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The Angels won 89 games last year despite starting Mike Trout in the minors. After they promoted at the end of April, they played .580 baseball the rest of the way. Over the winter, they added Josh Hamilton, but more importantly, they added the Houston Astros to the AL West. 19 games against the Astros was supposed to give the western contenders a significant advantage, as they could pencil in 12 or 13 easy wins against a team that wasn’t even trying to compete.

Whoops. The Astros just swept the Angels — in Anaheim — and have now beaten LA’s other expensive disappointment in seven of their first 10 match-ups. In fact, the Astros may end up being the primary reason that the Angels miss the playoffs.

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Welcome to the second edition of The Fortnight. Read here for our initial post, and here for the explanation of our depth charts and standings pages, which fuel The Fortnight in its utmost.

This week, I thought we’d take a look at the teams whose projected full-season run differential has changed the most since we last left off. Stats for this edition run from May 21 through the games on June 2.

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

1. May’s Leaders, Not in WAR
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

May’s Leaders, Not in WAR
Introduction
In yesterday’s stirring edition of the Notes, the author considered the nearly definitive WAR leaderboards for the month of May. In today’s edition, we consider four metrics that aren’t WAR and then the leaders from May by those same metrics.

(Note: the various “links” to the metrics in question are, in some cases, links to the relevant custom leaderboard from which that metric is derived. Because at least one of the stats is made-up, is why.)

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Ben and Sam talk about where the White Sox should go from here, then discuss the (over?)hyping of Yasiel Puig’s big-league debut.

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Chris Davis has had power for as long as he’s been a professional, and probably longer. His first year, in Low-A, he slugged .534. The next year he slugged .598. In Triple-A he slugged over .600. The power is what got Davis to the majors. But Davis now is taking things to new levels. It wouldn’t be right to say Davis has been hitting everything, because he’s missed quite a lot. But he’s hit more things than he used to, and that’s why he’s currently leading the majors in home runs, with 20. His isolated slugging percentage is more than double Adrian Beltre‘s career number. It’s more than double Robinson Cano‘s. It’s got 50 points on Babe Ruth’s. If baseballs had snot in them, there would be a lot of snot on Chris Davis’ uniform.

Davis possesses what you might call “easy power.” Several people have characterized it as “effortless.” According to FanGraphs commenter farrpar, “He has the most effortless power in baseball, no doubt about it.” According to this guy, “Wow! Chris Davis! Effortless Grand-slam!!! Go O’s.” According to David Miller, “The thing about Davis is that his swing looks so effortless on homerun balls like the one he hit on Sunday.” According to OsLuvrInKy, “Gotta love it. His swings just look so effortless.” Last season, in fact, Davis hit a home run on a broken bat. Because Davis is all the some of the rage right now, I’ve decided to prepare a top-five list of his most effortless home-run swings of the 2013 season so far. One way to measure effortlessness would be biomechanical examination. Another way would be guessing.

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Introduction
Over the weekend, the present author visited Fifth Third Bank Ballpark in Geneva, Illinois — home to the Cubs’ Midwest League affilliate, the Kane County Cougars — for a game between those same Cougars and Twins affiliate, the Cedar Rapids Kernels. The objective of the trip was to interview very celebrated Minnesota outfield prospect, and the second-overall pick from last year’s draft, Byron Buxton.

In just his age-19 season, Buxton, who’s nearly as fast as Cincinnati prospect Billy Hamilton, has exhibited a startlingly mature offensive approach, posting nearly equal walk and strikeout rates while also hitting seven home runs in 240 plate appearances. His defensive range and throwing arm are also regarded as elite.

Excerpts from the author’s conversation with Buxton appear below. In addition to printing those excerpts here, the author has taken the liberty of commenting upon other aspects of his experience, as well — either because those aspects are informative (like, regarding the Kane County ballpark, for example) or amusing (like, regarding the author’s incompetence, for example) or both (although probably not both, in most cases).

It is not entirely clear whether this approach has anything like merit. In any case, it has occurred to the author that it’s not the worst possible idea — the litmus test by which he (read: I) composes most of his work.

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Mickey Callaway might be the MVP of the 2013 Cleveland Indians. The “P” in the acronym doesn’t stand for player — Callaway is the team’s pitching coach — but you get the point.

The Indians came into the campaign with a pitching staff full of question marks. The majority of prognosticators panned the clubs’ chances of competing in the American League Central for that very reason; their lineup was solid, but could they possibly prevent enough runs to keep up with the Tigers?

With Callaway’s help, they’re finding a way. Cleveland pitchers are currently fifth-best in the American League in runs allowed, ERA and FIP. They are also young. Of the 19 who have toed the rubber, only three have celebrated a 30th birthday. Callaway is no grizzled veteran himself. Just 38 years old, he is in his first season on a big-league coaching staff.

Callaway discussed aspects of the Indians’ organizational pitching philosophy — and several of his charges — when Cleveland visited Fenway Park in late May.

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The Yasiel Puig era begins now for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Mired in a disappointing beginning to the 2013 season, the organization is looking to the 22-year-old outfield prospect with the hope of catching lightning in a bottle. A Cuban defector, Puig has just 63 games of North American professional experience under his belt, but he’s made the most of his time in the minor leagues . Well, at least in terms of his results at the plate. At Double-A this season, the young hitter produced a .313 batting average; 23 of his 46 hits going for extra bases.

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