Who is the Real Orlando Arcia?

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Photo Credit: Scott Paulus

The Brewers are going to have a lot of questions to answer over the next few months, not the least of which is this one: Who is the real Orlando Arcia?

Brewers fans watched Arcia as the organization’s top prospect for much of his minor league tenure, saw him debut as a 21-year-old in 2016 and, until recently, haven’t had much cause for concern. In addition to his spectacular defense, Arcia showed impressive hitting skills as a 22-year-old in 2017, batting .277 with 15 home runs in a .407 slugging percentage while playing in 153 games, the sixth-most of any shortstop in the majors. Baseball Reference estimated his value at 2.5 wins above replacement (WAR) that season, the fourth-most among Brewers position players.

That early success made the start to Arcia’s 2018 season all the more puzzling. The Brewers found regular playing time for him from March all the way through June, waiting for his bat to come around despite an OPS (on-base plus slugging) of just .482. Even after his return to the majors in late July his numbers did not improve much: He still had a .245 on-base percentage when the calendar turned to September.

In the season’s final month, however, Arcia found his stroke. He went 23-for-70 in his final 26 games with eight doubles, posting a .329/.360/.443 batting average, on-base and slugging. He continued that hot streak into the postseason, where he collected at least one hit in each of his nine starts and clobbered three home runs, matching his regular season total.

In short: Arcia played so poorly for most of the regular season that the Brewers were forced to consider other options at his position even when they didn’t have many, giving Tyler Saladino, Eric Sogard and Jonathan Schoop a combined 50 starts at shortstop. Down the stretch and in the postseason, however, he was so good that it was almost impossible to justify removing his bat from the lineup. So, how do the Brewers decide if they can count on him going forward?

A deeper look into Arcia’s peripheral numbers provides both some causes for concern and optimism. Baseball Savant’s Statcast leaderboard shows that just 1.6% of Arcia’s plate appearances in 2018 ended with a “barrel,” a ball that will lead to a hit over 50% of the time. 332 major league players put at least 150 balls in play during the 2018 season, and Arcia ranked 307th among them in that category. In addition to not hitting the ball hard very often, Arcia’s walk rate (4.1%, down from 6.6% in 2017) and strikeout rate (23.8%, up from 18.2%) also took steps in the wrong direction in 2018.

As for the good news: FanGraphs’ batted ball data shows that Arcia’s line drive rate has remained comparable to previous seasons, sitting at 18.9% in 2018 after a 19.9% mark in 2017. He also had some bad luck on balls in the air, with just 4.5% of his fly balls turning into home runs in 2018. 12.9% of his fly balls left the yard in 2017.

It’s worth noting that Brewers fans have seen a middle infielder’s career start like this before. Jean Segura burst onto the scene with an All Star season in his first full MLB campaign in 2013, then batted just .252 with a .285 on-base percentage and .331 slugging in the two years that followed. The Brewers traded Segura before the 2016 season and all he’s done since is hit .308/.353/.449 in the same three categories, receiving votes for NL Most Valuable Player in 2016 and making his second All Star team in 2018.

If the Brewers opt to give up on Arcia at this point it’s possible he’ll go on to have a similar career rebound with another franchise. Sticking with him also carries a risk, however, as a Brewers team that is hoping to contend again in 2019 cannot afford to have a hitter go into the prolonged drought that Arcia endured. At a bare minimum, the Brewers almost certainly need to go into 2019 better prepared to replace Arcia in the lineup if his offensive performance makes it necessary.