I don't think there's any problem with you being critical of Baez. Your concerns are very legitimate and have been echoed by plenty of people in the industry... I have them as concerns as well.
But I feel like these concerns have been concerns for a pretty long time. I think that you expressing those concerns again now, valid as they are, isn't necessarily adding new ideas/observations to the analysis of Baez. He was going to have trouble with his strikeouts and overswinging and what have you when he got up here. We all knew that and knew what to expect.
The hope for him is that he'll eventually adjust and improve... I don't think there's been nearly enough time to evaluate how he's doing with that and I think that's really the "issue" (that word seems too strong to me) here.
This is all coming from someone who has mad respect for you and your baseball musings...
Agreed but I guess my point was you expect to see gradual improvement. And granted I often can be more clear about my opinions. This case to add to the alcantara defense thing hasn't been the most well thought out reasoning as far as sample size but like with that case it wasn't just these 54 at bats or those 30 or whatever games it was for Alcantara. What I posted on Jaunary first was essentially that if he can get his bb/k rate closer to 10%/20% he should be fine. What we got this year was an almost identical 7.8% walk rate and a marginally higher 30.0% K rate in AAA.
The talk prior to his call up was his "improved" K rate in AAA. But even if it was approaching decency it was still 25%+. And sample size works both ways. It could be an improvement or it could just be him running into a hot streak. Overall the year he put in was 30% and unlike Bryant, his ISO was substantially down along with his average and on base. So, frankly it's difficult for me to see much having changed from this current form of Baez to what he was prior to the season. I'm neither trying to be nor am someone who works in player development. So, I trust they have a far better clue what's going on than I do. But that being said it's hard for me to see someone who's got a refined approach or even is working their way towards it. Right now he appears from my untrained opinion to be an all or nothing player.
And admittedly development isn't linear. I guess my issue is I don't see where this sudden realization is going to click in with him and he'll cut the K's down dramatically. This is likely a piss poor analogy but compare him to a pitcher who has a dominating fastball. Baez's bat speed has let him get away with things other players can't. Often pitchers with a dominating fastball can succeed well on raw talent until the upper levels and then you reach a point where raw talent isn't enough anymore. Similarly, Baez got to AAA and has reached a point where pitchers clearly can exploit him. This is what I mean about him having to fundamentally change. That's not to say that some players don't eventually get the additional stuff they need to raw talent. But there's tons who never do. And until we start to see that I think this is the player he is.
The question then becomes do you want to gamble on that clicking with him? Playing 2nd obviously gives him more utility than a lot of guys with similar hitting profiles who often tend to be LFers. But even if you talk about someone like Chris Davis who's has a similar 8.3%/31.2% walk/k rate and enormous power, he's been a guy that's bounced around a lot having years bad enough to get him dealt and last year which was arguably MVP level followed by a hugely disappointing year this year. Keep in mind Davis wasn't quite as highly touted reaching #65 on BA's list in 2007 but he was a legit prospect and often SS will get pushed up more. Texas ended up letting him go with Tommy Hunter for Koji Uehara which is kind of disappointing return. Another example of someone with similar walk/k rate and power profile is Pedro Alvarez who was the #2 pick in the 2008 draft and ended up ranking in a #12 and #9 in 2009/10 respectively in BA's top 100. That's not to say that Baez is an identical player to those guys but it's easy to draw parallels to them. And at this point, Davis obviously disappointed Rangers fans enough that the team dealt him and Alvarez has been pretty meh for a top 15 player.
So, while I can understand some saying I'm drawing conclusions too quickly there's a reasoning behind that. The reasoning is that if you deal him this offseason he still has most if not all of that shiney prospect hype on him. If you deal him the following offseason or later you're probably talking about substantially less value unless he changes at which point you wouldn't be trading him anyways. It comes down to a matter of whether or not you trust him to change. And given the selection of players working in the 25%+ K rate range, there's not many I'd be confident betting on. The list is basically Jay Bruce and Giancarlo Stanton. Additionally, it's not like the cubs don't have numerous options at 2B already between Alcantara, Castro, Russell, Bruno, Watkins, Gioskar Amaya, as well as Torres who at 17 is looking likely to be the next in line of "the cubs have too many SS." And given their hitting prospect it also isn't likely they will be hurting for bats.
