Who knows if the Tigers view 2025 as the former All-Star’s last stand, but they certainly should.
One player we didn’t talk a lot about this offseason was Detroit Tigers shortstop Javier Báez. Another woeful offensive season battling injuries progressed to the point that even his defense suffered in 2024. His year ended quietly with arthroscopic hip surgery that he’s only now fully rehabbed. The Tigers went to the postseason with Báez on the shelf, and his uncertain future also presented an obstacle to be navigated by the front office this offseason.
They weren’t particularly successful, although a little more certainty on in terms of offense with Gleyber Torres added to the mix should help somewhat. In the end, the money is already spent, so it’s the organization’s choice how long they decide to stock with their scuffling shortstop this year. Everyone sounds optimistic about the surgery, and Báez says he’s feeling good, but it feels like a real longshot to hope he can get back to a decent level of run production. On the other hand, the club isn’t exactly bursting with major league quality shortstops either.
Reports from camp are that Báez was bothered by the hip for months until the Tigers finally told him that he needed to get the surgery in early August or potentially miss the start of the 2025 season. As camp opened, the 32-year-old shortstop told reporters that he’d been stubborn about getting the surgery because he wasn’t in much pain beyond the usual wear and tear, but that’d he’d quickly realized how much of a difference the procedure had made in resolving the hip and related back issues that have plagued him the last two seasons.
Jason Beck of MLB.com quoted Báez in his piece on Saturday , which featured the usual Spring Training positivity but little certitude from A.J. Hinch and Scott Harris.
“Yeah, I mean, I’m hard-headed, trying not to get surgery,” Báez said. “But honestly it helped me. The day after surgery, I felt [better] with more balance. I never had surgery before, so it was hard for me, this slow process.
There’s no question that Báez hasn’t really been healthy during his Tigers’ tenure. He tore his thumb weeks into his debut with the club in 2022, and things have only gone downhill from there. The problem is that even if the surgery finally resolves the sustained issues he’s dealt with, and his defense returns to average or better levels, there’s still no reason to think it’s going to rejuvenate his bat. That problem combined with the Tigers unwillingness to move on, has cascading effects.
Part of the intense focus on Alex Bregman as the player who could add the most to the club was the fact that the Tigers didn’t have many openings with Báez and presumably Trey Sweeney at shortstop. Other than catcher, the Tigers have good options just about everywhere on the field, with the exception of the whole left side of the infield. The opportunity to significantly upgrade third base and keep the right field group in strong shape with a lot of Matt Vierling involved had to be pursued for the sheer reason that the Tigers don’t have any solutions at the shortstop position.
Trey Sweeney certainly looks useful and should be able to split time with Báez as long as he too can trim a little swing and miss out of his game. Whether he’s really a long-term answer at the position is still up in the air.
If the Tigers are going with platoons of Jace Jung and Vierling at third, and Sweeney and Báez at shortstop, with Wenceel Pérez and Kerry Carpenter holding down right field and the latter often in the DH slot, they’re going to be limited to choosing either McKinstry or Andy Ibáñez for the bench. The plethora of left-handed bats in the lineup might leave McKinstry the odd man out there, but Ibáñez is the one with an option remaining. The situation just limits the roster flexibility that Hinch and Harris both prefer.
For the first time in his career, Báez graded out a little below average defensively by both defensive runs saved (DRS) and outs above average (OAA) in 2024. Step one is seeing if he can get back into form defensively. If he can at least provide good defense, the Tigers aren’t going to move on easily. Struggling a lot in the field as well would be the final straw.
Even so, Javy Báez has to be way better at the plate than he was in 2024. There’s just no way around this any longer.
Báez hit .184/.221/.294 across 289 plate appearances and 80 games in 2024. He hit just six home runs and stole eight bases. That was only marginally worse than his 2023 marks, and he now has a wRC+ of 63 and 43 in consecutive years.
The final irony here is that Báez has trimmed his swing and miss and his overall strikeout rate down pretty significantly during his years in Detroit. He survived for years on stupendous athleticism and pure batspeed, fouling off bad pitches, swinging at everything, but often wearing pitchers down enough to get a meatball that he would then destroy. At all times he was an outlier hitter during his 2016-2021 prime.
So while it’s understandable that his body is breaking down considering the all-out aggression he displayed in all phases of the game over so many years, there’s no change in approach that is going to turn back time. The Tigers will hope the surgery gives him some reprieve, but there’s obviously a good chance that it’s already too late.
Tigers fans seemed to almost reach a place of acceptance with the aging star last season. There were some boos but more often it felt like the fanbase was just trying to desperately will him back into some kind of major league form at the plate. No denies that Báez has had a pretty outstanding career to go with a fairly remarkable story, as well as a place in baseball history for helping break the Chicago Cubs World Series curse. When Báez makes a slick play at shortstop, or occasionally drives an extra base hit somewhere, you can feel the fanbase wanting to root for him and trying to pick him up. This year is likely to be different.
Everyone has tasted the postseason now, and it’s going to be a lot harder to be patient if Báez is still struggling to provide some power or is off his game defensively once again. At this time last year, not many were boldly predicting a postseason berth for the Tigers. It seemed a reasonable possibility at best and so it was a little easier to put up with a badly struggling shortstop. Now there are expectations of fighting for another shot in the playoffs.
There are lots of reason to be reasonably optimistic about the 2025 Tigers. Unfortunately the shortstop position is the least of them. Hopefully the team gets out to a good start, because the Javy Báez question is going to loom like a black cloud over the early part of the season until he either turns things around or a tough decision finally can’t be avoided by the front office any longer.