The Yankees will likely head into the 2026 season with a different first baseman penciled into the starting lineup. With Paul Goldschmidt’s one-year deal expiring, it will more than likely be Ben Rice taking over the job on the right side, but there are also plenty of options out on the open market, if the Yankees wanted to be aggressive at the position.
First base often features power bats, and is typically home to one of a team’s more productive hitters. One option on the market, who may not fit
the stereotypical mold of a first baseman, is Luis Arraez. The 28-year-old has at times been a very good major league hitter, but is more often closer to average, despite the weight his name carries and his success in some areas at the plate.
2025 Statistics: 154 games, 675 PA, .292/.327/.392 (104 wRC+), 8 HR, 61 RBI, -9 OAA, 0.9 fWAR
2026 FanGraphs Depths Charts Projections: 141 games, 609 PA, .305/.345/.404 (109 wRC+), 7 HR, 56 RBI, 1.5 fWAR
After coming up in 2019, Arraez has played for three different franchises in his seven-year career: the Twins, Marlins, and most recently, the Padres. He certainly has some things going for him — he’s never posted a wRC+ below 104, and has played in at least 144 games over each of the last four seasons. Arraez has also had several seasons as an All-Star level hitter, posting a combined 131 wRC+ in over 1,200 plate appearances between 2022 and ‘23. He’s often the favorite to win the batting title, for what that’s worth, and is far from a wild card in terms of what his eventual team will get out of him.
With all of that considered, Arraez has plenty working against him as well. Many teams will be hoping to fill first base with a near-elite offensive producer, and Arraez simply does not fit that bill. Despite treading water thanks to his elite contact skills, he rarely walks (just five percent of the time last year), and hits for minimal power, reaching a double-digit home run total just once in his big league career.
Despite only turning 29 at the beginning of the 2026 season, Arraez is coming off of his worst offensive season in the majors, posting a slugging percentage below .400 for the second consecutive year, and a significant career-worst OBP mark of .327. For his own sake, he is hitting the open market at the wrong time, as FanGraphs’ crowdsourced projections have him in line for something like a two-year $28 million deal. Avoiding strikeouts and hitting for a high average only gets a hitter so far, and Arraez’s underwhelming overall production is the example of just that phenomenon.
It would be wrong to say Luis Arraez is a bad hitter. But he is not very good for the position, ranking 18th out of qualified first basemen in 2025, and plays poor defense with little versatility to go along with it. He has one trick, and it is a very high-level one, in all fairness, but that only gets a player so far, particularly when playing a position with high expectations, and doing so very poorly with the glove.
With the Yankees, it would be hard to see a fit for Arraez. The days of their lineup being righty-dominated are gone, and they should feel fairly confident in Ben Rice at first base, coming off of a terrific age-26 campaign in 2025. He will likely be a stalwart in whatever lineup adds him, but the path to any kind of additional production, or much beyond that of a slightly above-average hitter would be hard to imagine.
