Chicago Cubs: The recent disappearing act of Javier Baez

Chicago Cubs: From good to great?

This year Baez has improved in some key areas. His hard contact rate is up six points to 41.6 percent and his soft contact rate has dropped two percent. Baez is also using more of the field than ever before, with a career-best 29.8 percent of his hits going to the opposite field.

With these key adjustments, Baez launched into the 2019 season with the same hitting prowess he displayed in 2018.  By the end of April, he was slashing .302/.341/.612 with a .954 OPS and a 129 OPS+ through the first 27 games.  So much for a letdown.

Despite the team-wide power outage that struck in late May and went through the All-Star break, Javy has been the team’s best hitter after Willson Contreras.

In addition, Baez has been one of the most clutch hitters for the Cubs. His two-out RISP slash is  .395/.439/.842 with a 1.281 OPS.  In high leverage situations, he’s hitting .286/.311/.557 with an
.868 OPS.  Even in 0-2 counts, normally a spot when he was most likely to strike out, he is proving a tough out.  This season, he is slashing .286/.286/.667 in that situation.

The days ahead in 2019 certainly looked bright for the smiling, leather-flashing El Mago. Then a different kind of magic happened.  With the wave of an analytical wand and a poof of smoke, it all went away.

Chicago Cubs: What happened?

Did some evil sabermetric diety finally decide that there had to be a price paid for all the strikeouts? Did some BABIP god deign to bring him back to earth?

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Because all of sudden El Mago is gone. There’s a hole in the lineup now when he’s at the plate. It’s a big hole. The slugging has cratered, the batting average has followed right behind, and the already low OBP is nearing meltdown.

In the last eight games, Baez is slashing .289/.289/.447 for a .737 OPS, and in the last four games, he’s gone just .211/.211/.263 for a .474 OPS.

What changed to produce by any measure these awful numbers? Is it just a little slump? A single cloud in an otherwise clear blue sky? Small sample size?  Or is something more sinister afoot? Because this happened suddenly.

What changed was moving Javy from the four-spot in the lineup to the two-spot.  Cause and effect or coincidence?  Those sorry numbers above are Baez’s slash batting in the two-spot since early July.  Overall on the season from the two-spot?  .245/.245/.377.

Now, maybe the Cubs will decide to wait this out. Perhaps he’ll return to form once he adjusts to the new line up spot.  Maybe.  But here is the question — why?  Why would you change it up on a guy who is killing it? Normally you do that when a player is in a funk.  Baez was in no funk.

There are probably some analytics that informs this decision. I’m a firm believer in analytics, to a point.  And that point is right here. This has to change. If El Mago doesn’t figure it out very soon, put him back in the four-spot.