The long-awaited Jonathan Aranda breaks through

It wasn't until now that Jonathan Aranda might be forgiven. Over the past three years, the top 100 early 100 prospects have bounced back and forth between Triple-A Durham and Tampa Bay, without making over 143 major league games in a season. He missed a lot of time with injuries last year, and he spent most of his time in the profession in September, once the rays (even if successful, they have received no mainstream attention, nor mainstream attention. This year, the 26-year-old left-wing swing has taken over half of the ray's first base row, and so far he's been hitting the ball.

In the last three-innings game of three hits – May 4 against the Yankees, May 8 against the Phillies, and May 11 against the Winemakers – Arlanda is currently hitting .342/.429/.553, enough to rank first in all three Slash-stat categories. He ranked second in OBP and WRC+ (184), behind Judge Aaron. His average exit speed, hard hit rate, best hit rate, expected hit average, expected percentage of losses and expected WOBA rankings 94th percentile or above. Currently, he looks like the next All-Star of the Rays, filling the gap left by Isaac Paredes’ exchange, their 2024 representation in the Midsummer Classic.

This kind of success has been for Aranda for a long time. Aranda signed the 17-year-old Ray from Tijuana, Mexico on July 2, 2015. International Reconnaissance Director Carlos Rodriguez discovered Aranda while watching Cuban defector Randy Arozarena in spring 2015. He signed with the Cardinal after a private workout program with Arozarena but will later trade with the Rays – of course, a local scout told Rodriguez to sign out Aranda at Toros de Tijuana Academy. Rodriguez loved him so much that he could earn a $130,000 bonus.

Aranda spends time climbing ladders in ray tissue. He didn't hit the power until 21 years before losing in the 2020 season. That year, he broke out to win MVP honors in the Southern League, reaching .325/.410/.540, the league's highest lead – 10 home runs in 81 games after promoting from High-A Bowling Green to Double-A Montgomery. He's grazed American Baseball Ranked in the top 100. 96 The following spring, and there is no. 72 in mid-2022, when he hit his first call on Triple-A Durham. Although he started to be popular, the 38-2 score dragged his last line to .192/.276/.321 in 87 PA of 87 PA. On the other hand, he won the International League MVP honors with a line of 0.318/.394/.521 and 104 matches in Durham.

At that time, Aranda really had no defensive home. “The Rays played Aranda throughout the infield, and his hands and feet athletes were so bad that we actually prefer him to be on second base than first base, and he had to keep catching the balls,” wrote Eric Longenhagen from Aranda’s 2022 Prospect Capsule, which was played by 30th grade in his game and 40 years old. “It’s the type of player you try to hide in any day’s defense, hit him when you have extreme strikeout pitchers starting, or impress him with 2b/3b footsteps based on the position where the opponent’s lineup is most unlikely to hit.”

Durham that season, Aranda scored at least 24 starts in first, second and third bases, plus seven left courts. He also dabbled in all these locations in Tampa Bay. He continues to shuttle back and forth between Triple-A and the Grand Slam in 2023. He spent the final six weeks of the season with the Rays, ending at the 0.230/.340/.368 (101 WRC+) line at the major league level. He performed well in the Grapefruit League in 2024, and he appeared on the track to keep the team from spring training, but he kicked a goal in a training session on March 19 of that year, with his right ring finger fractured and required surgery to insert a pin. After recovering, he joined the Light in mid-May but was elected Durham in early June. Almost three weeks later, he suffered a nervous tilt that kept him for two months. When Chets expanded in September, he finally rejoined the Rays, one of the hot months that included five home runs, .507 SLG and regular game time at first base, he dropped by 22.4% strikeout rate and 7.7 points at 20233.2023 with a .234/.308/.430 (113 WRC+).

Manager Kevin Cash was particularly impressed by Aranda's September campaign. Cash told The The The The The The Pash told The The The Cash told The The The The The Cash told The The The The The And Cash told The The The The The He told The Cash told The The The The The He told The The The He told The The The The He was ready to hit the first court and made the necessary adjustments from the matches learned from the previous Bats. ” Cash told The Tampa Bay Times'Marc Topkin. As far as cash goes, five of Aranda's six home runs were against their starting pitchers in his second or third set.

Winter played for Obregon in the Mexican Pacific Winter League, and Aranda won the first basic job in spring training, causing Yandy Díaz to run into regular DH duties. Aranda has started 25 of its 27 games against the Righties so far, but in 13 games against the lefty, Díaz and Curtis Mead account for the rest. Six of his first seven hits this year are extra bases and he's been raking ever since.

As Topkin suggested in the above article, the biggest factor in Aranda's breakthrough is probably the most obvious: regular playing time. These lights have been among highly respected infielders with offensive skills and positional flexibility, such as Paredes, Díaz, Mead, Brandon Lowe and now the Caminero. Even though the edges around some of them were rough, their bats earned them playing time, and the Rays found ways to make them work properly. The same goes for Arlanda.

Aranda had a compact left hand stroke, but he didn't have excellent bat speed. In fact, his 70.1 mph speed (matched last year's average) put him in just 20% of the qualifiers. While his fast swing increased from 9.2% to 13.4%, he has fewer courts (25%, down from 28.1% last year). He is a disciplined batsman in terms of his swing and chase rate (44.8% and 27.4% respectively), and his sharp improvement in his swing decisions fueled his breakthrough, measured by Robert Orr's Seager Metric. Aranda is in the 10th percentile or lower starting from 2022-24, but this year he is in the 88th percentile and his connection quality has improved:

As mentioned earlier, many of the many this year ranked 94th percentile or higher, second only to Shohei Ohtani, Rafael Devers and Oneil Cruz in his 99th percentile.

Those increasing launch angles hint at Aranda's successful snatching the ball from the ground. He has a ground ball percentage of 54.5% in 2022 and 23, but has dropped it to 50.5% last year and now it is down to 43.5%. Although his overall pull rate dropped from 48.5% to 37.6%, his pull rate dropped from 20.6% to 18.8%, but it was still above the league average.

On the court, Aranda's fastballs accounted for a higher share this year (63.3%, up from 58.6%). He is annihilation of four hitters, hitting .379, skidding .724, and averaging 97 mph exit speed against them. He does tend to climax the high cheese. His 41.9% WHIFF rate in the strike zone or higher, three quarters or higher, three quarters or higher, was nearly 19 points higher than the league average, but he also had a 1.077 pace (three home runs in 17 PA) when he connected to those courts. The trade-off is worth it.

Defensively, Arlanda performed well at first base – definitely better than Longenhagen's 2022 assessment. Taking large amounts of salt as a small sample metric, but so far he has first 2 DRs and 1 FRV, up to 3 drs and 2 FRVs in 2024-25 445 2/3 innings. He was cut off his job to crack the All-Star team in the league with Paul Goldschmidt and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., but just two years ago, Díaz and Arozarena were selected as the starting lineup. But whether he gets the recognition he deserves or not, his breakthrough turns him into the heart of the lineup, a notable argument for the Rays, even if they fight back to the Al East.