4 straight batting titles? The chase is on for Arraez

Whether he's started the season hot, cold or somewhere in the middle, Luis Arraez has finished in the same place since 2022: owner of the highest batting average in his league.

By some measures, it doesn't make much sense.

The Padres lefty doesn't swing the bat with exceptional force (1st-percentile bat speed) or make a lot of solid contact (1st-percentile hard-hit rate), but for three straight seasons he's put the bat on the ball with remarkable consistency and emerged as one of baseball's most reliable hitters.

And after making history with San Diego last season as the first MLB player to win a batting title with three teams (he also won with the Twins in '22 and the Marlins in '23), Arraez has a chance to make more history in 2025.

A batting crown this season would make Arraez just the seventh player to lead his league in batting average four years in a row. He'd be the first to do it since Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn from 1994-97, and he'd be the 15th player overall with four or more batting crowns.

Players to win four or more straight batting titles

Tony Gwynn, Padres (1994-97)
Wade Boggs, Red Sox (1985-88)
Rod Carew, Twins (1972-75)
Rogers Hornsby, Cardinals (1920-25)
Ty Cobb, Tigers (1907-15)
Honus Wagner, Pirates (1906-09)

But if you look at the NL batting leaders entering Monday, you won't find Arraez's name in the top 10. This is in large part due to him starting the season in a 2-for-23 skid and not having his average climb above .200 until his 10th game. Entering Monday, Arraez is hitting .289, which ranks 16th in the NL among qualified hitters. But don't expect him to stay there.

Arraez's start to 2025 is similar to his start to 2024, when he was hitting just .263 after his first 20 games. But from there to the end of the season, which included a May 4 trade from the Marlins to the Padres, he hit .321 to finish at .314 and lead the NL. Since that 2-for-23 start this season, Arraez has hit .330 through Sunday.

So perhaps it's no surprise that, despite his current numbers, Arraez was still the favorite to win the NL batting crown entering play Sunday -- at least according to the Steamer model at FanGraphs, which projected him to finish atop the leaderboard with a .307 average. If that projection holds, it would be Arraez's lowest average since he hit .294 in 2021. It would also be the lowest average ever for an NL batting champ and the lowest for a batting crown in either league since Boston's Carl Yastrzemski hit .301 to win the AL title in a pitcher-friendly 1968, the last season before MLB lowered the mound.

How can Arraez join the four titles club?

If Arraez is to win a fourth straight batting crown, he'll have to fully overcome that slow start. To do that, he'll need to pile up multi-hit games. But that shouldn't be a problem. Since 2022, Arraez leads all players with 178 multi-hit games entering Monday. He's had 12 so far this season in 33 games. For comparison, he also had 12 through his first 33 games last season. He finished with an MLB-best 62.

Aiding Arraez's efforts to collect hits is his elite ability to not swing and miss or strike out. His 4.3 percent strikeout rate last season was easily the best in baseball among qualified hitters. Incredibly, he's more than cut that in half so far in 2025, striking out just 2.1 percent of the time.

But even if Arraez returns to his usual form in terms of hit frequency, he could face some strong competition for that fourth batting title.

Who could be a threat?

Two potential threats come from inside Arraez's own clubhouse. Padres teammates Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. both enter Monday firmly in the mix. Machado is atop the leaderboard with a .324 average, while Tatis is close behind at .320, tied with Mets first baseman Pete Alonso.

Meanwhile, Cardinals utilityman Brendan Donovan is hanging around at .318. And then there's Dodgers slugger Freddie Freeman, who doesn't yet have enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title, but is batting .376.

But history tells us that Machado, Tatis, Alonso and Donovan have never hit .300 or higher over a full season. Freeman, however, is no stranger to a .300 average. He's reached or exceeded the mark in six of the past eight full seasons, including a career-high .331 in 2023. And that likely makes him Arraez's main competition for another batting title.

In fact, FanGraphs' ZiPS model had Freeman winning the NL crown with a .314 average as of Sunday, comfortably ahead of a projected .305 finish for Arraez. In the Steamer model that had Arraez leading the NL with a .307 average coming into Sunday, Freeman was second at a projected .301.

Freeman has never won a batting crown, but he's been close. He finished one point off Jeff McNeil's NL lead in 2022, when Freeman hit .325. He also finished a distant third in the NL race in 2023 (.331) and 2018 (.309).

It's far from a guarantee that Arraez will repeat last season's turnaround and surge to the top of the NL batting leaderboard. An extended hot streak will put him well on his way, but an extended cold streak could create a gap too great to overcome. Still, it's definitely worth our attention, given the historic stakes.

Players with four or more batting titles

Ty Cobb, Tigers (12): 1907-15; 1917-19
Tony Gwynn, Padres (eight): 1984; 1987-89; 1994-97
Honus Wagner, Pirates (eight): 1900; 1903-04; 1906-09; 1911
Rod Carew, Twins (seven): 1969; 1972-75; 1977-78
Rogers Hornsby, Cardinals & Braves (seven): 1920-25; 1928
Stan Musial, Cardinals (seven): 1943; 1946; 1948; 1950-52; 1957
Ted Williams, Red Sox (six): 1941-42; 1947-48; 1957-58
Wade Boggs, Red Sox (five): 1983; 1985-88
Dan Brouthers, Buffalo Bisons, Boston Beaneaters & Boston Reds (five): 1882-83; 1889; 1891-92
Cap Anson, Chicago White Stockings (four): 1879; 1881; 1887-88
Miguel Cabrera, Tigers (four): 2011-13; 2015
Roberto Clemente, Pirates (four): 1961; 1964-65; 1967
Harry Heilmann, Tigers (four): 1921; 1923; 1925; 1927
Bill Madlock, Cubs & Pirates (four): 1975-76; 1981; 1983

Of the 14 previous players to win four or more batting titles at any point, all but two are currently in the Hall of Fame. Once the recently retired Miguel Cabrera gets to Cooperstown, as expected, that will leave Bill Madlock as the lone exception.

But should Arraez claim a fourth straight batting title, it would put him not just in rare territory, but in a club occupied exclusively by Hall of Famers.

That would make the rest of his career especially interesting.