Coming off banner rookie season, Twins’ Luis Arraez aims high again

FORT MYERS, Fla. —There aren't many rookies that Indians manager Terry Francona would have instructed his all-star closer, Brad Hand, to intentionally walk in the eighth inning of a close game.

Then again, there weren't many rookies like Luis Arraez.

"I wouldn't do it, but I told (pitching coach Carl Willis) I'd probably take $100 and put it on Arraez winning a batting title somewhere down the road," Francona told reporters last August. "That's what he looks like to me. He just looks like the part of a guy who is going to hit .330."

And while those are big expectations to place on the shoulders of a 22-year-old, Arraez himself isn't shying away from them.

"I want to win a (batting) championship and stay healthy and just stay in my mind positive," he said.

Batting title or not, the Twins are excited to see what the young second baseman can do with a full season in front of him. Arraez broke into the majors last year after just a few days in Triple-A and hit so well in his first 10 days in the majors that the Twins couldn't keep him in the minors for long.

On June 18, the Twins recalled Arraez from Rochester, never to be sent back. Arraez soon became impossible to sit, overtaking veteran Jonathan Schoop as the starting second baseman as the season wore on. He finished his rookie year hitting .334 with a .399 on-base percentage and .439 slugging percentage in 92 games with the Twins, finishing sixth in Rookie of the Year voting.

Arraez entertained, unintentionally, by shaking his head at pitches he didn't like and spent the season putting his contact skills and plate discipline on display, striking out just 29 times.

And for a follow-up act?

"The quality of the at-bats are always improving, and he works. But they're so good they're really at the top of the game. Really, there's nobody better than him in that regard," manager Rocco Baldelli said. "I don't know necessarily how you affect that in a positive way. I couldn't even relate to what Luis does at the plate. Instead of asking him offensively for more, I think we'd love to get more of what we got last year."

Arraez played in 146 games across three levels plus three playoff games in 2019 — the most of his career, by far — and said his legs started getting a little fatigued by the end of the season. To combat that, he spent the offseason mostly in Fort Myers working on strengthening his entire body with a focus on his lower legs.

"I knew I had to come into camp with fresh legs, so that's what I did," he said.

Hitting coach Rudy Hernandez said Arraez also has been spending time working on getting to inside pitches in the cage, and while he is anticipating pitchers will start attacking Arraez differently, Hernandez is confident in the second baseman's ability to adjust to that.

"He hits the ball to the middle, the other way, and now he's got to start learning because I know they're going to start pitching him more middle-in and he's going to start preparing for that," Hernandez said. "He started learning how to pull the ball the right way, and that's what he feels is his weakness a little bit. Through his career, he always tried to hit the ball the other way. Now he's starting to find a way to pull the ball more."

The question with Arraez isn't whether he will hit but rather where he'll hit. Though Baldelli isn't ready to name a leadoff hitter, and the Twins were pleased with the production they got from Max Kepler in that spot last year, he called Arraez a "tremendous option," there. It's a role Arraez said he occupied throughout his minor-league career.

"I like it," Arraez said. "I think I'd enjoy that role. But the decision is on Rocco, and wherever the manager decides that I'm good in the lineup, that's where I'm going to go out."

And from wherever he hits, the Twins are just as confident in his abilities as Terry Francona.

"He says, 'Rudy, watch that hole right there. It's wide open. I'm going to try to shoot the ball right there.' So that's the way it is. He's got great hands," Hernandez said. "He can do that. He can do a lot of things like that. So those kind of guys that have got special hands, those guys can win a batting title one day."

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