What do I know?: Javier Baez

My process for Javier Baez took a similar route as with Marcus Semien. Since he had not missed a bunch of games, I could use just career WAR to compare to other players. I don’t need to get guys who have similar WAR/game and then figure out who has played in x games, nothing like that. Just straight up data.

If you are unsure of who Baez is, he’s a defensive wizard. I mean, he’s literally a human highlight reel. Who also brings some power to the table. Over 7 seasons, he’s accumulated 17.5 fWAR. Seems like it’s low, but other than power he doesn’t bring a ton. So let’s see some of his comps:

First thing I noticed: some repeat names. Not many, but some. Just popped out to me.

Second thing I noticed: there are some outliers here. Some who started out really well and then tailed off later, some that started slow and really picked it up.

But I need a group of “best” comps here. As I mentioned, Baez doesn’t do much with the bat outside of his power. That’s in large part because he owns only a 4.8% BB%. If you don’t walk, your bat will suffer. So that’s where I’ll get my group from. I decided to use 5.5% as my mark. Here’s the closest players:

There we go. 5 players that are both close in fWAR and close in terrible BB%. Somewhat different routes to get there, but there none the less.

Next up, I’d like to present the larger group and their WAR totals beyond age 28:

And again for the closer group

And… boy is that bleak. 7/$96.8M or 8/$87.2M. Though if you grab his closest comp, Jim O’Rourke, 14/$276.8M isn’t too bad.

On average that would be a 10/$154M contract. The $15M AAV seems like it’s something that could be legit, I don’t know about the years though. I’d guess in the 5–7 year ranges. 7/$111M would be about right. I can’t imagine he wants to sign for less than 9 figures.