Luis Arráez is the best hitter alive
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Luis Arráez won the American League batting title last year. Turns out he was just getting warmed up.
Driving the news: Arráez raised his batting average to .403 on Wednesday. That's the seventh-highest by a qualified hitter through his team's first 63 games since 1941, when Ted Williams became the last Major League Baseball player to bat .400 over an entire season.
- Andrés Galarraga (1993): .435 (finished the season batting .370)
- Chipper Jones (2008): .420 (.364)
- Larry Walker (1997): .416 (.366)
- Williams (1941): .412 (.406)
- Rod Carew (1983): .409 (.339)
- Paul O'Neill (1994): .405 (.359)
- Arráez (2023): .403 (TBD)
State of play: The Miami Marlins' second baseman has a .452 on-base percentage and .495 slugging percentage, and his otherworldly performance atop the lineup has led Miami to a 35-28 record — its best start since 2004.
- He has 87 hits and just 11 strikeouts, good for an absurd 7.9-to-1 ratio. The next-best mark this season (min. 200 AB) belongs to Boston Red Sox left fielder Masataka Yoshida, at 2.8-to-1 (68 H, 24 K).
- Absolutely wild stat: He's seen 839 pitches across 239 plate appearances, and he's only swung and missed 29 times.
Fun fact: The contact specialist has done all of this while hitting just one homer, but he made the most of that April blast, using it to become the first Marlin ever to hit for the cycle.
The big picture: It's June and we are legitimately on .400 watch. And even though history says Arráez is due for a regression, he could still be in line to have the greatest batting season ever compared to his peers.
- National League hitters are batting .250 collectively, giving Arráez a 161 AVG+ (61% better than league average). The current MLB record for AVG+ is 154, by Nap Lajoie in 1910.
- In other words, Arráez could fall short of .400 and still have the best league-adjusted average of all time.
