E-6: Baez running out of time

The Tigers need to know if their starting SS can still play at the big league level.

Is Javier Baez any good?

It’s not a rhetorical question.

The Tigers are headed into Year 3 of the Baez experiment at shortstop and last I looked, players don’t get younger with age.

Javy is 31 now and middle infielders don’t exactly age well.

Yet it’s not Baez’s calendar age that is of concern.

With Baez, you almost get the sense that he ages the way dogs do. Each year takes seven off Fido’s life.

Miguel Cabrera is gone—retired and ungrateful Tigers fans don’t have Miggy to kick around anymore.

So they may as well kick Baez around until he proves to them that he’s not worthy of such treatment.

We’re barely into March and there’s already a Baez Watch.

The 2021 Tigers unexpectedly competed quite well after a slow start—which is becoming an AJ Hinch staple. Hinch’s three Tigers teams have been tortoises out of the gate, deflating fans’ tiny balloons of optimism before May.

The ’21 team somehow managed to win 77 games despite starting 8-22. The 69-63 finish gave some folks reason to think that the rebuild was being accelerated.

If they only could patch their gaping hole at shortstop, interested observers mused.

There were several “big name” SS available via free agency that fall.

Carlos Correa of the Astros. Trevor Story of the Rockies.

And Baez of the Mets, via the Cubs.

Baez was a career NL guy, mostly with the Cubs (8 seasons) which meant that Tigers fans only caught glimpses of him. From afar, he looked appetizing as an option to play shortstop in Detroit. I mean, the Tigers were going with Niko Goodrum and Zach Short for goodness sake.

But after Javy was inked to a 6-year, $140 million contract in December 2021, Cubs and Mets fans started littering social media with warnings to Tigers fans and messages of good riddance to Baez himself.

Mainly, the chiding was over Baez’s lack of plate discipline. Which, as it turned out, was like saying William Perry lacked plate discipline—but of a different variety.

It didn’t take long for those warnings about Baez to become reality.

The image of Javy swinging at a low and away breaking ball that was some 6-8 inches off the plate became tragically normal.

OK, Javy said—and so did Hinch. Let’s put 2022 behind us and start fresh in 2023, where Javy doesn’t feel the weight of expectations as much from having signed the big contract. It’ll be Miggy’s last season and so maybe the focus will be on that.

It got worse.

Baez’s OBP went from .278 to .267. His slugging plummeted from .393 to .325. His OPS of .593 was hilarious—if it hadn’t been so destructive, and embarrassing for a starting shortstop in the big leagues.

What made it worse were reports that Baez’s skull was on the thick side. That he was often counseled on what his issues were, and despite acknowledging them, he repeated them.

And from Javy, it was always, “I’m better than this. I’ll get it together.”

But he never did.

Now it’s Year 3 and Javy is 31 and it’s not cute anymore—not that it ever was.

The Tigers have a chance to make some noise in a weak AL Central this season, with some pitchers getting healthy and some veteran bats added to a lineup that features youth that one can be cautiously optimistic about.

They can’t afford to carry a starting SS with an OPS of less than .600.

Baez is making too much money ($22-27 million per year) to DFA him, I would think. That’s a lotta Little Caesars pizza dough to eat.

This past off-season was supposed to return a better Baez this year. He bragged about his workouts and that he felt like he was in the best physical shape he’s been in recent memory.

When will we see the fruits of Javy’s labor?

It’s early, but five games into Grapefruit play, Báez has gone hitless through his first 11 trips to the plate, with five strikeouts.

Yeah it’s early, but with Baez, you don’t really need a large sample size to see that things don’t appear to be getting any better.

Hinch has been careful not to publicly shame Baez. There’s plenty of that to go around by other baseball observers and Tigers fans. Since the Tigers signed Javy, the manager always has a plausible reason for why Baez is underperforming.

You have to think that Hinch’s patience is wearing thin.

No more than the fans’, however. Not even close. Many were done with Javy two years ago.

If the Tigers are going to contend in 2024, looks like they might be doing it in spite of Javy Baez instead of because of him.

Not good.