Javier Baez wins Silver Slugger award

Javier Baez had a breakout offensive season in 2018, hitting .290/.326/.554 with 34 home runs and a league-leading 111 RBI. These numbers helped him post a 6.1 bWAR season, by far the best of his career.

He’ll probably come up short of the National League MVP, as Christian Yelich is the likely winner of that award, but Thursday evening, Javy was named the National League’s Silver Slugger Award winner for second base for 2018 by the Louisville Slugger company. Baez is one of six first-time Silver Slugger winners this year, along with Trevor Story, J.T. Realmuto, David Peralta, Nick Markakis, and German Marquez.

Each of the 18 winning players takes home a beautifully crafted Silver Slugger Award from Louisville Slugger in honor of his achievements. The Silver Slugger Award is the top offensive award in Major League Baseball, with the top players at each position in each league selected in a vote by MLB coaches and managers.

Here’s what the trophy looks like:

Courtesy Louisville Slugger

Of course you want some video! So, here’s Javy’s 16th home run of 2018 [VIDEO], a grand slam against the Dodgers that blew open a game that the Cubs were leading 3-2 at the time. It was his second homer of the game on June 26, one of three two-homer games Baez had in 2018.

Javy joins 2016 winners Anthony Rizzo and Jake Arrieta as the only Cubs Silver Slugger winners since 2011. Congratulations to Javy on the first of what we hope will be many such awards during his career.