When Dan Straily graduated high school, he was a big-bodied pitcher with one pitch coming out of a town of 18,000 with no fanfare. After hitting the mid nineties on a few guns at the local Western Oregon University, he suddenly was on his way to Marshall University. Then came the Oakland farm system as a 24th-round pick. Now that he’s overcome some long odds to appear in the big leagues, he took a minute to reflect on the process that got him to where he is today. Oh, and while we were talking, he showed me all those changeup grips he tried along the way.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.

1. A Leaderboard of Traded Players
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Leaderboard of Traded Players
Regarding What Has Happened
With the trade deadline having passed, it is now the duty of the public — between now and the end of the baseball season — it’s the duty of the public to pass Spirited Judgment regarding the efficacy of July’s trades. With a view to helping that same public fulfill their very important obligations, the author has produced a custom leaderboard of all the players both (a) who were involved in a trade during this past July who also (b) have some sort of previous major-league experience.

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In each of the past two years, I’ve taken an early look at the Comeback Player of the Year Award candidates in each league. Each time, I was spot on about one player, but didn’t get the other. Here’s hoping for a better show this season.

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Wally Joyner was a better hitter than most of the players he tutors as the assistant hitting coach for the Philadelphia Phillies. In 16 big-league seasons — mostly with the Angels, Royals and Padres — he hit .289/.362/.440. He logged 639 extra-base hits and had more walks than strikeouts.

Hired into his current position this past October, Joyner previously served as the hitting coach and as a roving minor league instructor for the Padres. He shared his thoughts on hitting — including how he approached the craft in his playing days — when the Phillies visited Boston earlier this summer. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam discuss whether several extensions would still be signed today, then talk about the Cubs’ decision to exceed their international spending allowance.

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Sometimes, to get a batting champion, you have to pay a steep price. Right now, Miguel Cabrera is blowing away the competition in the American League, to such an extent that it’s hardly a competition at all. The Tigers, of course, couldn’t be more thrilled that he’s on their side, but when they got him, they had to have some doubts. And sometimes, to get a batting champion, you can make a move that people hardly notice. The leader in the National League right now is Chris Johnson, batting .342. Johnson didn’t even begin the year as an everyday player.

Johnson went from the Diamondbacks to the Braves as part of a much larger deal. The key, everybody understood, was Atlanta’s acquisition of potential superstar Justin Upton. This was the conclusion of the Justin Upton sweepstakes. To this point, Upton has been worth 1.6 WAR. A big part of Arizona’s return was the solid and underrated Martin Prado. To this point, Prado has been worth 0.4 WAR. Johnson went to Atlanta and people didn’t notice. To this point, he has been worth 1.9 WAR. He was worth more than a third of that in July.

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Since 2002 — the first year we have batted ball data — there have been 2,465 instances of a relief pitcher throwing at least 30 innings during one of those 14 years, or an average of about 176 relievers doing so per year. That’s six per team each year, essentially.

Of those 2,465 pitcher seasons, the reliever in question has only managed to post an xFIP- of 60 or better 48 times. Craig Kimbrel has done it the last three years. Billy Wagner did it three times. Jonathan Papelbon and Mariano Rivera did it twice. Aroldis Chapman did it last year. You get the idea.

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At most, the trade deadline completely consumed you. Like a gas, it expanded to fill the entire volume of your being, and you lost everything but your unwavering anticipation. Family, friends, loved ones, employment — sacrificed, all of them, cast aside, so you could commit yourself to figuring out whether your team would trade for Bud Norris. At least, the trade deadline was a partial distraction, something besides the games to take your attention away from the games somewhat. We have only so much attention to give, and the deadline caused that attention to be divided. Only now can we get back to something approximating normal.

Because of the deadline, you might’ve missed what happened. Already this week, baseball has seen at least three highly unusual things take place on the field. I thought I’d take this opportunity to note all of them, just to make sure they didn’t slip by un- or under-noticed. I say “at least three” because it’s entirely possible I’m missing more rare events. If there is something I missed, you can blame the deadline. It divided my attention, too, and I couldn’t really help it. Now let’s get to appreciating the incredible.

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At the end of May, I wrote a post noting that it was time to take the Pittsburgh Pirates seriously. At that point, they were 33-20, and I spent the first few paragraphs of the piece explaining why the Pirates were probably playing over their heads and were due for some regression. After all, the Pirates weren’t going to keep winning games at a .622 pace. They were interesting, but they weren’t that good.

Well, on the one hand, the prediction of coming regression has been correct. After going 33-20 in their first 53 games, they’ve gone 32-22 in the 54 since that piece was published. 32-22 is worse than 33-20. They’ve regressed, technically.

On the other hand, we could actually say that the Pirates have gotten even better.

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