Luis Arraez has been a rare bright spot amidst a tough start to the season for the Giants. The three-time batting champion is out to a .316/.340/.398 start with a grand total of six strikeouts over his first 144 plate appearances.
That’s about what one expects from the game’s top contact hitter. More surprising is how well he’s taken to a move back to second base. Arraez had graded as a well below-average defender for his entire career and had mostly moved off the keystone last year in San Diego. He prioritized signing with a team that would allow him to return to second base. The Giants obliged, at least in part because of their faith in one of the sport’s most respected infield coaches, Ron Washington.
Even the front office probably didn’t anticipate Arraez playing this well defensively. Statcast has credited him with nine Outs Above Average, the best mark for a second baseman in MLB. Defensive Runs Saved has him at +5, tied for tops in the National League (with Washington’s Nasim Nuñez) and second in the Majors behind Seattle’s Cole Young. Arraez has recorded 110 assists and played nearly 300 innings without committing an error.
The whole package has made him San Francisco’s most valuable player through six weeks. The team around him has not played up to expectations. The Giants have lost eight of their last nine games and sit a season-high nine games below .500.
Their 14-23 record is tied with that of the Mets for worst in the National League. They’re already facing what seems like an insurmountable gap behind the Dodgers and Padres in the NL West. Every team in the NL Central is above .500, cluttering the path for underperforming teams like San Francisco, New York and Philadelphia to pull back from slow starts.
Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle observes that the player’s and team’s respective trajectories point toward Arraez being a valuable trade chip closer to the deadline. They’ve gotten a strong return on their one-year, $12MM deal. Arraez will return to the market next winter in advance of his age-30 season. He’d be a candidate for a qualifying offer if he keeps up this kind of defense and the Giants hang onto him beyond the deadline.
The QO would give the Giants some leverage if they’re on the fence about an Arraez trade. Still, if they get close to the deadline without erasing a good chunk of the early-season hole they’ve dug themselves, they should at least see what’s available on the trade front as a matter of diligence.
Arraez is one of their few obvious potential chips. A lot of their struggles come from underperforming veterans on contracts that’d be difficult or impossible to move. Their top impending free agents are Arraez and mid-rotation starter Robbie Ray, though the latter is playing on a heftier $25MM salary. Tyler Mahle is on a $10MM deal that’d be easier for an acquiring team to eat, but he’s alternating good and bad starts and having a difficult time missing bats.
In the short term, Arraez is part of a fairly rigid infield. The Giants brought up top prospect Bryce Eldridge to split time with Rafael Devers between first base and designated hitter. Matt Chapman and Willy Adames, neither of whom has hit well of late, are locked in on the left side.
That leaves Casey Schmitt without an obvious spot in the order. He has easily been the team’s best offensive player, batting .296/.344/.539 with six homers — twice as many as anyone else on the club. They obviously can’t afford to take him out of a lineup that has scored 17 fewer runs than any other.
Schmitt has started the past two games at second base while Arraez nurses a bruised thumb. The latter is expected to return to the lineup for this weekend’s series against the Pirates. That might be a precursor to the first outfield work of Schmitt’s career.
President of baseball operations Buster Posey and manager Tony Vitello each said this week that Schmitt would bounce around the diamond to get continued playing time (link via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area). The first-year skipper said that he feels Schmitt is athletic enough to handle the corner outfield, though he cautioned the team would “need to do (that) intelligently.”
Schmitt hasn’t logged a single inning of outfield work at San Diego State or at any point in his minor league or MLB career. He told Pavlovic he’s open to playing anywhere necessary to stay in the lineup. Schmitt is a plus runner who has shown the versatility to bounce around the infield. It’s certainly not out of the question that he could be a capable or better outfielder, though Oracle Park isn’t the easiest home park in which to pick that up.
The Giants made a point of improving the outfield defense with the Harrison Bader signing. That pushed Jung Hoo Lee from center to right field. Bader started ice cold offensively and landed on the injured list on April 12 with a left hamstring strain. Lee has picked up a few starts in center as a result, but he’s still mostly playing right field. Drew Gilbert has been the primary fill-in up the middle. Heliot Ramos has started all but three games in left field.
Lee and Ramos have each struggled offensively. Despite nearly average contributions from Gilbert, the Giants have had one of the game’s weakest center field groups (.176/.212/.272 in 133 PAs). Using Schmitt on the grass could be one of their only immediate options for trying to spark some life into the offense.
