Could the Brewers Trade for Marlins First Baseman Luis Arraez?

In a Twitter Space Tuesday night, venerable Marlins reporter Craig Mish mused that the Fish could end up trading Luis Arraez as soon as this winter. Arraez, who will turn 27 in April, is a .326 career hitter, and although he faded after a first-half flirtation with .400 in 2023, he still ended that campaign at .354, to win his second straight batting title. He'd also taken home the AL crown in 2022, edging out Aaron Judge to rob him of a Triple Crown, before being traded from the Twins to the Marlins in the Pablo Lopez deal last winter.

There might not be any team in MLB to whom Arraez has more value than Miami, because he's a charismatic young venezolano and because his offensive profile is less diminished by pitcher-friendly loanDepot Park than that of just about anyone else in baseball. However, he's also just two years away from free agency, and MLB Trade Rumors projected him to make $10.8 million via arbitration in 2024. Given the way the arbitration system rewards traditional stats and Arraez's excellence in those areas, he could cost as much as $30 million over the two remaining years of club control. 

The Marlins are, perpetually but especially right now, essentially in a worse version of the Brewers' situation. Like the Brewers, they're unsure of their future local TV rights deal, and theirs figures to be one market in which the popping of the broadcast bubble results in a significant decrease in annual revenue from that source. Unlike the Crew, though, Miami perennially struggles to draw fans to the park, so without TV revenues, they have much less on which to fall back. Any MLB team can afford to pay a great player $11 million, but the Marlins have both real and self-imposed financial constraints, and (sooner or later) they've traded away just about every good player they've ever had.

New head honcho of baseball operations Peter Bendix comes from the Rays, who also try to trade a player a year early, rather than a year late. Since he was just hired this fall, Arraez also isn't his prize acquisition. Nor does Arraez necessarily fit with the offensive philosophy Bendix brings over from Tampa Bay, where they place more of an emphasis on the ability to either hit the ball hard at an unusually high rate or pull the ball in the air a lot. Arraez's brilliance, of course, lies in making lots of contact, rather than in doing either of those things.

Mish also mentioned in the aforementioned Spaces discussion that he thinks any returns the Marlins seek in trades this winter will be focused on long-term help, rather than immediate impact. That suggests that the Brewers could land Arraez without giving up someone they expect to make a big difference in 2024. It would still have to be a substantial move, costing a couple of valuable prospects, but it wouldn't need to take a bite out of the 2024 roster in the process of upgrading it.

The big question is how much of an upgrade Arraez would be, given the construction of the Brewers' lineup. They badly need help at first base, and second base isn't entirely sewn up, either. However, in Christian Yelich and William Contreras, the team's two best hitters are already ground ball guys whose game power lags behind their raw pop. The only knock anyone has offered so far on Jackson Chourio is that he hits too many ground balls. He's likely to eventually make the adjustment and find his power, but in his first year or two, he could underperform in the power department, too. Can the Crew really afford another hit-over-power guy?

Yes. Arraez is too good to let an imperfect alignment between needs and skills stand in the way. As I wrote yesterday, the Brewers struggle mightily against fastballs with a flat vertical approach angle (VAA). Arraez handles them about as well as anyone in baseball. 

It's easier to see, and thus to focus on, the dearth of slug from which the Brewers suffered last year, but they also had a slightly below-average .319 team OBP. With Arraez, Yelich, Contreras, and Sal Frelick in the middle of the lineup picture, they could improve on that by a solid 20 points in 2024. Even without adding tremendous power, they could realize a big offensive improvement, with a lineup that relentlessly gets on base and brings those runners around on a parade of hits.

What do you think of Arraez as an alternative to some of the more conventional but lower-ceiling free agents whom the team could pursue to fill their vacancy at first base? Sound off below.