Cubs Call Up Baez

Let's not get too excited, I mean, it's just one more guy for the starting lineup, and there's a strong chance that he will struggle making the big step from AAA to the big leagues, but yes, Javier Baez has been called up. There are a lot of things to take into account here, but at the same time it's just another small step in this rebuild that will hopefully eventually add up to make the Cubs perennial contenders.

The first thing I'll bring up is that Baez was promoted to AA last year about a month earlier than his promotion today relative to the season. He struggled for a couple of weeks before he exploded to end the season. I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened here. This time around it may even take longer, given the struggles Baez had moving from AA to AAA between seasons. Don't expect him to come up and tear things apart. He's going to need to take his lumps at this level too.

So with that negativity out of the way, I'm going to totally argue against myself here. First things first, he's starting his career in Colorado, a great launching pad to boost his confidence early with. At the same time the difference between A ball and AA, then AA and AAA are much different jumps than the jump from AAA to the majors. The jump from High A to AA sees the player suddenly start to see more prospects with more tools. Pitchers who have better pitches, other hitters who have more raw talent as well. It's often considered to be the biggest jump a player really makes on the way up. The jump from AA to AAA sees the prospect go from seeing more of those high talent guys to seeing more guys who play in a much smarter manner. A lot of AAA players are fringe MLB guys, veterans who try to get ahead by pitching to players like they'd pitch to MLB players. This is where scouting reports on players really start to play a factor. It was tough for Baez at first. He had to learn how to adjust to that, but in the end he was able to, and able to in a huge way. A start like he had could often be seen as a death knell to a player for that season, making for a lost year, but Baez bounced back so much that his OPS for the whole season, horrible start included, is .833. That's a very good OPS even without a massive slump. Beyond even that, he has so much momentum going for him after this past weekend that it's going to be tough, especially for a pitcher in Colorado, to stop so much momentum coming from a player with so much talent.

So that's that, there's the arguments for and against him succeeding. Sure, there's other arguments, but those are the main ones on each side. Baez is an incredible talent and has a very good chance at helping the Cubs in the near future. If I had to put my money on it, I'd guess that he struggles for the first 10-14 games (a little over 2 weeks), and then is able to break out. I don't think it will be with his power at first though, I see him breaking out by getting on base and then using his speed at first. I know this sounds a little bit funny, especially with how few walks Baez took, especially early on at AAA, but if you look at his game logs, you can see that in the last 6 weeks or so, the walk rate skyrocketed. I feel like he's going to try to kill every ball early on, and then when he struggles he'll look at how he pulled himself out of his slump in AAA, by being more selective and making the pitchers give him better pitches to hit. He'll sacrifice some power early on and start to find himself on base. After that I think the power will come by the end of the season, probably about a week into September (going by my timeline, you can never really say probably when speculating), and then he goes on a mini-tear to end the season. Of course that's hopeful thinking, but I don't think it's dreaming either. Still though, I'm not saying this is what will happen, but it's my prediction. I'm simply speculating, and nobody in the entire world can say that they know exactly what will happen.

So, with all of the excitement finally coming for the big league club, what about the farm? Do the Cubs still have the top minor league system in all of baseball? Well, I'd like to say they do. Most writers out there consider Baez, and even Alcantara at this point, to still be guys in the Cubs system rather than established big league players, which is fine, especially since Baez hasn't played a single game at the big league level, and Alcantara has only played in 21 games. Still, personally, if I were in charge, just to set a limit (sure, if a position player had only played in 3 games, there would be an exception), I would generally make it that a player who has play in the bigs is no longer considered a prospect until they go back down to the minors, assuming they do.

There's still a lot more in the Cubs system though. I mentioned to one of my friends earlier today that Javier Baez isn't even the only good Cubs prospect (still a prospect to me until tomorrow) with the last name of Baez. While that's more of a chance thing with Jeffrey Baez sharing a last name with him, it does really get through how good the Cubs minor league system is. There's still Kris Bryant, Addison Russell, Albert Almora, Jorge Soler, Kyle Schwarber, Jeimer Candelario, Paul Blackburn, Pierce Johnson, CJ Edwards, Billy McKinney, Dan Vogelbach, Duane Underwood, Jen-Ho Tseng, Corey Black, Gleyber Torres, Eloy Jimenez, Christian Villanueva, Jacob Hanneman, Dillon Maples, Carson Sands, Josh Conway, Justin Steele, Dylan Cease (at some point), James Norwood, Jake Stinnett, Mark Zagunis, Chesney Young, Kevonte Mitchell, Rob Zastryzny, Armando Rivero, Arodys Vizcaino, Gioskar Amaya, Trevor Clifton, Marco Hernandez, Eric Jokisch, Ivan Pineyro, James Pugliese, Jeffrey Baez (already mentioned in the whole Baez thing), Tyler Skulina, Charcer Burks, Stephen Bruno, and Jeferson Mejia. I'm sure there's a ton of guys that I'm missing, and I just named 42 guys, not just names that are there, but guys who have some sort of legitimate hope of becoming solid MLB players. Of course not all of them will make it, as there's not even enough room on the 40 man roster for all of those guys, and either way, there's always a solid number of prospects that just don't make it. However, the more guys you have, the better the chance of them succeeding is. Heck, I already realized that I didn't even mention Victor Caratini up there, and even Jonathan Martinez is a decent prospect, although I would be cautious in putting him with that group up there yet. Still, the parade of prospects just doesn't end in this system. When Epstein and Hoyer took over I was having trouble coming up with 10 prospects in the Cubs system that were that good. True, some of the ones above were in the system at that time, but most of those guys had not developed to the prospects they are now at that point. The vast majority of those guys have been brought over since then.

So despite losing Javier Baez, I still think the Cubs still have the best minor league system in baseball. There's not only very high quality top end guys, there's a massive amount of depth in that system and an underrated group of pitchers. This is far from the end of it. Even when Bryant, Russell, Soler, and Almora are up on the big league squad, the Cubs will still have a strong system with Schwarber, McKinney, and a number of other guys at AA and AAA at that point. Will it still be #1 at that point? It's doubtful, but it will still be one of the better systems in baseball.

Javier Baez getting the call to the Cubs is very exciting. I doubt he comes right out and tears NL pitchers a new b-hole, but I do think that by the end of the season he'll be looking good at the plate and will be ready to go once next season starts, a year in which the Cubs may actually look to be competitive.