The Javier Baez Discussion Thread

[SilenceS]

All those homers would have went out at Wrigley.

 

[SilenceS]

Didn't need to be

alright

 

[TL1961]

He sounds complete player. The only thing that may hurt him is him gaining size. But right now his D is very solid. It is still hard to make a early call with him.

The only thing is I haven't seen a plus tool with him that jumps out. All are good. Walks around a 12% rate. Speed is avg to better. Power is acceptable at SS. Arm is good.

I wouldn't build a line up around him is all I'm saying. They could run Castro or Russell out there for the next 5 years and honestly not lose much either way.

When you keep saying "he", who are you talking about? Russell?

 

[TL1961]

If you're going to introduce someone to major league pitching you might as well start with Colorado.........kinda like slipping into the pool slowly.

I wonder if that 414 foot HR would have made it to the track elsewhere?

 

[CSF77]

When you keep saying "he", who are you talking about? Russell?

yes

 

[2323]

I wonder if that 414 foot HR would have made it to the track elsewhere?

Who says the dimensions would have been the same elsewhere? No one bitches about Kershaw pitching a bunch of games in pitcher friendly ballparks and in night air. Or how about this? What about "would it have gone 414 feet if it was in Minnesota during December and the wind was blowing in 40 mph?" He had the 2nd most HRs in all the minor leagues last year. That doesn't mean he was skilled enough to hit that many off big league pitching but his power shouldn't even be a question. I mean seriously, dude, when a guy hits a 350 ft HR down the rt or left field lines, do people bitch that it wouldn't have made it out if he would have hit it to center?

 

[TL1961]

Who says the dimensions would have been the same elsewhere? No one bitches about Kershaw pitching a bunch of games in pitcher friendly ballparks and in night air. Or how about this? What about "would it have gone 414 feet if it was in Minnesota during December and the wind was blowing in 40 mph?" He had the 2nd most HRs in all the minor leagues last year. That doesn't mean he was skilled enough to hit that many off big league pitching but his power shouldn't even be a question. I mean seriously, dude, when a guy hits a 350 ft HR down the rt or left field lines, do people bitch that it wouldn't have made it out if he would have hit it to center?

I was being sarcastic in response to those saying he hit the HR's because of Coors.

 

[brett05]

If you're going to introduce someone to major league pitching you might as well start with Colorado.........kinda like slipping into the pool slowly.

Exactly what I said a few days ago. Total no brainer

 

[Bear Pride]

First Cub prospect to hit 3 dingers in first 3 games in 60 years. And to think that he's the first 'core 4' coming up. Yeah, the Cubs prospects suck.

 

[The Bandit]

Mother of God, my MLB The Show 07 version predicted this... Javier Baez was a draft pick of the Cubs... and played 3rd base in the game :jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop:

 

[TL1961]

First Cub prospect to hit 3 dingers in first 3 games in 60 years. And to think that he's the first 'core 4' coming up. Yeah, the Cubs prospects suck.

First major leaguer to do it in 60 years.

 

[Bear Pride]

First major leaguer to do it in 60 years.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

 

[beckdawg]

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/javier-baez-and-the-anomalous-dinger/

 

[JZsportsfan]

 

[DewsSox79]

First Cub prospect to hit 3 dingers in first 3 games in 60 years. And to think that he's the first 'core 4' coming up. Yeah, the Cubs prospects suck.

is there a restaurant near you that calls their combos "sample size"

 

[beckdawg]

Out of curiosity, I decided to see if I could find historically great people with piss poor K rates to see if I've been too overly critical there on Baez. My definition of "great" here will be fWAR because I can't be arsed to go into more detail than that and it's a pretty decent catch all for this type of question. This is from 1871 through present day with a minimum of 1k PAs.

Of the 3818 players in this sample size these are the players with more than 20 career fWAR and 23% or higher k rates

Jim Thome	24.70%	67.8
Sammy Sosa	23.30%	60.3
Mike Cameron	24.10%	49.5
Jose Canseco	23.90%	42.1
Ray Lankford	23.20%	39.7
Curtis Granderson	23.10%	34.7
Mike Napoli	26.60%	25.5
Adam Dunn	28.50%	22.9
Dan Uggla	24.20%	22.6
Danny Tartabull	23.30%	22.6
Jay Buhner	23.70%	22.3
Justin Upton	23.60%	21.4
B.J. Upton	26.40%	21.1
Matt Kemp	23.70%	21
Gorman Thomas	24.40%	20.4
Dave Kingman	24.40%	20.4
Jason Bay	23.10%	20.2
Ryan Howard	28.00%	20.1

Of these players, only Sosa, Kemp, B.J. Upton, and Dave Kingman have sub 10% career walk rates. From 1998-2004 when a likely roided up Sosa put up 38.4(64% of his career fWAR) he was 10%+ walk rate. Kingman never really had an elite season but put his WAR up over a lengthy time. He played 16 seasons and 1941 games with his best season being 1979 with the cubs where he had 3.7 fWAR. He never put up more than 2.6 other than that year. Upton had a run from 2007-2012 where he was above 10% save for 9.1% in 2009 and 7.1% in 2012 where he's put up the vast majority of his value. In the case of Kemp, 40% of his fWAR comes from 2011 where he walked 10.7%.

So, not to piss on peoples excitement but I'd have pretty big reservations about Baez's long term impact. The obvious thought when they traded for Russell was that Castro gets moved. But, perhaps that was the right idea just the wrong player. I know some aren't all that convinced by this sort of data. However, I think it's frankly pretty hard to ignore this. The guys listed above are quite literally the cream of the crop when it comes to high k rate players and outside of Thome and Sosa(huge asterisk here) I think most people think Baez will be a better player than this list. As reference points, Thome rated as the 69th best fWAR ever. Napoli as the first 25%+ guy was in the 660's.

As such, I'm wondering if Baez is untouchable or not. Given Theo's past dealings for Beckett/Lowell for Anibal/Hanley, trading Baez wouldn't be all that surprising. I don't know maybe insomnia is getting the best of me here and i'm reading too far into things.

 

[SilenceS]

Out of curiosity, I decided to see if I could find historically great people with piss poor K rates to see if I've been too overly critical there on Baez. My definition of "great" here will be fWAR because I can't be arsed to go into more detail than that and it's a pretty decent catch all for this type of question. This is from 1871 through present day with a minimum of 1k PAs.

Of the 3818 players in this sample size these are the players with more than 20 career fWAR and 23% or higher k rates

Jim Thome	24.70%	67.8
Sammy Sosa	23.30%	60.3
Mike Cameron	24.10%	49.5
Jose Canseco	23.90%	42.1
Ray Lankford	23.20%	39.7
Curtis Granderson	23.10%	34.7
Mike Napoli	26.60%	25.5
Adam Dunn	28.50%	22.9
Dan Uggla	24.20%	22.6
Danny Tartabull	23.30%	22.6
Jay Buhner	23.70%	22.3
Justin Upton	23.60%	21.4
B.J. Upton	26.40%	21.1
Matt Kemp	23.70%	21
Gorman Thomas	24.40%	20.4
Dave Kingman	24.40%	20.4
Jason Bay	23.10%	20.2
Ryan Howard	28.00%	20.1

Of these players, only Sosa, Kemp, B.J. Upton, and Dave Kingman have sub 10% career walk rates. From 1998-2004 when a likely roided up Sosa put up 38.4(64% of his career fWAR) he was 10%+ walk rate. Kingman never really had an elite season but put his WAR up over a lengthy time. He played 16 seasons and 1941 games with his best season being 1979 with the cubs where he had 3.7 fWAR. He never put up more than 2.6 other than that year. Upton had a run from 2007-2012 where he was above 10% save for 9.1% in 2009 and 7.1% in 2012 where he's put up the vast majority of his value. In the case of Kemp, 40% of his fWAR comes from 2011 where he walked 10.7%.

So, not to piss on peoples excitement but I'd have pretty big reservations about Baez's long term impact. The obvious thought when they traded for Russell was that Castro gets moved. But, perhaps that was the right idea just the wrong player. I know some aren't all that convinced by this sort of data. However, I think it's frankly pretty hard to ignore this. The guys listed above are quite literally the cream of the crop when it comes to high k rate players and outside of Thome and Sosa(huge asterisk here) I think most people think Baez will be a better player than this list. As reference points, Thome rated as the 69th best fWAR ever. Napoli as the first 25%+ guy was in the 660's.

As such, I'm wondering if Baez is untouchable or not. Given Theo's past dealings for Beckett/Lowell for Anibal/Hanley, trading Baez wouldn't be all that surprising. I don't know maybe insomnia is getting the best of me here and i'm reading too far into things.

Then you have to throw Bryants name in the hat as well.

 

[TL1961]

The hope is that he lowers the K rate as he matures.

I think your point is very valid. A guy who continues to strike out at a very high rate won't be elite.

But those guys never lowered their K rate below 25%, but were they worse when younger? Or are there a ton of guys who lowered their K rate - i.e. learned/adjusted - as they matured?

I like that he homered three times, but seeing him swing for the fences every AB - especially with a man on 2nd and nobody out in a one run game - does not make me happy. I have seen way too many guys on the Cubs swinging for the fences all the time. I want a guy who realizes when it's the 9th, and we're down 2, getting on base is exactly as valuable - and more likely - than hitting a HR.

The K's need to be reduced.

I am more confident in a guy like Alcantara when I see his approach. And I say that as AA is batting .250.

 

[SilenceS]

The hope is that he lowers the K rate as he matures.

I think your point is very valid. A guy who continues to strike out at a very high rate won't be elite.

But those guys never lowered their K rate below 25%, but were they worse when younger? Or are there a ton of guys who lowered their K rate - i.e. learned/adjusted - as they matured?

I like that he homered three times, but seeing him swing for the fences every AB - especially with a man on 2nd and nobody out in a one run game - does not make me happy. I have seen way too many guys on the Cubs swinging for the fences all the time. I want a guy who realizes when it's the 9th, and we're down 2, getting on base is exactly as valuable - and more likely - than hitting a HR.

The K's need to be reduced.

I am more confident in a guy like Alcantara when I see his approach. And I say that as AA is batting .250.

His job wont be to move runners over. He will get better with maturity, but in no point in his career is he going to change his approach to get a runner over. Show me middle of the order, power guys who just try to get the runner over?

 

[SilenceS]

Out of curiosity, I decided to see if I could find historically great people with piss poor K rates to see if I've been too overly critical there on Baez. My definition of "great" here will be fWAR because I can't be arsed to go into more detail than that and it's a pretty decent catch all for this type of question. This is from 1871 through present day with a minimum of 1k PAs.

Of the 3818 players in this sample size these are the players with more than 20 career fWAR and 23% or higher k rates

Jim Thome	24.70%	67.8
Sammy Sosa	23.30%	60.3
Mike Cameron	24.10%	49.5
Jose Canseco	23.90%	42.1
Ray Lankford	23.20%	39.7
Curtis Granderson	23.10%	34.7
Mike Napoli	26.60%	25.5
Adam Dunn	28.50%	22.9
Dan Uggla	24.20%	22.6
Danny Tartabull	23.30%	22.6
Jay Buhner	23.70%	22.3
Justin Upton	23.60%	21.4
B.J. Upton	26.40%	21.1
Matt Kemp	23.70%	21
Gorman Thomas	24.40%	20.4
Dave Kingman	24.40%	20.4
Jason Bay	23.10%	20.2
Ryan Howard	28.00%	20.1

Of these players, only Sosa, Kemp, B.J. Upton, and Dave Kingman have sub 10% career walk rates. From 1998-2004 when a likely roided up Sosa put up 38.4(64% of his career fWAR) he was 10%+ walk rate. Kingman never really had an elite season but put his WAR up over a lengthy time. He played 16 seasons and 1941 games with his best season being 1979 with the cubs where he had 3.7 fWAR. He never put up more than 2.6 other than that year. Upton had a run from 2007-2012 where he was above 10% save for 9.1% in 2009 and 7.1% in 2012 where he's put up the vast majority of his value. In the case of Kemp, 40% of his fWAR comes from 2011 where he walked 10.7%.

So, not to piss on peoples excitement but I'd have pretty big reservations about Baez's long term impact. The obvious thought when they traded for Russell was that Castro gets moved. But, perhaps that was the right idea just the wrong player. I know some aren't all that convinced by this sort of data. However, I think it's frankly pretty hard to ignore this. The guys listed above are quite literally the cream of the crop when it comes to high k rate players and outside of Thome and Sosa(huge asterisk here) I think most people think Baez will be a better player than this list. As reference points, Thome rated as the 69th best fWAR ever. Napoli as the first 25%+ guy was in the 660's.

As such, I'm wondering if Baez is untouchable or not. Given Theo's past dealings for Beckett/Lowell for Anibal/Hanley, trading Baez wouldn't be all that surprising. I don't know maybe insomnia is getting the best of me here and i'm reading too far into things.

Also, those are some pretty good players on that list. Not all these prospects are going to be superstars and none of them may become a superstar.