Chicago Cubs: The recent disappearing act of Javier Baez

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.