NEWSLETTER
It wouldn’t be hard to take a negative tone in this one, and indeed some of the stats are going to be jarringly grim. Neither would it be too difficult to point out the positive stuff and hang on it completely, together with a shared history that generally gives us positive vibes when discussing Javy Báez.
But I kinda don’t want to do either of those things. Mostly, I just want to share how WEIRD the start to Báez’s season has been. I’m not saying it’s been good – it has definitely been more bad than good – and I’m also not saying all the bad will last. I’m just saying it’s weird stuff.
Maybe the best starting point is actually something Jesse Rogers tweeted today:
It's fun to play 'on pace for' after a handful of games to start the season. Never pans out but still.
Here's Javy Baez, if he keeps it up over 162:
.200, 40 HR, 121 RBI, 50 SB, 10 BB, 313 K's.
— Jesse Rogers (@JesseRogersESPN) April 21, 2021
With confidence, I can say there has never actually been a full player season quite like that, especially from a stud defensive shortstop. Báez’s weird season also would have him up around 3.0 WAR if this all continued for the rest of the season, which would, on paper, make him a solidly above-average starter. You know, with 313 strikeouts and 40 homers and 50 steals and 10 walks.
Overall, Báez is hitting .200/.250/.433 with an 86 wRC+, so about 14% below average. But if he weren’t hitting for so much power on the rare occasion he hits the ball, it would be even worse. Consider that Báez has kept himself within the same zip code as “average” despite striking out 48.4% of the time. That … should not be possible. Heck, over a full season, I feel confident in saying it would not be possible.
Those strikeouts, as most know by now, are thanks to a combination of Baez’s legendary swinging strike rate (27.0% this year), an incredibly low contact rate in the strike zone (61.1%), and a proclivity to swing outside of the zone far too often (40.9%). Add it all up, and you not only get a strikeout rate that leads baseball by a mile, you get a plain ole contact rate (50.4%) that leads baseball by a mile. Like, leads it in a terrible way. Joey Gallo has the second lowest contact rate, and it’s way up at 56.8%. Heck, there are only five players in all of baseball under 61.5% … and Báez is more than 11 percentage points lower. It’s jaw-dropping. The strikeout rate, the contact rate, and the zone contact rate would all be MLB records – by a lot – if they happened over a full season.
But, like I said, there are still a lotta numbers in there that show production. Combining with the baserunning and defense, you’re talking about a guy who is currently tied with Anthony Rizzo for the third most WAR on the team.
Now, then. Even for Báez, these contact numbers are seriously out of whack with his career averages. Yeah, he’s always been a guy whose strikeouts and whiffs would be elevated relative to league averages, but nowhere close to this level. He’s also got a bunch of other weird stuff going on, like a career-low (by a lot) line drive rate, a career-high (by a lot) pull rate, a career-high average fastball velocity against, a career-worst rate of production against fastballs, a career-best rate of production against changeups and sliders, and on and on. Just weird stuff up and down his stat sheet.
Here’s where we openly wonder if something has gone very wrong – the whiffs on so many fastballs in the strike zone are, to me, by far the most concerning thing, and the most “is that a bad sign?” thing – or if this is all small sample, post-weird-season, types-of-pitchers-faced, flukey stuff. Maybe it’s that latter thing. Maybe. But I will tell you that I have a couple charts to share, and they are, well, as concerning as anything I’ve come across when looking at Báez’s weird numbers.
The charts are simple enough. They are Báez’s contact rate against fastballs in the various zones. The first chart is for 2018-19, when it looked like Báez was establishing himself as a star:
As you can see by all the white and shades of red and blue, Báez had pretty good coverage all over the strike zone against fastballs, with some softening at the top of the zone, and better than average down.
Here’s the same chart since the start of the 2020 season:
Scroll up and scroll down as needed. I know. It’s … it’s alarming. I mean, really, really alarming.
Your only saving grace there is that it’s just 366 fastballs for the second chart, versus 1353 for the first. Maybe it’s just a really bad, long funk, from which Báez would recover over the next 1000 fastballs with a tweak here and there. Maybe. But 366 pitches is still kinda a lot of pitches.
As I said at the top, I don’t want to land anywhere with this, in large part because we know how talented Báez is, and sometimes talented guys do weird stuff for a while, and then become awesome. I don’t even get too interested yet in thinking about the contract and free agency implications here. I don’t know what to think yet.
For now, I’m just watching and enjoying what I can, observing an analyzing what I can, and knowing all the while that at least I’m getting to see a guy do some weird stuff we’ve never seen before.
