Luis Arráez just completed one of the most impressive rookie seasons in Minnesota Twins history. Given his slim build (5'10", 177 #) and elite bat-to-ball skills, it’s easy to put the second baseman into a box of just being a contact hitter, but Arráez has shown flashes that he can be so much more.

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Coming up through the Twins’ farm system, there was never any doubt about Arráez’s ability to put the bat on the ball. At every stop he made along his minor league journey, the left hander reliably posted a .300 batting average while piling up plenty of hits. What kept Arráez from being more highly ranked as a prospect was his perceived lack of power.While he is never going to be a 30-home run hitter, his rookie season with the Twins showed that he has more power than his slight build might suggest. In 2019, Arráez posted a .439 slugging percentage (.435 was league average) and hit for a 162-game pace of 35 doubles, which would have put him 30th in baseball.In baseball, power is made up of two different components, launch angle and exit velocity. For launch angle, Baseball Savant defines a baseball hit at a “good angle” to be one hit between 8 and 32 degrees, known as the “sweet spot”. In 2019, Luis Arráez was ranked fifth among all hitters in SweetSpot% with 42.0% of his batted balls being hit between 8 and 32 degrees of launch angle. While Arráez was toward the bottom of the league in exit velocity, his consistent sweet spot hitting allows him to capitalize on those at bats where he was able to connect with good velocity. Like this double that he hit off Mike Fiers in July:On this pitch, Arráez was able to sit on an offspeed pitch and get plenty of bat speed on the Fiers' changeup. Because of Arraez’s consistency in getting a good launch angle on the ball, Arraez was not only able to hit the ball hard (100.7 MPH), but he was able to put lift on the ball (29°) and smash it to right center for a double.Where Arráez generated the most power in 2019 was against fastballs, off of which he slugged .445. Against fastballs, Arraez generated an average exit velocity of 88 MPH and hit 14 of his 20 doubles and 2 of his four home runs. Like this absolute rocket off Adrian Sampson:When Arráez was able to get the fastball off Sampson that he was looking for and was able to generate good velocity on his swing (102.2 MPH), Arráez was, again, able to reliably connect with a “sweet spot” launch angle which resulted in him sending the ball out to the Target Field plaza.Another encouraging piece from Arráez’s hitting profile in 2019 was his ability to increase his Hard Hit % (percentage of balls hit 95+ MPH) as the season went on. Arráez improved his Hard Hit % in each month from June - September and capped off his 2019 campaign by posting a 27.6 Hard Hit% and 88.8 MPH average exit velocity in September. Numbers that didn’t lead the league by any means, but provide a glimpse of some power that Arráez possesses that nobody would have imagined he had when joining the club last May.According to Fangraphs’ ZiPS projection system, their number one player comparison for Luis Arráez is Dustin Pedroia. Pedroia was another second baseman who was smaller in stature (5'9", 175#) and came into the league viewed more as a contact hitter than anything else. Throughout his years in the league, though, Pedroia developed power and hit between 12-18 home runs each season throughout his career.Predicting a similar career path for Arráez isn’t far fetched at all. He has the patience and the launching skills to make good contact, and if he can add a few MPH to his exit velocity under the guidance of hitting coach Edgar Varela, we could be seeing a Pedroia-like power profile coming over the next handful of seasons.Do you agree that Luis Arráez is more than just a contact hitter? Do you think he has the ability to add more power in the coming years? Leave a comment below and start the conversation!— Latest Twins coverage from our writers— Recent Twins discussion in our forums— Follow Twins Daily via Twitter Facebook or email