Luis Arraez wins third consecutive batting title with third different team

Luis Arraez has done it again. The former Miami Marlin and current San Diego Padre is the 2024 National League batting champion. Arraez won his league's batting title each of the previous two years as well (2022 AL and 2023 NL). He is the first player in AL/NL history to win batting titles as a member of three different teams, and he accomplished the feat in back-to-back-to-back fashion.

The 27-year-old Arraez has had only three seasons as a qualified MLB hitter, all of them resulting in the same hardware. He won his first batting title with the Minnesota Twins, the organization that originally signed and developed him. The Venezuelan infielder edged out AL MVP Aaron Judge for the 2022 crown (.316 BA to .311 BA). He was traded to Miami the following offseason in exchange for a package of Pablo López, José Salas and Byron Chourio.

Last season while playing exclusively for the Marlins, Arraez got off to a blazing start. He finished with a .354 batting average, 17 points above the second-best NL qualifier (Ronald Acuña Jr., .337 BA). He also set a Marlins franchise record for highest single-season batting average in the process and enjoyed his most productive overall season as a big leaguer in the estimation of both fWAR (3.3) and bWAR (4.9).

There was more drama this time around. Arraez underperformed early in 2024, going 0-for-10 in his first two games of the season and recording multiple hits just once in his first nine games. Through 33 games, he recovered to a .299 BA, but that went along with zero home runs and poor defense at second base.

Arraez could've hit 1.000 and it would not have been enough to salvage this wretched Marlins season. Practically every veteran on the roster struggled to an even greater extent than he did while injuries decimated their starting rotation. The Marlins owned a 9-24 record when news broke shortly before first pitch on May 3 that a deal was being finalized to send Arraez to San Diego.

From May 4 onward, the Padres posted the second-highest winning percentage in the majors, with Arraez occupying the leadoff spot in their lineup. It took only a few weeks for him to climb atop the NL batting average leaderboard. In June, he suffered a torn ligament in his left thumb, but he continued to play on a near-daily basis. From September 17-26, Arraez had a 2-for-28 slump that nearly opened the door for Shohei Ohtani and Marcell Ozuna to snatch the title from him. However, he stopped the bleeding with a 3-for-5 effort this past Friday and clinched the title with a 1-for-3 Sunday performance.

Back in Miami, Xavier Edwards has brilliantly filled Arraez's table-setting role, hitting .328 this season during his first extended opportunity in The Show. Time spent on the injured list prevented Edwards from qualifying for the batting title (min. 502 PA), but he was the NL leader in that category if you lower the minimum threshold to 300 plate appearances. Health permitting, he ought to one of Arraez's main challengers for the 2025 crown.

Despite earning a familiar accolade, this was not a good year by Arraez's standards. His wRC+, which had been 130 in both 2022 and 2023 (30% better than league average), dipped to 109. He made contact more frequently than ever, but sacrificed the quality of that contact. Arraez also moved the wrong way on the defensive spectrum from full-time second baseman to splitting time between first base and designated hitter. Meanwhile, his salary has increased via arbitration from $6.1M in 2023 to $10.6M in 2024 to a projected $15M+ in 2025 (his final year of club control).

You might say it's a good problem for the Padres to have, but it is a problem nonetheless to assess how much Arraez's injury impacted his production and whether they're interested in extending him beyond 2025 (the Twins and the Marlins clearly were not).