Javier Baez makes himself a mainstay in Cubs' postseason lineup
LOS ANGELES — On a sleepy Saturday morning a couple of months back, Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon seemed taken aback by a question about Javier Baez during his pregame media briefing.
“Just a day off for Javy?” a media member asked.
Maddon's response was to ask the inquisitor if he was assuming Baez was an everyday player.
“I do remember that,” Maddon said with a chuckle the other day. “Can't get him out now.”
No, there is no way to take Javier Baez out of the Cubs' postseason lineup now. And there's no way to take the infectious baseball enthusiasm out of Javier Baez.
The 23-year-old infielder has turned October into his own national coming-out party. Baez has been the Cubs' best and most exciting player in the postseason, and maybe the best and most exciting in all of baseball.
He is 9-for-23 (.391) with a homer and 2 doubles combined in the National League division and championship series. He also has made one dazzling or heady defensive play after another, just as he did during the regular season.
And as the Cubs go deeper into the postseason, the media crowds around Baez before and after games grow deeper.
Baez seems to enjoy it.
“Yeah, sure, I love it,” he said after Sunday night's 1-0 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, a game that tied the NLCS at one game apiece. “I'm pretty sure everybody here wants to be loved by the fans and the people of Chicago. I just do my job.”
Baez, who was born in Puerto Rico and played high school baseball in Jacksonville, Florida, is completing his first full major-league season. He was drafted in the first round in 2011 by the previous Cubs regime, but the current group seemed to know it had something special.
“I actually went to see him in Puerto Rico when I first got the job,” Maddon said. “And I was really impressed. I remember him making some really good plays at second base, and I saw him make some very good baserunning maneuvers.
“The issue at the time was just his hitting and long swing and all the different things, the high legs, the really extravagant wrapping of the bat.
“But he's really toned a lot of that down. But, honestly, not this but last spring training I said we're a better team with him on the field. Of course, he wasn't quite ready for all of that, but now he is.”
And how.
During the regular season, Baez had a line of .273/.314/.423 with 14 homers and 59 RBI. He has played stellar defense, particularly with getting tags down quickly.
He also has demonstrated heads-up baserunning, both during the season and in the playoffs, whether it's reading the play and taking the extra base or stealing home on an attempted squeeze play.
So my question to Maddon: Can what Baez has be taught, or do players simply have it?
“It's almost impossible to teach what he's got. It really is,” Maddon said. “When you get (young athletes), you know right away whether they have instincts for the game or not. You do.
“The guys that don't, what I used to attempt to do was attempt to set up game situations in practice and go through game situation, game speed, in practice and have them react and give them some kind of tangible keys to be aware of, because they don't think that way. They don't have that chip.
“The guys that lack it, you try to get them through practice and setting up situations,” Maddon said. “The guys that have it, don't you dare coach it out of them.”
So Maddon will do with Baez what he has said he would do all along: leave the kid alone.
“Right now I think he feels free to play,” Maddon said. “I can't give him any more freedom than he's already got. He sees things. He's like a good running back; he sees the whole field. A point guard; he sees the whole court. He just sees everything. He's got that gift.”
For the Cubs, it's the gift that keeps on giving.
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