Rumor: Arraez Traded to Fish for Lopez and Two Additional Minor Leaguers!

[dxpavelka]

14 hours ago, MN_ExPat said:

Can't argue that... a .795 OPS should get you cut and banned from the league 

Not at all.  But it certainly doesn't make you untouchable.  And it also isn't a lot from a batting champion.  Find me a batting champ with a lower OPS.  GO....

[Brock Beauchamp]

20 hours ago, Squirrel said:

Possibly Lewis, too, depending on where they think he's at

I suspect Lewis immediately goes to the 60-day. Why not? Unless I'm horribly mistaken, 60-day IL returns at the start of Spring Training. There's no way Lewis is ready for a Major League roster by the end of April.

[Brock Beauchamp]

13 hours ago, dxpavelka said:

Not at all.  But it certainly doesn't make you untouchable.  And it also isn't a lot from a batting champion.  Find me a batting champ with a lower OPS.  GO....

Dee Strange Gordon had a .776 OPS when he won the batting title in 2015. Jose Altuve had an OPS around .830 one of the years he won.

I get your point and it's valid but batting champions having an OPS in the .800-.850 range isn't terribly uncommon. And Arraez's .795 isn't all that different than .830, especially adjusting for run environment. Arraez's 130 OPS+ is identical to Altuve's the first year he won with an .830 OPS.

Arraez is a good BABIP guy with decent isoD and very little slugging. It certainly minimizes his value, especially at first base, but those guys winning the batting title isn't a unicorn event.

It says more about the value of "batting champ" than Luis Arraez, really. If Arraez finished the season with an 0-for-8 and Judge passes him, no one throws a fit over losing the "runner-up batting champion".

[dxpavelka]

10 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Dee Strange Gordon had a .776 OPS when he won the batting title in 2015. Jose Altuve had an OPS around .830 one of the years he won.

I get your point and it's valid but batting champions having an OPS in the .800-.850 range isn't terribly uncommon. And Arraez's .795 isn't all that different than .830, especially adjusting for run environment. Arraez's 130 OPS+ is identical to Altuve's the first year he won with an .830 OPS.

Arraez is a good BABIP guy with decent isoD and very little slugging. It certainly minimizes his value, especially at first base, but those guys winning the batting title isn't a unicorn event.

It says more about the value of "batting champ" than Luis Arraez, really. If Arraez finished the season with an 0-for-8 and Judge passes him, no one throws a fit over losing the "runner-up batting champion".

I think your last sentence gives rube credit where not due.  Gordon never surpassed .716 in any other season.  Even Twins fans would not have been clamoring to have him around.

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

9 hours ago, dxpavelka said:

I think your last sentence gives rube credit where not due.  Gordon never surpassed .716 in any other season.  Even Twins fans would not have been clamoring to have him around.

 

My feeling is what's happening is that people are (rightfully) upset about losing perhaps the most fun player to watch in baseball and trying to justify that feeling with his batting champion status.

I'm super-bummed Arraez will no longer be a Twin. He made baseball, a spectator sport, more enjoyable to spectate. But I'm comfortable couching that feeling in the fact that this trade seems pretty fair and balanced and is probably a good baseball decision.

Others seem to want to find a way to justify their emotional attachment to Arraez using a rather arbitrary metric of "batting champion", which I don't think is really necessary. It's okay to just say "I liked watching Luis Arraez play baseball" and that is a perfectly fine reason to not like the trade.

[vulturepaj]

I wouldn't call it "fun" watching Arraez not get to a routine ball in LF to lose a game.

Nor would I call it "fun" watching him air mail 1B to lose another soon after.

[dxpavelka]

14 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

My feeling is what's happening is that people are (rightfully) upset about losing perhaps the most fun player to watch in baseball and trying to justify that feeling with his batting champion status.

I'm super-bummed Arraez will no longer be a Twin. He made baseball, a spectator sport, more enjoyable to spectate. But I'm comfortable couching that feeling in the fact that this trade seems pretty fair and balanced and is probably a good baseball decision.

Others seem to want to find a way to justify their emotional attachment to Arraez using a rather arbitrary metric of "batting champion", which I don't think is really necessary. It's okay to just say "I liked watching Luis Arraez play baseball" and that is a perfectly fine reason to not like the trade.

I find the fan base angst at losing a player deemed  to be "fun" to watch to be rather amusing to see considering the apathy regarding the departure of a player I consider the most entertaining Twin since Harmon Killebrew.  There has been NO Twin in the last 50 years whose at bats caused me to stop whatever else I might be doing to watch him hit like Miguel Sano.  Yeah, I know, there was a 37% chance he was gonna strike out.  But there was also a chance he was gonna hit it into a suburb.  Chix Dig Long Ballz Baby.