Luis Arraez had already established himself heading into this year as one of the best contact hitters in baseball during an era where batting averages have plummeted. But nobody could have expected that in 2023 the Miami Marlins infielder would flirt with baseball’s most improbable goal: a .400 season at the plate.
Only 42 players in what we now recognize as Major League Baseball history have hit .400 in a full season. Ted Williams was the last player to do so in the American or National Leagues, hitting .406 for the Boston Red Sox in 1941.
Even after an 0-for-4 night on Monday, Arraez is still flirting with the .400 mark, as he’s hitting .391 while batting leadoff for Miami. And while finishing with a .400 average may feel out of reach, it’s still an open question as to how far he can go while being near or above that magical mark.
FanDuel Sportsbook has put up a market asking whether Arraez will have a .400 batting average at the All-Star break. It’s not a likely outcome, but it’s far from impossible, with FanDuel offering +830 on Yes, with No fetching -2000. Let’s take a deeper look at Arraez’s chances of making it through the first half of the season with a .400 average intact.
Will Luis Arraez have a .400 batting average or greater by the All-Star break (July 10)?
| Outcome | Odds |
|---|---|
| Yes | +830 |
| No | -2,000 |
Odds courtesy of FanDuel on June 13, 2023.
An uphill climb vs history
First, we need to acknowledge how rare it is for a player to be hitting .400 at the All-Star break. In the last 50 years, only one player has been hitting .400 at that point in the season: Rod Carew, who carried a .402 batting average into the midseason classic.
It should be noted that a few other players have been hitting .400 later in the season, even if they weren’t actually at that mark heading into the All-Star game. In 1980, George Brett was hitting .400 after 134 games. That took him all the way into September, and is the latest any qualified hitter has gone into a season at or above .400 since Williams. John Olerud (1993), Larry Walker (1997), and Nomar Garciaparra (2000) also popped above the .400 mark in the second half.
Still, that goes to show how rare getting at or above .400 is even at this point in the season. Only nine players since 1941 have been hitting .400 after 67 games, and even Arraez’s .391 mark is in rare territory, with only 14 other players staying above that mark during that period.
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Arraez has been outperforming his projections
Can Arraez keep up this pace, and even threaten to get back above .400? It should be obvious that this will take some good fortune on his part. Nobody in recent MLB history has been a sustainable .400 hitter. To reach that mark, a player needs to be a great hitter and be more than a little lucky.
So far, Arraez has been a bit of both. While his expected batting average is just .332 heading into Tuesday, it’s not unusual for Arraez to outperform this number. In his first four seasons, he batted an average of 21 points higher than his xBA. If that trend continued, you’d expect his skills to have him at around .353 this year — still incredible in the modern era.
There’s no doubt that Arraez has also enjoyed incredible luck so far this year. He has a batting average on balls in play of .407, and while hitters have some control over this number, his career BABIP is just .347. Statcast doesn’t think Arraez is hitting the ball particularly hard — his barrel rate (1.8%) and hard hit rate (22.5%) are both below his career averages — so it’s difficult to imagine his numbers won’t come back to Earth a little by the end of the season.
If we want to be optimistic about that regression, there are some signs that it might not happen until later in the season. Throughout his career, Arraez has been a superb first-half hitter, putting up a .348 average before the All-Star break. He typically cools down significantly in the second half, hitting just .299 later in the season.
Luis is a live longshot
No matter how you slice it, it’s a longshot for anyone to hit .400 going into the All-Star break, and after Monday’s game, it will now be an uphill climb for Arraez. That’s why FanDuel is offering such generous odds on him to accomplish the feat. The Marlins have 25 games to go before the break, and Arraez would have to hit around .420 in that span to hit the mark.
To make a Yes bet worthwhile, we need Arraez to have at least an 11% shot at doing that. His career numbers would suggest that his odds are far lower: he’s only had one full month (this March/April) where he’s hit over .420. But even after his hitless performance on Monday, Arraez is hitting .432 in June over 11 games.
This is, without a doubt, a longshot bet. FanDuel has set a good line for itself, and bettors may not have an edge on either side. But if you want to place a wager, I’m leaning towards Yes.
The odds are correct if Arraez regresses to his career numbers, but there’s always the chance that he’s found something this year that gives him a better chance of staying around the .400 mark than we expect. If you want to bet this market, I recommend riding that uncertainty — and the potential value it brings — with a Yes bet.
My best bet: Yes (+830 at FanDuel)
