Kickin' It Old School

Rounding up the baseball news, plus an ode to Luis Arráez.

I just sent in my Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. I wanted to fill it out using a fountain pen—I pulled out my fine point Pilot E95S, a magnificent little pen that you can carry around with you anywhere, and I filled in the box for Ichiro and… the pen bled right through the paper. Really, guys? You have to use super-cheap paper for the BASEBALL HALL OF FAME ballot?

So I switched to a Uniball micro pen, which, you know, that’s not as fun, but, OK, and I filled out the full ballot, stuffed it into the self-addressed, stamped envelope (having to fold and refold it a couple of times to make the paper fit) and then found I had to lick the envelope because, I don’t know, I guess they’re still using envelopes that Dick Young bought in like 1958? The Hall of Fame balloting is so funny. I’m surprised they don’t make us Western Union the ballots to Cooperstown.

I will tell you that I had a slightly different voting philosophy this year, one that might have led to a couple of surprising choices. We’ll have a lot of Hall of Fame stuff to talk about in the month of January!

Let’s do a quick run-through of the baseball news from the last week or so:

• Cleveland trades away Josh Naylor and sign Carlos Santana. It seems obvious that Cleveland is worried about Naylor’s weight or whatever, and they don’t like his defense much, and he’s a free agent at the end of the year, anyway. But it just seems weird to me that you would trade away your 28-year-old first baseman who hit 31 home runs and drove in 108 runs only to replace him with a 39-year-old first baseman who did not do those things (but did win a Gold Glove out of nowhere). I have not really understood anything Cleveland has done this offseason, but they’re smart folks there, so, you know, we’ll see.

• Astros sign Christian Walker. I’ve been saying for years that Walker is kind of a poor man’s Paul Goldschmidt. On the surface, it looks like an upgrade for the Astros—he’s certainly been better than Joe Singleton—but he’s also 34, and the money spent here probably means that they’re out of the Alex Bregman sweepstakes, plus they have to give up some high draft picks to Arizona. Seems like a mixed bag.

• Andrew McCutchen is back for another year in Pittsburgh. It sure feels to me like Andrew McCutchen is doing baseball right. He was, from 2011 to 2015, perhaps the second-best player in baseball behind only Mike Trout—I mean, it was him or Miggy or Joey or Buster, I think, and he was more like Trout than any of those guys. He won an MVP, finished top-five in the voting four years in a row, and seemed Cooperstown-bound. It has been a long road since then, five different teams, some injuries, lots of ups and downs, it’s a familiar story. But you know what? Here he is still, at age 38, and he just signed for $5 million to play another year in Pittsburgh, where he’s an icon. He’s somehow remained an above-average hitter, he’ll bop out 15 or 20 home runs, he’ll retire a Pirate, and I hope they retire his number. It’s not a bad life.

  

  Thrilled to see Cutch in Pittsburgh again. (Justin Berl/Getty Images)

• Phillies trade for Jesús Luzardo. About 10 months ago, the Orioles traded for Corbin Burnes and I thought, “Hey, did they just trade for the pennant?” They did not, as it turned out, but I have to admit I had similar feelings when the Phillies, kind of out of nowhere, traded for the Lizard King. Obviously, Luzardo is not as good as Burnes, but he’s a lefty fireballer who strikes out a lot of batters, and he would join a Wheeler-Nola-Suárez-Sánchez rotation that I think is already the best in baseball. He was hurt for most of 2024, and obviously, health is always a question with pitchers, but if he’s back to form, wow, you don’t want any part of the Phillies come October.

• Red Sox sign Walker Buehler. From 2019 to 2021, Walker Buehler was one of the best—and most promising—pitchers in baseball. There were times last year, particularly in the playoffs, when he resembled that pitcher. Most of the time, alas, he was not. I love the guy and am rooting for him.

• Rangers sign Joc Pederson. I think Hubie Brooks was the first player I remember being attached to the phrase “Have bat, will travel.” Joc Pederson kabooms righty pitchers. He hit .281/.392/.531 against them last year for Arizona, and he did the same for San Francisco in 2022, and he did the same for Atlanta in the 2021 Division Series (he particularly loved righty Adrian Houser), and he blasted many righties in his years in Los Angeles. You can list off many, many things Joc Pederson can’t do. But kabooming right-handed pitchers still has its value.

• Tampa Bay signs Eloy Jiménez. I mention this for one reason and one reason only—my buddy Brian over at Esquire has drafted Eloy Jiménez in his fantasy league every year… and always with high hopes. Well, last year, Brian finally gave up on Eloy; he was certain Jiménez would have his breakout year, bash 40 home runs, just to spite him. Sadly, Eloy did not. But now Jiménez is with the Rays, who will be playing their season in the Yankees’ spring training park, and it’s all so weird, and I think we should all tell Brian that he has to draft Eloy really high this year or he will regret it.

I was at a gas station in Chapel Hill on Monday— I was there working on the super-secret project I can’t talk about—and there was a woman there, probably just a bit older than me, who was really struggling with the technology at the pumps. To be fair to her, these gas pumps didn’t have a credit card slot, you had to use the contactless scannery thing, and she was thrown. A younger woman came over to walk her through the process.

Once she’d figured things out, the woman looked to me in an “us old folks have to stick together’ conspiratorial sort of way, and said, “It’s so hard to keep up with the next technology, isn’t it? I always feel like I don’t know what I’m doing.”

When I nodded, she smiled and said, “Well, at least I can write cursive.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about Luis Arráez—it looks like the Padres will deal him, and if they do, that will continue one of the craziest streaks in baseball history.

2022: Arráez hits .316 for Minnesota, wins batting title, gets traded to Miami.

2023: Arráez hits .354 for Miami, wins batting title, gets traded to San Diego.

2024: Arráez hits .318 for San Diego, wins batting title…

There are multiple things going on here. I mean, obviously, Arráez is a unique player. He wins batting titles (mainly by almost never striking out) but doesn’t really do anything else. I mean, he’s slow, he doesn’t walk, he hits with no power, he’s below average defensively, etc. Fans love him. Teams, apparently, not so much.

What I’ve been thinking about is this: If batting average mattered like it used to, would the league be filled with Luis Arráezes? That’s to say: Batting average used to be baseball currency. You got paid in large part based on your batting average. Your reputation was enhanced or diminished based on your batting average. Every time you stepped to the plate, an announcer would talk about your batting average. Every time you were mentioned in the paper, your batting average would follow soon after. The biggest stars hit .300.

Last year, there were seven—SEVEN—qualified players who hit .300. That was the lowest total since 1968, the year of the pitcher (six hit .300 that year), and before that you have to go back to Deadball. Just seven players…

1. Bobby Witt Jr., Royals, .332

2. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Blue Jays, .323

3. Aaron Judge, Yankees, .322

4. Luis Arráez, Marlins and Padres, .314

5. Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers, .310

6. Yordan Alvarez, Astros, .308

7. Marcell Ozuna, Braves, .302

Obviously, Arráez stands apart from the rest in a bunch of different ways, the main one being that every one of the other guys hit at least 30 home runs—Judge and Ohtani hit 58 and 54, respectively. Arráez hit 4. What he’s doing is not supposed to be possible in today’s game, with strikeout pitchers and great defense.

And yet, I wonder: Is Arráez just this singular talent, a modern-day Rod Carew, or does he stand alone because teams just don’t want players like Arráez? That is to say, if batting average were still treasured, would there be a handful of players out there who could do what Arráez does, who could avoid strikeouts, square up balls even out of the strike zone, hit .320 or .330 or even .350 as long as they didn’t have to worry about power or walks?

In 1977, the league was FILLED with Luis Arráezes—I mean, every team had a Bruce Bochte or Bob Bailor or Tito Fuentes or Al Bumbry or Ralph Garr or Garry Templeton or Ken Griffey. Some hit with a bit of power, you know, your Cecil Coopers and Al Olivers and Mike Hargroves. Some stole bases, like Mitchell Page and Ron Leflore and Lenny Randle. Some were big stars, like George Foster and Jim Rice and Greg Luzinski and Reggie Smith and Pete Rose. But hitting .300 was the thing. I mean, there were a total of 33 players who hit .300 that year, and that was with six fewer teams.

Was that because pitching was easier to hit in 1977? No doubt. But I think a big part of it is that hitting .300 mattered in so many ways then, and it doesn’t matter much now. We know better now. That’s why Luis Arráez will keep getting traded every year for all eternity. In the end, I do think Arráez is, like David S. Pumpkins, his own thing. But I can’t help but believe baseball would have a lot more .300 hitters, and the game would look very different, if people cared about batting average the same way everybody did way back when.

Happy holidays, everybody. And just in time for Christmas, here’s our poll for who won the PosCast Holiday Draft! The poll also appears over on the PosCast Newsletter Page, and I would tell you not to double-vote but, you know what? As Dani DaOrtiz says… it’s your life!