According to the best data I can access, so far this year there have been 425 pitches thrown at least 100 miles per hour. Andrew Cashner‘s got one. Nathan Eovaldi‘s got one. Matt Harvey‘s got two. Bruce Rondon‘s got 104. Aroldis Chapman‘s got 196. To set a cutoff at 100 is arbitrary, but it feels natural, and 100 definitely has the feel of a magic number. A fastball at 100 is, officially, a fastball in the triple digits. Within the realm of 100+ mile-per-hour fastballs, Rondon and Chapman, combined, have thrown more than twice as many as everybody else. The next-highest total after Rondon’s 104 is Kelvin Herrera’s 45, and there’s long been talk that the PITCHf/x in Kansas City is miscalibrated.

What Chapman’s got over Rondon is peak velocity — Chapman, this year, has topped out at 104. What Rondon’s got over Chapman is consistency — 24% of Rondon’s pitches have reached 100, against Chapman’s 19%. Rondon has the harder average fastball. If you isolate only those fastballs thrown at least 100, Rondon and Chapman tie with an average velocity of 101. Clearly, these are the game’s premier flame-throwers. But while they both throw similar heat — similar, virtually unparalleled heat — the results have been considerably different. We’ve been seeing two types of 100 mile-per-hour fastballs.

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There was a tempest in a teapot during Monday’s Yankees-Orioles game. Between innings, Joe Girardi screamed that Oriole third base coach Bobby Dickerson was stealing signs. Buck Showalter screamed back at Girardi so heatedly that umpires had to restrain him. Girardi claimed that Dickerson was stealing pitch signs from Yankee catcher Austin Romine, and signaling them to Oriole hitters. Showalter took umbrage, and the next day, he told ESPN’s Mike Lupica that the Yankees “are actually one of the better teams” at stealing signs. Others don’t think it’s a big deal. Trying to steal signs is fair, Lou Piniella told ESPN in an interview. “It is part of the game,” he said. If another team tries to steal your signs, “You just switch them.”
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The NL MVP race has a lot of good candidates. Clayton Kershaw is having an amazing year for the Dodgers. Yadier Molina and Matt Carpenter have been fantastic for the Cardinals. Joey Votto is his usual excellent self. Paul Goldschmidt is the run production candidate, and has had a great season on his own merits. This feels like the kind of year where a lot of different guys are going to get votes, and the winner probably won’t be unanimous.

But let’s not let the reality of a solid field of candidates obscure the fact that Andrew McCutchen is pulling away from the field. He might not look like a traditional MVP, but McCutchen is having a remarkable season.

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It isn’t often you can say this, but the best show in baseball Wednesday took place in Miami. Though it was a game between the going-nowhere hosts and the certainly-going-somewhere Braves, the hosts had Jose Fernandez on the mound, and before the Marlins equivalent of a full house, Fernandez did everything in what would be his final start of the season. There were twists, there were turns. There were big swings and big pitches. There were players yelling at one another, and there were fans yelling louder. Wednesday night, Miami and Fernandez had it all.

Fernandez was dominant, but Fernandez has often been dominant, and the game was so much more than that. He got involved not just on the mound, but also at the plate and on the basepaths. Everybody knew it would be his last turn, and it doesn’t seem like he left anything on the table.

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

1. A Brief Timeline of the Corey Kluber Society
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Brief Timeline of the Corey Kluber Society
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to announce a meeting — in this case, at 8:10pm ET today (Thursday) — of the Corey Kluber Society.

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Ben and Sam discuss whether 2013 was a success or failure for the Marlins relative to expectations, then talk about how the Yankees should approach Derek Jeter’s age-40 season.

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I’ve been pretty busy. I wonder what Andrelton Simmons has been up to of late? Most of my attention is dedicated to the actual races. Let’s go ahead and take a quick peek over at Simmons’ MLB.com video highlight page. What’s the most recent clip look like? Cool, it’s from just a couple days ago. Looks like a defensive play against the Marlins. I’ll stream it, and — ooh, slow chopper off the bat. Batter got badly jammed. You’re telling me Simmons turned this into some kind of out?

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This afternoon, I had a bit of a brouhaha with one Jonah Keri, friend of the site and of mine. With the Royals leading the Indians 5-2 at the time of our fisticuffs, Jonah tweeted the following.

The Kansas City Royals have a very real shot at making the playoffs. Last time they made it was nearly 6 years before Mike Trout was born.

— Jonah Keri (@jonahkeri) September 11, 2013

Because I have a reputation as a Debbie Downer to uphold, I went to our Playoff Odds page and noted that the listed playoff odds for Kansas City stood at just 2.7%. That didn’t account for the game the Royals were winning at the moment, so it understated their odds to some degree, but even with the victory over the Royals, I called out the Tall Canadian on his liberal use of the term “very real shot”, noting that math says that the Royals are pretty big long shots to end up with a wild card spot.

Of course, Mr. Keri prefers to poutine and Youppi to cold hard facts, so he waved off the numbers as something born out of a witches cauldron. Bah and humbug, he said, or something to that effect, before donning his Chris Getz jersey and resuming his cheerleading.

@DCameronFG I'm not a total believer in the odds reports, when you drill down to specifics. Also doesn't account for today's about-to-win.

— Jonah Keri (@jonahkeri) September 11, 2013

Because I like Jonah and want him to see the folly of his ways, I figured this was worth a post. Even with just a couple of game deficit with a few weeks still go to, why do our playoff odds calculations think the Royals have little chance of actually making the playoffs? In large part, it can be summed up by the remaining schedule.

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Who knew Yan Gomes was the key to playoff contention? When he and Mike Aviles were traded from Toronto to Cleveland for Esmil Rogers, the Jays were in the midst of a massive off-season makeover that was supposed to make them American League East contenders. They were sending two redundant bench pieces away to Cleveland — a team unlikely to chase down Detroit for the AL Central title — for a bit of pitching upside. Fast forward to today: the Jays have been out of realistic contention for months, while Cleveland currently has 20 or 30 percent chance of making the playoffs, depending on which set of odds one consults. Gomes has hit .302/.353/.513 (140 wRC+) with good defense this year, while Toronto’s J.P. Arencibia has hit .205/.241/.382 (65 wRC+) with terrible defense.
Clearly, the trade has been the difference.

Jokes aside, Gomes has played surprisingly well this season, and lately has even supplanted Carlos Santana (who has been getting starts at first and DH) as Cleveland’s primary catcher. Part of that has to do with Santana’s struggles behind the plate this year, but Gomes’ good play has also been a factor. It would be easy to say Cleveland got lucky, but every team has its share of unexpected good and bad performances.

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