2013 Cubs Prospects in Review: Javier Baez

In Commentary And Analysis, Minor Leagues by dmick8917 Comments

Ednel Javier Baez was drafted by the Cubs in the 2011 draft with the 9th pick. History is going to look at that draft as an incredible one. Here's a sampling of players taken in that round:

1.1 Gerrit Cole (ace potential)
1.3 Trevor Bauer (20 makeup, but #2 potential)
1.4 Dylan Bundy (pre-TJS, was consensus #1 prospect, ace potential)
1.6 Anthony Rendon (1st-division 3B)
1.7 Archie Bradley (top 4 or 5 pitching prospect in baseball right now, #2 potential)
1.8 Francisco Lindor (Jason Parks' personal panty-melter)
1.11 George Springer (big-time OF prospect, could be ROY next year)
1.14 Jose Fernandez (ace already)
1.18 Sonny Gray (#2 ceiling, lights-out closer floor)
1.22 Kolten Wong (1st-division 2B)

That's 10 people who could ALL be downballot MVP/Cy Young candidates as early as 2015. What's crazy is that with the exception of Cole or Fernandez, Javier Baez could be better than all of them. The comp early on was to Gary Sheffield, and that was built primarily on an otherworldly bat speed:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr8nrNVdFus]

The comp doesn't make sense anymore. For one, Sheffield had the better plate discipline. That's apparent now, and probably was then too. The reason the comp is made, though, is that there just aren't many people with the bat speed that Baez has. He is too good to make a mistake to (and pitchers made plenty of mistakes against him so far in his career), and he can hit a ball hard to any part of the baseball field. He started his career in earnest in 2012, and as a 19-year old in full-season Peoria he absolutely eviscerated the league. It wasn't pretty; he slashed .333/.383/.596 and averaged a HR in 17.75 AB. He had an XBH of some sort 12.7% of his at bats, which is goofy. After a promotion to Daytona later in the year sufficiently challenged hi (.188/.244/.400, but aided by a .200 BABIP), it was decided he'd return to Daytona instead of a more aggressive promotion to Tennessee in 2013.

Performance

Things started out poorly for Javier. In April, he hit .262/.275/.514. That's a .789 OPS (good for most players), essentially completely devoid of walks (4, plus 2 HBP). He also was committing a ton of errors, and it led to this exchange:

He started turning it around, but I still had my doubts:

I gave Sahadev some shit for that last one, especially because a good deal of his errors were dropped fly balls and throwing over the 1B's head. Still, he was undeniably improving, so after a .274/.338/.535 line at Daytona, he was promoted to Tennessee.

That's where things got a little bit silly.

As the 3rd hitter in a stacked AA lineup, Baez owned the league to the tune of .294/.346/.638. His walks increased to 8.1% in the Southern League, and while his K% also rose to 28.4%, he still absolutely crushed everyone. He led the league in OPS by 80 points. 80 POINTS! He was 4th in the league with 20 HR with less than half as many ABs as anyone in front of him (if he had the same pace and same AB as #1, he would have had 41 HR and won by 17.) He had 35 XBH and 29 NBXH. He had an XBH in 16.1% of his ABs. Against righties, he was a respectable .234/.285/.532; against lefties, you might as well intentionally walk him every time (.450/.500/.917). I'm not sure if they have minor league MVPs, but you could make a very, very strong argument he was the MVP for two leagues this year. It's bonkers. 

That isn't to say it was all soft reds and bubblebaths. Baez committed a crazy number of errors, and more than a few of them were just awful. Scouts say he plays the game like his hair is on fire, but they don't mean it in a good way. I'll talk more about it in scouting. 

Scouting 

Predictably, there is a ton of information on Baez. I'll let the experts take it from here.

I’ve been fortunate enough to do a lot of radio hits in the Chicago market, and I’m usually asked about the positional depth in the Cubs’ org, and which prospect has the highest ceiling. Baez has long been my answer despite the fact that Baseball Prospectus ranked Almora higher on the pre-season and mid-season lists, mostly due to the fact that Baez was viewed by many to be a high-risk player. The tools are very loud, with elite bat speed at the plate and excellent hands in the field, but the aggressiveness and one-speed-at-all-times approach in all phases of the game painted the picture of an immature player, a prospect that might spoil his future before it has a chance to blossom. After an impressive run in the Florida State League, the blossoming we have eagerly anticipated has taken place after a promotion to Double-A, where Baez already has 26 extra-base hits in his first 40 games. Double-A is a test level, a separator level where pretenders are exposed and future major-league players are uncovered. It’s a small sample but a positive developmental step, and Baez is showing that he is not only prepared for the test but talented enough to excel against much older and wiser competition. He could be a star, a role 7 type with a middle-of-the-order bat and left-side chops in the field. Whatever his future role might be, the Cubs have an extremely valuable commodity in Baez.–-Jason Parks

And this was before his relative explosion in AA. BP also had him at #17 in the midseason with the warning of huge regression at AA which…didn't happen.

DH Javier Baez • Cubs
Double-A Tennessee (Southern)

Baez slammed 20 homers in 54 Double-A games to catch and tie George Springer for second place in the minors with 37 bombs. Baez stands all by himself, however, with minor league-leading totals for extra-base hits (75) and RBIs (111). The 20-year-old stepped up his game with runners on base this season, hitting .325/.384/.654 with 19 homers in 231 at-bats at Tennessee and high Class A Daytona. While Baez possesses the raw tools to play a big league shortstop, he needs to clean up his fundamentals and improve his efficiency after committing 44 errors in 123 games, a performance good for a .932 fielding average. -BA

Sickels had a fun thing where he compared megaprospect Xander Bogaerts to Baez (this was in February of this year). In summary, he said that Bogaerts had the better makeup (Baez splits scouts on his makeup; many don't like his perceived disrespect for another people [I don’t care as long as he isn’t Milton Bradley] and some really like his work ethic and dedication to the game), but that Baez was the higher upside. He said they both project as .300 hitters with power, and that Baez could steal more bases (and I imagine he'll swipe 20 bags a year). 

Here's Sickels end-of-year update on Baez:

8) Javier Baez, SS, Chicago Cubs. Pre-season 18, July rank 14. I do worry about the strikeouts but the power/speed upside is just enormous. I could see this going down a few slots depending on book analysis.

Many publications will have Baez in their top 10 next year, and you could safely discard any list that leaves him off the top 20 as garbage.

Outlook

Baez will break camp with Iowa, and you'll hear the party line about getting him a full year there. Don't believe it; he'll be called up during September callups if not earlier unless he really falls in on himself. The PCL is a hitter's league, and Baez is a motherfucker. He's still never been really challenged, and I don't think he will be in Iowa, either. It's anyone's guess how he'll do in Chicago, and I put the range of WARP that he could provide in 2014 as anywhere from -0.2 (Starlin Castro, 2013) to around 5 (far and away best on the Cubs). He's the best prospect the Cubs have had in a long, long time.

 

2013 Cubs Prospect Reviews

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  1. Aisle424

    WaLi wrote:

    dmick89 wrote:
    So signing free agents this year makes perfect sense to me.

    Exactly. If we wait to sign free agents until Baez/Soler etc. gets called up it is going to be too late and/or the free agents may not be available. Sign the best free agents available now, and when the kids are called up, they will already have the support around them necessary to have a competing team.

    Too late for what? And when are free agents not going to be available?

    We know the really good ones are going to get locked up before they hit the market, but that’s been true for a couple of years now, so what has changed?

    Why is Brian fucking McCann suddenly a can’t-pass talent? Or Choo? Or Ellsbury? Is anybody taking any of those guys in a fantasy league above the 4th round? I’m not. So why the fuck would the Cubs act like they are some magical antidote to the suckiness? Or the final piece to contention?

    They all have serious question marks attached to them and adding them to the team at this point will only make a bad team mediocre. I appreciate how shitty this team is, but Theo’s said numerous times and we’ve said it here numerous times: mediocrity accomplishes nothing. If you’re not going to be a serious contender, what the hell is the point in pissing away all that money (which at this time is not limitless yet because there is still no TV deal and the renovations are STILL not happening)?

    Even if the Cubs sign Choo, Ellsbury AND McCann, there is still a mediocre pitching staff and probably no bench because they will have blown their wad on 3 guys that probably will be lucky to give the team 350 healthy games combined next year.

    So what will the Cubs be missing out on?

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  3. Author
    dmick89

    Aisle424 wrote:

    Or the final piece to contention?

    At some point you’ve got to build a team that is a final piece away. Do you really want to wait another 5 years for that to happen?

    Theo said they need impact talent coming up. He didn’t say they had you’ve to prove themselves to be impact talents at the MLB level. The Cubs will be luckier than hell to get one impact talent out of all of their prospects.

    They said they were going to work both fronts. The farm system is improved. At what point do they start adding good free agents and not the likes of Paul Maholm and Nate Schierholtz? Only when Baez and/or Bryant become impact talents at the MLB level?

    In 2010 about 98% of Cubs fans would have said that Starlin Castro would be an impact talent. Depending on what is meant by impact talent, does anyone really think Castro is going to become one now? I’d be happy if Castro returned to league average.

    A year ago about 70% of Cubs fans thought Rizzo would be one of the better 1st basemen this year. While I’m not as down on Rizzo as some may be, I also never thought he’d be a star player.

    The Cubs expected these two to be impact talents and it’s fairly hard to even say Castro will be at this point with a straight face. Castro has been in the league 4 years. Rizzo about 2. We won’t see Baez before mid-season at the earliest. Probably won’t see Bryant or Soler until 2015. There’s no guarantee they’ll even make it and it’s unlikely either are impact talents at the MLB level.

    If the Cubs are waiting to have several impact talents in MLB are young, they are more than likely going to be bad for eternity. That is not a 5-year plan. It doesn’t seem like a reasonable 10 or 20-year plan.

    It’s also worth pointing out that there will be fewer quality free agents every year as teams begin to lock up all of their worthy young players.

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  4. Recalcitrant Blogger Nate

    Loxas says is Saltalamachia the Cubs are interested in. I think they’re going to trade Castillo, hopefully they get alot for him. I’d rather the Cubs pursue trades than FA anyway.

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  6. Berselius

    dmick89 wrote:

    It’s also worth pointing out that there will be fewer quality free agents every year as teams begin to lock up all of their worthy young players.

    I’m still waiting for the rebound to happen once players realize the stupendous contracts that the guys who actually do become FA at a relatively young age are going to get in the next few years, thanks to scarcity and new tv contracts. I think Samardzija has already figured this out.

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  9. SVB

    From ESPN:

    As the Cubs wait for Girardi’s situation to play out, they continue to keep other options on the table. Sources told ESPN.com that they’ve checked in with the San Diego Padres about assistant general manager A.J. Hinch, who previously managed the Arizona Diamondbacks to an 89-123 record during the 2009-2010 seasons.

    Industry sources also said the Cubs’ list of potential managerial candidates does not include former big league catcher Brad Ausmus, who is currently working as a special assistant in San Diego. While Ausmus is regarded by many as a future managerial star, the Cubs appear to be looking for someone with more experience in the dugout.

    Really? AJ Hinch?

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  10. SVB

    Sounds like Paul Konerko might not retire.

    Would you bring him in to platoon with Rizzo at 1B? One year–$5-7M? Their splits complement each other pretty well, especially as Konerko has gotten older. Also the veteran leadership angle, la la la.

    OPS+ only 88, but 150 against LHP.

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  13. Author
    dmick89

    @ SVB:
    No. Rizzo didn’t play as well as I had hoped, but he wasn’t bad and I still think whatever we expected from him prior to the season is what we should expect moving forward.

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  14. sitrick

    SVB wrote:

    Sounds like Paul Konerko might not retire.
    Would you bring him in to platoon with Rizzo at 1B?

    Do not want.

    Berselius wrote:

    I’m still waiting for the rebound to happen once players realize the stupendous contracts that the guys who actually do become FA at a relatively young age are going to get in the next few years, thanks to scarcity and new tv contracts.

    You don’t think they’ll just parlay this into bigger extensions? I think Kershaw realizes this, but I think it just means he’s going to ask for (and get) the world from the Dodgers and still won’t make it to free agency.

    Mike Trout is going to be a really curious case. He has a case for $350mil+ and the angels can’t afford anything close to that, you would think. Maybe they just give him an ownership share, (dying laughing).

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