Can Former Cubs Uber-Prospect Javier Baez Save Himself from Bust Status?

Javier Baez was one of the hottest names in baseball last year heading into spring training. In 2013, Baez, in his age-20 season, smashed 37 home runs and slugged .578 in 130 games between High-A Daytona and Double-A Tennessee.

As if on cue, Baez put on a show in major league camp with five booming home runs in 18 games, and he did so while playing a new position, second base. The Cubs assigned Baez to Triple-A Iowa to begin the regular season, but it was widely believed that the then-21-year-old would quickly hit his way to the major leagues.

Instead, Baez struggled mightily at Iowa to begin the year, batting .142 with 45 strikeouts in his first 28 games. He eventually settled in and put up numbers more on par with his previous seasons, finally earning a call-up with the Cubs in early August.

But Baez’s highly anticipated rookie season didn’t unfold as expected. In fact, it was pretty rough. Baez’s power was as advertised, as he hit nine home runs in his first 229 plate appearances. Unfortunately, so was his overly aggressive approach and lack of plate discipline, the combination of which led to a .169 batting average, .227 on-base percentage and staggering 41.5 percent strikeout rate.

While Baez currently is tabbed as the Cubs’ Opening Day second baseman, the team’s front office has made it clear they expect the 22-year-old to make significant adjustments moving forward.

A Deeper Look at Baez’s Rookie Season

Baez batted .188/.216/.411 with 49 strikeouts in 116 plate appearances in August, his first month in the major leagues. Those struggles intensified in September, as Baez produced a dismal .149/.239/.228 batting line with 46 strikeouts in 113 plate appearances. The right-handed hitter’s power basically disappeared during the season’s final month, as isolated power (ISO) plummeted from .223 to .079 between August and September.

"We didn't want to take him out of the lineup," Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer said of the team’s plan for Baez last season, per Carrie Muskat of MLB.com. "Every at-bat he was going to get while he was struggling was something he could learn from over the course of the winter. We wanted to make sure he got very consistent at-bats."

Baez’s inability to make consistent contact led to a 41.5 percent strikeout rate last season, which would have been the highest in the major leagues if Baez had enough plate appearances to qualify. Breaking balls in particular were his kryptonite, and pitchers naturally keyed in on that and fed him a lot of them, basically forcing Baez to make adjustments.

Baez’s 59 percent contact rate last year was the worst among major leaguers with at least 220 plate appearances, and his 13.7 percent line drive rate came dangerously close to earning the same unwanted distinction. His high fly-ball rate, 45.1 percent in 2014, is a power-friendly habit, and there’s no question where he can hit the ball really, really far.

However, Baez’s seemingly encouraging fly-ball rate featured an infield fly-ball rate of 20.8 percent, the third-worst rate among big leaguers with 220 plate appearances. So, it makes sense why Baez batted only .169 last year: lots of strikeouts, too many pop-ups and minimal hard contact.

Is There Hope?

After reportedly losing 15 pounds since the end of the MLB season, per MLB.com’s Muskat, and spending most of the winter playing in Puerto Rico, Baez is taking the right steps toward a rebound performance in 2015.

That said, his numbers this offseason for Cangrejeros de Santurce weren’t great, as Baez batted only .233/.306/.442 with two home runs and 21 strikeouts in 11 regular-season games. In the Puerto Rican championship series, Baez went 4-for-24 with one double and nine strikeouts over six games. And while Santurce went on to play in the Caribbean Series, Baez was told by the Cubs that, with spring training on the horizon, his offseason had come to an end.

While Baez’s on-field performance left something to be desired, the Cubs’ front office was pleased with the progress he made during the offseason.

Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein spoke to Muskat about Baez's winter.

"His approach to the game and to practice has been really good all winter," Epstein said. "He's been showing up to the park [in Puerto Rico] early and working to get better. He's been playing the game hard, he's been playing good defense, he's been staying focused and helping his team win."

The organization showed full support of Baez during his time in Puerto Rico, as new Cubs hitting coach John Mallee spent five days with the youngster breaking down his swing on video. New manager Joe Maddon also made a trip.

Anthony Rizzo’s ascent to stardom in the major leagues also offers hope that Baez might be able to overcome the issues with his plate discipline and approach. For those who don’t remember, Rizzo had an atrocious rookie season with the Padres back in 2011, as the then-21-year-old batted just .141/.281/.242 with one home run in 153 plate appearances.

Since joining the Cubs, however, Rizzo had made considerable progress in every subsequent season, highlighted by an All-Star 2014 campaign in which he finished 10th in the MVP voting.

	Year	Age	PA	HR	BB%	K%	AVG	OBP	SLG	O-Swing%	O-Contact%
Baez	2014	21	229	9	6.6	41.5	.169	.227	.324	41.0	42.1
Rizzo	2011	21	153	1	13.7	30.1	.141	.281	.242	34.7	57.7

The differences between Rizzo’s 2011 and Baez’s 2014 are their O-Swing and O-Contact rates, as the former chased fewer pitches outside the strike zone and made contact against them more than half of the time. Baez, on the other hand, produced the second-worst O-Contact rate last season after Brandon Hicks (40.4 percent), and no hitter with an O-Swing rate above 40 percent made contact less often. This highlights Baez’s biggest area for improvement moving forward: laying off pitches outside of the zone.

“Javy is extraordinarily talented and also very raw at the same time,” Epstein said, via Patrick Mooney of CSNChicago.com. “He came up as a 21-year-old and learned an awful lot this year. On one hand, how talented he is and how some of those things translate right away to the big-league level. And on the other hand, quite a few adjustments that he’ll have to make and just how good major-league pitching is.

“His approach and some mechanical things need to be tweaked. He’s well aware of that and excited to make those changes without losing his identity as an aggressive, feisty hitter in the box.”

So will Baez begin to make these improvements and rebound in 2015?

Both the Steamer and ZIPS projection models believe Baez’s strikeout rate will come down next season, likely falling somewhere between 30 and 33 percent, to go along with a walk rate of around six percent.

	PA	HR	BB%	K%	AVG	OBP	SLG
Steamer	589	27	6.1	30.0	.221	.276	.418
ZIPS	650	30	5.8	32.6	.233	.283	.447

The swing-and-miss that gets cut from Baez's overall game should push his batting average back above the Mendoza line, with ZIPS forecasting it to eclipse .230 on the year. Meanwhile, both models believe Baez to be good for nearly 30 home runs.

However, Baez isn’t the type of player who is likely to have things click for him overnight, meaning there probably won’t be a huge improvement with his approach next season. Rather, given his off-the-chart raw ability, it’s more important for Baez to make small, incremental adjustments along the way.

Therefore, hitting .230 with 30 home runs next season and a strikeout rate of around 30 percent would be a big step in the right direction for the 22-year-old. Sure, the holes in his game will be exposed and highlight his overall need for improvement, but making more consistent contact in 2015 could set Baez up for greater progress in future seasons.