Venezuelan Tony Gwynn
When you think of pure contact hitters there is one name that always comes to mind. That is Mr. Padre himself, Tony Gwynn. The late Hall of Famer embodied what it meant to be a good hitter. Some amazing feats in his career included a .338 batting average in twenty seasons, five hundred and forty-seven plate appearances against future Hall-of-Fame pitchers and hit .331 against them, and Gwynn hit at least .300 in every season of his career except his rookie year. It might be early to say but a young superstar in the name of Luis Arraez seems to be heading down the same path.
Luis Arraez second baseman of the Miami Marlins is coming off a batting title in the American League and is looking to help a promising NL East team in the Marlins. Many MLB scouts and people who have been around the game for a long time only have high praise for Luis. In comparison to Gwynn their numbers are scary similar through the first four hundred and forty-one games of their careers. In these games Luis has accumulated a stat line .326/.384/.421 531 H, 116 XBH 242 R, 162 RBI, 156 BB, and 142 K’s. In those amount of games Gwynn posted a stat line of 324/.375/.411, 551 H, 105 XBH, 238 R, 168 RBI, 139 BB, and 93 K’s. Many would argue that Luis’s stats are better and only time will tell how they will compare at the end of his career.
Luis looks to continue his success heading into the end of the first half of the season as a finalist to be starter in the MLB All Star Game in Seattle. Pretty sure he has bigger things on his mind as the Marlins are six games out of first place in the NL East and one game ahead in the NL wild card standings.
