What to Expect When Expecting: Javier Baez

I can’t believe there’s actual baseball fans that dislike Javier Baez. It’s even harder for me to grasp the idea that there’s Chicago Cubs fans that don’t like him. But there are, and it confuses all my baseball senses.

So what if he is flashy. If that really bothers you, don’t watch the game in almost any other country. Sure he might strikeout at a high rate, and swing at a higher rate, but he almost won the MVP by using that free swinging mentality.

Mentality

The mentality is really where it’s at. Fans get angry because there are multiple times a season Baez will strikeout because he swings at a bad pitch. At times this will happen during high-leverage situations.

Fans will scream at him because he’s not selective enough. He’s a free swinger. He’s undisciplined.

Yes. All of that, yes.

However, Baez would not be Baez if you’re asking him to change his mentality. If someone was coaching the aggressiveness out of him, Baez would not have an .881 OPS in 2018. He wouldn’t have increased his home run total from 23 to 34. He absolutely wouldn’t be as aggressive on the base paths.

Simply, Baez would be an absolutely average baseball player that folks would hate because he’s too flashy.

Building on 2018

I haven’t found anyone that suggests Baez will put up better numbers in 2019 than he did in 2018. That isn’t disrespect. Baez, even with less impressive numbers, can still be better in 2019.

Part of this is through confidence. He knows what he can do now. Baez understands that he absolutely is one of the best players in the National League. He’s also potentially the most dynamic player in the game.

Because he burst onto the scene as a legitimate MVP candidate, it changes a lot in how teams approach him and the Cubs. Pitchers will begin to pitch him differently. Pitchers will attack him differently. They will also try to navigate the entire lineup more carefully, giving both, Anthony Rizzo and Willson Contreras (assuming Rizzo bats in front of, and Contreras bats behind Baez) more opportunities.

It shouldn’t be an earth-shattering idea that Kris Bryant will return to Kris Bryant form. Then with Rizzo being the guy I expect him to be that will cause teams to choose who they can pitch to. Rizzo is a much more polished (er, disciplined) hitter. Contreras is a little less disciplined, but can haunt pitchers by being more selective. That likely means Baez will be pitched around in hopes that his aggression causes Javier to get himself out.

Defense?

There’s a real possibility that Baez starts the season as the team’s starting shortstop and over the course of 162 ends it as the starting shortstop. While a lot of people will say that should just be the case anyway, we have to understand that Addison Russell is a better defensive option than Baez.

Im not criticizing Baez when I say this. Francisco Lindor is a better player than Baez too, and it’s ok for someone to be better than another player. I know a lot of people will say, “but Baez makes those incredible diving and acrobatic plays, and you rarely see Russell do that!” You’re right, and it’s because Russell understands positioning much more than Baez does.

Not that Baez is out of position, he can often get away with being in a, not exactly ideal position because he’s much more athletic and reacts possibly faster than any player I’ve ever seen play. But, there’s still something to be said about ensuring you start in the right position, as that just eliminates the need to make an incredible play, because the positioning made it routine.

But, the elephant in the room is Russell. Will he be on the club in 30 days, 60 days, 180 days? No one can honestly answer that question. So, is Baez the Cubs second baseman? Their shortstop? I guess who really knows?

I can easily see him starting 90 games at second, 40 at short, and another 20 at third. I can also see him getting 70 at second and short, while still getting that 20 at third. Or, perhaps he sees an equal 50 at each?

This is part of the beauty of his flexibility, and the versatility of the Cubs roster. But it does make it difficult to pin him down to any one position. He’s like a hybrid infielder, which isn’t measurable, but holds a ton of value.

Offense?

Baez had a remarkable 2018, one that catapulted him to the top of the MVP race. Of course there is the issue with the swing-and-miss factor in Baez, but his immense success comes from his ability to hit the ball hard.

There’s a difference between exit velocity (where most reader’s head likely went to) and hard hit %. Baez is only in the 67th percentile in baseball in terms of exit velocity. In 2018, he averaged an 88 mph exit velo. But he ranked in the top 20% of baseball in terms of hard hit percentage. This is due to the high percentage of barreled balls (12.4%). Barreling a ball often times leads to a high possibility of success, and Baez did it better than 91% of baseball in 2018.

When a hitter barrels a ball up, it is just naturally hit harder, which gives the defense less time to react. We can discuss barreling paired with launch angle, but I feel a lot of fans tune out too many advanced metrics. A perfect example of what barreling a ball can do is this hit from Baez early in the season.

Need a little magic? #EverybodyIn pic.twitter.com/jdH78DAyRe

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) April 14, 2018

That was a ball that should have stopped well short of the wall. Now, yes, conditions had something to do with it skipping, but that ball was hit incredibly hard.

Baez’s highest percentage of barreled balls before 2018 was 9.6%, in 2015, where he barreled five baseballs out of 52 total batted balls. But because he barreled so many balls in 2018, his babip was 47 points higher than the assumed average (.300). With a .347 babip, the expectation of him reaching base on a batted ball (not a home run) was 47% higher than the league.

So what led to this increase? Well, Theo Epstein might eye-roll on this, and Chili Davis may give Javy a high-five.

“I’ve been working on focusing on just me and the pitcher out there,” Baez said. “Forget about the whole field, everything really. Launch angle. The miles off the bat, all this stuff, I was hitting with all this stuff. I clear my mind and it’s all about compete. So that’s how I’ve been taking it.”

Now, those things are important. But a hitter shouldn’t be going to the plate thinking he has to get under a ball because analytics tells you a ball hit at 12 degrees has a 40% higher chance of landing for a hit than a ball hit at 11 degrees. These aren’t thoughts that hitters should have at the plate. The mechanics of their swing should create a routine in which those metrics are more likely to happen. That is what Baez did in 2018, which makes it even more probable that he can reciprocate some success he experienced.

Swing percentage

The great thing about baseball in 2019 is all the metrics available. The bad part about 2019 is all the metrics available. There are groups of fans that absolutely love these metrics, and there are groups of fans that absolutely hate them. I am in the group that uses them to help tell the story of what happened. Why did my eyes see what they saw, and why does that translate.

Every single industry in the world measures metrics. Baseball, a game where the numbers matter, has adopted a lot of metrics to help tell the stories. I don’t mean to preach, but I also wanted to give reason to why we talk metrics, especially in terms of Baez.

Baez swung at 78% of the balls in the strike zone in 2018. Baez also swung at 45% of the balls outside the zone in 2018. This is typically a recipe for disaster in the big leagues. The only MLB hitter that amounted to much by going out of the zone often is Vladimir Guerrero.  Coincidently, Baez’s 2018 matches up perfectly to Vlad’s swing data from the last five seasons (when this data was tracked).

Vlad made much more contact out of the zone than Baez does, but Baez also changed his approach on those pitches.

If you’ve listened to Cubs brass over the years when talking about Baez, they’ve always talked about not coaching the aggression out of him. Most times, once a player reaches the show you can’t really do that anyway. But, what works more often than not, is changing the way they swing at those pitches.

So instead of trying to hit a ball on the outside corner over the wall in left, Baez adopted a standard approach of hitting that ball hard over the second baseman’s head. That led to more hits, a better approach, and a lower K% in 2018 than he had in 2017.

What to expect

I have hinted at it a bit in the post, I don’t think Baez replicates his amazing 2018 season, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he will have a worse season. His overall presence in the lineup is going to be a huge factor for the Cubs, and with a better effort from all around, he will help the offense as a whole be better.

I believe that Baez will continue with the better approach he had at the plate in 2019. I also believe that you will see things like his barrel% decrease, but it is hard to believe he can retain that high of a jump. His overall exit velocity could very well increase though, and that’s just a function of a better approach.

Baez is a strange cookie to predict actual numbers, which is why all the projection models range pretty wildly. With averages dropping all the way to .269, OBP dropping to .313, and slugging falling to as low as .488, these models believe Baez is closer to the player we saw before 2018. I believe he is closer to the guy we saw in 2018.

2019 Baez, Javier ~ .280/.320/.522, .842 OPS, 30 HR, 83 R