Who should trade for Arraez? Here are 6 top options

For all the rumors flying ahead of the Trade Deadline about who will get traded, or not, and where, and for whom, there’s one name that stands out above all others as being the most interesting.

OK, fine, there’s two names, but we’re not talking about Tarik Skubal today. We’re talking about Luis Arraez.

That's in part because Arraez's historically extreme contact-without-power skills always make him a bit of a divisive lightning rod in today’s game, in terms of how he should be valued. And it's in part because he’s one of the few rumored players that we’re almost certain will get traded.

That’s because the 42-60 Giants are one of the very few teams clearly out of contention in 2026, making them guaranteed sellers, and because Arraez is an impending free agent, having signed a one-year deal with the Giants last winter. There reportedly hasn’t been any progression on an extension, but also, for the first time in forever, Arraez is playing competent defense to go along with that strikeout-averse bat.

It would be the third time Arraez has been traded in the last four seasons, having gone from Minnesota to Miami in the winter of 2022-23 and then from Miami to San Diego in May 2024. Were Arraez to be traded and then sign somewhere new this winter, that would be his sixth team in six seasons. As we said: a divisive player.

But divisive or not, he’s clearly a valuable one right now. Forget batting average and how much you do or do not care about it; Arraez has a 130 OPS+, making him 30 percent better than a league-average hitter. He’s been a top-50 qualified bat in the Majors by a different but similar hitting metric, and while postseason baseball is never as much about "just make contact" as people want it to be, there’s also clearly some value to it that teams will place upon him – even if Arraez himself hasn’t contributed much in October, hitting .224/.246/.284 across 70 plate appearances.

Throw in the improved second base defense, and … well, let’s talk about that for a moment. Arraez, long one of the weakest defensive second basemen in the game, reportedly turned down multi-year offers elsewhere for a single year in San Francisco because the Giants would let him play second. As we detailed here recently, the bet on himself has worked out tremendously, yet another credit to infield coach Ron Washington, and Arraez currently rates as the third-best second base defender in the game, per Statcast metrics, with +8 Fielding Runs.

But much of that was front-loaded, thanks to a +5 April. He’s been essentially average ever since, which is fine enough; average is playable, whereas what he was before was not, which is why teams didn’t want him to. Arraez has been clear he expects to continue at second if he’s traded, so continued competence there will be crucial, though at the same time, without a no-trade clause, he doesn’t get a full say over where he plays. He’s not a Gold Glove candidate, despite that hot start, and yet he doesn’t need to be. A bat 30 percent better than average and the ability to play an inoffensive second base will be good enough.

Good enough for whom, though? Well, isn’t that the question.

We expected a lot, because he’s having a good year and has a desirable skill. Yet when we went through the 30 teams, it was a little more difficult than we expected. First, we counted out the handful of also-rans as well as a few contenders who are easily set at second base, like the Brewers, Cubs and Braves. A few other teams in the mix, like the Phillies or Mariners, could probably improve, yet aren’t likely to prioritize this spot over other needs. Throw in a number of surprise ahead-of-schedule teams in the mix – here we’re talking about the Nationals, White Sox, Cardinals and Twins – where it’s not clear how much they’ll prioritize present over future, and we’re left with relatively fewer landing spots than we thought.

If, that is, Arraez is going to insist on playing second base. While understandable given the hard work he’s put in, it’s also plausible that he might welcome a trade, knowing it would both put him into a playoff race and exclude him from a potential Qualifying Offer this winter. We imagine almost any contender would appreciate his bat off the bench, ready to face the Mason Millers of the world in October.

That’s getting ahead of ourselves, though. Sticking to places where he might be a primary or at least partial second baseman, ranked from least likely to most ...

6) Dodgers

What do you get the team that has everything? Probably not this, if only because big league trades between the Giants and Dodgers are excessively rare. It’s been nearly two decades since the last one – surely you remember which direction Mark Sweeney went back in 2007 without us telling you? – and it’s happened just three times since both teams moved west in 1958. We included them mostly to mention that fun fact, but also because Alex Freeland, Hyeseong Kim, and Miguel Rojas have hardly provided irreplaceable performance at second. Yet with Tommy Edman finally healthy and playing well since his return, even the baseball case here is a hard one to make. It’s not going to be here.

5) Yankees

Given how much the offense has collapsed since Aaron Judge went down, and because this team really does strike out too much, this is a fit that’s going to come up a lot, we think. The problem is that this really is an imperfect roster fit. Incumbent second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. has had a down year, by his standards, but he’s hardly atop the list of Yankee problems. With Ben Rice and Paul Goldschmidt at first, and the potential that Judge and/or Giancarlo Stanton end up taking designated hitter time, it’s not clear how this would even work – as much as Yankee fans might like it to.

4) D-backs

But … don’t the D-backs have an All-Star level second baseman in Ketel Marte, who isn’t going anywhere? They sure do. What they also have is a massive problem at first base, where their .588 OPS is the third weakest from the position in the last 100 years, and at DH, where their .631 mark is the fourth-weakest of the season, and as lefty hitters, where they’re in a three-way tie for worst. Arizona, which currently holds the final Wild Card spot in the NL, isn’t likely to be an all-in, go-for-it buyer, but that’s not the kind of deal Arraez would require, either. No, it wouldn’t be a full-time second base job, yet given that Marte spends a day or two per week at DH as it is, it’s not that hard to find a scenario where Arraez plays daily between first, second, and DH.

3) Red Sox

No team has gotten less out of left-handed hitters than the Red Sox have. Only the non-contending Reds and Mets have had less offensive production from second base, as various combinations of Marcelo Mayer, Anthony Seigler and Isiah Kiner-Falefa haven’t gotten the job done. The one problem? Boston, currently sitting 29th in homers, badly needs power, and that’s one skill Arraez won’t provide. That doesn’t mean this fit won’t work, because it very well might. It just means that it couldn’t be the only add the newly resurgent Red Sox make.

2) Rangers

Texas hasn’t been good, exactly, but they’re also currently leading the AL West, and any opportunity to get a rotation fronted by Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and MacKenzie Gore into the playoffs can’t be wasted. The Rangers have started six different second basemen, most recently going with Nicky Lopez, a well-traveled journeyman who should have more weight put on his career 74 OPS+ than the somewhat flukish 112 he’s posted in scattered time this year. Even if you do believe in that, Lopez can play nearly anywhere, which means that second base could easily be opened for Arraez – a player whom, it should be noted, current Texas manager Skip Schumaker once called “one of my favorite players I’ve ever been around,” back when he was Miami’s manager and Arraez had been traded to San Diego.

1) Rays

Talk about, we think, checking all the boxes. Tampa Bay has the sixth-weakest production (tied) from the keystone in the Majors. Of the five weaker teams, three are clearly non-contenders, and one of the others, Houston, has much larger issues than trying to displace Jose Altuve. The Rays have the 24th-best projected rest-of-season production at second base, and nothing about Arraez’s contract would be out of Tampa Bay’s range. This is a lineup that’s well known for contact, given the lowest-in-MLB strikeout rate, and Arraez would certainly fit into that fingerprint. Would he add the power that a weakest-in-hard-hit-rate team also really needs? Well, no. But he’d be an upgrade – and every upgrade matters.