Javier Baez and the Cubs Extreme Second Basemen
Winter ball in Puerto Rico wrapped up at the end of January, with Javier Baez attempting to improve his plate discipline problems after a short stint in the majors at the end of 2014. That stint, as most of us are aware, featured him striking out 41% of the time he came to the plate. Unfortunately, Baez didn’t seem to improve that aspect of his game very much while playing for the Cangrejeros de Santurce, as he went 11-43 with five walks and 21 strikeouts during the regular winter season. For those without a calculator handy, that’s a 44% strikeout rate. His walk rate improved to 10% (6.6% in 2014 MLB), so we can say there was some positive news to be claimed from his time there.
We have barely enough plate appearances for Baez from the winter league to know whether these rate statistics actually hold water, and it certainly doesn’t bode well that Baez struck out so often in Puerto Rico against the quasi-equivalent of AAA pitching talent. He managed to strike out less often in the winter league playoff games, going 13-64 with four walks and 18 strikeouts – a 26% strikeout rate that again is from a small sample size, and still not great, but an improvement. The Cubs decided to pull the plug on him in winter ball after the playoffs, preventing him from playing in the Caribbean Series after Santurce won the Puerto Rican Championship. If we combine the regular winter season and playoffs, we get this line for Baez:
| PA | H | BB | SO | BB% | K% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baez | 116 | 24 | 9 | 39 | 7.7% | 34.0% |
That brings us to these comments Cubs GM Jed Hoyer made at the 2015 Cubs Convention in mid-January:
“Javy has to make some adjustments. That’s obvious. Certainly, he’s a guy (who) has to earn his playing time. I don’t think there’s any question about that.”
Those comments represent a change in tone from management, who said confidently after the conclusion of the 2014 season that Baez was the current and future starter at second base. However, the writing on the wall hinting otherwise may have been in mid-November, when the Cubs traded Arodys Vizcaino to Atlanta for Tommy La Stella, a second baseman who is the complete opposite of Javier Baez in every single way. The dipole between the players is so complete, in fact, that if La Stella were somehow able to impart his contact ability onto Baez, and Baez his preternatural bat speed onto La Stella, there could be formed some sort of dual All-Star caliber homeostasis. Alas, science fails us again. Still, the difference in plate discipline and contact rates is stunning between the two during their short times at the major league level:
| O-Swing% | Z-Swing% | Swing% | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% | Contact% | Zone% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baez | 39.20% | 57.60% | 46.60% | 39.70% | 78.80% | 59.20% | 40.30% |
| La Stella | 26.10% | 59.20% | 42.50% | 79.50% | 87.10% | 84.80% | 49.60% |
The Cubs front office probably didn’t intend to create a strict competition for the starting second base job by signing La Stella and trading away Luis Valbuena in January. Perhaps they hoped a subtle question over their future plans might prompt improvement from Baez in Puerto Rico. After all, Baez is the draft investment, the flashy power, and a proclaimed part of “The Core Four” – the prospects of Baez, Kris Bryant, Jorge Soler, and Albert Almora that represent the self-identified future success of the club. La Stella represented a depth move at the time, and a savvy play to employ unusable bonus slots as a trade chip (Carson Cistulli covered this well in his recap of the trade last November). That being said, we shouldn’t be surprised if Baez’ poor winter ball performance is part of the change of tune from management, and a main factor in throwing the second base job into more of a flux. Yes, the sample sizes from winter league are small, but Baez’ serious strikeout problems are persisting.
Beyond Baez & La Stella, there are two more players who could also see time at second this season, Arismendy Alcantara and Addison Russell, but their positions and playing time are more in question than the two we are currently discussing. And, as long as we’re discussing hypothetical situations, Starlin Castro could also move to second base or be traded, freeing Baez to play his natural shortstop position. The main point to take out of this discussion is this: the Cubs have a ton of options in the infield, and at some point, the cream will rise to the top; Baez and La Stella just currently seem like the best bet to do so when March unfolds.
In honor of these two potential second basemen, and to illustrate their respective extremes of the spectrum of offensive approach, I have created the following graphic encapsulations of said players.
The following GIF is Javier Baez, 2014, in a six game span from August 8th to 13th. The 11 plate appearances contained in the graphic make up almost one-half of the total plate appearances for Baez in those six games:
This is what Javier Baez does well: ten strikeouts and one magnificent home run, a Kyle Lohse slider on the outside corner pulled, improbably, deep into the left field bleachers. There are ten strikeouts and one home run for a reason: Baez struck out ten times for every long ball he hit in 2014. Since he didn’t contribute much else, it’s fun to visualize in essence how much each home run cost. There is a strange beauty to the way Javier Baez approaches the game, and it is this: he has elevated the strikeout to an art form. You like it or you hate it, but the fact remains that he is the extreme manifestation of the state of offense in the modern game. That is special in a very particular way, and it bears watching and studying. Baez is the ultimate litmus test for the high-risk, high-upside approach currently being favored by many players and teams, and it will be a fun test to witness.
Here is Tommy La Stella over eight plate appearances between June 25th and September 8th. While it may seem uncannily similar to the Baez GIF, I assure you it in substance is not:
This is what La Stella does terribly: seven strikeouts and one just-enough home run, a Stephen Strasburg fastball pulled, improbably, into the right field bleachers. These are the only seven times La Stella struck out looking and the only home run he hit in all of 2014. The first thing that catches my eye about this: most of the called third strikes are borderline, or actually balls. I looked at the PITCHf/x output, courtesy of baseball savant:
Three shouldn’t have been called strikes, and the others (with one exception) were great pitches. La Stella, quite simply, has an advanced approach for a player his age, and that manifests most acutely in his excellent strikeout rate. In comparison, Baez struck out looking 22 times in 2014, and in 131 fewer plate appearances. For a look at how the stats we’re focusing on compare between the two, here’s a table showing their 2014 marks:
| PA | HR | BB | SO | BB% | K% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baez | 229 | 9 | 15 | 95 | 6.5% | 41.4% |
| La Stella | 360 | 1 | 36 | 40 | 10.0% | 11.1% |
I’m not going to go into defense very deeply, other than to say both of these players are just below-average defenders at second base in small sample sizes. Both are young, and Baez is still learning how to handle second base after his switch from shortstop. However, the main consideration for the Cubs has to be which way they want to go with their offensive approach: could they suffer through the strikeouts from Baez in a potent lineup until he improves his discipline and contact rates, or will he have a short leash with La Stella waiting in the wings? There’s obviously a favorite to win the job here, and it’s Baez, but with so much depth and a lot of transition in the coaching staff, we could be in for a few surprises when it comes to the infield (and entire roster) of the 2015 Cubs.
Owen Watson writes for FanGraphs and The Hardball Times. Follow him on Twitter @ohwatson.
What is a dipole?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipole
I don’t believe I am a robot… but if I was, would I know that?
Hmmm, that’s exactly what a robot would say….
Dipole-dipole!
Baez is starting the year in AAA.
I think he actually will switch between 3rd and 2nd base. They don’t have a 3rd baseman and it wouldn’t necessarily make sense to push Bryant into the opening day lineup with potential huge weaknesses in LF, 2nd base, and possibly limited offensive contributions at catcher. This is potentially an extremely volatile lineup due to all of the youth.
There are a couple obvious things wrong with Baez’s swing that contribute to his strikeout numbers:
1. He loads his hands in such an extreme manner (and only once the ball is out of the pitcher’s hand) that by the time he starts swinging it’s too late for him to try and catch up with a decent fastball. He has so much power, but power is useless if you’re swinging late all the time. That one homerun above is a thing of beauty, almost every big leaguer should be able to crush an 82 mph flat slider.
2. He swings at almost every pitch as if it’s going to be a fastball middle in. As wonderful as the ball looks coming off the bat when he gets into one, he looks equally as foolish at the way he waves at breaking balls or outside pitches.
He absolutely has lightning in his bat, but all you need to do is pitch him high and hard fastballs or breaking balls low and away. Unless he can start to adapt to this, his 40+ K% last year is going to stay right where it is.
I agree with this assessment – and only a few guys can actually get away with it. Sheffield comes to mind, a player who Baez is often compared to. The primary difference is that Sheffield had extremely rare bat to ball ability – and over the course of his career kind of figured out how to put different swings on the ball, depending on the hitability of the pitch.
I have never understood the Sheffield comparison. Sheffield had elite bat speed and elite controll of the bat. Baez might have elite batspeed but he has no idea where the bat is going. Sheffield had a 1bb/k for his career. Baez will never get within 4-5 standard deviation of that.
Comparing Baez to Sheffield is like comparing dela Stella to Sheffield. They might have similar bb/k rates but they are nowhere near the same player
Agreed that the comparison is rather silly in terms of likely statistical outcome. I think where people see the similarity is the tendency to swing really hard, with that hitch as they load their swings (bringing their hands up as they shift their weight). This hitch has been problematic thus far for Baez (as CJKubak comments) – Sheffield, on the other hand, was the rare player with a dramatic hitch who could get away with it because of insane hand-eye coordination.
The fact that his K% is so high in inferior winter ball leagues is pretty alarming – I’m not confident that he’ll ever get the K’s under control. His K% last year was about the same as the pitcher average after all.
I believe a better comparison would be to Vlad Guerrero…if Vlad had Dan Uggla eyes.
At bat #8 of that sequence is especially troubling and telling of his swing issues. I’m pretty sure that the ball is in the catcher’s glove before he gets the bathead into the hitting zone.
Sounds similar to pre-adjustment Edwin Encarnacion.
Man, I detest that swing by Baez. Huge hitch; late; massive pull-only; looks to be guiding the bat head rather than swinging through the ball trajectory; even so, risibly out of control; same swing on every pitch (though that may be a function of the image selection). I agree with Dovif that Javvy looks to have no idea where the bat is going. What’s much worse is that he looks to have no idea where the _pitch_ is going.
I would disagree with the remark that Baez has ‘lightning bat speed’ based upon these images at least. Sure he does—with max effort, full wind up swing. That’s not useable bat speed. A third of the hitters in the game might have that kind of bat speed with that kind of load-and-flail. —Except none of them would be in ‘the game’ higher than A ball. Let’s see what kind of bat speed Javvy has with an under control swing at good, hard, cheese; if we ever see such a swing from him.
I disagreed with the Cubs decision to bring up a guy with Baez’s kind of non-approach, I-am-too-Superman, hit a homer every cut offensive ‘plan.’ I think the org realizes it made a major developmental mistake. The problem to me is first and foremost between Javvy’s ears. He’ll have to get his ego under control before he can get his swing refined, or more likely rebuilt. Baez looked like he learned nothing during his tour of the Bigs last Summer. He proved he had learned nothing by continuing with exactly the same plan in the Caribbean in so far as the stat lines demonstrate that.
No player succeeds with a 40% K rate. Baez has fairly limited defensive value even this early in his career, so his glove isn’t going to support him being in a major league line-up either. Nobody was singing the praises of Carlos Peguero, for example. Even more raw power (titanically strong), but a long swing that couldn’t catch up to a good fastball. Crushed hittable pitches over the plate. Actually had solid walk rates in the high minors. A very good athlete with foot speed too. ‘Only’ a 33% K rate. May never crack a big league roster again. ‘High Draft’ Javvy will get more chances for that reason, and far more ink and pixels. What he won’t get is more success with his present approach. . . . I’d actually rather watch ‘Big Carlos’ play: he was a decent gooofball, and just a big kid really. Baez’s ego in every falling to one knee cut turns me off. I’m rooting for every journeyman pitcher to make the guy look like the terminal end of an oversized mule, and so will most of the league’s fans who don’t bleed Cubbie blue. One man’s reaction . . . .
“That’s not useable bat speed. A third of the hitters in the game might have that kind of bat speed with that kind of load-and-flail. —Except none of them would be in ‘the game’ higher than A ball.”
Good points on the whole, but how do you square the above with his AA and AAA performance?
Biggest mistake imo was not pulling a Preller and shipping off the prospects that don’t fit your approach. After 2013 (or even a complete 2014 in AAA) Baez could have been someone else’s headache/hope for a strong return; at this point he’s likely make or break for the Cubs, an org with which his style doesn’t particularly jibe.
Rumor is, Baez was working on specific zones. Cubs coach told him only to swing at pitches in certain areas. Pitches outside the zone, even if they were hittable strikes, should not be swung at.
If Baez does that, great. His present approach is his worst flaw. But not his only flaw. That swing can be exploited no matter what zone he’s sitting on.
Best case: Dan Uggla (Marlins version)
118 wRC+/ .349 OBP/ .224 ISO/ 22.5% K
Worse case: Dan Uggla (Braves version)
97 wRC+/ .316 OBP/ .180 ISO/ 27.1% K
On a side note, who is Baez optometrist?
I would still say it’s very unlikely that La Stella starts the season as the penciled-in 2B. Baez will get a chance to prove himself this year and if that goes poorly, La Stella will be there. Also, Castro is not getting traded, exactly because we still don’t know much about who Baez/Russell are at the major league level. I do think it’s likely that Castro will move to second by 2016, as he may be a better 2B glove than Baez and Russell and Baez are probably both best served by being on the other side of the infield.
I’m not looking into the winter numbers too much yet, as they wanted him to make some adjustments. These adjustments will not be overnight with a big swing like that.
Baez needs to find out what his zone is. I think his whole career centers on this. He isn’t going to be a great bad ball hitter like Castro, he has to know where he hits best and be ready to explode when the ball is there.
Let Baez start the season and if he does well, when Russell comes up, Bryant is pushed out of the infield. If Baez is struggling, Russell comes up mid-season and Baez goes back to AAA.
Baez will not be fun to watch. Those ten strikeouts to every HR are like watching Adam Dunn play, and he is not fun to watch.
And, I’m not a robot.
Adam Dunn was much, much better than where Baez is at present. Dunn rarely swung at bad pitches, and had a sky high BB%. He took a pretty good cut, but his high K% was in part the function of being a very large man; bigger zone, and takes longer to get the swing through. Dunn’s actual swing was far, far more under control than what Baez is showing. Dunn also knew very well how he was being pitched, and played the waiting game to get a pitch he could handle if he did swing. Baez _doesn’t appear to care, much less know_ what the pitcher is doing, he’s just aiming for the bleachers with max effort on every pitch that he could possibly reach. Adam Dunn is the archetypal example of a three-true-outcome batter who can succeed with a high K%, very much like late career Jack Clark. Javvy Baez doesn’t have anything like that kind of game yet. Now, Baez _may_ be able to develop into that. But it’s going to take a couple of years of pretty major adjustments in approach. I’m not betting on that happening.
Can someone please help me? I have a serious Under 25 Keeper Dilemma.
Do I keep Yasmany Tomas who’s 24?
OR Do I keep 22 year old Baez and hope he improves?
All signs point to “yes.”
I think it is uncanny how Baez’s swing is so violent that his right knee touches the ground on at least 2 of the 10 Ks in the gif, and also does so on the swing that produces the tater.
At each new level of difficulty in his career, Baez has endured a period of failure, followed by a period of success.
I expect his experience in the Big Show to follow a similar pattern.
He has endured his initial period of failure. It will be followed by a period of improvement, but his initial period of failure was so severe, that even if he improves by a great magnitude, we are looking at a .220 to .230 player with 25 HR/25 SB upside, and something approaching 230 Ks (that 10 K per HR ratio will likely shrink over a larger sample that also includes some improvements in his approach; but even so, we still will see at least 220-230 Ks). So, in a best-case scenario, the ceiling is maybe a 0.5 – 1.0 WAR player, if his defense also improves.
It will be compelling to see how the Cubs choose to develop him.