Javier Baez: It Won’t Mean a Thing if He Don’t Fix His Swing

“It looks like he’s going to be able to stay in an up-the-middle position on the defensive spectrum,” added the National League scout. “When you have a combination of speed, defense and power, like he has, that’s hard to find in the middle of the diamond. In the end, he looks like a player who has a chance to legitimately contribute to a major-league club on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.”

No, that scout wasn’t talking about Cubs uberprospect Javier Baez, but rather about Cubs ex-uberprospect Brett Jackson , as told to David Laurila back in March, 2011. Before Baez, and Jorge Soler, and Kris Bryant, it was Jackson who was the Anointed Expurgator of Ruminant Curses. As you probably know, the goat turned out to be too strong for B-Jax, who struck out at an epic 41.5% rate with the Cubs before being exiled to the minors, where his bat continued to avoid contact with the same unerring purpose with which children avoid vegetables. Theo ultimately traded him to the Diamondbacks for a few Jerry Colangelo bobbleheads.

Here’s Jackson’s line from his fly-on-windshield season in 2012 with the Cubs:

144 PA, 41.5% K, .175/.303/.342, 78 wRC+.

And here’s Javy’s line as of September 14:

166 PA, 41.6% K, .174/.229/.387, 68 wRC+.

Scary stuff, kids. Now several caveats obviously apply here, including small sample size. The players themselves are quite different. Jackson was a five tool guy who was good at everything but exceptional at nothing. While Baez has certainly had to rearrange his garage to fit all his tools, his calling card is Sheffield-like bat speed. Baez is almost without doubt the most exciting .174 hitter the game has ever seen. But the question is whether the rapidly bleaching bones of Brett Jackson’s career stand as a warning to Baez, and to those in the Cubs front office that see him as an anchor tenant at Wrigley for years to come.

To examine this, I compared Baez’s progress from high-A to the majors with Jackson’s, and I also threw in two guys that have had immediate success in The Show. George Springer (another high K guy) and Soler (a much more disciplined prospect).

Starting at high-A, the players looked like this:

Baez:          337 PA, 23.1& K, .274/.338./.535, 145 wRC+

Jackson:    312 PA, 20.2%, .316/.422/.517, 170 wRC+

Soler:         236 PA, 16.1% K, .281/.343/.467, 128 wRC+

Springer:   500 PA, 26.2% K, .316./.398/.557, 143 wRC+.

This includes only Baez’s high-A appearances in 2013 — I’m leaving out 86 PAs from 2012 in which Baez was only modestly effective. B-Jax wins this round, although Soler’s advanced approach is already apparent.  All four had good years.

Here’s how they performed at AA:

Baez:          240 PA, 28.8% K, .294/.346/.638, 180 wRC+

Jackson:    297 PA, 24.9% K, .256/.373./.443, 123 wRC+

Soler:           79 PA, 19.0% K, .415/.494/.862, 265 wRC+

Springer:  323 PA, 29.7% K, .297/.399/.579, 174 wRC+

Jackson had two roughly equivalent AA seasons in 2010 and 2011 — I’m showing the latter here. Springer had 87 difficult appearances in AA in 2012 — I’m showing his breakout 2013 season. All four struck out more often in AA, but all except Jackson improved on their performances at high-A. Soler’s numbers were insane, and the Cubs quickly promoted him to AAA to give him some more challenging pitches to work with.

And speaking of AAA:

Baez:         434 PA, 30.0% K, .260/.323/.510, 108 wRC+

Jackson:   467 PA, 33.8% K, .256/.348/.479, 107 wRC+

Soler:         127 PA, 20.5% K, .282/.378/.618, 149 wRC+

Springer:  266 PA, 24.4% K, .311/.425/.626, 175 wRC+

This is Jackson’s 2012 line at AAA. He put up a better wRC+ of 128 in 2011, in 215 appearances. I’m showing Springer’s AAA numbers for 2013; he had 61 arbitration-delaying PAs in 2014, in which he performed even better before being promoted. Springer actually improved his whiff rate in AAA, turning in a dominating season. Soler’s ludicrous AA numbers came somewhat back to Earth, but he still raked, with a K% only slightly worse than in AA.

Baez and Jackson, on the other hand, began shipping water. Their seasons were not horrible, but they performed significantly worse than they had in AA, with rising (and in B-Jax’ case, skyrocketing) strikeout rates. Both would carry their decaying swings to the major league level, where they both have paid a huge price, whiffing over 40% of the time. Springer also added about 10% to his K rate on reaching the majors, but he started from a lower base, and retained enough on-base to be a plus hitter (.231/.336/.468) before injuries sidelined him.

If Jackson represents the sum of all Baez’ fears, Springer represents the hope. Springer actually struck out more frequently than Baez in the lower minors, but Springer found a way to reduce his strikeout rate at AAA, and has found a way to produce at the major league level even while whiffing a third of the time. While Springer may not be able to sustain this productivity unless he once again addresses his contact problems, his strikeout rate isn’t unheard of in the majors. Baez’ rate, at 41%, lies largely outside the realm of civilized baseball discourse.

As of this writing, no qualifying hitter has a K rate anywhere near 40%. Indeed, there are only four hitters with a K rate exceeding 30% (Chris Davis, Chris Carter, Adam Dunn, and B.J. Upton). Two of these guys (Carter and Dunn) are have a wRC+ over 100; the other two do not. The worst career strikeout rate (minimum 1000 PAs) belongs to Tyler Flowers at 34.8%. No player has long survived in the majors beyond this forbidding boundary. The worst career K rate for a player with a career wRC+ over 100 is the aforementioned Chris Carter, checking in at 33.6%. Baez has a long way to go to even reach this dismal rate.

He has perhaps taken some baby steps: after striking out at a 42.2% clip in August, he’s shaved that to 40% in September. His last golden sombrero was on September 5, so it’s been over a week. Umm … yeah … these are the flimsiest of straws to grasp. With Addison Russell, Starlin Castro, and Kris Bryant all staking claims on the Cubs infield, Baez may be running out of time to prove that he can prevent strikeouts from getting his goat.