People sometimes ask what initially got me interested in economics. The truth is that one of the first things that caught my attention was an application of supply-and-demand graphs that explained the war on drugs. What seemed like a set of policies with unpredictable effects actually had some very predictable — and undesired — consequences. Applying these concepts to Major League Baseball’s war on performance-enhancing drugs is naturally an article I was destined to write. I’ll start off by running through the basics of supply and demand for illegal drugs, show the concepts I found so fascinating years ago, and then show you how well they apply to what MLB is trying to do with PEDs and with Biogenesis in particular. I understand that drugs are a somewhat sensitive topic, and I have no interest in preaching any normative points of view. I will instead trust that readers can think of my commentary as descriptive, and not assume any agenda. I’ll also be peppering in references to The Wire throughout, because I’m definitely never going to get to do it again.

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Ben and Sam revisit the question of whether wealthy teams are winning (and will win) more, then discuss a proposal to push the trade deadline back.

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Probably every day of every year, baseball fans wonder out loud whether it’s possible and allowed to trade players while they’re injured and on the disabled list. Every year, for a few years, we’ve been able to cite the Jake Peavy trade to Chicago as evidence that, yeah, you can trade players, even if they’re on the DL. There would be no reason to prevent such an exchange, provided the team getting the injured player was aware that the injured player was an injured player. Now we have a newer, fresher example, since the old one was getting beat to death. Jesse Crain, right now, is on the DL with a shoulder strain. And Jesse Crain just got traded from the White Sox to the Rays. It’s a trade deemed perfectly acceptable by the people whose permission is necessary for a deal to go through.

There was building talk that Crain would get moved to Tampa Bay. Actually, let’s go back, first. Crain was a goner. He was a good reliever on a bad team in a contract season. Dave wrote about him as a Jonathan Papelbon alternative. Crain was sure to get traded, until he injured his shoulder and had to sit out. The assumption was that his value was destroyed, and the White Sox even tried to rush him back to the bigs without a rehab assignment, just to get him to pitch before the deadline. It didn’t work, but still Crain had the Rays intrigued, and still this trade wound up being made. The return is conditional, as Crain and cash considerations have been traded for players to be named later or cash considerations.

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Here’s one reason you wouldn’t think the Rangers would consider trading closer Joe Nathan: they’re only a game and a half out of the second American League wild-card slot, despite a current team-wide slump. Plus, their division isn’t entirely out of reach. Here’s a second reason you wouldn’t think the Rangers would consider trading Nathan: just a short while ago, they put a package together to land pending free agent Matt Garza. And here’s a third reason, in case you wanted a third: earlier this month, Nathan got the save for the AL in the All-Star Game. That isn’t about the significance of the game; the game doesn’t matter, for our purposes. It’s that Nathan was an All-Star, because to this point he’s been super good. For the Rangers, he’s been a major contributor.

The Rangers, though, have talked about a Nathan deal. According to Buster Olney, they’ve actually been aggressive about it. The idea would be trading from a perceived strength to address a perceived weakness. It would represent neither buying nor selling, or it would represent both. What the Rangers want, right now, are some hitters. What the Rangers feel like they have, right now, are quality late-inning relievers, especially with Joakim Soria back and Neftali Feliz on the road. Most teams talk about most things, and the Rangers seem to have been intrigued by the idea of cashing in their closer for immediate help.

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Episode 365
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he mostly discusses the very approaching trade deadline.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 36 min play time.)

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It’s bullpen upgrade day. A few hours after the Tigers added Jose Veras, the Braves got the lefty reliever they’ve been hunting for, landing Scott Downs from the Angels, and they got him for what amounts to a hill of beans.

Working against Downs’ value was his age (37), his contract (remainder of $5M salary), and his splits (basically a LOOGY at this point). Adding a couple of million in payroll for a guy who is probably a situational reliever at this point in his career seems to have been enough to scare off most bidders, because the Braves only had to give up reliever Cory Rasmus to get him.

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Hank Aaron. Barry Bonds. Albert Pujols. Edwin Encarnacion.

If one of those names doesn’t seem to fit, perhaps you haven’t been paying close enough attention in 2013. (And you probably didn’t read Dave Cameron’s trade value column.) The fact that Encarnacion is third in the majors in home runs and fourth in runs batted in doesn’t put him in elite company in historic terms, though.

No, it’s something Encarnacion is not doing that makes him unique.
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While the Tigers had been pegged by the media as buyers of expensive proven closers, Dave Dombrowski just ignored the high profile end of the relief market and found a much better value in Jose Veras, who they acquired from the Astros today for outfield prospect Danry Vasquez and a player to be named later.

While he isn’t a big name, Veras has quietly turned into a very effective reliever. In 43 innings this year, opposing batters have a .265 wOBA against him. For comparison, hitters have a .266 wOBA against Yu Darvish, a .269 wOBA against Stephen Strasburg, a .270 wOBA against Adam Wainwright, and a .274 wOBA against Felix Hernandez. Sure, it’s easier to pitch in relief, so this isn’t exactly apples to apples, but it at least gives you an idea of the level that Veras has pitched at.

If you want a reliever-to-reliever comparison, well, how about this one?

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The decision to buy or sell at the July 31st trade deadline has become more complicated with the addition of a second wild card. Two extra teams now play one post-season game, and the lure of that opportunity combined with the “anything can happen in October” mindset means that teams are reluctant to punt a season that isn’t already dead in the water.

However, with three days left until trades require passing through waivers, the line of demarcation between contender and pretender has been pretty clearly drawn. Here are Cool Standings’ playoff odds for each team in Major League Baseball:

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

1. Complete and Updated Team NERD Scores
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Complete and Updated Team NERD Scores
Introduction
In June of 2010, in response to a challenge issued by loud-thundering Rob Neyer, the present author submitted to the public the first iteration of a metric called — for reasons that need little elaboration — a metric called NERD. The purpose of NERD: to represent in a single number the likely aesthetic value of a player or team or game to the sabermetrically inclined. Over the last three years, there have been modifications to how NERD is calculated — the variables included in the formula, for example, and how heavily each of those variables is weighted — but the framework remains more or less the same.

What follows, below, are the complete and updated Team NERD scores for all 30 major-league clubs this season.

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