Ratings news were a mixed bag for Major League Baseball over the past few weeks. The Home Run Derby was the number-one rated cable show of the week and saw a significant increase from the previous year with more than seven million viewers. The All-Star Game itself was a disappointment in the ratings, as the broadcast was at its lowest-viewed level of all-time — although it did have more viewers than any other program that week, and the ratings were in line with the past few years. The best news MLB received in the ratings department came in the form of local broadcasts, which are once again dominant. The most troubling item over the last month was the news that ESPN had lost more than seven million subscribers in the past four years, perhaps a sign of the crumbling cable model.

Breaking each one down:

All-Star Game and Home Run Derby

The Home Run Derby was a clear success for MLB after a disappointing rain-delayed derby last year. The derby did a 4.9 rating, a big increase over the 3.9 from 2014 and aided by the excitement of a new timed format that kept the event lively. The show averaged another 75,000 viewers digitally over the WatchESPN app, per Forbes, with more than 250,000 unique viewers. The derby’s viewership nearly doubled the second-highest rated cable show of the week (TNT’s Major Crimes) and was the seventh-most watched show of the week when including broadcast network shows.

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Watching videos of Hanley Ramirez’s defense is a lot like using illegal drugs: a little bit is probably fine but too many will definitely kill you. Since taking over in left for the Red Sox this season, Ramirez has engendered strong opinions about his defensive abilities. To some, he’s horrible. Others say, no, he’s horrendous. Some others might point out that those are synonyms and the first two groups are being idiots anyway because Hanley is beyond horrendous and horrible and is, plainly, the worst. It is this third group of people who are correct.

He spent 11 seasons playing shortstop for two major-league teams. He’s an athlete. He has athlete skills. A free agent this past offseason, he explicitly wanted to come back to Boston, the team that signed him as a teenager, and to do so, he agreed to move to left field. With the exception of first base, probably, left is the least challenging of the defensive positions. Or rather, it’s not that it’s not challenging, it’s that mostly anyone who is decent enough to have played shortstop in the majors should be good at it. Should be. Except, in Hanley’s case, no. He’s not good. In fact, he’s bad. Very bad. But we don’t have to fall back on adverbs because this is FanGraphs and we have numbers!

The thing is, almost all of those numbers are big and start with a negative sign. It’s not like we’re debating the MVP here and Trout has 70,000 WAR and Cabrera has 69,999 WAR. The worst left fielder in baseball by UZR is Hanley at -15.2. The next worst is Chris Colabello at -9.1. The difference between Ramirez and Colabello is the difference between Colabello and Dalton Pompey, 13 guys up the list. Put another way, Ramirez has done as much damage to the Red Sox in left field (again, by UZR) as the second-worst left fielder and fourth-worst left fielder combined. If this were a good thing we’d say Ramirez was dominating the position, but it’s not so we can’t say that.

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The Mariners won on Thursday! That’s not uncommon. The Mariners have won a bunch of times, if you think about it. But they haven’t really strung them together. They haven’t won two games in a row since the start of the month. They haven’t won three games in a row since the last week of May. In the Mariners’ best month so far, they went 14-14. Right now they’re hanging around the bottom of the American League, and though the Mariners haven’t yet sold pieces off, the playoffs look like the longest of shots. Maybe a miracle is in the cards. Probably not. Miracles are never probable, or else they wouldn’t be miracles.

Speaking of things that aren’t uncommon, seeing the Mariners toward the bottom feels familiar. They haven’t made the playoffs since Ichiro was a rookie. But this year was supposed to be different. Last year wasn’t bad, and then the Mariners added Nelson Cruz. And Cruz, for the most part, has been terrific. Only a few months ago, the Mariners were the popular pick as division favorites. Now they have to be thankful for the struggles of the Red Sox, Indians and White Sox, as they aren’t the obvious biggest disappointment. This wasn’t supposed to be close to a last-place team.

I’ll admit, when you’re dealing with a last-place team, the last thing most people want to do is look back. And I think a lot of people have some understanding of how the Mariners have gone off track. It’s not a mystery, and of greater concern is where the team goes from here. But I did want to take this opportunity to run some math. To divide blame, if you will, for why the ship has sunk. I think this can be instructive.

We have all the current numbers we need. The Mariners are 44-52. They’re fourth from the bottom in the majors in Wins Above Replacement (WAR). We also have all the old numbers we need. At FanGraphs, before the season, we projected the Mariners to win almost 55% of their games. That winning percentage, over 96 games, would yield a record of about 53-43. So the Mariners are presently about nine wins off the expectation. Where were those wins supposed to come from? Where haven’t they come from? Helpfully, we have all the individual player preseason projections.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.

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Yesterday, we had our first notable trade as we head towards the deadline, with the A’s officially throwing in the towel by shipping Scott Kazmir to the Astros for a couple of A-ball prospects, one of whom looks pretty interesting. But given that Kazmir is a pretty high quality starter without any kind of significant financial commitment beyond this year, the return for his services seems a bit light on the surface, especially given that it looked like we might have an extreme seller’s market a few weeks ago.

In that piece, I stated that I saw “20 to 22” teams looking to add talent, with a few more just riding out their rosters for the remainder of the season, leaving only “5 to 8 teams” serving as the supply source of talent at the deadline. Those assumptions now look pretty poor, especially when it comes to starting pitching. Many of the bubble teams who looked like they could have swung towards buying have instead fallen off by the wayside and are now looking to the future, and they all happen to have starting pitching to trade.

As a result, supply and demand for starting pitching seem to have evened out, and we might even be in a situation where there are more starting pitchers available than open spots that contenders are looking to fill.

Realistically, the Dodgers need two starters, and the Royals probably do too, with the Blue Jays desperately looking for one, and the Cubs and Yankees also looking to upgrade their rotations if the price is right. That’s a gross demand for seven pitchers, though we could get that up to nine if we include the Rangers and Red Sox on the demand side of things; even though neither is a 2015 contender, both are reportedly still shopping for controllable arms to help them for next year. Someone else — maybe Pittsburgh, St. Louis, or Minnesota — might jump into the market for pitching as well, but right now, it looks like there’s aggregate demand for 7-9 starting pitchers.

And there are at least that many available arms. The Reds are selling Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake, the Marlins are shopping Mat Latos and Dan Haren, the Phillies have Cole Hamels perpetually available, the White Sox will move Jeff Samardzija, the Rangers are reportedly looking to deal Yovani Gallardo, and the Padres have apparently made their entire rotation available, with Ian Kennedy the most likely to go. If we assume the Padres will only deal Kennedy and keep their three guys under control for next year, then that group provides an aggregate supply of eight available starters, right in line with our estimate of demand.

But by the end of the weekend, the supply could continue to increase, and potentially in significant ways. If the Tigers put David Price on the block, that would have a cascading effect on everyone else’s value, as he’d probably go to the top of the list in terms of desirable starting pitchers. The Mariners could put Hisashi Iwakuma in play as well, and if both the Tigers and Mariners decide to move their free-agent-arms-to-be, we’d be looking at nine rental pitchers available, plus Hamels, meaning that there would be enough short-term assets available to meet the demand even without dipping into the reserve of controllable assets who could be had if a team put together an aggressive package.

And if the Rangers don’t land Cole Hamels, demand will probably decline rather than increase, as they seem to only really be in the market for him, and not any of the rest of the guys floating around the rumor mill. Right now, I’ve got them in both the supply and demand category, but if Hamels goes elsewhere — or doesn’t go anywhere at all — they’re likely to pivot out of buying and solely act as a seller. The Yankees are also making noises about having a quiet deadline, and with Masahiro Tanaka and Michael Pineda pitching well, they don’t necessarily have to trade for a starter; if they bow out of the bidding as well, we could be looking at only four teams buying starting pitching over the next week.

That’s probably an unlikely scenario, as even if the Rangers and Yankees decide not to buy, that will probably drive prices down low enough to bring in one of the on-the-bubble buyers, and maybe the Twins or Pirates would swoop in at that point and pick up one of the lower-tier arms. I’d be surprised if fewer than seven starting pitchers changed teams over the next week, and it’s probably going to be more like eight or nine.

But the Padres are a problem for teams selling pitching, because if they decide to blow up their rotation and move one of James Shields, Tyson Ross, or Andrew Cashner in addition to Ian Kennedy, then we’re definitely going to be in a situation where there are more available arms than the contenders are demanding. And if Toronto ends up with a guy like Mike Fiers or Carlos Carrasco — they’ve been rumored to be looking into both — instead of Hamels or one of the rentals, then those teams selling pending free agents could see their options dry up quickly.

Particularly, I think the Marlins are the most vulnerable here, with two mid-level rent-a-pitchers who don’t seem to be at the top of anyone’s wish list. Mat Latos offers enough upside to be interesting but has reportedly burned a lot of bridges in his time with three different organizations, and a few months of a good-not-great starter who might be a pain in the rear to have around is easy to pass up when there are so many alternatives. And while Dan Haren has a shiny 3.46 ERA, he is mostly a strike-throwing fifth starter at this point, with declining peripherals that suggest you probably don’t want to hand him the ball in a playoff game. If an oversupply leaves anyone without a spot on a contender down the stretch, I’d guess it would be one of those two, and it could end up being both.

But there is a counter-balance to this that I think may make this rush to call this a buyer’s market a bit premature; the Qualifying Offer. The potential addition of a fairly valuable draft pick gives most of the potential sellers a fallback plan that they can use as a price floor. If we do end up in a situation with 10 or 11 available starting pitchers and only six or seven spots for them to land, the White Sox could just decide to keep Samardzija for the next few months, especially if the offers aren’t much different than what the A’s got for Kazmir.

Nottingham, after all, looks like a back-end Top 100 guy; Kiley wrote yesterday that he’ll get a grade of 50 FV, which would put him in the same range as players who ranked from 80 to 142 on his pre-season Top 200. Based on the recent studies of prospect valuations, that kind of prospect has an estimated value of about $10-$15 million, not that different from the value of a draft pick in the 25-35 range.

There are benefits to trading for a prospect instead of taking a draft pick; you don’t have to pay the signing bonus of the prospect — and maybe not the salary of the guy you’re trading either — plus you also get a guy who is likely in closer proximity to the Major Leagues. So a trade is preferable to the pick, but then again, having Samardzija for the rest of the season is likely preferable to throwing out some Triple-A call-up for the last two months, and the value of putting a better product on the field for the stretch run has to be factored in as well.

But the Qualifying Offer does provide a price floor for the better rental pitchers on the block. If teams start trying to low-ball on Samardzija, Leake, or Iwakuma (who is eligible for a a Qualifying Offer), the sellers can tell them to go pound sand, and removing those guys from the supply side of things could restore some balance to the market.

But the QO is probably not in play for guys like Latos, Haren, or Kennedy, and Gallardo is a guy who would be a tough call on making the offer, so the Marlins, Padres, and Rangers are probably the ones most likely to get squeezed if this market does end up swinging to the buyer’s side of things. And that alone may be reason enough for the Padres to take Shields, Ross, and Cashner off the market until after they find a new home for Kennedy; they could be undermining the value of a piece they need to move by trading a piece they don’t.

Of course, if there isn’t much demand for Kennedy in the first place — he’s having a pretty crappy year, after all — then the Padres shouldn’t be too concerned with nuking the value of a bunch of other available starting pitchers. And along with the Tigers, they’re probably the key to this whole thing. If, over the next week, David Price and James Shields do get traded, that’s some seriously bad news for everyone else selling pitching, and at that point, it probably will be a full-fledged buyer’s market for starting pitching, with a few contenders reaping the rewards of drastically diminished prices.

In the end, though, I’m guessing the Tigers keep their team together and the Padres keep their controlled guys, and we end up with a mostly balanced market that helps find new homes for most every pitcher available. Perhaps a guy like Haren will get left without a chair, but I still don’t quite see this as a scenario where supply dramatically outstrips demand. We could get there if Detroit and San Diego decide to dump their pitchers, but I’m not sure we’re there just yet.

Kris Bryant has a lot going for him: he’s second in rookie WAR this season*, he’s part of a long-term Cubs future that looks increasingly rosy, and he’s part of a positional rookie class that has produced the third-most first-half WAR (prorated to 600 PA) in the past 40 years. In short, he’s been everything the Cubs could’ve asked for, showcasing the power, patience, and stolen bases that were expected out of him once he hit the majors.

*All stats current as of Thursday.

That last tool — speed — might be translating to steals somewhat on the back of manager Joe Maddon’s coaching style, but Bryant’s stolen-base skills have never really been in question. He stole eight bases in just 68 games at Double-A and seven in 70 in Triple-A during 2014; this season, he’s produced right about on that level, with eight in 83 games, and that’s obviously a great return for a player with the potential to hit 30 home runs. No one seems to confuse Bryant with a speed demon, however, as he’s not a player whose skill set is based solely around his ability to run.

That final point is precisely why we’re here, because Bryant is currently leading a category you might not expect him to, and one usually reserved for those speedier players we just mentioned. The category he’s leading isn’t home runs, or ISO, or even K% (though he is close to leading that one). Instead, take a look at the top 15 this season for highest infield-hit percentage:

Bryant doesn’t hit a lot of ground balls. Only about 34% of his batted balls are on the ground (relative to a league average of about 45%.) Bryant’s lack of propensity to hit grounder is just as much a driving factor here as his speed is, because infield-hit rate is simply infield hits/ground balls. However, when Bryant does hit a ground ball, it has resulted in an infield hit almost one in five times, which is something that warrants some attention.

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Brent Morel started at third base for the Pirates on Monday. The same Brent Morel who has a career .272 on-base percentage. He started again at third base last night as well. This must have struck fear into the hearts of Pittsburgh Pirates fans, perhaps giving them some flashbacks to the bad old days. Thankfully, that shouldn’t happen very often, as the prodigal son — Aramis Ramirez — has returned. The Pirates re-acquired him on Thursday evening in exchange for minor-league pitcher Yhonathan Barrios.

When Aramis Ramirez left the shores of the Allegheny, he had accumulated just 3.2 WAR in his 2,253 plate appearances in a Pittsburgh uniform. But with the Pirates’ National League Central rivals in Chicago and Milwaukee, he went on to become the player the Pirates always envisioned him as. Now on the brink of 40 WAR for his career — a bar that has only been crossed by 40 other third baseman in big-league history — Ramirez is back in black and gold, and Neal Huntington and Co. couldn’t have picked a better time to bring him back into the fold.

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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
Washington at Pittsburgh | 19:05 ET
Scherzer (138.0 IP, 76 xFIP-) vs. Locke (103.1 IP, 103 xFIP-)
One finds, not infrequently — within the help-wanted section of his local daily — one finds calls from area employers for a sort of job applicant who possesses what is best described as an “attention to detail.” Indeed, as of Thursday night in America, no fewer than 51 of the classified ads in the Concord Monitor — i.e. the newspaper published most closely to the author’s birth home — no fewer than 51 ads featured that precise arrangement of words.

Of note with regard to the sort of jobs that require an “attention to detail” is that the present author has never, ever been offered one of them. Indeed, rather than detail, the author’s attention is turned much frequently in the direction of things like wine in a box, for example, or like internet comedy videos.

It was probably in the author’s haste to direct his attention towards those latter things that I neglected yesterday, while preparing to introduce a slight alteration to the NERD team-score algorithm, that I neglected to include the proper cell range in a VLOOKUP function which returned each club’s divisional-series playoff odds. As a result, a number of clubs were assessed playoff odds of 0%. As a result of that, their NERD scores were distorted badly.

What I’ve done in the meantime, then, is to correct the great cell-range debacle and to update the team scores duly. Here, by way of illustration, are all the clubs to receive a a NERD of 7 or greater either by the distorted version published yesterday or the corrected one today:

One notes that a number of the scores for American League clubs have increased by two or three points. Unsurprisingly, these were the same clubs accidentally omitted from the aforementioned cell range. What one notes beyond that is the substantial volume of energy invested by the author in this overwhelmingly unimportant endeavor — an endeavor monitored by only a handful of people, it should be said, each of whom is also probably marveling at the curious use of his or her finite time among the living. And yet, what one thirdly notes is that the alternatives aren’t manifestly better and that diverting oneself briefly from the spectre of mortality perhaps actually does represent a rational use of one’s resources.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Washington Radio.

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Let’s accept that, after four starts this season, there are few conclusions that can be reached about Jose Fernandez. After all, we need bigger samples of data, and even then, conclusions mostly have to be pretty soft. After four starts, we know very little. But we’re always allowed to make observations. We can identify hints of things, things that might be true, and so I ask, has Fernandez become more dangerous on the other side of his elbow surgery?

You probably haven’t missed it, but just in case you did, Fernandez rejoined the Miami Marlins not long ago, and one of the Internet’s most favorite pitchers has 32 strikeouts in 26 innings. He’s also issued just three walks, throwing almost three-quarters of his pitches for strikes. And it doesn’t seem like he’s lost any movement or zip. Set a low enough minimum, and Fernandez leads all starting pitchers in out-of-zone swing rate. It’s here that I want to linger. I want to talk about that number, and I want to talk about Fernandez’s best pitch.

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Episode 581
Jeff Sullivan is a senior editor at FanGraphs. He’s also the totally imperiled guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

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 1 hr 15 min play time.)

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