Joshua Baez

[Ozziesfan41]

What a great season he is putting together at just 22 years old.

His OBP and stolen bases really stick out to me.

A question for the board minor league experts. Does he have elite type speed, or is he just good at reading pitchers and getting jumps? How is his outfield defense? Can he handle CF?

Thanks in advance.

Not a minor league expert. So won’t pretend to know the kind of player he is. But you don’t see many talking about his speed like they did with say Victor Scott and Winn. So I wouldn’t think he has that “elite” speed. However you don’t steal 50+ bases on great reads/jumps alone. Pujols was great at both but couldn’t even sniff 20. Granted he was slow as molasses but couldn’t also get a steal when needed. So my guess is Baez has a nice healthy mixture of both speed and knowledge on the base path. Could translate into 30+ in the majors with 25 hr power

Pujols had 2 seasons where he stole 16 and another where he stole 14, so 20 wouldn’t have been out of the question. Heck, even Goldy stole 30+

Goldy was not slow.

Goldy
Since sprint speed was first tracked in 2016, goldy was only slightly above the mlb avg of 27.0 twice in 2 of the forst 3 years it was trscked before being slightly below avg in the 26+ but sub 27 range the rest of his career. Now he probably was still above avg the few years of his career before it was tracked as well in his esrly 20s since he still was a couple years in hisnlate 20s whem it started getting tracked, but he was never a speedster.

I always thought of him as being fast for a 1st baseman But not fast for a player in general. But as for Baez if naylor can steal 27 bases Baez certainly can in the big leagues

[Ronnie Dobbs]

One of the best surprises of 2025.

[craviduce]

One of the best surprises of 2025.

aye...the best.

his flyball rate and ground ball rate literally flipped. Both for the better. His flyball and whiff rate were extremely high entering this season. Result: better barrel rate, better line drives.

extremely interested in his AAA play next year.

[Hoosier59]

I have been very cautious with him about his future, due to his early struggles, but he’s still quite young and seems to have matured some and is starting to figure things out. His biggest weakest has always been lack of contact, and chase rate, but those have really improved this year. He definitely has all the abilities to be a solid MLB player. Like Crav, I’m very interested in seeing how he does next year at AAA. Hopefully there is no regression, but more improvement. The Cardinals really could use a break in one of their prospects turning into a solid player. There has been too many disappointments lately.

[okcardfan]

I have the MiLB package and have watched him a lot. He has well-above-average speed. He plays a good CF with that speed and a cannon arm.
He has all five tools; he just needs to continue to progress. I've been impressed with how his K-rate has gone down significantly and his walk rate has gone up.
He finished the year on a hot streak - for 2 months! .293/.389/.507/.896 in August and .308/.413/.615/1.028 for September. https://www.milb.com/player/joshua-baez ... &year=2025

As you can see from this video, he has a great pop-up slide he often uses, and it allows him to go very fast into bases with it.

https://www.mlb.com/video/cardinals-no- ... ideo-share

His power is real (114 mph - 450 feet) -- https://youtube.com/shorts/g_gJUaNXV5s? ... kH9lscwzdC

combined videos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMTkEpZbR3k
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iOP51toStso

I also have the MLB/MiLB package and have been impressed with those stat improvements you point out, but also some additional qualitative nuances.
In particular, he comes out aggressive on the first pitch a lot, it seems to me; none of that hesitancy and uncertainty exhibited by the you-know-who RH OF in STL. Confident hitter, but willing to punch lind drives to oppo field.
Second thing I've noticed is that some of his longest and most impressive at-bats are in full counts with guys on base and he's disciplined enough to take ball four instead of just flailing away thinking he just has to get a hit. Several times he's done that, and I catch usually only one or two at-bats. (Terrible that the AA gameday info doesn't list the speed of either the pitch or the batted ball.)
From what I have seen, Joshua Baez has a great approach, attitude and mentality.
I think he might really be something.

[ClassicO]

I have the MiLB package and have watched him a lot. He has well-above-average speed. He plays a good CF with that speed and a cannon arm.
He has all five tools; he just needs to continue to progress. I've been impressed with how his K-rate has gone down significantly and his walk rate has gone up.
He finished the year on a hot streak - for 2 months! .293/.389/.507/.896 in August and .308/.413/.615/1.028 for September. https://www.milb.com/player/joshua-baez ... &year=2025

As you can see from this video, he has a great pop-up slide he often uses, and it allows him to go very fast into bases with it.

https://www.mlb.com/video/cardinals-no- ... ideo-share

His power is real (114 mph - 450 feet) -- https://youtube.com/shorts/g_gJUaNXV5s? ... kH9lscwzdC

combined videos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMTkEpZbR3k
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iOP51toStso

I also have the MLB/MiLB package and have been impressed with those stat improvements you point out, but also some additional qualitative nuances.
In particular, he comes out aggressive on the first pitch a lot, it seems to me; none of that hesitancy and uncertainty exhibited by the you-know-who RH OF in STL. Confident hitter, but willing to punch lind drives to oppo field.
Second thing I've noticed is that some of his longest and most impressive at-bats are in full counts with guys on base and he's disciplined enough to take ball four instead of just flailing away thinking he just has to get a hit. Several times he's done that, and I catch usually only one or two at-bats. (Terrible that the AA gameday info doesn't list the speed of either the pitch or the batted ball.)
From what I have seen, Joshua Baez has a great approach, attitude and mentality.
I think he might really be something.

I agree with your comments. The plate discipline is much better. The opposite field hitting is impressive.

[Ronnie Dobbs]

This also gives me some hope on Walker. He is almost exactly a year older than Baez. I don't know about anyone else, but I had basically written off Baez, and I'm getting to that point with Walker.

If Baez really did finally put it all together for real, then perhaps there's hope for Walker. Maybe his development got stunted by his too early call up and he's been too concerned with just keeping his head above water rather than working at becoming the player that a lot of people think he's capable of being.

Let's hope so, anyway. It would certainly go a long way to speeding up thos rebuild.

[DewittDaman11]

Also, just want to say, if you listen to Baez in an interview, he really seems to have his head on straight as far as understanding how he has to constantly adjust to pitchers. He is confident, but, just humble enough to know he must always improve his game to stay relevant in the game. He comes off as a very hard worker, on and off of the field. One thing that we all should know by now, as we have many current examples on the MLB roster, is that a hitter must continually adjust to the pitcher(and visa versa) to compete at the MLB level. All good signs, and if he stays fairly injury free, should translate into a quality MLB hitter. Really gonna like seeing Wetherholt and Baez in the near future.