For the second straight game Thursday, the Tigers' $140 million shortstop was on the bench. With Javier Baez mired in a brutal slump at the plate, he was a spectator for Detroit's final two games against the Twins this week before a road trip that starts Friday in the Bronx.
"Watching some other guys play to reset before we go to New York and play the Yankees I think is key for him," A.J. Hinch said Thursday before the Tigers' third straight win. "It's a little bit of a mental break."
Aside from an electric performance on Opening Day, the first two months of Baez's Tigers career have been rotten. He is a two-time All-Star and a Silver Slugger winner. He has looked nothing like it at the plate, where he's swinging out of his shoes and coming up empty. Through 40 games, Baez is hitting .197 with a .542 OPS and striking out in a quarter of his plate appearances.
He admitted earlier this week, "I'm not seeing the ball. I'm not following the ball. And you can't hit what you can't see."
Which caught the ear of A.J. Hinch.
"One of the things, I don't want to say alarming, but one of the concerns is when he told the media the other day that he's not seeing the ball," Hinch said Thursday on the Stoney & Jansen Show. "If that's really what this is, he's not picking up spin, he's not seeing the ball very well, that is a recipe for disaster -- for any hitter. Whether you are a guy that chases or not, if you don't see the ball and track the ball and aren't able to put a good pass on a good pitch, you're not going to hit at this level."
To be clear, Baez isn't literally struggling to see. He doesn't need an eye exam. When he says he's 'not seeing the ball,' he means he's not picking it up out of the pitcher's hand. He's not differentiating fastballs from breaking balls, which is why he's whiffing on almost 40 percent of his swings and chasing almost 50 percent of pitches out of the zone. His 52.6 percent whiff rate on breaking balls is the highest of his career.
"He has admitted this is not who he is and not who he wants to be. Of course we didn't expect him to have the worst stretch of his career in his first couple months as a Tiger," said Hinch. "There's better times ahead. We'll remember this conversation when he's super hot and hitting the ball all over the place. Last year he had a miserable stretch and went on to hit 31 homers.
"The feast on the Javy Baez side is going to be very fun. The famine part has been frustrating for everybody, including Javy."
Baez's whiff rate of 39.8 percent puts him in the bottom two percentile of MLB hitters, per Baseball Savant. But his strikeout rate of 24.8 percent is actually the second lowest of his career. To Hinch's point, Baez endured a similarly hellish 40-game slump last season when he hit .188 with a .669 OPS from May to July.
He hit .321 with a .960 OPS in his next 50 games.
"I'm trying to make the adjustments and see the ball," he said. "I'm not going out during the game and working on it. I work on it before or after. It's hard with these pitchers and their plan. But there's no other option than to come back tomorrow and try again."
Hopefully for Baez and the Tigers, tomorrow starts today.
