Fun read. Whenever I see Baez dude is swinging at crazy ass pitches but makes it work obviously since he is slugging almost .600. Would have liked to see some about his baserunning because that is even more insane

He drew an unitentional walk today and had a 3-0 count another AB.

Baez, in over 100 PA, has slashed only .229/.254/.404 in the postseason. I'm intrigued by whether he can make his approach work better this October.

Before this year, Baez was a 255/300/427 career hitter, so his postseason numbers aren't way out of line with his relevant career numbers, considering sample size and the improved level of the competition in the postseason.

That said, to quote the article, "It still feels like Baez’s approach should be somehow exploitable."

Baez, in over 100 PA, has slashed only .229/.254/.404 in the postseason. I'm intrigued by whether he can make his approach work better this October.

While I too would like more than 1 NLCS MVP awards, 1 seems to indicate his approach has been fine.

As with almost any player's mix of small samples, Javy's postseason is a mix of excellent and terrible performances.

In 2015, he had 5 big PA in round 1 and went 1 for 10 in round 2. Still, overall he was 5 for 15 with 1 HR, 2 SBs and 4 Ks.

In 2016, he was excellent in the first two rounds, winning (sharing?) NLCS MVP then stunk in the WS. Still, overall 18 for 68 with 4 doubles, 2 HR, 8 RBI, 2 BB and, gulp, 21 Ks, mostly in the WS. Overall that was a BA of 267 and SLG of 411, nothing to be embarrassed about.

In 2017, he was just terrible at 2 for 26 across two rounds, with 11 Ks. The bright side is both hits were HRs.

So he's had 4 terrible series and 2+ outstanding ones with one MVP. If they gave out LVPs, he'd probably have gotten it for the 2017 NLDS at 0 for 14 and 2 GDPs.

This just in, Javy Baez is a highly variable player. That postseason performance is fairly reminiscent (but better by rate stats so far) of the one of his most obvious offensive comp Alfonso Soriano. He had big series in 2001 ALCS and 2003 ALDS and absolute stinkers in 2002 ALDS, 2003 ALCS and both appearances for the Cubs.

Before this year, Baez was a 255/300/427 career hitter, so his postseason numbers aren't way out of line with his relevant career numbers, considering sample size and the improved level of the competition in the postseason.

Well, sort of. His slash line before this year is seriously pulled down by his 214 AB in 2014 at the age of 21. That year he was 169/227/324. And it’s not really just using selective endpoints since that year the Cubs did not make the playoffs and since then, they have.

Instead of favorite stats it should be favorite gifs.

I think Alfonso is a good name to bring up in that I don't think Baez is going to age well. I think he is a player that gets away with things because of his amazing athletic abilities but as soon as those slip he isn't going to be worth his 25 million a year contract.

Instead of favorite stats it should be favorite gifs.

This is my favorite Javy video clip

I think Alfonso is a good name to bring up in that I don't think Baez is going to age well. I think he is a player that gets away with things because of his amazing athletic abilities but as soon as those slip he isn't going to be worth his 25 million a year contract.

Soriano hit 32 HR at age 36, and 34 at age 37, with OPS+ above his career average both years. He wasn't worth 18 million a year because he had no value on defense, but I wouldn't say he aged badly, all things considered.

From 2008 on he had 4.6 WAR in 890 games. He had trouble staying healthy and producing.

Here's a Baez statistic that's probably already made the rounds. The only two seasons at ≥300 PAs in baseball history, with higher SLG and lower OBP than Baez has so far in '18:



Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/12/2018.

From 2008 on he had 4.6 WAR in 890 games. He had trouble staying healthy and producing.

Sure (although that total is suppressed by a bad partial season in his last year, from '08 to '13 it was 5.8 WAR in 812 games, which is... still not great). But he was 32 in 2008. To pick a player who had similar capabilities at his peak and also a similar name (and shares Baez's multi-positional deployment), Edgardo Alfonzo was out of the league after his age 32 season.

Didn't E Alfonso have major back issues ... or something?

Back to Soriano and cherry-picking, from ages 34-37, he had 5.7 WAR, -1.7 WAA in 2300 PA. That's not bad. Moreover, it was defense pushing him below average as it was 7.7 oWAR. I think we can all agree that if Javy is a poor LF by his early 30s then his long-term projection is not promising.

They're hard to comp directly because Soriano didn't get to play until 25 but in that year he had -1.3 dWAR on his way to -10.3 for his career. Javy is at 0.9 this year already, following 1.1 last year and 2.0 the year before and 4.1 career. Soriano is not a defensive comp for Javy. Barring a significant injury or adding 30 pounds some offseason, there's no reason to think Javy won't be at least an average defensive 2B/3B in his early 30s.