This Tigers Slugger Has Shockingly Been Team's Most Important Player This Season
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Entering play on Monday, the Detroit Tigers are the best team in the American League.
Their 22-13 record might even surprise some of the most staunch believers of this group after they had a quiet offseason where they missed out on Alex Bregman and had to put multiple contributors on the injured list to start the year.
Getting to this point has been a total team effort, spearheaded by the resurgence of former No. 1 overall picks Spencer Torkelson and Casey Mize, the continued brilliance of Kerry Carpenter and Riley Greene and a dominant pitching staff that is one of the best in the sport led by reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal.
There is a lot of star power on this Tigers roster.
But it's been a surprising player who has been the most important, according to Baseball Reference.
Javier Baez, the high-priced signing in December 2021 who has been a major flop, has the highest bWAR (1.5) on the team -- tied with Tarik Skubal -- and the ninth-highest among position players in the American League.
He has had a remarkable turnaround this year with a slash line of .309/.350/.479 and OPS+ of 137, which would be the highest batting average, on-base percentage and OPS+ of his career if he can keep up this level of performance.
Baez has also returned to being an elite defender.
He once led the National League in defensive bWAR during the 2019 season, finishing that year with a figure of 3.9. The closest he had gotten to that number since that point was in 2023 with Detroit when his defensive bWAR was 1.1, and he's on pace to smash that with his figure currently at 0.6.
Baez's resurgence has been a huge positive for the Tigers.
With so many outfielders on the injured list, his ability to not only play in center field, but thrive there, has become a major weapon for manager A.J. Hinch when it comes to putting together his lineup.
Baez looks like a completely different player this year than he has been in the past with Detroit, and that could go a long way towards helping them accomplish their goals of getting back to the playoffs and making some more noise.
