Signed out of the Dominican Republic for $125,000 in July 2019, Baez couldn’t debut in the Minors until 2021 due to the pandemic, and he spent that entire campaign in the Dominican Summer League, striking out 37 in 36 innings to get his career started on a solid note. He’s meticulously climbed the San Diego ladder stateside, made his full-season debut with Single-A Lake Elsinore in 2023 and posted the California League’s third-best ERA (min. 80 IP) with a 3.24 mark over 83 1/3 frames. Baez made a late-season move to High-A Fort Wayne and opened 2024 back up with the TinCaps after not being added to the 40-man roster in his first offseason of Rule 5 eligibility.
The 6-foot-3 right-hander has gained velocity steadily in pro ball and runs his fastball up to 97 mph, though he’s typically a little lower than that. He’ll work north-south with the pitch but will be better served working the top of the zone against more advanced hitters. His upper-70s slider shows more vertical break than horizontal, and while it can get whiffs on batters sitting heat, Baez can also hang the breaking ball occasionally and needs to improve its command. A mid-80s split-change flashes promise as it’s improved in the last two years, and its armside fade could make it an average pitch.
Baez typically hovered around the 10 percent walk-rate mark in his first two years stateside, but he's done an even better job limiting walks at High-A and Double-A in 2024. That helps calm some of the concerns that he was headed toward the bullpen long-term, but if that walk rate creeps back up against more advanced hitters, Baez might still be best-suited to facing a lineup one time through.
