NOT OK TO K. So far this MLB season Luis Arráez had 141 consecutive plate appearances without a strike out, the longest MLB streak in 20 years.
Luis Arráez has struck out just 28 times this season. The San Diego Padres have MLB’s best record since his arrival.
GUEST BLOG / By Jared Diamond, Washington Post, Sports Writer--The San Diego Padres knew they were improving their lineup when they traded for Luis Arráez at the beginning of May. They didn’t know they were acquiring the second coming of Tony Gwynn.
It turns out Arráez has a superpower so extraordinary that it would impress Mr. Padre himself: He never strikes out—and that’s just barely an exaggeration.
As of last week, Arráez has whiffed all of 28 times this season, an inconceivably small number in an era when strikeouts are as prevalent as overpriced hot dogs and lukewarm beer.And that doesn’t even tell the entire story.
On Monday, Sept. 16, Arráez struck out for the first time since San Diego’s game on the 10th. That’s the 10th of August. His streak of 141 consecutive plate appearances without a punch out is the longest in the major leagues since Juan Pierre 20 years ago. “Who likes to strike out?” the 27-year-old Arráez said. “I hate strikeouts.” Arráez’s otherworldly knack for making contact is more than a trivia question. The Padres have MLB’s best record since his arrival, surging into playoff position and emerging as a legitimate World Series contender. And they have done it by striking out less frequently than anyone else in the sport.
There’s reason to believe that is no mere coincidence. As it happens, the five teams with the lowest strikeout rates are the Padres, Kansas City Royals, Houston Astros, Cleveland Guardians and Arizona Diamondbacks. All of them are on track to make the playoffs. The 12 teams that strike out the most are all on the outside looking in.
None of this is to suggest that simply avoiding strikeouts is the secret to October glory. But at a time when strikeouts have risen to unimaginable levels and players like Arráez are an endangered species, there’s still value in excelling at the sport’s most fundamental objective: putting the bat on the ball.
“When you put the ball in play with two strikes, anything can happen,” Padres hitting coach Victor Rodríguez said. “If you strike out, how do we know?”
That was exactly the way everyone in baseball thought for more than a century. Strikeouts were seen as shameful and an outcome to avoid at all costs. For much of the sport’s history, Royals general manager J.J. Picollo said, “You were embarrassed to come back” to the dugout after striking out.
In the age of analytics, however, that philosophy changed. The pursuit of power became the ultimate goal, to the point that many teams began instructing their batters to disregard the fear of striking out and to swing for the fences even with two strikes. Strikeouts, once a taboo, were viewed as an unavoidable trade off in the name of the al- mighty home run.
The shift in approach has shown in the results. In 1984, for instance, 27 players struck out 100 times. Forty years later in 2024, 133 players have already reached the 100- strikeout threshold, and one—Elly De La Cruz of the Cincinnati Reds— has fanned 200 times. In 1984, the Philadelphia Phillies had the highest strikeout rate in MLB at 17.3%. In 2024, the Padres are striking out 17.4% of the time, and it’s the lowest of any team in seven seasons.
Mike Shildt, the Padres manager, says, “That’s how the game should be played.” And teams are taking notice.
“We know there’s an advantage when you make a player make a play,” said Picollo, whose Royals have the second-lowest strikeout rate in MLB and are on the verge of returning to the playoffs for the first time since 2015.
The Royals explicitly set out this winter to strike out less. They had the worst offense in baseball by a wide margin in “high-leverage” situations last season, according to the statistics website FanGraphs. In low-leverage situations, they were just shy of average. The biggest culprit was strikeouts with runners on base. Picollo was convinced it was a shortcoming that could be fixed.
So early in spring training, the Royals had a meeting where they laid out their mission to emphasize contact with two strikes and focus on situational hitting. The Royals have seen their strikeout rate drop this year from 23.3% to 18.9%. It’s one thing to prioritize contact. It’s a lot harder to actually execute that goal against pitchers who have 100 mph fastballs and sliders that seemingly defy the laws of physics. That’s why the entire league is marveling at Arráez. His strikeout rate is a microscopic 4.4%. Only one other player in baseball has a single-digit strikeout rate: Steven Kwan of the Guardians, at 9.4%.
Arráez says he was born with elite hand-eye coordination and almost never struck out as a child. But he also approaches hitting differently than most of his peers. “I know I can hit homers,” he said, “but that’s not my game.”
When Arráez reached the majors with the Minnesota Twins in 2019, Rodríguez was a coach in Cleveland. A few weeks later, Francisco Lindor promised Rodríguez that at some point, this rookie infielder from Venezuela would one day win a batting title.
Rodríguez was incredulous. “He just got up to the majors!” he responded. It turns out Lindor didn’t know how right he was. Arráez, the man who doesn’t strike out, is hitting .320 this season—and is about to win the batting title for the third consecutive season.
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