Victor Martinez has been the best hitter in baseball this season.

Granted, that’s just an opinion that I’ve presented as fact, but he has a strong case. The strongest part of his case is that, at the time of this writing, he leads the MLB in both wOBA (.412) and wRC+ (167). There aren’t any better hitting metrics than those two, but in case you want more evidence, he’s also second in batting average (.337), first in on-base percentage (.407), second in slugging percentage (.575), 10th in isolated slugging percentage (.238) and second in total batting value behind only Mike Trout, thanks to a disparity of plate appearances. Victor Martinez has the same total batting value as Giancarlo Stanton and he’s come up to the plate 56 fewer times. That’s how good he’s been. He’s been so good, some have tossed his name around in the MVP discussion, despite serving primarily as a designated hitter. A DH has never won the MVP award.

But he has been much more than just a great hitter. He has been a downright fascinating hitter. One thing that really jumps out when looking at his numbers are his walks and strikeouts. He has the lowest strikeout rate in the MLB, at 6.5%. He also has a 10.7% walk rate. No other player in baseball has walked more than they’ve struck out this year. Victor has 22 more walks than strikeouts (not including his league-leading 25 intentional walks). His strikeouts and walks, as well as his still-elite bat speed, are things I touched upon when I wrote about Martinez for this site back in May. But that’s in the past. The contents of that post were remarkable because of the circumstances, e.g. his age, injuries and past as a catcher. The content that follows in this post is remarkable because of its place in history.
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Back at the end of July, there was one overarching narrative: the Tigers and A’s engaging in an arms race to try and get an advantage for their inevitable October match-up. On the day the Tigers acquired David Price and the A’s acquired Jon Lester, Oakland had the best record in baseball, while Detroit had a comfortable four game lead in the AL Central; since adding their respective aces, both have surrounded their divisional leads, with the A’s falling so far behind the Angels that their chances of winning the AL West now stand a fraction of one percent.

Toss in the quickly fading Milwaukee Brewers — 60-49 on July 31st, 14-22 since — and we have three strong first half contenders limping to the finish line. Like the A’s, the Brewers should basically punt any hopes they still hold about a division title, and are now hoping entirely for a surge that will put them back in the Wild Card race. But even if the A’s, Tigers, and Brewers manage to right their ships, should they really be optimistic about their chances in October? After all, they’ve spent the better part of the last few months playing lousy baseball, and at some point, doesn’t a second half slump become an indicator of underlying problems that would derail a playoff run even if the team managed to get to the postseason?

In a word: no.

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Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

In high school, stats mean nothing. In college, we can look at general indicators, and when taken in context (i.e. he’s the only good hitter on his team and he gets pitched around a lot, he told our scout this frustrates him, etc.) can have some predictive value. For high school showcases with wood bats against good pitching, we can take some away and from the couple good college summer leagues we can take the most (in the amateur context). But, in general, amateur hitting stats mean nothing unless you have some scouting context and hopefully two of 1) strong competition 2) a big sample and 3) a wood bat.

At the professional level, stats are much more insightful. I wouldn’t take much from short-season leagues (which are basically the same level of competition as the best amateur leagues, like the SEC or the Cape Cod League) but in full-season ball we can start to notice things.

I scouted a player a few years ago for a club and though he would be a 45 bat from BP and my recollections from the games, then noticed when I went over my game notes that I wrote a lot of positive comments, thinking I might go as high as a 55. Then I checked his stats: he went 12-for-15 in the games I saw, but hit.250 that season with poor peripherals (I saw him at the end of the season).

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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
Kansas City at Detroit | 19:08 ET
James Shields (200.1 IP, 96 xFIP-, 3.1 WAR) faces Rick Porcello (183.0 IP, 96 xFIP-, 3.1 WAR). It’s the case for athletes, generally, that the extent of their celebrations correlates strongly with the height of the leverage of the encounter from which they’ve just emerged successfully — that the celebration is, in large part, an expression of relief. To what degree the following clip of Joe Nathan differs from those other times when he’s recorded a save, the author can’t say. That Nathan’s celebration occurs just after having weathered the highest leverage index for him (4.43) since August 9th — against a Kansas City club with whom Detroit is effectively tied in the standings — this is all an example of fact.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Detroit Radio.

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Melky Cabrera’s season ended on Friday with a broken finger. Normally, “team headed for 22nd straight year out of the playoffs loses second-best outfielder for the final three weeks” isn’t much of a story, but this situation is a little different. Cabrera is about to be a free agent in what looks to be a terrible market for offense, is only entering his age-30 season in 2015, and has had three pretty good seasons in the last four years. He’s been essentially the same hitter as Anthony Rendon has this year. That’s a pretty good resume to take into free agency, and understandably, talk is already focusing on where he’ll be playing next season.

Also understandably, that discussion has mostly centered around the considerable baggage that Cabrera brings with him, notably his 2012 PED suspension and the associated “let’s build a fake website” weirdness that came with it. Buster Olney devoted a column to it earlier this week, interviewing at least one player who complained that the system is set up in such a way that a rule-breaker can still find himself collecting a huge free agent payday. That player suggested that two-time offenders be restricted to one-year contracts in the future, which seems to me to be a thing that will never, ever happen.

Whether the feelings of that unnamed player are correct or not — you can probably guess my feelings on the subject — is kind of beside the point, because the fact is that Cabrera will go into free agency without any official restrictions, just unofficial reservations. While there’s some real reasons to question about him going forward, he’s also about to enter a market that is almost totally devoid of outfield offensive talent. Cabrera’s going to get paid, and it’s going to make a lot of people unhappy.

* * *

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John Holdzkom made his major league debut a little over a week ago, in relief for the Pirates in a losing effort against the Cardinals. As he faced his first batter — a showdown he’ll either remember forever or forget in an instant — the St. Louis broadcast got to talking. Said Rick Horton:

I asked our friends in the broadcast team for the Pirates what they could tell me about Holdzkom, and their answer was, we’ve never heard of him. […] We understand he has a palmball.

That’s two things. That’s a quote that says a little about John Holdzkom. It’s also a quote that says everything about John Holdzkom. Holdzkom has followed an impossible path, and now he stands as the only known pitcher throwing a palmball in the bigs.

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Episode 481
David Temple is an IT professional, contributor both to FanGraphs and NotGraphs, and now editor of TechGraphs. It’s with a view towards promoting the last of those weblogs that he appears on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

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

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 43 min play time.)

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