Don’t Look Now, But Javy Báez Has Become a Walk Machine

Javy is working on walking more. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)Javy Báez drew a walk in his second plate appearance Sunday afternoon, giving him a team-leading four free passes so far. That’s good for a 28.6% walk rate, nearly six times his career average. It took Javy 20 games to reach four walks in 2019, a span of 89 PAs (4.5%), so I think we can say definitively that he has become an elite on-base machine.

Or, you know, maybe not. El Mago actually walked four times over his first 25 plate appearances (16%) of the 2018 season, then drew just 25 bases on balls over his next 620 trips to the plate (4%). It gets really crazy when you consider that three of those first four walks came in one game,…