Archive for Javier Baez

It just hasn’t been Salvador Perez’s season so far. He missed the Royals’ first 20 games with a Grade 2 MCL tear in his left knee, which he sustained while carrying luggage. Perez responded well upon his return, posting an .840 OPS over his first 11 games and even catching both games of a doubleheader just four days after getting activated.

Since then, Perez has been hampered by a different type of baggage. Over his last 54 games, he has been batting .194 overall and just .201 on balls in play. His xBA over that period, according to Baseball Savant, is .257, but that doesn’t mean that Perez’s fantasy owners should just sit back and enjoy the positive regression to come. Over last month, encompassing 101 plate appearances, Perez has batted .163 with one home run and three doubles, and his hard contact rate has been a pedestrian 34.7 percent.
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It’s that wonderful time of year where preliminary positional rankings starting pouring out for the upcoming season. Because I needed another reason to look like a fool by the end of it. The third base position opens 2017 with plenty of intrigue, with a couple of newish faces to the mix and one notable name departing for a new position. Let’s all pour one out for Matt Carpenter. My goal is to be far more consistent on the rankings side in 2017, which means more opportunity for folks to ponder, “Just what in the world is this guy thinking?”

Let’s get to it with some cleverly named tiers:

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My original intention for this week’s column was to continue on with examining some of the 2016 performances of third basemen. However, given recent events, I am now presented with an opportunity to examine a versatile (and, as such, a third base-eligible) player that has easily emerged as one of my favorite players to watch, in all of baseball. This has been a growing trend for me, and many others with North Side loyalties, over the past couple of years. The rest of the country, however, spent the National League Division Series matchup between the Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants learning just what Javier Baez brings to the table.

We’re not going to talk about the glove here. For one, it really speaks for itself. Javy Baez might have the best set of hands I’ve ever seen a baseball player possess. His instincts are off the charts, along with a strong arm. Toss in the athleticism and the versatility, and it’s really no wonder that Joe Maddon is comfortable deploying him at the five different positions at which he appeared this year. He maintains fantasy eligibility at second, shortstop, and, of course, third base.

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One of the drawbacks of adjusting to having a weekly column is that there are only so many opportunities for features in general, let alone ones that can avoid being outdated or immediately undermined. Given that we’re still in early August, though, allow me to indulge in some samples from July for this particular column. I tried to steer clear of the big names, largely because their stock tends to remain up throughout the year. And if it doesn’t, it finds a way to right itself in relatively short order. Circumstances for each presented here are different. Some guys have seen increased opportunity for playing time at different positions while others were moving around the field and getting at-bats, only to see their respective club’s lineup solidified and land them on the bench. Either way, here’s a sampling of folks who have their stock up heading into the middle of August and the home stretch of the regular season and a few who face questions moving forward.

Stock Up

Javier Baez – There is virtually nothing that Javy Baez cannot do on a baseball field. He’s hitting for power and average while providing elite defense at a variety of positions. That type of player in invaluable. He’s only logged five games thus far in August, with the Cubs having a couple of off-days mind you, but is coming off of a month of July where he hit .325 and reached base at a .364 clip. The strikeout rate is obviously still high, as it will probably always be, but his improved approach is evident but his ever-slightly-increasing walk rate (up to 4.5% for the month of July). He didn’t hit for quite as much power as he did in June (ISO came in at .157), but he made really solid contact throughout the month, with his 15.0% soft contact rate representing his lowest of the season for any month, and a might impressive 19.3% linedrive rate. He’s not technically a starter anywhere on the depth chart, but there’s a reason that Joe Maddon is finding him at-bats on a near daily basis.

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People that know me away from the world wide web know that if there’s one thing that I have a soft spot for, it’s super utility types. I have an unabashed love for the guys that you can plug in anywhere and still get a little bit of offensive production from. Ben Zobrist, Josh Harrison, Brock Holt. Love ’em. This is a list that has since grown to include Javier Baez, and while I chose to focus on a member of the Chicago Cubs in my column last week, let’s circle back to the North Side to examine a player that is becoming an intriguing fantasy option each time he finds his way into the lineup. Which is becoming quite a bit of late.

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I always enjoy a quality theme when composing these tiers. From Kurt Russell movies to hard rock bands to vacation destinations, I’ve had a healthy variety of themes. With WrestleMania coming up this weekend, I considered some sort of wrestling theme. However, my writing is frequently littered with wrestling references — both obvious and subtle — on a regular basis, so using it as a tier theme could amount to overkill.

For this first set of tiered rankings, I decided on the theme of Final Four teams. The main reason I settled on this theme is that I’m only splitting the players into four tiers this month. As the season gets underway, more clear delineations will likely develop within the tiers, and I’ll probably add more to reflect that.

As of right now, however, there’s just not much separating most of these guys right now. My second tier stretches all the way from No. 6 to No. 20, with much of the tier separated by extremely small gaps. For example, would it be surprising at all if Josh Harrison (No. 14) outperformed Ben Zobrist (No. 9), despite the fact that I have Zobrist five spots higher? That’s a pretty good illustration of how tightly grouped the players within these tiers are heading into the season.

If I forgot any players who you think should be on this list, please let me know in the comments section below and I’ll update it. For reference, I used Yahoo’s position eligibility requirements.

TIER ONE – NORTH CAROLINA TAR HEELS – (No. 1-5)
Jose Altuve
Dee Gordon
Robinson Cano
Ian Kinsler
Brian Dozier

Being the sole 1-seed remaining, UNC is obviously the favorite to take home the title. Of the Final Four teams, the Tar Heels are the one squad that was largely expected to be here all along, and they’re the total package. They should cruise to the championship game with little resistance. HOT TAKE: When you rank No. 2 out of 351 teams in both offensive efficiency and rebounding, you’re going to win a lot of games.

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Earlier this week, Jeff Zimmerman presented Early 2015 Hitter Projections using Steamer and/or ZIPS averaged ROS projections. The main contingency at this time: all values are set to 600 plate appearances. If I had all the time in the world, I would go through the list and manually adjust the PA based on lineup position, career PA/G, etc, but I’m not that much of a Mensch.

The next day, Mike Podhorzer highlighted some of the surprises ranked in the top 30. Again the 600 PA contingency is clear as Rajai Davis, Jarrod Dyson and Corey Dickerson make the list although if Dickerson doesn’t get platooned, I (and Mike) think he’ll surpass expectations. His splits page tells us there is no good reason to platoon him.

In Mike’s intro, he also referenced that there is no adjustment for position in Jeff’s SGP rankings. That’s where this post comes in.

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Reds at Pirates: The Josh Harrison show included a triple in the bottom of the 8th that gave the Pirates the lead for a Mark Melancon save (#25).

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