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I’m going to be honest with you: I find it surprisingly easy to forget about Josh Hamilton. You think about the Angels team and you think about Mike Trout; you keep thinking about the Angels and you think about Albert Pujols. It doesn’t help that Hamilton was on the disabled list for so long earlier this year. But not actually that long ago, he was one of the most mysterious and volatile free agents in baseball history. This, to say the least, is something of an unexpected slide. It could be Trout is far too distracting, or, similarly, it could be Trout is kind of an attention black hole. Anyone who casts an eye to the Angels is pulled into Trout’s incredible player page. Hamilton, though, hasn’t ceased to be fascinating. This is maybe the quietest it’s ever been for him, but there’s something about Hamilton that keeps getting more extreme.

We’ve written plenty of times before about Hamilton’s plate discipline. Over the years, he’s hit, but he’s shown a lot of vulnerabilities — getting exposed for his over-aggressiveness. If you imagine a Hamilton swing, you might imagine a dinger he clobbers deep to straightaway center; or you might imagine him flailing at something slow in the dirt. He has something of a trademark flail, and in response, pitchers have thrown Hamilton fewer and fewer fastballs. This season, Hamilton’s seen the fewest fastballs yet. This season, Hamilton entered uncharted territory.

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Just over a month has passed since baseball’s amateur draft in early June, and a majority of the players selected during the first round of same have now both (a) signed with the relevant selecting club and (b) recorded either a plate appearance or inning as an actual professional.

What the author has done for this edition of the Prospect Watch is to produce a pair of leaderboards (one for batters; one, pitchers) of the aforementioned first-round selections, with a view towards monitoring the early production of these players. Links to the relevant FanGraphs leaderboards are available here: Batters / Pitchers.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Chicago AL at Boston | 19:10 ET
Chris Sale (87.1 IP, 72 xFIP-, 2.9 WAR) faces Rubby de la Rosa (32.1 IP, 75 xFIP-, 0.7 WAR). The former is the best pitcher in the baseball who also resembles a child’s stick-figure portrait of a baseball pitcher. The latter returns to the majors after having compiled a series of five starts in late-May and June over which he recorded strikeout and walk rates of 24.0% and 6.4%, respectively, while also producing an above-average ground-ball rate and while also-also producing one of the league’s highest average fastball velocities.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Boston Radio.

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Jeff Samardzija has some old-school in him when it comes to pitch counts. Ditto work loads for late-inning relievers. The 29-year-old righthander feels starters should be given more of an opportunity to work deeper into games. As for closers, whatever happened to the multiple-inning save?

On Sunday, Samardzija went seven innings and threw 108 pitches in his first outing since being traded from the Cubs to Oakland. His high for the year is 126, which came on May 5 when he went nine innings and earned a no-decision. The game two months ago is more in line with his way of thinking.

“Back in the day, the game was left in the starter’s hands,” Samardzija told me three days before he was dealt. “If the starter pitched well, he was given his 120 pitches. The game was decided by the starting pitchers. It’s different now and I think that’s unfortunate. When you get into tough situations, regardless of your pitch count, a lot of times a reliever is brought in. I understand why – it’s to preserve the game — but you have to keep your relievers’ arms fresh too. I like the idea of the starters deciding what happens in the game.”

Given the spate of pitchers undergoing Tommy John surgery, injury fears have an ever-increasing influence on workloads. The old-school righty doesn’t see a direct correlation. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and and Sam banter about records they’d like to see broken and answer listener emails about the Yankees’ facial hair policy, trying not to hit homers, and more.

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Episode 460
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 obviously discusses the A’s-Cubs trade that occurred this past week.

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 46 min play time.)

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Note: I made a huge screw-up, and for whatever reason, I didn’t catch it, but Dustin Pedroia didn’t win the MVP award in 2011. He won it in 2008. I’m an idiot. Please try to enjoy the praise of Ian Kinsler without regard for the fact that the primary point of the post is wrong.

Over the weekend, the All-Star rosters were announced, and Ian Kinsler’s name was not among the participants. This probably isn’t a huge shock, given that Robinson Cano is one of the game’s most visible stars and Jose Altuve leads the league in batting average. Kinsler’s value has always been less obvious than many bigger name stars.

But just for fun, I’d like to offer a comparison between Kinsler’s 2014 season and a recent season from a second baseman that resulted in an MVP award resulted in a ninth place finish and this writer looking like a moron. For the sake of the comparison, Kinsler’s numbers have been extrapolated out to match the same number of plate appearances as Pedroia received that year.

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