The Tigers announced a series of roster moves today, including the selection of right-hander Ty Madden, which was reported yesterday. The club also recalled right-hander Mason Englert from Triple-A Toledo. To open active roster spots for those two, the club placed right-hander Will Vest on the paternity list and optioned left-hander Bryan Sammons to Toledo. To open a 40-man spot for Madden, infielder Javier Báez was transferred to the 60-day injured list. Manager A.J. Hinch informed reports that Báez will undergo right hip surgery and is done for the year. Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press was among those to relay the news on X.
Báez was placed on the 10-day injured list a few days ago, with what the Tigers described as lumbar spine and hip inflammation. It’s possible the issue has been bothering him for a while, as he also missed close to a month earlier this year due to lumbar spine inflammation. He previously told Petzold that he has dealt with lower back discomfort throughout his time with the Tigers.
Perhaps the back/hip issues provide some kind of explanation for his precipitous drop-off in terms of performance since coming to Detroit. Through the end of 2021, he had a career batting line of .264/.307/.477 for a wRC+ of 104. When combined with his strong shortstop defense and baserunning, he had produced 21.6 wins above replacement in the eyes of FanGraphs.
The Tigers signed him to a six-year, $140MM deal going into 2022 but he has hit just .221/.262/.347 over the life of that deal for a wRC+ of 69. That includes an atrocious .184/.221/.294 line and 41 wRC+ this year. Among players with at least 250 plate appearances this season, only Brandon Drury has a lower wRC+. Báez has also had less impressive numbers on defense in recent years and his contract is considered one of the worst in the sport at the moment.
Ideally, the surgery will address the issue and allow Báez to put this miserable stretch behind him, but there’s no guarantee that will come to pass. He’s now 31 years old, turning 32 in the offseason. That means the rest of the contract will see him trying to battle against the standard effects of time, in addition to overcoming this back/hip problem.
Even if he doesn’t get all the way back to his pre-Tigers form, there’s a lot of room for improvement over his current results, which the Tigers would happily take. They are pivoting to a young crop of position players, giving lots of playing time to infielders Colt Keith, Jace Jung and Trey Sweeney. The Tigers likely view that group as a more significant part of their next competitive window than Báez, but even if he could become a solid utility/bench player, that would likely be viewed as a nice consolation relative to how rough things have gone over the past three seasons. His deal will still have $73MM and three years remaining after the conclusion of the 2024 season.
Oh man his contract is starting to look bad
Starting? It looked bad Dec. 2, 2021.
“It looked bad Dec 2nd”…Where are all the people who bashed the Cubs for letting Baez & Bryant walk?
Nobody was bashing the Cubs for letting Baez walk, as it was easy to predict that Baez’s offense would collapse as soon as he started losing bat speed.
Bryant and Contreras they got bashed for, although things haven’t worked out well for Bryant after leaving Chicago, either.
The Cubs didn’t let Baez walk they traded him away.
They knew he’d never walk.
The Cubs traded Baez to the Mets for Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Worst outcome for a 100+ million deal ever?
Chris Davis and Rendon seem worse. Baez is in the same conversation which that only makes it pretty much equally as bad.
Forgot about Crush Davis! Ok, top 3 is still solid.
Understatement of the year
Sort of like saying ouch this fire is hot
It was bad the day it was signed.
It was not a particularly good contract when it was first signed. I don’t think it was absolutely bad though. Tigers made a huge step forward in 2021 especially to cose the season. Middle Infielders were already none to be on verge of becoming scarce in the following free agent markets.
It was a given he’d pile up Ks. His 17 HRs led Tigers in 2022. Collapse of lineup around him likely also hurt his #s with lack of protection. Baddoo, Schoop, Tork, Barnhart, Candelario, and Meadows all disappointed. The entire lineup imploded.
Baez and Bryant. The Cubs were very smart to let both go.
Addition by subtraction. The Tigers are already better just by putting Javy on the 60-day IL. Seriously, though, I hope fixing the hip will help get him on track next year. If not, buh-bye!
Tigers fans, REJOICE!
I’d be so frustrated seeing him come up with risp and just watch the opposing team throw slider further and further off the plate KNOWING he will swing.Sadly his hip surgery won’t fix that.
Don’t forget the high cheese, that is clearly a ball he’d always swing right through.
Yep. Perfect time to look at the young ‘uns. This is like a 30-game, pre-Spring Training. I love it. I’d much rather watch these guys play.
I have a feeling Javy’s hip/back issue is degenerative, not helped by his violent swings through the years. I wonder if he is even able to stop a swing at a sweeper without his back exploding.
Tigers are 20-8 since Baez went on the DL. True facts – “addition by subtraction”
No kidding! Just waive him in the off-season and eat the money
Hip injury? Hmmm
Is there surgery to make him not swing at pitches 15 inches out of the zone?
Brain transplant surgery.
Tunnel vision eyes and arms extension surgery
Probably the reason for the hip surgery..
Ĥe did this when he was with Chicago.
Exactly, so everyone but the Tigers knew that Baez’s days as a good hitter weren’t going to last much longer. As it turned out, they didn’t last ANY longer.
He would be better at swinging a bat lobotomized than right now
You spelled “career-ending” wrong.
Sorry to say, there is so far no direct correlation found between having a bad hip and hitting for a .571 OPS while being paid waaay too much money.
Well, then I’d like to apologize on behalf of all mankind.
Thanks! I’m too short to reach up his pedestal.
It would be an interesting move to see the Tigers claim Tristan Gray as a backup infielder.
Why? How bad do we need a Miami reject? I thought we had enough of our own
Baez’s contract is a huge amount of money to eat, but I still can’t see why the Tigers would trot him out there in 2025 when they’d otherwise have a chance at the division. They might even be contending this year if Baez hadn’t been so downright awful.
I guess he’s no longer El Mago?
More like El Maggot
He’s still El Mago! The sound of the bat going whoosh is magic!
I could get behind the hip/back injury (pun intended) as the cause of his troubles if say his timing was consistently a bit off, but the swings at balls off the plate that peak Vlad Guerrero couldn’t touch are much more vision than reach or being a bit slow.
He swings violently. So does Carpenter….with a lot more success. However, they both have had back problems. At his age, I’m not surprised that Baez is having them, but at Carpenter’s I am.
Yet another long term deal goes bust
And the players think I should have sympathy for their financial situation
They don’t live in the real world
The tigers have to get rid of him this off-season, either eat the money or send a prospect with him to the cubs
He wouldn’t get starting playing time in Chicago but it would be a fun reunion
As a Cubs fan, Javy will always be welcomed in Chicago. What he helped do in 2016 was magical.
That being no thanks to a reunion.
Hate to say this but maybe there’s an insurance policy on it and they can retire him for no cost! Oh we can only hope
An insurance policy would only help if he suffers a major injury next year. It could happen, but it’s far from guaranteed..
Dudes a straight up scumbag
Why?
I was at a game in sf when he was with the cubs we were right behind home plate and these young girls were booing him they were like 10-12 and he gets on and scores and walks past them and sexually licks his lips and winked at them it was nasty
That makes him a scumbag? Lol. I would love for you to haya camera or people watching you all the time and see if you do anything “bad”
Fine w me I definitely don’t make obscene gestures towards 10 year olds
The Tigers need to move on from Baez. There is no value left in keeping him on the roster.
At this point, the money is spent. May as well see how he recovers in spring training. Chris is too cheap to pay off the contract. Besides, they need a rh sub for the IF since everyone else is LH.
As much as I’d like to see him gone, I think you’re right and he gets one last chance in a more limited role.
It’s about 6 months until Spring Training opener. There’s a chance his recovery and rehab take longer than expected. Tigers may have the opportunity to start the ’25 season w/out Javy. In any case, Spring Training should be a wide-open tryout at SS. Best 2 make the team.
$73M reasons why the Tigers likely keep him around, even if he is just a back up.
Would be nice if MLBTR would mention the passing of ’68 Tiger 3rd baseman, Don Wert. My favorite Tiger as a 13 yr. old.
They did
How is hip surgery going to fix the terrible batting approach that he’s had his whole career? The only reason Baez was ever a great or even good hitter was due to his elite bat speed. Once that started slowing down due to age, his whole offensive game went with it. The Tigers really should’ve known better.
No, you weren’t slammed by everyone. Tons of fans and analysts, myself included, fully agreed on that prediction for years before it happened, at least over at Fangraphs we did.
FG was really down on the Davis, Hosmer, and Baez deals before the ink dried iirc.
Baez had a career ending contract when Detroit decided to pay him all that money
Unfortunate for Javy but kind of sickens me that some fans are actually happy about this. I get he hasn’t lived up to his contract but no one shold be happy a guy is hurt or has to have surgery.
It comes with the territory of being a professional athlete that grossly underperforms. Fans aren’t glad he’s a person that’s hurt, they are glad there is a legitimate reason to not watch him drag the team down with his poor play. They want to see the team play better or see what the future brings. It’s like Orioles fans being glad Chris Davis went to IL, the preferable option for team fans is to not watch overpriced trainwreck players bring down everyone’s enjoyment. And whether that happen by injury or paternity leave, we are all just glad the player is gone.
Not if you own the team or pay the bills, like the GM!
GM doesn’t own the team or pay the bills. And most fans care very little what an owner or GM care about, myself included. As a taxpayer, I could not care less about the fiscal concerns of the owner unless teams becomes taxpayer owned entities. In fact, if an owner gets taxpayer funds for their team I hope they Aubrey McClendon themselves.
A GM is held accountable for how the team performs vs how much money is paid. For example, Billy Beane with Oakland. best GM in baseball with a limited Budget
There’s no reason to be happy about this unless you’re a Tigers fan, since he wasn’t helping the Tigers anyway.
However, it is perfectly acceptable to be happy when a good player on a rival team gets hurt, just as long as it isn’t a permanent injury.
Turns out, those fans being happy he’s not playing were right. 20-8 since Javy went on IL and cusp of playoffs. Just think what could have been….
I don’t like how he carries himself, get him away from the young players. There must be a way to parlay this into a career ending injury that insurance will cover. Get in contact with some NHL execs from Vegas.
I didn’t even know Javier was still in the league.
60 day is as good a parking spot as any in the majors. Ty looked real good, and Parker just went yard to tie the game up. Go Tigers.
Speaking of parking spots, not having to devote one to Baez at Comerica for the rest of the year is probably the only positive he’s brought to the team in 2024.
Ranked really high on the list of terrible contracts given out by the Tigers.
This Maeda contract looks pretty bad too. Hinch simply can’t pitch the guy.
Tork bomb in 7th 5 run inning. Madden missed a potential win credit by one inning. LETS GO TIGERS !
Crushing blow for the Tigers.
Allegator eating up resources. I hope he gets better. Used to be one of the most exciting and productive players in baseball!
.500 again. The injuries back then in May and June 4 the last day at even. The summer with Perez and Malloy kept the team near .500 all summer. Along with Keith getting adapted the Tigers have finally got back. If they had won 2 more games a month they’d be among the leaders. They are getting better each game.
Shake-Up
FanGraphs (well ZiPS) projected Baez for 14 WAR over the course of his contract. He’s produced 1.8 so far.
Not the outcome that was expected – despite what everyone here claims that they knew
Platoon bat vs lefties+ defensive infielder replacement next year. Go to a hitting coach this off-season
The Tigers should cut him following the season and eat the contract. If they do not then they likely run the risk of losing a young player in the rule 5 draft.
They will if we start the season winning
The dude is done. Cut him and suck it up. It was a ridiculous contract anyway, hopefully they’re a bit more careful next time they sign a FA.
Maybe after his hip surgery, he can get LASIK surgery, so he can stop swinging at pitches in the left handers batters box !
Apparently the Mets will regret not signing Baez. si.com/mlb/mets/news/why-the-mets-made-a-mistake-b…
Maybe they could release Baez because of his hip and receive an insurance settlement. Best case scenario.
I kinda hate to ask…or imply….but he does own a ranch and I know how hard I would be celibrating……and
Hinch was there……