Early in the season Eno Sarris introduced us to Brian Wilson’s flithy two-seam fastball, a pitch Wilson claims to have added this year. Sarris’s GIF showed Jamey Carroll flailing wildly at Wilson’s newest offering. Wilson, 29, already had three years as a solid closer for the the San Francisco Giants, so the idea of him adding another nasty pitch is intriguing. With over half the season books and Wilson effective again this year — though his peripherals have taken a step back — I wanted to check in on that two-seamer.
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Brandon Allen has been a bit of a cult figure here at FanGraphs. “>As Jonah Keri wrote back in February:

Brandon Allen is entering what should be the prime years of his career. He’s got power, can take a walk, and offers up to six years of team control. He’s the most logical candidate to start at not one, but two different positions in the Diamondbacks lineup. Paraphrasing Ivan Drago, if he fails, he fails. But he has to get a shot.

The Diamondbacks, of course, didn’t listen and chose to go with Juan Miranda and Xavier Nady at first base, a combination that has managed a whopping 0.1 WAR on the season and an OBP just over .300. Especially given the favorable hitters’ environment at Chase Field, such unimpressive totals out of first base are completely unacceptable. After half a season (at least according to the conventions the the All-Star Break marks the halfway point), the Diamondbacks finally listened to Jonah (and Eno Sarris and Eric Seidman and others) and freed Brandon Allen, calling him up as their first move of the second half.

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The baseball season still has two and a half months left of games to be played, but the bifurcation around the All Star Game often results in award discussions. The discussions tend to grow contentious when one player clearly stands out amongst the crop of candidates, but is passed over in lieu of a player with a more fitting narrative.

Right now, Jose Bautista is the most valuable player in the American League, not Adrian Gonzalez.

Bautista boasts a .334/.468/.702 line, and a gaudy .487 wOBA. He has launched 31 home runs in 84 games, and is on pace to hit right around 50 by the end of the season. He is walking in almost 20 percent of his plate appearances and has actually improved his strikeout rate. With average defense and plus-baserunning, it becomes difficult to point out any flaws in his game. Last year was clearly his breakout season, as he tallied 6.9 wins above replacement. In slightly over half of a season this year he has already produced 6.6 WAR, and very well may turn in one of the best seasons in the history of baseball.

Gonzalez is having a fantastic season, but one very clearly south of Bautista. The Red Sox first baseman has a higher batting average at .354, and a better fielding mark (albeit at an easier position), and that’s about it. His on-base percentage is 54 points lower. His .591 slugging percentage is 111 points lower. Put everything together and Gonzalez has a .429 wOBA, which would lead the league if not for the fact that Bautista’s mark is almost 60 points higher. Gonzalez is the best player in the American League outside of the Jose Bautista division, but there is a clear line of demarcation between he and Bautista.

Why are so many touting Gonzalez as the MVP of the first half? The arguments tend to boil down to the following areas: his quest for the batting title, the high RBI total, clutch performance, and the performance of the Red Sox as a team.

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While the Tigers and the Indians sit atop the division, the AL Central is still a relatively open race. The White Sox and the Twins might sit 5 and 6.5 games out, respectively, but the failure of both the leaders to establish dominance has left questions open. All four of these teams have flaws that could certainly haunt them in the second half. That should open up opportunities for the two trailers to make up ground. The White Sox probably stand the best chance due to their strong pitching staff, which ranks fourth in the league with 14.6 WAR. They’ll need some help on the other side of the ball, though, if they want to seriously turn things around.

I’ve written previously about the team’s folly of using Juan Pierre at the top of the lineup, and at all. Yet he’s not the only one dragging down the offense. In fact, the entire White Sox outfield has accumulated just 1.8 WAR this season, and that includes Carlos Quentin’s 2.4 WAR. While Pierre ranks the lowest at -0.7, the man standing to his left isn’t far behind. Alex Rios has produced -0.6 WAR this season. If this were just a half-season of futility the Sox might have hope for the future. But this is something that has been going on for about a year now.

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And I’ve been putting out fire / With gasoline – David Bowie, Cat People

If Felipe Paulino qualified for the ERA title, his 95.1 MPH fastball velocity would rank second in all of baseball among starters. Felipe Paulino’s 95.1 MPH fastball might be what stands between him and future success.

Paulino has long been a head-scratcher. His career ERA (5.48) matches neither his career FIP (4.27) nor xFIP (4.03), and once you delve into the components, he doesn’t become any easier to understand. He’s struck out over eight batters per nine on the strength of an above-average swinging strike rate. He’s walked batters at a slightly-above average rate, but he’s also managed an average ground-ball rate. And then there’s the gas he pumps out of his right arm.

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#50-#46
#46-#41
#40-#36
#35-#31

Rank – Player – Position – Team – Past 3 Calendar Year WAR

#30 – Ian Kinsler, 2B, Texas: +12.9

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#50-#46
#46-#41
#40-#36

In this section, we deal with three pitchers at different points in their careers, but all highly coveted by the teams that don’t own their rights at the moment. We also look at two position players who couldn’t be more different, both in terms of on-field attributes and the ramifications of their contracts.

Rank – Player – Position – Team – Past 3 Calendar Year WAR

#35 – Trevor Cahill, RHP, Oakland: +4.3

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Each season, it seems that the All-Star Game’s selection process is criticized when 1-2 players are inexplicably snubbed from the team despite incredibly strong performances. This year was no different, as Andrew McCutchen became the one player that many columnists fought for, including authors on this site. I recently outlined McCutchen’s breakout earlier this week. In the comment section of that article, one of the FanGraphs readers, BIP, asked whether lack of awareness about McCutchen’s season was due to the fact that Major League Baseball does a terrible job promoting its star players. Inspired by that query, let’s take a look at some of the issues surrounding baseball’s current marketing strategy.
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Whence we last examined yonder batting orders, we came away with several expected observations (Jose Bautista plays baseball like a video game, the Oakland Athletics do not care much for scoring runs, Rick Ankiel and Ian Desmond are not feared hitters, and so forth) as well as a number of curious findings (the Cubs lead-off combo was tops in the majors, the 7th hitters on AL teams were worse than the 9th hitters, NL managers effectively managed the bottoms of their lineups, and such).

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