By Rob Rains
PEORIA, Ill. – From his vantage point more than 1,100 miles away, Johnny Hernandez can tell there is something different about the way Joshua Baez has been playing this season.
All Hernandez has to do is watch Baez walk to the plate for the Peoria Chiefs.
“Every day I see progress, every game he plays,” Hernandez said from his home in Boston. “Right now he is doing something he wasn’t doing before. He believes in himself.
“When he comes up to hit, walking up to the plate, the way he walks, I can tell right there that he is like, ‘I’ve got this.’”
Hernandez knows Baez better than almost anybody. He has been coaching and mentoring him since Baez was 11 years old – a decade ago, long before the Cardinals made him their second-round pick in the 2021 draft.
The two still talk by phone at least once a day. Hernadez is able to connect his computer to his television and watch all of Baez’s games.
“I had days where I didn’t know what to do, honestly,” Baez said. “I felt like coming from high school as a second-rounder I felt like I had to do everything in one month or one year. That was where I got lost … It’s definitely been a roller coaster.
“I took a step back and told myself to relax and just trust the process.”
Doing that has made a big difference for Baez, who at 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds has always had great physical ability. In the first month of this season, Baez has shown that maybe the critics who wrote him off as a prospect after those rough years will have to change their opinion.
“In high school and summer travel ball I never really failed,” Baez said. “I always had success. I faced some good competition, but it wasn’t every single day. As soon as I got to pro ball, it started to come every single day. Adjustments had to be made quicker. That was something I had to learn. That’s kind of what I’ve had to pick up over the years.”
Hernandez is seeing now the player that he expected to see when he began working with Baez, who caught his attention when he was playing against a team Hernandez was coaching soon after Baez’s family moved back to Boston after he spent his early childhood in the Dominican Republic. Soon, Baez was playing on the team coached by Hernandez.
What did Hernandez see in Baez back then? Many of the same traits he is seeing again now.
“His power, his dedication, his discipline,” Hernandez said. “He was always passionate about the game. I thought we had something special. That’s how we started. He’s been with me since he was 11 years old.
“Like a father to a son, that’s what I am like to him … I’ve been coaching for 21 years and I’ve never seen a player like him.”
“I believe trust,” Hernandez said. “Before he was nervous. He wanted to do so much and sometimes when you try to do so much it doesn’t work out. I told him to just do what you do best, and that’s play baseball. Never doubt yourself.
“Just relax and go up there and hit. I told him the pitcher, he is the one who has to worry about you. He (the pitcher) already knows that when you come up to hit, he is like, ‘Joshua Baez is hitting.’ And he knows that when you get on base, it’s a double because you are going to steal second.
“He’s still young, but he is very mature. He knows the game now. He had to learn about the game.”
“He’s still a kid”
That education began in the rookie level Florida Complex League, and the results from that first summer showed that no matter how high he had been picked in the draft, the 54th overall selection, Baez still had a lot to learn. He had a scholarship offer to go to Vanderbilt after high school but elected to sign with the Cardinals.
“I feel like God gave me the opportunity,” Baez said. “I worked for it. I’m doing all I can to get to the big leagues. That’s the ultimate goal.”
Baez was a long way away from the majors in that first summer of pro ball. In his 23 games, Baez hit .158. He struck out 28 times in 76 at-bats. His manager then was Roberto Espinoza, who also is his manager now in Peoria.
What Espinoza knows he is watching now is the result of the Cardinals being patient with Baez, a virtue that sometimes is hard and frustrating for both the player and the organization when the results don’t reach the level both expected.
“It’s part of it in the minor leagues, patience,” Espinoza said. “You have to let the players develop and grow. That’s part of the job.
“He’s got a lot of tools to play this game, not just physical tools but also the mental part that is required to compete. He is a hard worker.
“He finally is understanding how to perform at the professional level – how to take care of his routine, take care of his body, take care of his offensive and his defensive work. He’s finally putting everything together.”
Ryan Ludwick, the Cardinals’ roving minor-league hitting instructor, also has been watching and working with Baez since that first season. He sees a player who is just maturing in the game, and is still only 21 years old – one year younger than last year’s first-round pick, JJ Wetherholt, and two years younger than Chase Davis, the Cardinals’ top pick in the 2023 draft.
“Everyone knows he has an elite skill set as far as power goes, and he’s a really good athlete,” Ludwick said. “At whatever level you are at, this game is all about adjustments. He is still making those adjustments.
“He’s still a kid. Sometimes it takes guys a little longer to figure it out.
“When you see guys getting to the big leagues faster than ever, sometimes that can play a little bit on the younger player because they want to move too. Sometimes patience is what you need.”
Those were painful, frustrating years.
“It’s definitely a hard process and you have to learn to mature with it,” Baez said. “You have to ride it out. They’ve (the Cardinals) believed in me. They’ve taken me down to do the development. They kept me through some tough times and I appreciate the Cardinals for that.
“When things are going good everybody wants to be in the picture and support you but when it’s not going so good the people who care for you are the ones who are going to be there for you and help you get over the hump. My family has been my inner circle. I talked to my mom and parents, and Johnny, every single day.”
Baez moved up to Peoria last year, but still had many of the same problems. He hit a team-leading 10 homers, but struck out 114 times in 227 at-bats, hitting .245.
Coming into this season, Baez had struck out 308 times in 752 at-bats, posting a .229 average.
“I feel like I had to get the experience, and failure comes with it,” Baez said. “Now I know what it feels like to fail.”
It took a trip back to Palm Beach, where he finished last season and helped that team win the league championship, for Baez, and others, to finally begin to see the improvement he has continued to show this season.
“I’m strong, I’m fast, I have it all from a physical standpoint,” Baez said. “Now it’s more mental cues – my approach, how I recover every single night, the process. It’s not so much the mechanics, it’s just more knowing that if I put the ball in play good things will happen.
“Now if I have some bad at-bats I don’t get bummed about it. I come back the next morning and I know it’s a new day and a new game and anything can happen. Whatever you did yesterday doesn’t matter today. That mindset is kind of what has helped me grow.
“In high school you always feel like the superstars move up in two or three years and they are in the big leagues. I felt like a superstar but I really didn’t understand what it was like to be a minor-leaguer and play 140 games. You have to take it day by day.”
“I know what I can do”
Even though Baez now has more than 800 at-bats in the minors, he is still one of the youngest players on the Peoria roster.
At one point not that long ago, it looked as if most of Baez’s career highlights in baseball were going to be feats he accomplished in high school – hitting a home run out of a stadium in Hartford; being timed at 98 miles per hour off the mound; running the fastest 60-yard dash.
It was those achievements, and his high selection in the draft, which prompted STLSportsPage to rank Baez as the fifth best prospect in the Cardinals organization a month after the 2021 draft.
“Being ranked like that felt amazing, but I knew I didn’t earn that,” Baez said. “I want to earn that. I was drafted and put in that spot. I want to earn my spot, 100 percent.”
The couple of poor seasons by Baez were reflected in changes in the annual prospect ranking. On the 2022 list he fell from fifth to 15th. The next year he dropped down another spot, to 16th. In 2024, he fell off the list that ranked the top 24 prospects in the organization.
His name could be back on the list later this year. Then Baez can look back and see how he compares to those other names on that 2021 prospect list.
On that list, the top four names were Nolan Gorman, Jordan Walker, Matthew Liberatore and Masyn Winn. After Baez came Ivan Herrera. All five of those players are now in the major leagues.
“I know what I can do on the baseball field,” he said. “The numbers don’t lie, but the process and how much I mature and how I go about my business, the numbers can’t tell you that. The whole staff, the organization, knows how I go about my business. They trust me and I trust them.
“It feels good when I have that success. When you don’t have it it’s kind of scary. You hit that rough patch because you don’t know what to do. Now I know what it feels like and I know how to ride it out much better. You feel like you’ve earned it, and you’re proud of yourself – 100 percent.
“I just want to break out. I feel it’s coming.”
So does Hernandez.
One number that does reflect Baez’s improvement this season. He already has drawn 14 walks in 115 plate appearances. Last year, he walked 24 times in 260 plate appearances.
Baez is leading the Chiefs in hits and runs in addition to stolen bases while posting a .268 average. He is tied for the team lead in RBIs. He has hit leadoff occasionally this season, despite his size, as well as in the cleanup spot.
In eight games so far in May, Baez has posted a .296 average and has drawn six walks, almost matching his total of eight strikeouts, in 35 plate appearances.
“I told him the other day I just want God to give you health because He already gave you the talent,” Hernandez said. “When he was drafted he was a very young kid. He is going to get better every day. Now he knows the process … You are going to see a different Joshua than before.”
Follow Rob Rains on X @RobRains
Peoria photos by Sydney Silverthorn courtesy of the Peoria Chiefs; photo of Baez and Johnny Hernandez courtesy of Hernandez
