Phillies Acquire Luis Arraez, Caleb Kilian

The Phillies are acquiring second baseman Luis Arraez and reliever Caleb Kilian from the Giants, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Bob Nightengale of USA Today. The Giants receive right-hander Ramon Marquez and reliever Marty Gair in return, per Nightengale. Marquez and Gair were not on the Phillies’ 40-man roster, so the Giants’ roster stands at 38 players with this move. Arraez was seen as an obvious candidate to be traded. San Francisco is 12 games out of a Wild Card spot and open for business on their rental players, as well as some more expensive contracts. There was some talk of the Giants extending Arraez, but while he himself expressed interest in a deal, formal extension talks between the two sides never materialized. Instead, the Giants will cash in on their best trade asset by shipping Arraez to the Phillies. Long known as the game’s premier contact hitter, Arraez signed a one-year, $12MM pact with the Giants this offseason. He reportedly received multi-year offers as well, but took the Giants’ deal because they planned to play him at second base, as he desired. That ended up working out beautifully. Defensive metrics have typically been bearish on Arraez regardless of position, but this year, he’s surprisingly been worth 11 Outs Above Average at the keystone as well as +9 by Fielding Run Value. The latter is the best mark of his career. In addition to improving with the glove, Arraez has continued to hit at his usual levels, if not better. Through 464 plate appearances, he’s batting .324/.360/.440 with a wRC+ of 120, meaning he’s 20% better than the average hitter. Despite only walking 5.4% of the time, Arraez is somehow striking out even less, running a 4.5% strikeout rate that’s easily the best among qualified hitters. He currently ranks second behind the Marlins’ Otto Lopez in hits (136) and second to the Astros’ Yordan Alvarez in batting average (.324). He’s also chipped in ten stolen bases. By maintaining his old-school hitting approach and turning himself into a competent defender, Arraez positioned himself as arguably the top hitter on the trade market, and certainly the best lefty. He unsurprisingly drew interest from no less than seven teams, including a trio of AL East clubs and Arraez’s old friends in the Padres. In the end, the Giants will ship him out to Philadelphia in exchange for their No. 4 prospect in Marquez and an intriguing low-level arm in Gair. More to come. View Comments (98)