Giants Roll the Dice With Luis Arraez’s Return to Second Base

It was no secret that the San Francisco Giants were being aggressive on the second base market this offseason. Despite an outfielder being a more pressing need (before they signed Harrison Bader), reports constantly tied them to the available second basemen on the trade front.

Names like Brendan Donovan, Nico Hoerner, and even division rival Ketel Marte were floated as possibilities to be shipped off to San Francisco. However, nothing came of it, and the Giants decided to shift their focus to one of the most polarizing free agents in all of Major League Baseball.

In late January, Luis Arraez and the club agreed on a one-year, $12 million pact. While we know who Arraez is as a hitter, the most interesting discussion regarding this signing is his defense.

Shortly after the deal was reported, ESPN’s Jeff Passan noted that the Giants plan to play Arraez at second. His desire to return to the middle infield position appears to have been a major factor in his accepting the one-year deal.

For a front office that had been preaching pitching and defense, this was a move in the exact opposite direction. Arraez’s knack for making contact must have been too good for Buster Posey to pass up. Let’s take a quick look at how the new second baseman fits into the current Giants picture.

The Perfect Puzzle Piece?

While Luis Arraez isn’t the well-rounded hitter most executives look for, he’s the best in the business when it comes to poking singles and avoiding strikeouts. It may not be the flashiest brand of baseball, but it’s one we know Posey and the Giants front office like.

Through the current regime’s first year of running the organization, the majority of their non-big league acquisitions have been hit-first guys. Whether it was in the draft or at the trade deadline, a surplus of prospects coming into the system have excelled at hitting for average.

Similarly, that’s exactly where Arraez shines. In 2025, the 28-year-old led the National League in hits with 181 despite having his worst year in recent memory. Since the start of 2022, Arraez leads all qualified hitters with 757 hits and a .318 batting average.

His 2023 season stands out as his most productive; he held a 131 wRC+, hit .354, launched 10 home runs, and accumulated 3.4 fWAR. If the Giants get anything close to that from Arraez, the $12 million price point will look like a bargain.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t provide anything else offensively, but it really doesn’t matter in this Giants lineup. For the first time in years, there’ll be no lack of slug on Opening Day in San Francisco, with a core of Rafael Devers, Willy Adames, and Matt Chapman and a supporting cast including Heliot Ramos and top power-hitting prospect Bryce Eldridge.

As long as Arraez can get on base and set the table for those guys while driving in a run here and there, he’ll be a welcome addition in San Francisco. He joins a group that ranked 25th in baseball when it came to batting average last season, with a .235 clip.

It may not be as big a problem, but the Giants were also in the bottom half of the league in terms of strikeouts with a rate of 22.7%. On the flip side, Arraez is coming off a year with a career-low 3.1% strikeout rate. He may not offer a variety of talents at the plate, but what he excels in is exactly what San Francisco needed.

A Defensive Liability

It’s no secret that Arraez provides virtually nothing on the defensive side of things. To make things worse, he’ll be returning to a position he hasn’t played full-time in almost two years.

Among players with 1,000 innings at second base since the start of 2021, Arraez’s -22 Outs Above Average and -16 Fielding Run Value both rank as the third worst marks in MLB. To add to the pain, his arm strength ranked in just the 17th percentile in 2023 — his last season as a full-time second baseman.

This is an especially surprising addition when you consider how adamant Posey was about this team being heavily focused on pitching and defense.

“I believe that pitching and defense wins, so that’s where we’ll probably start looking this offseason when free agency does happen.”

– POBO Buster Posey via NBCSBA’s Alex Pavlovic

Not to mention, the team’s previous projected prior Opening Day starter at the position — Casey Schmitt — is a significantly better defender. He simply hasn’t gotten the run to prove he can be a consistent hitter at the big league level. He’ll likely still see some time at the position and around the infield, but it’s clear that the front office values the consistency in Arraez’s bat over the slight risk of Schmitt.

The Giants will have to hope Arraez can be somewhere near serviceable in the infield, as the team’s ace, Logan Webb, has the second highest groundball rate in the sport (57.8%) since the start of 2021 (min. 700 IP).

While infield guru Ron Washington is on the freshly announced coaching staff in San Francisco, there’s only so much a coach can do with someone who’s been a poor defender across their entire career.