What Did the Tigers See in Javier Baez?

 Beginning in the 2021 season, the Tigers seemed destined for some desperately needed successful seasons.  Therefore, they were ready to add some corner pieces to build a team around.  One of those major pieces was supposed to be Javier Baez.  He was supposed to contribute with his offensive and defensive abilities to this team.  Unfortunately, so far with the Tigers, he has been unable to put it all together to have success on the field.

In studying his career statistics, it’s difficult to determine what the front office of the Tigers saw in him that deemed him deserving of a of a long term contract.  In a brief look, you find that he has never played more than 160 games in one season.  In fact, for most of his career, he’s played well under 100 games per season, while having a mid .200 batting average most of the time.  Furthermore, in his 9 year career, he has never had a .300 batting average.  Obviously, these numbers indicate that Baez should have never been considered a marquee player.

With his lack of playing time, it may be difficult to know how he could perform if he were able to string together years of significant playing time.  Looking at the sample we do have however, we see he has struck out well over 100 times per season, and has been unable to attain 500 plate appearances in any particular season.  In order to be considered an elite player, you must hit close to .300 rather consistently.  In Baez’s case, his highest average in any season was .299.  With these numbers, it’s hard to see why the Tigers wanted to make him a foundational piece of their organization.

Not only do Javier Baez’s offensive performances not meet the standards of what is expected of him, but his defensive statistics even further bolster the premise that he does not deserve to be labeled a great player.  In 2022, he lead MLB in errors, and appeared to struggle throwing the ball accurately. To further display his defensive shortcomings, he ranks 133rd in defensive play in MLB.  Unfortunately, Baez has fell far below what was expected of him by the organization.  It’s difficult to find what the Tigers did, in order to place such high expectations of him.

To develop great teams, you must build around players that have great track records offensively, defensively, or both.  You can’t depend on players who have had brief periods of success here or there to become elite players.  It was quite apparent that this may have been what the team expected Baez to do.  To give him an incentive, they gave him a hefty contract that may come back to bite the organization in their hind quarters.