by hitting to both gaps, and by occasionally lofting a ball to dead center field that requires them to go back to the wall. So many more of his batting balls are lower-trajectory hits to the middle of the diamond, though, that center fielders should still play quite shallowly against him. Given his lack of top-end speed, a good center fielder should be able to hold him to a double even if he gets the ball over his head, and those types of hits off Arráez’s bat are much less common than ones that drop in front of a center fielder in standard position.

 

In left field, Arráez varies from Mauer. He doesn’t hit the ball hard down the line often. He’s more prone to drive it toward the gap. As a result, the left fielder needs to stay off the line, resulting in a pinched alignment, but he can’t play too shallowly. In this scenario, he’d be able to afford to play at average depth, ready to go back and collect well-struck would-be doubles to the gap, because the shortstop would help cover shallow flies and liners.

 

Download attachment: InkedJake Odorizzi_LI.jpg

 

It’s interesting to imagine how Tony Gwynn would have handled defensive shifts. He had an extraordinary ability to punch the ball through the gap on the left side of the infield; he surpassed 3,000 hits by honing that skill. Had teams positioned themselves as flexibly and proactively during his playing days as they do now, however, Gwynn would have had to come up with a new way to find hits, retaining that touch when the hole was left open but able to scorch the ball through the right side when teams overcompensated. Of course, were he playing now, he’d also have to contend with much more strikeout-focused, high-velocity pitching than he saw in the 1980s and 1990s.

 

Arráez shares a number of key traits with Gwynn, even if the comparison seems unfair. It’s fun to imagine how a team might try to torture and negate his skill set, but it’s also important to remembr that Arráez has shown a balanced skill set at the plate. If forced to, he might well make a major adjustment and become an equally dangerous (though fundamentally different) hitter.

 

MORE FROM TWINS DAILY

— Latest Twins coverage from our writers

— Recent Twins discussion in our forums

— Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email

 

Click here to view the article

[jimbo92107]

Against the fielders positioned above, Arraez would without hesitation hit a Mauer-style slash single over the 3rd baseman's head, into the left field short corner, for a jogging double. I think he finds that hole 4 out of 5 times, against an average mlb pitcher. The young man can flat out hit, and I don't think comps to Gwynn are at all far fetched. All last season i saw him scanning the infield before each pitch, then pop one right through the gap. Fantastic bat control. 

[Trov]

I think this season, whenever it starts, will be a hear were Arraez will need to make adjustments.  With spray charts leading to shifts this day in age, it is not far fetch to imagine defenses like suggested above.  When this started happening with Joe later in career, why it took that long, he struggled a lot.  He worked his whole life to smoke balls up the middle and to left field, with little times pulling the ball.  He was praised for his ability to find the hole, until defenses said, "well if you always hit up the middle or to left field, we will finally start putting players there."  This made matters worse for him when so many people tore Joe down for trying to bunt for hits, I will not go deep into that issue, but point is Joe took awhile to adjust and never really did as well as we hoped he would.  

 

Arraez, on the other had, I feel will make needed adjustments to continue to find holes.  He is great at fighting off pitches he does not want to hit waiting for the one he does.  He seems to go up there with a plan of looking at defense and says this is the pitch I want to hit in that spot.  I agree with Jimbo above, that if 3B will play way in trying to stop possible bunts and allowing middle infiled to play extra deep, Arraez will look to just serve the ball over 3b head.  

 

Arraez reminds me of the savey old softball player that knows how to put the ball where they want to get on.  Only time will tell if he really is or because scouting is much less in minors and now he will be looked under a microscope if he can make the needed changes as defenses change to him.  

[Jham]

His bat control seems other worldly. But I doubt he can keep it up without developing the power to consistently drive the ball. Which frequently happens at this point in a young career, often as a trade for some average.

[DocBauer]

So the best way to play him seems to be for the infielders to play way back, and the OF to play way in. No problem!

 

You can't stop Arraez, you can only hope to contain him! Lol

 

But seriously, I firmly believe theee is such a thing as "hit tool" which is often glossed over when we talk about things like power and speed and OB, combined with SO numbers and launch angle. (Less and less we talk about speed, which I think is sad).

 

While it is absolutely hyperbole to speak of a young player like Arraez in comparison to Gwynn, or Boggs, or whoever, it's just really hard to look at his milb track record, and what he did last season, and his approach at the plate, and NOT compare him!

 

Again, hyperbole...perhaps...but as Jimbo and Torv mentioned above you could absolutely watch Arraez at the plate scanning the defense and just deciding where he wanted to place the ball. And he did so at an amazing clip, while also maintaining plate discipline. He is just so much fun to watch.

[jkcarew]

"That could allow the third baseman to play drastically shallow, cutting off many grounders that would otherwise become hits."

 

Huh? With drastically less time to react, the effective range isn't increased, it's decreased.

 

In general, these are unrealistic scenarios, IMO. If the short-stop plays as deep as depicted, he takes away some smashes into the hole, and gives up a bunch of infield singles on routine grounders. (Arraez is not 'slow' to first-base coming out of the right side of the box...big difference between slow and 'not really fast'.) Meanwhile, the outfielder's objective is to prevent runs and win games, not stop Arraez from winning a batting title. They're not playing significantly shallower and inviting extra-base hits when he leads off an inning or when he's batting with a runner on first, etc...or as long as he continues to demonstrate the ability to hit the ball over their head. 

 

Also, I reject the premise or narrative that guys like Gwynn 'didn't face the shift'. Shifting wasn't invented in the last 10 years. It's simply become pervasive recently because a generation of batters arrived that takes the same swing at every pitch, in any location, against any pitcher, in any count, and in any situation. Gwynn wasn't shifted because it wouldn't have done any good (as was the case with most hitters in his generation). Gwynn hit line drives all over the field. Arraez is a throw-back in that regard. If he sticks with his current approach, defenses aren't going to have a long-term impact on his success. It'll be much more a matter of if he can make the adjustments he will be faced with (from pitchers) to continue to put the ball in play all over the field, and with a high degree of regularity.