Former Chicago Cubs Star Placed On Injured List Amid Struggles

One of the former Chicago Cubs stars has struggled immensely since joining the Detroit Tigers and was just placed on the IL on Tuesday.

Tigers Javier Baez (28) reacts to striking out against the Diamondbacks during a game at Chase Field on Friday, May 17, 2024. / Patrick Breen/The Republic / USA TODAY

On Tuesday, the Detroit Tigers placed former Chicago Cubs star Javier Baez on the 10-day injured list with "lumbar spine inflammation," retroactive to June 9. He will head to Florida to meet with doctors after having imaging done on his back and might be out until the second half.

Baez was a huge part of the Cubs championship run in 2016 as a mainstay in the middle infield. Known for his crazy, casual tags at second base, he was one of the most exciting players in baseball for many years.

In 2018, he broke out and had an MVP-type season, finishing second in NL voting. As the runner-up to winner Christian Yelich, he accrued a 6.4 bWAR, hit 34 home runs and drove in an NL-leading 111 runs.

He was solid once again in 2019, but took a major step back in 2020 and the beginning of 2021.

During the team's mass selling in 2021, Baez was one of the players shipped out.

After hitting 22 homers for the Cubs, he was sent to the New York Mets and had a nice bounce back second half heading into free agency.

Before the 2022 season, Baez signed a six year, $140 million deal with the Tigers.

For the first season in Detroit, he was relatively the same player. He struggled with strikeouts like he always had, but hit 17 homers and played good defense.

Since the start of 2023, though, he has been one of the worst hitters in baseball. Last year, he had just a .593 OPS and it has gotten worse in 2024.

In the 53 games before the injury, Baez was off to the worst season of his career. With just one home run, he was hitting .183 with a 30 OPS+ and 42 strikeouts in 186 plate appearances. His chase rate of 46 percent was in the first percentile in all of baseball.

Baez has always gone viral for his seemingly careless swings at balls out of the zone, going back to his Cubs days, but it seems to be happening more often than it used to. Not even three years into the deal with the Tigers, it looks like one of the worst contracts in recent memory.

Meanwhile in Chicago's infield, both Nico Hoerner and Dansby Swanson won Gold gloves in 2023 and have been league average hitters.

Maybe they were right to sell him when they could, as it landed them top prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong.