Luis Arraez hits for the first cycle in Marlins History
Through first 445 games: .286/.347/.385
.324/.375/.411
.325/.384/.421
One of these slash lines belongs to the MLB's all time hit leader Pete Rose, one to all time great contact hitter, Tony Gwynn, and one to current Miami Marlins 2B Luis Arraez. Astonishingly, Arraez boasts the superior slash line over these baseball legends. This helps to provide a broad overview of Arraez's magnificent first 5 seasons in the league. However, with that said, what he has done in past seasons does not hold a candle to what he is threatening to do this year.
Through the Marlins' first 64 games, Arraez is hitting an even .400. This leads the majors by 65 points. To put that in perspective, the difference between first and second place is equivalent to the difference between second and fifty-fifth! That's unbelievable! The last 5 people to hit .400 through a team's first 64 games were Luis Arraez, Chipper Jones, Tony Fernandez, Larry Walker, Tony Gwynn. Chipper, Gwynn and Walker are ALL in Cooperstown. This alone should be enough to garner attention for his MVP candidacy.
Moving forward, the two largest arguments against Arraez for the NL MVP are his lack of slugging and Ronald Acuna Jr.
First, let's address Acuna. My argument is in no way in opposition of Acuna's legitimacy as the MVP frontrunner in the national league. He is enjoying a spectacular start to the season, boasting a .327/.401/.547 slash line to go along with 12 HRs, 28 stolen bases, and an NL best 3.2 WAR (wins above replacement). He is having an all time season so far, Acuna is in a place where a 40/40 (40 homers and 40 SBs) season is possible, and in any other season a batting title as well. However, 64 games into the season and it seems like the only way anyone other than Arraez could win the batting crown is injury.
Now we can look at the argument that Arraez can't slug and why that should take him off the table as an MVP candidate. To start, Luis Arraez is slugging .491, which is higher than Max Muncy, who is second in the MLB in Homeruns and Paul Goldschmidt, last years NL MVP. He also possesses an OPS of .945 and an NL leading OPS+ of 161. That's right, NL leading, that means ahead he is ahead of the likes of Freddie Freeman, Ronald Acuna Jr, and HR leader Pete Alonso. So he may only have 1 HR on the season, but because of his relentlessness at the plate, he is still capable of putting up huge offensive numbers. Additionally, he leads the Majors in fielding percentage as he does not have an error this season. And he plays middle infield. That is truly incredible.
If it were all to end right now, one would have to imagine Acuna would win the National League MVP. However if Luis is able to become the first player to hit .400 since Ted Williams in 1941, then there would be a lot of buzz around his name come voting time in October.
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