The Javier Baez Discussion Thread

[Ari Bear]

The Cubs top prospects have never been elite caliber prospects until now. I don't remember Vitters and Jackson earning praise around the baseball world. Not to mention you don't hear the hype of other teams farm systems, because you likely don't follow all 30 MILB systems

Corey Patterson and Hee Chop Soi were considered elite prospects but never lived up to the hype.

 

[Ari Bear]

I wouldn't say weakness. I would call it over his head and swinging at anything.

He is out of wack because he was not ready and got tossed into the fire. I get it he needed to be humbled by major league pitching to grow as a player. I expect him in AAA to build up again before getting another shot.

Definetly! He wasnt ready to come up! The majority of the time he spent in AAA he was hitting in the low .200's with a high K rate. His peak avg. for the whole season was .260. So it's not to surprising that he has been struggling in the majors...

 

[Boobaby1]

^^^

A very fixable problem. It is just pitch recognition and repetition, someone should just throw him sliders all day long in the off season and get him to recognize that spin.

He has the aggressive style to be thinking swing before even seeing the pitch. One notable player Matt Holiday comes to mind and does the same thing. There were also players that took longer to develop into there swing like Jose Bautista if memory serves me right. He struggled a ton before figuring it out.

Baez will be up on the team to start the year. He will not go back to AAA as they will work exponentially on his swing and mechanics in the off-season. The Cubs had Darwin Barney at 2B to start the year. Surely the Cubs can drop Baez down in the line-up as he will out-produce anything Barney ever did, and Baez is going to attract fans too.

Dropping him down will more than likely frustrate him, seeing as Soler and Bryant will be up. It is more mental with Javy and IMO, they know that.

 

[brett05]

At this point tge Baez attendance affect has left. He needs to produce to draw now

 

[SilenceS]

People need to stop looking at an overall stat line. Its not why players get promoted. Baez progressed every month at AAA and was a .300 hitter since about mid May. He absolutely crushed AAA after the all star break and dropped his K rate to under 25% for that span. Baez was striking out at about a 38% clip for the first month and a half. Then he started dropping it and then in the final month before he was called up was striking out around 22%.

Yet again, Baez has taken longer at every level to adjust then most. Its why the Cubs pulled the trigger for him to come up. I highly doubt they are changing there plan because this is part of his progression. This is what the Cubs wanted him to see. Also, his BABIP is .240. This is what his BABIP was like in AAA this year for the first month and a half. It will shoot up with more plate appearance because he hits the ball to hard to have a low BABIP.

He is 21 still. Let him develop and let him play the game. He doesnt need to go to AAA. An under 200 bat sample size is not near enough to make any judgements.

 

[JZsportsfan]

At this point tge Baez attendance affect has left. He needs to produce to draw now

I don't think people in Chicago care about baseball at this point. Both teams are way out of it. Castro, and Rizzo are both out and they are playing horrible baseball the past week. Now with football season upon us, that is where the focus is

 

[chibears55]

At this point tge Baez attendance affect has left. He needs to produce to draw now

There what 9 more home games left, I dont think it really matters now what he or any players are doing.

Team not going anywhere, kids back in school, football upon us..

Only people showing up are die hards, season tickets whether its themselves or someone they passed them off to, and people with nothing else to do.

 

[brett05]

There what 9 more home games left, I dont think it really matters now what he or any players are doing.

Team not going anywhere, kids back in school, football upon us..

Only people showing up are die hards, season tickets whether its themselves or someone they passed them off to, and people with nothing else to do.

Unless he was playing well. We disagree

 

[chibears55]

Unless he was playing well. We disagree

Maybe crazy well but not just well..

If he was hitting bombs at a high pace, then yea I guess youd get a few more fans coming out to see him but even if he was just hitting for a good average with occasional homers then I doubt it..

Soler hitting well, that not going to bring a whole lot of extra fans out to see him..


Again unless someone was playing crazy ball putting up crazy numbers the team losing again, nothing to play for, kids back in school, cooler weather there really no reason to say hey lets go spend a hundred bucks or so at a cubs game today just because you have a kid playing well..

Sox have Abreu and Sales playing crazy well and that not going to fill extra seats in September...

 

[brett05]

Maybe crazy well but not just well..

If he was hitting bombs at a high pace, then yea I guess youd get a few more fans coming out to see him but even if he was just hitting for a good average with occasional homers then I doubt it..

Soler hitting well, that not going to bring a whole lot of extra fans out to see him..


Again unless someone was playing crazy ball putting up crazy numbers the team losing again, nothing to play for, kids back in school, cooler weather there really no reason to say hey lets go spend a hundred bucks or so at a cubs game today just because you have a kid playing well..

Sox have Abreu and Sales playing crazy well and that not going to fill extra seats in September...

The Sox ain't the Cubs

 

[Parade_Rain]

The Sox ain't the Cubs

Yep. Large market team spending like Oakland.

 

[brett05]

Yep. Large market team spending like Oakland.

The Sox live in a large market but have no such fan base

 

[chibears55]

The Sox ain't the Cubs

You got that right..lol

 

[Parade_Rain]

The Sox live in a large market but have no such fan base

Quit making excuses for payroll!

 

[JZsportsfan]

Isn't their payroll higher than the Cubs?

 

[Parade_Rain]

Isn't their payroll higher than the Cubs?

:whoosh:

 

[brett05]

Quit making excuses for payroll!

Lol...ok Parade

 

[SilenceS]

Not to worry, Cubs fans, despite his initial struggles this season, Javier Baez will be fine.
A lot of highly touted prospects and other young major leaguers had what might appear to be disheartening seasons in 2014. Here are five examples of players whose stat lines this year shouldn't dampen your enthusiasm about their futures.




Javier Baez

It's not the debut Cubs fans were expecting, at least not given his showings in spring training and the Futures Game, but a rough first time around the carousel is pretty much in line with Baez's career to date. Baez has 153 plate appearances in the majors so far, with 63 strikeouts and a .175/.229/.364 line. In his first 153 plate appearances in Triple-A, coming earlier this year, he hit .201/.268/.388 with 53 strikeouts.

He started slowly in Double-A as well, failing to get his OBP over .300 until his 120th plate appearance, but he came around sooner and was at least up to .273/.329/.580 by the time he passed 153 plate appearances. The primary skill that made him such a highly rated prospect -- he was No. 7 coming into the year -- is still intact: He has some of the best bat speed and strongest hands I've ever seen on a hitting prospect. He needs to overhaul his approach to at-bats, as he still seems to be deciding whether to swing before he could possibly have identified the pitch type, but he's so talented that he can make mistakes and still turn it into hard contact.

http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/keith-law/post?id=2811

 

[chibears55]

He actually been looking better last couple games, not because of homers but seem to be swinging a bit more controllable and showing more patience

 

[beckdawg]

http://regressing.deadspin.com/is-javier-baezs-rocket-powered-swing-built-to-last-1630201369/all