Joshua Báez

The Seam

Thirty Homers, No Debut — Joshua Báez leads the minor leagues in home runs and has never played a major league game. On July 11 we put a dated, public bet on the record about when that changes — and corrected the name on it before it counted. July 26, 2026

A moment

Joshua Báez's three-homer game — Joshua Báez hit three home runs. Three home runs by one man in one game. Read it →

The Line of the Day

3-4, 3 HR, 5 RBI — Sat, Aug 15 · day game vs. Chicago Cubs The scorecard →

The card rack

FlagshipJoshua Baez [Black] #BD-76 · 2022 Bowman Draft · 0 recent sales

—Raw—PSA 9—PSA 10—BGS 10PSA 10 · 46 nights

Live on eBay now · asking, not sold · as of 2026-08-27 · paid links

$19.99Ungraded$22.00Ungraded$24.99Ungraded

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The rookieJoshua Baez #BCP-112 · 2022 Bowman Chrome Prospects · 4320 recent sales 7N ▲0%

$4.15Raw$20.00PSA 9$34.50PSA 10$45.00BGS 10PSA 10 · 42 nights

Live on eBay now · asking, not sold · as of 2026-08-27 · paid links

$2.00Ungraded$2.00Ungraded$2.49Ungraded

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Paid link — as an eBay Partner, FVR earns from qualifying purchases. · Flagship = his most-traded card (the market’s reference); the rookie = the top card of his first card year. As of August 27, 2026 · trend is FVR's own nightly archive · prices via SportsCardsPro · what these terms mean

Scout’s note

A second-round pick from Boston who debuted August 15, 2026, Báez has played seven major-league games with three home runs — the .160 average hasn't caught up to the swing. His EV95 of 110.8 ranks in the 99th percentile of the 444 tracked AAA bats, and on the MLB value grid his contact grades at 0.48. That's pre-consensus: the tools are real, the average is lagging, and seven games is too soon to say which one wins.

Current signals

The read: Báez's EV95 of 110.8 sits in the 99th percentile of the 453 AAA bats we track (median 105.0), and on the MLB value grid his contact grades at 0.48. The tools are ahead of the market — that's what pre-consensus means.

EV95 (mph)

110.8

xVal (MLB grid)

0.4768

Balls in play

272

Age

23

A market fact, not an engine read: what a club decided about him, on the season before this one. Figures from Cot’s, as of August 10, 2026.

2026 salary

$0.23Mest

Tax hit

$0.23M

Service time

0 yr 0 d

Options left

3 / 3

Regime read from his service time, not from the sheet — it does not project him past this season. Super Two eligibility is the top 22% of a class and can move this line in a way service time alone cannot see.

Cash and the tax hit are two different rulebooks and are never subtracted from one another — see the payroll board for his club, St. Louis Cardinals.

A second set of books

The same contract, read by MLB Spreadsheets (Ethan Hullihen), as of August 20, 2026. We keep two sources on this because one source cannot check itself.

Tax AAV

$0.78M

Guaranteed

$0.78M

Term

1 yr

His class

Pre-Arb

The tax AAV above is his number under the CBA’s own rulebook, not the average we work out from Cot’s total. On a contract with deferred money the two come apart on purpose — and neither is subtracted from the other.

Collect Joshua Báez

If the signal is right, the cardboard usually finds out later. Current listings:

High-end listings ($75+) →

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Not financial advice. We take positions only after publication — never before. Misses stay on the record.

The Bureau on Joshua Báez

The scouting press, in their own words