We’re only five-plus weeks into the season. Each team has at least 128 games left to play. It’s not too early, though, to talk about players who might be trade targets this summer, as teams fall out of contention. (Is it ever too early, really? This is what we dream up all day long, right?)

Today, we’re going to focus on players with no-trade clauses on teams that may very well be sellers come mid-July. That means starting with the Phillies. Philadelphia has several expensive players who could be quite valuable to contenders down stretch. All of them have no-trade clauses.

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Over the weekend, the Baseball Hall of Fame opened its newest exhibit, Diamond Mines, which was created to honor scouts and the history of scouting in baseball. I’m sure the exhibit itself is pretty neat, and if you’re planning on a trip to Cooperstown, you now have something else to look forward to.

But even if you’re not going to Cooperstown, this exhibit is fantastic, because in addition to the physical museum presence, they created an online searchable deposit of historical scouting reports. And it is awesome.

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

1. Featured Game: Seattle at Pittsburgh, 12:35 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Seattle at Pittsburgh, 12:35 ET
Regarding This Game, One of Its Virtues
One of the virtues of this game is how, in Felix Hernandez (50.2 IP, 65 xFIP-, 1.6 WAR) and A.J. Burnett (42.0 IP, 68 xFIP-, 1.2 WAR), it features two of the major leagues’ strongest pitchers.

Regarding This Game, Another of Its Virtues
Another of this game’s virtues is how, owing to Pittsburgh’s excellent center-field camera, it will facilitate a much better angle for watching Felix Hernandez than the right-hander’s home stadium and camera do.

By Way of Example, Harang at Safeco
By way of example, here’s a screenshot from the first inning of Aaron Harang’s May 1st start against Baltimore at Safeco:

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I know it’s not like me to use such a provocative, declarative headline. Truth be told, I’d be more comfortable with “Yuniesky Betancourt Hasn’t Changed a Bit, Probably”, just so I can cover all my bases. But here we are, and I think it needs to be said, on the heels of Betancourt slamming his eighth dinger of the still very young regular season. This is a time for sanity, in the midst of something very much insane.

The Blue Jays are 13-21, and John Buck has ten home runs. The Dodgers are 13-19, and Dexter Fowler has eight home runs. The Angels are 11-21, and Yuniesky Betancourt also has eight home runs. When something early in the season takes you by complete surprise, it’s worth re-evaluating your expectations, rather than sticking to your guns. But just because you re-evaluate doesn’t mean you have to change your position, and if Betancourt’s changed at 31 years old, it’s showing up in only one place.

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The Fringe Five is a weekly exercise (introduced last month) wherein the author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own heart to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to this exercise, of course, is a working definition of fringe. Currently, for the purposes of this column, it’s any prospect who was absent from all of three notable preseason top-100 prospect lists. (A more robust meditation on the idea of fringe can be found here.)

Since last week’s edition, there have been four total changes to The Fringe Five. Following his promotion to the majors, Corban Joseph was omitted from consideration last week. In the wake of his recent demotion, however, he’s become eligible again for inclusion here, per the author’s mostly arbitrary rules governing the matter. New to The Five is Cleveland right-handed prospect Danny Salazar, who, following an eight-strikeout performance on Tuesday, now has 38 strikeouts in his last four Double-A starts.

Demoted from The Five — for reasons that require no elaboration, declares the present author — are right-handed Rockies prospect Chad Bettis and White Sox middle infielder Marcus Semien.

Those caveats made, let’s proceed to this week’s Fringe Five.

Wilmer Flores, 2B/3B, New York NL (Profile)
Only two qualified Pacific Coast League batters are younger than Flores: uber-prospect Jurickson Profar and other uber-prospect Oscar Taveras. Nor are Flores’ present offensive indicators considerably different than either of theirs. Regard, Profar’s line as of Tuesday: 117 PA, 2 HR, 17 BB, 19 K. And also Taveras’s: 99 PA, 3 HR, 6 BB, 11 K. And now Flores’s: 129 PA, 1 HR, 9 BB, 13 K.

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Ben and Sam answer emails about what it would look like if a hitter got the yips, what Starlin Castro could turn into, errors in sabermetric research, and more.

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Episode 334
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 analyzes things, many of which pertain to baseball.

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 37 min play time.)

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A year ago, one of baseball’s best individual player stories was Kris Medlen, of the Braves. Previously something of a forgotten man, Medlen threw 138 innings as a reliever and then as a starter, allowing just 26 runs and six dingers. The year before, Pirates sinkerballer Charlie Morton made a name for himself by starting 29 times and allowing just six dingers. The year before that, Brett Anderson was outstanding for the A’s when healthy, making 19 starts and riding his sinker while allowing just six dingers. This year, the Royals are looking like an early American League surprise, and one of their best arms out of the bullpen is Kelvin Herrera. But over just 14 games, Herrera has already allowed six dingers, his latest coming on Monday.

Maybe we don’t need to compare Herrera to other pitchers, who don’t have anything to do with him. As fun as it is to compare opposite extremes, if we want to make a point we need only compare Herrera to himself. Already in 2013, Herrera has seen six batted balls fly over the fence. Last season — over a full season — Herrera saw four batted balls do the same thing. Against 17% as many opposing hitters, Herrera has allowed 150% as many home runs, and that’s a thing for us to talk about.

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