Luis Arraez is a free agent after the 2025 season. The San Diego Padres would like to bring back the left-handed hitter, but what is his value, and can the Padres re-sign him? 

In the modern baseball world of launch angles, exit velocities, and hard-hit rates, Luis Arraez is a unicorn.

He has a patented hitting style that would earn a nod of approval from Tony Gwynn. He doesn’t strike out. Luis Arraez doesn’t walk much, either. He rarely hits home runs. And yet—he hits. A lot. More than almost anyone in baseball. His impact is evident to the eye but difficult to quantify on a spreadsheet.

Arraez is in his final year of arbitration and is earning $14 million this season. Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller is now tasked with the question: Do the Padres keep Arraez around—and if so, how much is he worth?

Wins Above Replacement, or WAR, is the gold standard for measuring a player’s overall value. From 2019 through 2024, Arraez has amassed 15.2 WAR. That’s not a terrible number, but it’s not great either. It averages out to about 2.5 WAR per season, which makes him more valuable than the average player, but not quite an “impact” player. To make matters worse, his WAR this season sits at -0.1.

So why is his WAR so low?

Arraez is a good hitter, but his defense and speed weigh him down.

This year, he’s charted at -7 Outs Above Average, which ranks in the bottom 2% of the league. He’s also in the 27th percentile in sprint speed. 

So he isn’t a good defender, and he isn’t fast. That’s OK—because he hits. But even that is beginning to decline.

Arraez is seeing career lows in average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, and bat speed. These drops in underlying metrics have led to his worst offensive season to date.

Most notably, he can no longer consistently catch up to the fastball. Against all fastball types in 2024, Arraez hit .333. In 2025, that number has dropped to .260. The numbers are even worse on fastballs on the inner half of the plate, where he’s hitting just .200.

It may seem like all the numbers point to Arraez being an average major leaguer, but that is far from the truth.

For starters, he rarely swings and misses. On the year, he has struck out only five times this season, giving him a strikeout rate of 1.9%. For comparison, the average strikeout rate in Major League Baseball (MLB) is 24%. This is further illustrated by his ranking in the 100th percentile in both Whiff rate and K rate.

On top of the fact that he doesn’t swing and miss, he consistently makes quality contact. Ranking in the 99th percentile in Squared-Up percentage and a career 29.9% line drive rate screams that this is an elite hitter, regardless of hits the ball hard or not. 

With all that said, it may still seem like it would be in the Padres’ best interest to let him walk. But Arraez’s value goes beyond the numbers—you simply have to watch him play.

When you see him take at-bats, you begin to understand why he’s someone you want on your team. His ability to work counts and spoil pitches is a work of art. More often than not, the at-bat ends with him flicking a soft liner into the outfield for a hit. Then, turning to the dugout, firing up his teammates while giving his first base coach a slap on the chest. 

While the results of his at-bats don’t always light up on Statcast, they still produce—and that still matters.

A recent example: On Saturday, June 7, against the Brewers, Arraez came up with two runners on in the top of the ninth. He worked a full count and poked a 101 mph fastball down the left-field line for a game-tying, two-run double. The ball left his bat at just 88.8 mph—far from a “hard-hit” ball. But that’s the value of Luis Arraez: he makes things happen.

So we return to the question: How much should the Padres pay him?

A three-year, $45 million deal feels like the right balance. Arraez gets security and fair value despite a down year, and the Padres don’t have to break the bank.

No matter what happens, Luis Arraez reminds us of a simple truth in baseball: sometimes, the most valuable players aren’t just found in the numbers, but in the way they play the game.

Ethan Penrod

Ethan is an aspiring sports analyst that has a passion for all sports. He was a collegiate baseball player and now is finishing up his schooling at San Diego State University. He is a rising senior and a journalism major. Ethan hopes to use his knowledge of sports and display it with his writing.