The last time Zack Greinke allowed a run in a game a game that counted the regular season was June 13, when Justin Upton hit an eighth-inning homer. Even that solo shot was subject to an instant-replay review, and before that, Greinke had allowed just one run in the first. But people care about what’s come after that. What’s come after that have been six starts, spanning an out shy of 44 innings. Over those innings, opponents have batted .129; over those innings, opponents have scored not any runs. The Dodgers actually found a way to lose one of those games, but this is a streak that forces you to focus on the individual. Generally speaking, the name on the front is more important than the name on the back. But we’re all allowed to forget that, when someone’s doing something incredible.

Greinke doesn’t own the longest scoreless streak ever. Nor will he soon, probably. The odds favor the opponents being able to do at least something, and all it ever takes is one swing, on even a pretty good pitch. But we can’t declare the streak over until it’s over, and for the time being, Greinke is closer than he’s ever been. All eyes will be on his performance the next time he’s out there, because he still has a chance at an impossible record. It’s fair to wonder: how has Greinke gotten this far? How has he rattled off more than 43 consecutive scoreless innings? As best as I can tell, there are three general keys.

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Now may be a weird time to write a glowing report about Cole Hamels. He’s fresh off a bad couple starts, and by ERA and WHIP, the Phillie lefty is having his worst season since 2009. On the other hand, his arsenal has never been more complete. Seen through at least this one lens, at least, Hamels is an ace in his prime. There might not be a better time to write that sort of post, at least.

When Hamels came into the league, he had a great changeup and command of a decent fastball for a lefty, but he struggled with a breaking ball. That led to a weird sort of reverse platoon split — he gave up home runs to lefties. The change was a lesser weapon against same-handed hitters, and the curve was inconsistent. He was good, but he wasn’t Peak Hamels, not yet, not with all those homers.

The first solution? A cutter.

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Over the past half decade, the San Francisco Giants have found ways of getting meaningful contributions out of players who were thought to be past their prime or not highly-regarded. This year, the Giants have nurtured the offensive development of three infielders who didn’t show much power before the major leagues, turning what might otherwise have been an average lineup into one of the best offenses in baseball.

Those three infielders are Matt Duffy, Brandon Crawford, and Joe Panik. Together they form three quarters of one of the most productive offensive infields in the game, and it’s fair to say not many people predicted that statement being made about the Giants before the start of the season. The stories behind Crawford and Panik’s breakouts have already been chronicled: through a few swing changes and pulling more fly balls, both Giants middle infielders have increased their power production by leaps and bounds this season. However, we can’t be terribly surprised by those two putting it together, as one was a highly-regarded prospect (Panik), and the other was a very good college player (Crawford).

The same cannot be said of Matt Duffy. An 18th round pick in the 2012 draft out of Long Beach State, Duffy tallied a total of 501 college at-bats, hitting zero home runs during them. Over parts of three years in the minors between 2012-2014, Duffy hit 13 home runs in 1,087 plate appearances: that’s a minor league home run rate of one every 84 plate appearances. To put it another way, Jose Altuve hit a home run, on average, every 77 plate appearances between the 2013 and 2014 seasons, so Duffy homered in the minors at a rate just below what Jose Altuve has for the past two seasons. Duffy was productive in other ways, however, showing doubles power and a nice balance of patience and limited strikeouts.

Then 2015 rolled around, and the 24-year-old forced himself into an everyday role over Casey McGehee by hitting everything in sight. Duffy had eight homers in the first half of the season, performing 27% better than the average major league hitter (while also barely showing his stolen base ability). His average fly ball and home run distance currently sits at 297 feet, ranking 34th in the majors — just behind Andrew McCutchen. That power explosion, coupled with his above average defensive work (something he was known for dating back to his college days), have put him in very good company among rookies in 2015. Take a look at the top 10 rookies in the first half of the season by Wins Above Replacement:

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As I have done a few times before, I’m going to present Twitter analytics for Major League Baseball team twitter accounts concerning fan engagement. In the initial off-season analysis, the Mariners had the most fan engagement over the off-season. In May, the Cubs blew all the other teams away by responding to fans, and the Yankees scored at the bottom both times.

This post will expand upon the original engagement metrics (retweets, replies, media and favorites) and add emoji metrics. I’ve addressed emojis before, albeit briefly in regard to which emojis different fanbases used, but this analysis will look specifically at team’s social media accounts.

The interaction metrics, replies, retweets and favorites, measure how often the team interacts with fans. A reply requires the most time and retweets are a form of endorsement. These both create more engagement than a favorite. The inclusion of media and emoji does not denote a personal interaction, but they communicate in a different way than text does. Images and video can show behind-the-scenes actions, lineup cards, or highlights. Emoji, while sometimes criticized for being silly, are continually changing digital media, facilitating the communication of emotion. The fire emoji in particular is use to denote “hot” players, strikeouts or outstanding plays.

The tweets used in this analysis were collected from June 15, 2015 to the All-Star break (July 16, 2015). I detailed the original collections methods the first post. I added to these methods by counting the number of tweets that contain emojis and denoted if there was a fire emoji used. I omitted any retweets from both the emojis metrics in order to capture the emoji use of each specific team. The general emoji metric is a count of tweets with any emojis in it, and the fire emoji metric is the count of tweets with a fire emoji present.

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Paul Goldschmidt is one of the very best hitters on the planet. Through the All-Star break, the Diamondbacks star first baseman wields a batting line of .340/.455/.610, giving him a 183 wRC+ — the fourth-highest such mark among qualified hitters. He was one of the game’s best hitters last year, too. And also the year before that. In his four full seasons in the league, he’s posted wRC+s of 124, 156, 155 and 183. In terms of WAR, he’s been the fifth-best player in baseball since 2013.

Goldy raked in the minors, as well. Before the D-Backs called him up for the stretch run in 2011, he hit an absurd .306/.435/.626 in Double-A. In his two previous minor-league seasons, he hit a similarly absurd .321/.392/.617. From 2009 to 2011, Mr. Goldschmidt ranked third, first and first, respectively, in his leagues by wRC+.

Yet, despite his minor-league exploits, Goldschmidt was never really thought to be much of a prospect. Best I can tell, literally nobody included him in a single top-100 list. Baseball America ranked him 13th and 11th in the Diamondbacks organization the two years he was eligible. John Sickels had him in the 21-30 bucket and then 9th on his organizational list. Baseball Prospectus had him unranked and then 10th. Here at FanGraphs, Marc Hulet had him unranked and 11th. Heading into 2011, the year he broke into the majors leagues, he ranked behind the likes of Bobby Borchering and Keon Broxton.

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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
Boston at Los Angeles AL | 22:05 ET
Wright (43.1 IP, 125 xFIP-) vs. Heaney (27.1 IP, 82 xFIP-)
Due to popular opinion — which, one must concede, is generally among the least attractive opinions — the calculation for the NERD pitcher scores includes a bonus for knuckleballers equivalent to 5 * KN%, where KN% represents the number of knucklers a pitcher has thrown as a percentage of all the pitches he’s thrown. An attempt, this, to represent the sort of appeal a knuckleballer might possess above and beyond his actual performance. Boston right-hander Steven Wright is the only starter besides R.A. Dickey to benefit from this bonus: Wright has thrown the pitch at least about 80% of the time according to PITCHf/x — and probably more often than that, after adjusting for some of PITCHf/x’s classification issues. Wright pitches tonight against Andrew Heaney, who’s enjoyed considerable success since joining the club in late June.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Boston Radio.

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Last week, we ran through our annual Trade Value series, chronicling the 50 most valuable assets in baseball — at least according to me. To no one’s surprise, Mike Trout remained at the top of the rankings. The rest of the list was dominated by the young stars who have flooded into baseball during the past few years.

But just as there are some players who are valuable both on the field and because of their discounted contracts, there is a flip side to the Trade Value coin: guys who are taking up significant portions of their team’s financial resources without providing enough value to justify their expense. As you’d expect, these types of players are mostly on the downsides of their careers, having been successful enough early on to earn big paydays, only to decline quicker than their current organizations hoped or expected.

Today, we’re going to look at the five players who I estimate to have the least trade value in baseball. Put another way, these are the players who would cost their team the most cash (or equivalently valuable talent) to remove from their rosters. We’ve actually seen a decent number of negative-value asset trades this year — the Rangers taking Josh Hamilton back, the Braves using Craig Kimbrel to dump Melvin Upton on the Padres, and the Diamondbacks dangling prospect Touki Toussaint to get out of the remainder of Bronson Arroyo’s contract, for instance — as more teams with financial flexibility have begun to use that resource to acquire talent that wouldn’t otherwise be available in trade.

Taking on Upton or Arroyo is small potatoes compared to what it cost to move the five guys listed below. These guys are all much bigger liabilities than either of those, and the amount of negative equity is so large that it’s difficult to imagine what deals for these players might actually look like now.

I will note that, when considering the amount of dead money a contract carries, I only considered the amount due by his current organization beginning with the 2016 season (calculating remaining 2015 salary is annoying), excluding amounts already being covered from prior trades. For instance, Josh Hamilton’s contract isn’t going to appear here because the Angels are already on the hook for almost all of the remainder of the deal. A team trying to trade for Hamilton would only be assuming the small portion Texas agreed to take to complete that deal. The same goes for Matt Kemp, whose contract is being somewhat subsidized by the Dodgers. He would have been a stronger candidate for this list if not for the fact that Los Angeles has already paid down some of what it is left on that deal.

And for the estimates of how much of the remaining contracts opposing teams would take, those figures come solely out of my imagination. They aren’t based on any algorithm or formula. I’m spitballing, mostly, and giving a figure in the range of what I’d expect if it were announced that a team had made a deal for one of the five players below. Since these guys are all so far underwater, it’s extremely unlikely any of them gets traded, so this is more a mental exercise than any kind of prediction of upcoming deals.

With those caveats out of the way, let’s get to the list. This is my take on the five players who would require the largest subsidies in order to get another team to take them off their current organization’s hands, plus a few guys who were in consideration but have short enough or cheap enough deals to not quite make the bottom five.

At 35 years old, Pujols has rediscovered his power stroke, posting a .271 ISO that is exactly equal to his career average. With 26 home runs already this season, he’s only two more dingers from a season-high since joining the Angels, and he’s got a pretty decent chance at hitting 40 on the season. Clearly, if the Angels wanted to move him, there would be teams interested in the short-term production, assuming the Angels paid down his salary enough to make it interesting.

But even with Pujols hitting for power again, we’re still talking about a first baseman headed into his late-30s with a .320 OBP. This is as one dimensional as value gets, and teams aren’t going to just ignore the fact that he’s another power decline away from being a pretty average player. Victor Martinez and Nelson Cruz look like instructive comparisons in the most recent free agent market, and they pulled in between $17 million and $15 million per year for four years repsectively. You could point out that Pujols has more defensive value than either — and a very good health track record — so maybe he tops both, and pushes up towards $20 million per year over that same term.

But the problem is that he’s under control for six more years, not just four, and it’s hard to see many teams wanting to pay the freight for all six years. Even in the best case scenario, I can’t see anyone taking more than $90 million, which would leave the Angels with $70 million remaining. Given their status as contenders and their lack of a supporting cast around the game’s best player, there’s no reason for the Angels to make a move like this, so Pujols will very likely be around unless the Angels enter some kind of rebuilding process. His resurgence has definitely increased his value, but he’s worth more to the Angels as a player than a trade chip.

Few free agent contracts have gone wrong as quickly as Choo’s deal with Texas. Coming off a year where he posted a 151 wRC+ and +5.5 WAR, Choo has now posted the two worst seasons of his career, putting up a 97 wRC+ since joining the Rangers. For a guy with no defensive value, league average offense makes him a replacement level player; Choo is only worth playing if he hits, which he now hasn’t done for a couple of years.

This contract was always going to end poorly, given that the Rangers were buying Choo’s 31-37 seasons, but they were hoping to get enough value in the first few years to justify the long-term cost. Now, though, Choo is an underpowered 33 year old who doesn’t make enough contact to offset his flaws, and his problems with left-handers make him a part-time player at best. Realistically, he’s not much better than a guy like David DeJesus or David Murphy at this point, and the going rate for these kinds of players has been $5-$6 million per year on a two year deal.

Maybe we bump that up to $7 or $8 million due to inflation and Choo’s superior past performance record, but teams aren’t signing up to pay much for more than a few years, given his age. I’d estimate that you could maybe get someone to take $25 million over three years, but that would still leave the Rangers responsible for $77 million over the remainder of the contract. And amazingly enough, Choo isn’t even their least tradable asset.

A few years ago, Justin Verlander was the best pitcher in baseball, but the decline from his peak has been swift and sudden. These days, Verlander looks like a back-end starter at best, and it probably won’t be too long before the Tigers start having serious considerations about trying to revive his career as a reliever. With his diminished stuff and inability to get strikeouts via the high fastball, Verlander doesn’t profile as anything more than a role player for the remainder of his contract.

But unfortunately for the Tigers, he’ll be getting paid like he’s still one of the game’s premier players. At $28 million per year for the next four years, a team would realistically expect something like +15 WAR from a free agent signing for a comparable amount; the Tigers will be lucky to get more half of that from Verlander. For the Tigers to get someone else to take the rest of this contract, I’d estimate that they’d have to pay him down to $7 or $8 million per year given the four years left on his contract.

Deals like the Justin Masterson contract show that teams will still take flyers on broken former aces, and the potential for Verlander to move to the bullpen would create a little bit of a market for him, but the Tigers would likely have to pick 75% of the salary in order to get another team to bite.

When Andrus signed this extension back in 2013, he was coming off a 97 wRC+ as a 23 year old, and had just put up his second straight four win season; he looked like one of the best shortstops in baseball, and a pretty easy guy to bet on given his age. And then, almost overnight, Andrus fell apart. He’s put up just a 77 wRC+ since the deal was signed, and he’s gone from an elite defender to a below average fielder in a couple years time. Andrus now looks like someone who might better fit as a utility player on a good team, or a stop-gap starter on a team not really trying to win in the short-term.

Except he’s still due another $103 million in guaranteed money over the next seven years, and even worse, if he’s traded, the team option for 2023 becomes a player option, essentially guaranteeing him another $15 million. So any team attempting to acquire Andrus would be on the hook for $118 million in future commitments. He’s still young enough that you could squint and see a change-of-scenery candidate here, but how much would teams really pay for a no-hit infielder with diminishing defensive skills?

I’d put his floor around $5 million per year — that’s what Stephen Drew got from the Yankees last winter — but the length of the commitment would be a problem, and I can’t see anyone signing up to pay for more than five of the eight years they’d be on the hook for. I could see someone taking something like $30 million over those five years, figuring that they’d get only a slightly overpaid bench piece if he keeps struggling and a potential bargain if he bounces back at all, but that still leaves $88 million for the Rangers to absorb in order to trade him. Given that they could just pay him $103 to keep him for themselves — since the 2023 option almost certainly won’t be picked up if they don’t trade him — there’s no real incentive for Texas to make a deal like this. So both sides are probably stuck with each other, whether they like it or not.

During his long run as baseball’s premier second baseman, Cano thrived due to his rare ability to hit for power while posting elite contact rates. During his first season in Seattle, the power predictably fell off, but he kept his strikeouts to a minimum and created a lot of value by spraying line drives around the field. This year, though, Cano’s power has remained absent but now his contact rate has also regressed, leading to his highest strikeout rate of his career. While you don’t want to overreact to a bad half season, this looks like a 32 year old whose skills are beginning to atrophy.

Cano will likely rebound some and should still be expected to be an above average player in the short-term, but with nearly $200 million left on the $240 million deal he signed with the Mariners, this a huge commitment to a guy who probably isn’t a star anymore. Like with Pujols, I could see a team convincing themselves there’s still a $20 million per year player here based on expected short-term production — especially with the Yankees still having a glaring hole at second base — but the age and length would mean that they aren’t going anywhere near all eight remaining seasons. I think a best case scenario for the Mariners would be that someone takes $100 million, looking at him as a slightly better alternative to the Pablo Sandoval tier of free agents.

But even that might be optimistic, especially if the Yankees decided to pass on a reunion. Sandoval was heading into his age-28 season when he got $95 million, and has the same basic offensive skillset, even if he’s not as good at getting value from it as Cano has been. Given that 2016 will be Cano’s age-33 season, it’s probably unrealistic to expect too much of his power to come back, so perhaps the market tops out in the $85-$90 million range. At that point, the Mariners would still be on the hook for over $100 million, making this deal pretty clearly the contract with the most negative equity in baseball.

Anyone who follows prospects knows that Washington Nationals pitching prospect Lucas Giolito comes with considerable hype. After being in consideration for the first overall pick in the 2012 draft before succumbing to elbow problems, Giolito has repeatedly shown the sort of form that put him in that conversation (one that, given the performance of Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton to date, is frankly quite lofty).

I have seen Giolito twice over the past two years, and I’ve happened to take in two of his more notable outings. Last August, I witnessed him toss five scoreless innings working exclusively with his fastball and changeup, and last week, I watched him throw seven no-hit frames after entering in the second inning. As one might expect, the heralded hurler showed plenty of substance behind his acclaim in both outings.

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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
Cleveland at Cincinnati | 13:10 ET
Carrasco (108.1 IP, 70 xFIP-) vs. Cueto (118.2 IP, 85 xFIP-)
As noted by FanGraphs contributor and doctor of jurisprudence Craig Edwards recently in these pages, Cincinnati right-hander Johnny Cueto — owing both to his impending free agency and also the the Reds’ current position along the win curve — is among the starters most likely to be traded before the July 31 non-waiver deadline. Hypothetically, that would allow Cueto to record three more starts (including this afternoon’s) for the club with which he originally signed out of the Dominican Republic. Three starts at most, that is — and possibly fewer than that. Today represents an opportunity to observe Cueto perhaps for the last time in Cincinnati uniform — and represents also the opportunity to observe in Carlos Carrasco one of the league’s most electric starting pitchers.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.

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