He dazzles us with a swing that looks like it’s fashioned for a character in the game Backyard Baseball. A leg kick initiates a kinetic chain that include a fast-twitch wrist twist just before the pitch reaches home plate. Then, in a blur, the bat bursts through the zone, sending a baseball into the sun-spattered bleachers faster than your brain can process what just happened. This is Javy Baez.
But the video-game mechanics are also what hurts the man who burst onto the international stage in last year’s NLCS and then as a star for Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic.