The A’s figured 2015 would be a competitive year, and though there have been plenty of encouraging signs, at some point there’s just not enough time left to expect bad luck to reverse itself. The Astros, meanwhile, figured 2015 would be a competitive year, but maybe not this much of a competitive year, so they found themselves considering the market of short-term upgrades. So it is that a surprising A’s team and a surprising Astros team have come together on a move: Scott Kazmir is going to Houston, and now the league-wide trade market is open.

He’s not the first big-leaguer to be moved. Juan Uribe got swapped. Mark Trumbo got swapped. Welington Castillo got swapped a couple of times. But this is the first real deadline move, with the A’s conceding that it’s time for them to sell. Kazmir’s a free agent in a few months, but the Astros weren’t turned off by that. If anything, they were seeking that out. Rentals tend to cost less, and Kazmir provides important rotation insurance. The guys the A’s are getting are named Jacob Nottingham and Daniel Mengden. You’re probably not familiar with either, but that doesn’t mean the A’s just got robbed.

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With significant deadline trades, we’re going to attempt to provide an evaluation of the prospects changing teams from both Kiley McDaniel’s scouting perspective and Chris Mitchell’s statistical breakdowns. The numerical breakdown of both players appears below Kiley’s write-ups.

Today, the Houston Astros officially decided to go for it, acquiring Scott Kazmir from the A’s in exchange for for A-Ball prospects RHP Daniel Mengden and C Jacob Nottingham. Both were late cuts from my preseason prospect list list, which by Opening Day, with the Evan Gattis trade and losing Delino DeShields in the Rule 5 draft, included 22 players.

Both players were among the group of six given 35+ FV grades, so they were both in the 23-28 range in Houston’s system entering the year. I don’t have inside info on how the negotiations went down, but I’m guessing Kazmir was long a target for Houston (as they took a run at him this offseason) and Oakland was holding out for a top 10 prospect in the Astros organization. Based on the preseason rankings, this will look like a light return, but given Nottingham’s breakout season, they did indeed land a guy who would have ranked in the Astros top 10 if the list was re-done today.

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Ben and Sam banter about the Astros and then discuss the possible interpretations of Zack Greinke’s scoreless innings streak.

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Brayan Pena is a 33-year-old backup catcher who has amassed 1820 PA across 11 seasons, producing a .259/.299/.352 line and a 75 wRC+. The takeaway point from that first sentence is that Brayan Pena has been among the worst hitters in the league over the last decade, which is probably something you knew about him without any prompting. Pena’s a fun-loving character and he’s passable behind the plate, so he’s made a career for himself in the big leagues despite the very limited offensive production.

Reflecting on Pena is simply a way to put the 2015 White Sox in perspective because the White Sox are essentially hitting like Brayan Pena as a team this year. On the season, they’re hitting .241/.295/.357 (77 wRC+). They’re five percentage points worse than the Phillies (82 wRC+) at the plate without removing the Phillies’ pitchers from the equation. Take pitchers out of the equation and the White Sox’ 78 wRC+ is nine percentage points worse than the 29th place Phillies (87 wRC+). The White Sox offense is historically bad.

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The trading deadline is nearly upon us, and if history is a guide, there could be a dizzying amount of player movement in the coming days. This season appears to be unique in a couple of ways. There seems to be a somewhat historic mismatching of pure buyers and sellers, in large part due to the insanity of the American League wild-card race. Purely by definition, is there a sure seller in that bunch?

This week, we’re previewing the deadline in a somewhat unique manner. Instead of focusing solely on club’s holes and potential targets, we’ll hone in on them from their respective talent arsenals to be drawn upon to make deadline deals. Which clubs are best — and worst — positioned to land the most attractive prizes on the market? Yesterday, we looked at the American League. Today, it’s the NL, and its somewhat more traditional stratification of buyers and sellers.

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With the trade deadline now eight days away, most of the trade speculation has centered around a few big name players. Johnny Cueto, Cole Hamels, Jeff Samardzija, and Scott Kazmir were the primary pitching targets for contenders looking to upgrade their rotation, and David Price might end up in that mix too. The hitting class is a lot weaker, but Justin Upton’s name continues to float out there, and Ben Zobrist is probably available to a team who wants a do-everything guy instead of just a bat. But if you want any of those guys, they aren’t going to come cheap, and there is going to be a lot of competition for their services.

But while I still think this remains a seller’s market — though to a lesser degree than it was a month ago — I do think there are some potential values to be had for teams that are willing to shop in the mid-tier instead. To that end, here are the three players I’d be aggressively targeting this month, given their expected production and my sense of what I think they’ll cost, relative to the big name guys.

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Last week at Grantland, two friends of the show in Jonah Keri and Nick Piecoro had a wonderful discussion about all things Arizona Diamondbacks, including the Touki Toussaint trade that caused many a skeptical eyebrow to be raised in the Diamondbacks’ direction. While Keri and Piecoro by no means endorsed the Diamondbacks’ recent moves, they brought up an interesting perspective on Arizona’s willingness to spend big on Cuban players Yasmany Tomas and Yoan Lopez — and thus easily eclipsing their allotted international bonuses — without spending much on international free agents from other countries. The idea: there’s a relatively slim chance that Tony La Russa and Dave Stewart — or any other general manager for any other team — would still be working in their current position when today’s 16-year-old reaches the majors. While the fan no doubt cringes at the thought of a general manager romping around the front office with nary a concern for the franchise’s sustained success, one can definitely empathize with the human instinct for self-preservation.

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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
Los Angeles NL at New York NL | 19:10 ET
Kershaw (131.0 IP, 52 xFIP-) vs. Colon (109.1 IP, 99 xFIP-)
One overlooked advantage to having invented a hastily constructed algorithm for estimating the likely aesthetic appeal of baseball games is that one is able to alter said algorithm at his or her own pleasure. Partly in response to comments such as the ones made energetically by concerned reader NotGettingIt yesterday and partly in response to the author’s own fallible intuition, what I’ve done today is to change which sort of playoff odds are utilized in the team NERD scores. Until now, I’ve used the divisional-series odds from the FanGraphs Projections Mode. Starting now, however, I’ll use the divisional-series odds from the Season-to-Date Stats Mode.

The former, because it accounts for the actual players on each respective roster, is probably the better tool for estimating each club’s actual chances of qualifying for the postseason. The advantage of the latter mode, however — for this endeavor, at least — is that it reflects how an actual human person experiences the playoff race. Consider: the Giants currently trail the Dodgers by 2.5 games in the NL West. Because the latter club features a stronger roster than the former, their Projections Mode divisional-series odds are much better: 91.1% for the Dodgers versus just 25.6% for the Giants. What a human observes, though, is mostly just that 2.5-game lead — and a 2.5-game lead, generically speaking, doesn’t translate to such robust odds as those possessed by the Dodgers. The Season-to-Date Mode depicts more closely that generic translation: it gives the Dodgers a 70.5% chance of qualifying for the divisional series; the Giants, a 46.8% chance. In the former case, the two teams are separated by roughly 65 percentage points; in the latter, roughly just 25 points. While, again, the Dodgers probably possess something closer to 90% odds of qualifying for the divisional series, that figure is based on certain (sound) assumptions about the quality of their roster — assumptions with which a person, actually experiencing the event, is likely less concerned.

Below are now the top-five clubs by NERD. Note: pDOFF represents divisional-series playoff odds as calculted by means of the projections; sDOFF denotes the same thing, except as calculated by season-to-date stats. Team NERD formerly included the former; now, the latter.

Given their greater proximity to the 50% DOFF mark by this new methodology, both the Dodgers and Giants’ NERD scores increase — which also has the effect of displacing the Astros to some degree, although Houston’s score remains high overall.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York NL Television.

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Lance McCullers is starting for the Astros on Thursday, and while he’s going to have his innings closely monitored down the stretch, potentially reducing his availability, there’s no doubt he’s played a big role in getting the Astros to where they are at present. McCullers has followed an up-and-down 2014 with an incredibly successful 2015, and in just 11 big-league starts, he’s been worth about 2 WAR no matter which formula you prefer. The Astros are said to be in the market for a starting pitcher, but if it weren’t for McCullers’ presence, the situation would be a lot more desperate.

McCullers throws three pitches, though the changeup is simply coming along. He has a good fastball that sits in the mid-90s, but the best pitch here is the curve, thrown a third of the time and responsible for the majority of McCullers’ strikeouts. It’s never been a secret that McCullers throws a good breaking ball, but in talking with David Laurila, Brent Strom tossed out a heavy comp:

“I’d say McCullers’ breaking ball is Kimbrel-like at times,” said Strom. “That’s as good as you can get. I haven’t seen everybody’s curveball, but I would say the young kid McCullers has a curveball as good as anybody in this game.”

That’s a direct comparison between Lance McCullers’ breaking ball and Craig Kimbrel’s breaking ball. That’s coming from a big-league pitching coach, so it carries some weight. But why not put numbers to this, to try to find the best comp, really?

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