{"id":548626,"date":"2026-02-01T04:38:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T04:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/548626\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T04:38:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T04:38:21","slug":"giants-to-sign-three-time-batting-champion-luis-arraez-to-a-1-year-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/548626\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants to sign three-time batting champion Luis Arraez to a 1-year deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

A day after making the Harrison Bader deal official, the San Francisco Giants<\/a> agreed to a deal with three-time batting champion Luis\u00a0Arr\u00e1ez to add more oomph to their offense.<\/p>\n

The Chronicle confirmed Saturday that San Francisco agreed to terms with\u00a0Arr\u00e1ez on a one-year, $12 million deal. Arr\u00e1ez is expected to play second base, making incumbent Casey Schmitt<\/a>, a fan and clubhouse favorite, a potential trade piece.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Arr\u00e1ez. a three-time All-Star, is just 28 and is a lifetime .317 hitter with a .777 OPS. He won an AL batting title with Minnesota in 2022, when he hit .316. The next year he earned his first NL title by hitting .354 with Miami and followed that by recording 200 hits between Miami and San Diego and winning another batting crown with a .314 average. He’s the only player to have won titles in both leagues in consecutive years.<\/p>\n

Arr\u00e1ez has primarily played second base in his career, but also has substantial time at DH and has also played third base and left field. He is not considered a premiere defender, listed in negative defensive-runs territory each year; Statcast registered him as in the bottom 4% of fielding range last season and at -9 in Outs Above Average.<\/p>\n

A left-handed hitter, Arr\u00e1ez does not have an enormous amount of power\u00a0– he hit eight homers in 154 games with the Padres last year\u00a0– and he has not performed well at the plate in the postseason, with a .224 average. But\u00a0Arr\u00e1ez again led the league in hits last year, with 181, and he walks more than he strikes out, averaging 44 walks and 41 strikeouts per year over his career. He also averages 84 runs per season and though not fleet, could well be the team’s leadoff hitter much of the time.<\/p>\n

In that case, the Giants could field a lineup that goes\u00a0left-right-left: Arr\u00e1ez, Willy Adames<\/a>, Rafael Devers<\/a>, Matt Chapman<\/a>, Jung Hoo Lee<\/a>, Heliot Ramos<\/a>, Bryce Eldridge<\/a>,\u00a0Bader, and Patrick Bailey<\/a>. That’s a lineup with the potential to score a lot more than last year when the Giants finished 17th in runs scored in the majors.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Arr\u00e1ez’s signing fits the bill for the kind of hitter president of baseball operations Buster Posey has shown a preference for: those who make a lot of contact, a clear focus when it came to last year’s draft and\u00a0midseason trades.<\/p>\n

Schmitt, 26, is an excellent defensive player, particularly at third base, but he’s blocked at that position in San Francisco with\u00a0Platinum Glove winner Chapman firmly entrenched. Schmitt had shown promise at second and, with Ron Washington joining the team as an infield coach, Schmitt was likely to take a huge jump defensively at his new position. He never appeared entirely comfortable when playing out of position at shortstop for stretches of 2023-24.<\/p>\n

Because third is his best spot, Schmitt has been a trade target for clubs with a need at third two winters in a row. Now with Arr\u00e1ez in the fold, San Francisco might consider moving Schmitt to fill a need. The Giants could use a closer, for instance, and never would say no to a good young starter. Backup catcher is also an area to possibly add.<\/p>\n

Schmitt has hit .228 with 23 homers in 225 games over the past three years. Last June 13-14, he became the first Giants player to hit grand slams in consecutive games. The first proved to be the game-winning blow against the Dodgers in Los Angeles; the next day’s came in a loss off a position player,\u00a0Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Schmitt is rehabbing after December surgery to remove a bone spur in his left wrist. During a media session at the team’s FanFest in San Jose two weeks ago, he said he has already started hitting and should be close to a full-go for spring training.<\/p>\n

This article originally published at Giants to sign three-time batting champion Luis Arraez to a 1-year deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A day after making the Harrison Bader deal official, the San Francisco Giants agreed to a deal with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[42,5,31113,710,6595,9406,39,365,851,139,54,3211,375,5953,774,85,379,778,822,4,7661,863,137,18,378,66,852,103,5355],"class_list":["post-548626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-astros","tag-astros","tag-baseball","tag-batting-champion","tag-bryce-eldridge","tag-buster-posey","tag-casey-schmitt","tag-dodgers","tag-harrison-bader","tag-heliot-ramos","tag-houston","tag-houston-astros","tag-houstonastros","tag-jung-hoo-lee","tag-kike-hernandez","tag-los-angeles","tag-luis-arraez","tag-matt-chapman","tag-miami","tag-minnesota","tag-mlb","tag-patrick-bailey","tag-rafael-devers","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-the-giants","tag-willy-adames","tag-yainer-diaz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115993529915913677","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}