How do you defend towards a .400 hitter?

How do you stop Luis Arraez from getting a success? It’s a query that’s change into more and more tough to reply, provided that the Marlins infielder got here into Friday hitting .403 in his first season with Miami, making him one in every of a really uncommon set of gamers to hit .400 by means of his staff’s first 63 video games.

The numbers, once more getting into Friday, are so cartoonish that they’re barely plausible. Arraez has 87 hits, but simply 11 strikeouts. He’s received only one house run, but he’s been deliberately walked 5 instances. He’s supplied a swing 416 instances and missed his goal simply 28 instances, a league-best 6.7% swing-and-miss price. He’s even chasing way over final yr. It hasn’t mattered. The hits carry on coming, sufficient in order that his 161 OPS+ is the NL’s finest.

While he’s by no means executed fairly this earlier than, this isn’t completely out of character, both, provided that Arraez slashed .314/.374/.410 throughout components of 4 seasons with the Twins, who traded him to Miami in February. Whether or not it’s a sizzling streak or the brand new regular, it’s far sufficient into the season that we have to dig into this query just a little additional: How are you able to cease him? (And it’s actually not in regards to the limitations on shifting, provided that Arraez was shifted towards all of two% of the time final season.)

It’s value stating, after all, that groups do cease him; hitting .400 is just not hitting 1.000. One hundred and nineteen instances, Arraez has hit a ball that turned an out. But, as you’ll be able to see by his batted ball spray chart, he’s not precisely making it straightforward on them, both, by spraying hits nearly far and wide.

So what’s the proper method right here? Or, maybe: Is there one? Let’s run by means of some concepts.

1) Don’t let him make contact.

Great thought! Even the modern-day Tony Gwynn, if that’s certainly what Arraez will find yourself being, can’t get a success when he can’t make contact. It’s additionally not going to occur. Arraez’s 4.6% strikeout price is the bottom in baseball and the bottom we’ve seen in many years; if groups may get him to overlook, they’d. 

Either means, this doesn’t have as giant a connection to his batting common as you’d suppose. Consider it this fashion: in April, he hit .438 with a 5% strikeout price, however in May, he hit “only” .330 with a 5% strikeout price. So far in June, he’s hit a wild .556 with a 4% strikeout price. Those are wild fluctuations in getting hits with none actual change involved price. 

So not solely does it barely appear potential to overlook his bat, it doesn’t correlate that effectively to permitting hits anyway — which, for Arraez, is completely about whether or not that batted ball finds filth, grass, or a ready glove. Next thought?

2) Position your outfielders extra shallow.

So the place are these hits even coming from, anyway? Let’s break it down into hits and outs. The outs are to heart and left within the outfield, and to the center or proper aspect on the infield. The hits are … in every single place, except for the outfielder’s common beginning factors.

Arraez, for all of his apparent items, merely doesn’t hit the ball laborious, along with his 23% hard-hit price rating within the 2nd percentile — that’s, 98% of certified hitters have a greater hard-hit price than he does. That’s why he has only a single house run, however it actually hasn’t prevented him from piling up the bottom hits, both.

Because he doesn’t hit it laborious, he doesn’t hit it far, both. There have been 354 gamers to hit not less than 25 fly balls or line drives, and Arraez’s common distance of 262 ft is 338th. It does make you suppose, maybe, the reply is “play shallower,” accepting that on uncommon events he’ll muscle a pitch up sufficient to get it deep sufficient for an additional base, however that you just’ll profit from all of the singles you may stop.

But … he’s already being performed shallower than most any batter this aspect of Steven Kwan, and the 4 groups who’ve performed their heart fielders the shallowest towards Arraez have all allowed him to hit not less than .500 towards them — and whereas that’s not all on hits to heart subject, it’s laborious to make an argument that bringing within the heart fielder has actually helped. (It’s related for left subject as effectively, and considerably inconclusive in proper.)

In reality, if you happen to take a look at the common beginning spots for outfielders towards Arraez, and cut up outcomes into what occurs when all three play deeper than common as in comparison with when all three play shallower than common …

… you’ll see there’s not that a lot distinction. Again, that’s for all batted balls, not simply ones to the outfield, however if you happen to’re attempting to come back with an general technique, that’s not a very good signal, to begin.

It could be that higher positioning isn’t actually potential towards Arraez, except you’ll be able to go together with 14 fielders, otherwise you wish to attempt an excessive no-one-would-ever-actually-try-this infield wall of 4 common infielders and three shallow outfielders standing a number of ft behind the filth.

3) How did groups cease him in May?

“Stop,” we are saying, as if the .330/.380/.390 line he put up was someway a poor final result. Still, contemplating he hit .438 in April, and is at .556 to start June, it’s actually higher, proper? So how did that occur? As we mentioned above, it’s not the strikeouts. It’s not a lot about positioning. It’s not about elevating, both, as he’s produced a practically similar launch angle in every of the three months.

It is, just a little, in regards to the luck of batted balls discovering gloves, or not. Not that it’s best to fear an excessive amount of about how a lot he’s overperforming his Statcast anticipated stats — although he’s — however it’s all however unattainable to do issues like “post the highest Batting Average on Balls In Play in an entire century, yes, even higher than Gwynn or Carew” with out a little success going your means, and that doesn’t all the time final — because the 2022-23 Cleveland lineup can inform you.

That’s not a lot of a technique, however it’s not all that, both, as a result of in May, he actually did simply make lesser contact.

Not that his recreation is about “hitting it hard and far,” however he did these issues much less effectively in May, and that held up regardless of how we sliced it — simply on flies and liners, or simply on hard-hit balls, or simply on softly-hit balls, and even within the “anticipated” stats. In May, Arraez made the identical quantity of contact, however it didn’t result in the identical sorts of outcomes, past simply the fluctuations of luck. He was merely superb, as an alternative of an elite outlier.

Yet even right here, there’s frustration for the opposition, as a result of there’s no apparent motive right here, aside from “even the sport’s best bat-to-ball hitter can have a few bad games.” (Again: we’re speaking in regards to the month he hit .330 as “the bad one.”) Any adjustments we see in pitch motion, location, or kind are extraordinarily granular, and possibly not really value highlighting as a motive.

Ultimately, we’re left with this unsatisfying reply …

4) Accept that you just most likely can’t do a lot about it.

… which is that seven non-pitcher/catcher fielders are most likely not sufficient to cease Luis Arraez from accumulating hits.

He’s going to maintain doing this:

… as a result of he does it extra typically and extra persistently than anybody else within the recreation.

Ultimately, Arraez most likely will not hit .400, if solely as a result of he already hasn’t been over the past six weeks (.382 since April 26 ) and projection methods see him as ending with one thing like a .360 mark, which might in and of itself be an unbelievable quantity. But there’s not precisely an apparent method to cease him, both — except for merely not pitching to him. You cannot place your fielders in a means that is optimum to catch his limitless quick liners. You cannot put the total shift on, not that you just did previously, both. You cannot get him to swing and miss, not less than not sufficient.

All you are able to do is attempt to make his life on the plate the tiniest bit tougher. So far, nearly nobody has discovered a means to try this.