Javier Baez homered last night; it was his first at Wrigley Field and fourth since being called up. He didn’t walk, and hasn’t yet since being called up. That’s a little troubling, but it’s too early to say much about that. He also didn’t strike out, which is also a little early to make any judgements about, but is something I am keenly watching.

Above is Baez’s career game log. Game #1 was his first game in the Arizona Rookie League. #348 was last night’s game against the Brewers. The dependent variable is strikeout rate. The blue line represents cumulative strikeout rate; The remainder of the plotted series are specific to a year and level. Data is from Fangraphs.

Depending on your own personal dispositions, there are likely a few things that jump out from the plot. If an optimist, you are likely to note that the cumulative rate has seemingly stabilized at around 26%, which isn’t all that bad given that Baez is still only 21. Also, there is a general trend of improvement after an early spike at each level. If a pessimist, you probably see a rate that has increased with each advancing level, settling around 28% at AA and 30% at AAA. Now that Baez is facing a far bigger jump in his major league promotion, will it end up somewhere north of 30? I think that both points of view have merit, and I’m not sure what the right answer is. For the moment, ZIPS has Baez at about 33% for the rest of the season; Steamer says around 30%. The answer, whatever it turns out to be, is pretty important.

It is really difficult to be a productive hitter in the majors over any length of time when one in three plate appearances end in a strikeout. One in four? Much more manageable. Here’s a list of the most prolific K- victims of 2014, minimum 120 plate appearances. Note how many of those players have hacked their way out of a job: Mike Olt, Jason Kubel, Junior Lake, Danny Espinosa, Abraham Almonte, Marcus Semien, Brandon Hicks, Tyler Colvin, and Chris Colabello from the top 30 alone.

It’s hard to get a sense for how many really high-K hitters succeed in the long term, given recent increases in league rates. Chris Davis has been intermittently fantastic, though not before his first team gave him up for half a season of a good reliever. And the list of other players who struck out 30% of the time with walk rates around league average or worse is pretty grim: Juan Francisco, Kelly Shoppach, Bo Jackson, Tom Egan, and Wily Mo Pena. None of them were middle infielders, of course, which will earn Baez considerable slack. I think that most will be disappointed, though, if he merely turns into a hitter like Francisco. It will be much easier for Baez to best that if he can stay near his current career mark of 26%.

Not-So Quick Links

Lots of great stuff has hit the webs recently.

• Upon hearing “game-fixing hoax” and Jeff Locke, I assumed the story was of a sharp who claimed to be on the inside, but in reality just realized midway through the 2013 season that Locke was pitching way above his head and bet against him every time out. Analysts at the time were climbing over themselves to shout “regression,” after all. The real story turns out to be much dumber and sleazier, with a touch of “holy shit that’s terrifying.” Who knew that Bud Selig had reach in law enforcement? In thirty years, cryonic Bud will be leading a team of Road Warriors around the interstates of what used to be America, doing the NSA’s dirty work.
• Craig Calcaterra is worried about the upcoming change in commissionership. Rob Neyer, not as much. I tend to side with Craig. Jerry Reinsdorf is fresh off the absolute drubbing that the owners dealt the NBA players in the last round of negotiations, and wants to similarly crush MLBPA. That type of victory would take away any advantages the Cubs have via their larger market, so, yeah, it’s something to keep an eye on.
• Rob thinks it would be nice if a commissioner were more confrontational on certain issues, like increasing the pace of the game. The problem is that neither side cares about that, which is why it hasn’t happened. And no owner is endorsing a commish candidate based on issues that he doesn’t care about.
• Rany’s take on Cubs rebuilding. I think he’s right about the broad strokes, but the narratives start to fray upon closer examination. For example, the “position players only” story has gained steam since Joe Pos first pushed it in June. Would anyone be talking about that, though, if the Cubs had drafted Mark Appel and Brady Aiken? They wanted to, according to post-draft reports. And, of course, middle round draftees by the team have overwhelmingly been pitchers.
• Also, Rany credits the team’s success in pitching acquisitions to the front office simply taking FIP seriously. That’s true to an extent, but no one would be touting Theo’s prowess in that department if Travis Wood, Scott Feldman, Jake Arrieta, and Jason Hammel had simply performed up to their career FIP levels when with the Cubs. Feldman had a 4.56 career FIP when he signed and put up a 3.46 ERA with the Cubs. Jason Hammel’s was 4.33, as compared to an ERA under 3 for the Cubs. As dmick pointed out in the comments, no one is talking about Travis Wood this season, even though his ERA is more in line with his peripherals and stuff than it was last year. The Cubs’ magic touch with pitchers is premised almost entirely on players who performed better than their previous FIP’s would indicate. Not surprisingly, most of those over-performances haven’t held up in the long term.
• David Simon tells a great Robin Williams story, to no one’s surprise.
• A Danny Almonte retrospective.
• Dale Sveum is trying to do interesting things, and failing.