SF Giants Player Review 2026: Luis Arraez was the player SF needed, but not the one it deserved

One of the few exciting players to watch in the first half of the 2026 season for the SF Giants was second baseman Luis Arraez. He was everything the Giants could have hoped for and more but with how bad the team was as a whole, it’s clear that they didn’t deserve him.

That’s why he ended up getting traded to the Philadelphia Phillies at the deadline which is good for him because at least he got to play a little meaningful baseball this season even if he was cruelly robbed of a chance to have an impact in the playoffs due to an ankle injury.

Still, he was great with the Giants. In 105 games with San Francisco he hit .324/.360/.440 with four home runs and 43 runs batted in. When San Francisco traded him he was an All-Star who seemed like he had a pretty decent shot at winning his fourth batting title and a Gold Glove which would have seemed absurd at the start of the season.

It’s easy to forget just how much concern there was about Arraez’s defense going into the season. No other MLB team was willing to give him a shot at second base other than the Giants. It was a risky move that easily could have backfired and made president of baseball operations Buster Posey, who has talked about wanting to play cleaner baseball, look silly.

It turned out to be a rare stroke of brilliance as Arraez had five errors in 886 innings played at second with the Giants. He also graded out as the fifth-best defender at the position in MLB according to Outs Above Average and it really didn’t take all that long to go from slightly cringing whenever the ball was hit his way to being excited to see what he would do.

For all the questionable decisions the front office made last offseason when it comes to both free agent acquisitions and coaching staff decisions, signing Arraez and pairing him with infield guru Ron Washington was brilliant and they deserve credit for it.

It will be interesting to see what kind of contract Luis Arraez gets in offseason

Now Arraez will hit free agency again and once again teams will have to weigh just how valuable he is. The Giants gave him a one-year, $12 million deal but now that he’s proven he is valuable defensively as well as offensively he should earn a multi-year contract from a team so he at least has a little stability.

I’m not totally sold on a reunion with the Giants even though I loved watching him this season. I just think they’re going to commit their resources to pitching and $15-20 million to Arraez would probably be better spent on a starter or a few relievers especially when they already have Casey Schmitt on the roster.

Even if Arraez only ever ends up spending half a season with San Francisco, he endeared himself to the fanbase very quickly which is not easy to do when the team was as bad as it was in 2026.

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