{"id":102094,"date":"2025-06-13T00:51:24","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T04:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=102094"},"modified":"2025-06-13T00:51:24","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T04:51:24","slug":"luis-arraez-decline-what-it-means-padres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/06\/13\/luis-arraez-decline-what-it-means-padres\/","title":{"rendered":"Luis Arr\u00e1ez On the Decline: What it Means for the Padres"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luis Arr\u00e1ez<\/a> is seemingly on the decline, in the middle of the worst season of his career. He is currently compiling career lows in batting average, on-base percentage, OPS, OPS+, and WAR. He’s looking far removed from his three straight All-Star years earlier in the decade. What does this mean for the San Diego Padres as they are locked in a heated race<\/a> for control of the NL West?<\/p>\n

Luis Arr\u00e1ez is on the Decline. Can He Turn It Around?<\/h2>\n

Arr\u00e1ez’s Recent Seasons<\/h3>\n

From 2021-2023, Arr\u00e1ez averaged 3.967 WAR. He made three straight All-Star teams, had three top-20 MVP finishes, and was widely regarded as the best contact hitter in the league. Since then, he posted a 1.0 WAR season where he was middling at best and is in the middle of posting the first negative WAR season of his career. He’s averaging career lows in every major statistic, leading to the aforementioned low WAR total.<\/p>\n

If you dig into the underlying stats, the reason this is happening is that Arr\u00e1ez is chasing more than ever before. His walk rate is super down from his peak due to a higher chase rate. As a result, his OBP is down almost 50 points from his peak years in 2021-2023. He currently has a 98 OPS+, meaning he is 2% worse at the plate than the average hitter. This is especially bad for Arr\u00e1ez because he’s also a below-average defender and doesn’t have a meaningful baserunning game. This means his entire value comes from his offense, and he’s having a below-average offensive season.<\/p>\n

Now, there is some good news. His BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is down 60 points from his career average. This indicates that he has been getting unlucky to some degree this season and is due for some positive regression to the mean. However, his increased weak contact due to lowered walk rate also has something to do with this and it is unlikely he will return to his 2021-2023 highs without some serious changes in the way he approaches the game.<\/p>\n

\"\"
May 25, 2025; Cumberland, Georgia, USA; San Diego Padres first baseman Luis Arraez (4) strikes out against the Atlanta Braves during the first inning at Truist Park. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Implications for the Padres<\/h3>\n

The Padres are currently 38-29, only two games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers for the NL West division lead and 2 1\/2 games ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals for the last Wild Card spot. They’re teetering on the edge of being a playoff team and they really need a good performance from one of their premier offensive players in order to stay competitive in the playoff race.<\/p>\n

The Padres are 5-5 in their last 10, seemingly cooling off from their hot start to their season. Their franchise player Fernando Tatis Jr<\/a>. is also on a cold streak, sporting a 72 wRC+ since May 11<\/a>. Manny Machado<\/a> has been excellent this year, as usual, but in order for the Padres to stave off their rivals during Tatis’ slump, they need Arr\u00e1ez to step up and fill the offensive void.<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

During his peak, Luis Arr\u00e1ez was one of the most unique players in the game. He was a throwback to an earlier, pre-TTO era and he was very entertaining to watch, even on some bad\/mediocre Miami Marlins and Minnesota Twins teams. The league is better off having a variety of play styles, and nobody else does what Arr\u00e1ez does. Hopefully, Arr\u00e1ez can return to his past form and lead the Padres through this heated race for the NL West.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: \u00a9 Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luis Arr\u00e1ez is seemingly on the decline, in the middle of the worst season of his career. He is currently compiling career lows in batting average, on-base percentage, OPS, OPS+, and WAR. He’s looking far removed from his three straight All-Star years earlier in the decade. What does this mean for the San Diego Padres […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5013,"featured_media":102118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,1071,35],"tags":[3384],"class_list":["post-102094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-padres","category-mlb","category-news","tag-luis-arraez"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5013"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102094"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102120,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102094\/revisions\/102120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}