How do you defend against a .400 hitter?

How do you stop Luis Arraez from getting a success? It’s a query that’s develop into more and more troublesome to reply, on condition that the Marlins infielder got here into Friday hitting .403 in his first season with Miami, making him considered one of a really uncommon set of gamers to hit .400 via 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 dwelling run, but he’s been deliberately walked 5 occasions. He’s supplied a swing 416 occasions and missed his goal simply 28 occasions, a league-best 6.7% swing-and-miss fee. He’s even chasing excess of final 12 months. 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 carried out fairly this earlier than, this isn’t fully out of character, both, on condition that Arraez slashed .314/.374/.410 throughout elements 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 a bit of additional: How are you able to cease him? (And it’s actually not in regards to the limitations on shifting, on condition that Arraez was shifted in opposition to all of two% of the time final season.)

It’s price declaring, after all, that groups do cease him; hitting .400 just isn’t hitting 1.000. One hundred and nineteen occasions, 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 simple on them, both, by spraying hits nearly in every single place.

So what’s the best strategy right here? Or, maybe: Is there one? Let’s run via 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 fee is the bottom in baseball and the bottom we’ve seen in many years; if groups might get him to overlook, they’d. 

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

So not solely does it barely appear potential to overlook his bat, it doesn’t correlate that properly to permitting hits anyway — which, for Arraez, is fully about whether or not that batted ball finds dust, 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 middle and left within the outfield, and to the center or proper aspect on the infield. The hits are … all over the place, other than the outfielder’s common beginning factors.

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

Because he doesn’t hit it exhausting, he doesn’t hit it far, both. There have been 354 gamers to hit a minimum of 25 fly balls or line drives, and Arraez’s common distance of 262 ft is 338th. It does make you assume, 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 would possibly 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 middle fielders the shallowest in opposition to Arraez have all allowed him to hit a minimum of .500 in opposition to them — and whereas that’s not all on hits to middle discipline, it’s exhausting to make an argument that bringing within the middle fielder has actually helped. (It’s related for left discipline as properly, and considerably inconclusive in proper.)

In truth, in the event you take a look at the common beginning spots for outfielders in opposition to Arraez, and break 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 in the event you’re making an attempt to come back with an general technique, that’s not an excellent signal, to begin.

It is perhaps that higher positioning isn’t actually potential in opposition to Arraez, until you’ll be able to go together with 14 fielders, otherwise you need to attempt an excessive no-one-would-ever-actually-try-this infield wall of 4 common infielders and three shallow outfielders standing just a few ft behind the dust.

3) How did groups cease him in May?

“Stop,” we are saying, as if the .330/.380/.390 line he put up was by some means a poor consequence. Still, contemplating he hit .438 in April, and is at .556 to start June, it’s definitely higher, proper? So how did that occur? As we stated 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, a bit of, in regards to the luck of batted balls discovering gloves, or not. Not that you must fear an excessive amount of about how a lot he’s overperforming his Statcast anticipated stats — although he’s — but it surely’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” and not using a little luck going your means, and that doesn’t all the time final — because the 2022-23 Cleveland lineup can let you know.

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

Not that his sport is about “hitting it hard and far,” however he did these issues much less properly in May, and that held up irrespective 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, but it surely 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 purpose right here, apart 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 modifications we see in pitch motion, location, or kind are extraordinarily granular, and doubtless not truly price highlighting as a purpose.

Ultimately, we’re left with this unsatisfying reply …

4) Accept that you just in all probability can’t do a lot about it.

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

He’s going to maintain doing this:

… as a result of he does it extra usually and extra constantly than anybody else within the sport.

Ultimately, Arraez in all probability will not hit .400, if solely as a result of he already hasn’t been during the last six weeks (.382 since April 26 ) and projection techniques 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 option to cease him, both — other than merely not pitching to him. You cannot place your fielders in a means that is optimum to catch his limitless brief liners. You cannot put the total shift on, not that you just did up to now, both. You cannot get him to swing and miss, a minimum of not sufficient.

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