The American League Wild Card race has gone through significant changes over the last six weeks. The Minnesota Twins have moved in and out and back in again. The Los Angeles Angels, once division leaders and then seemingly secure owners of the second Wild Card spot, have faded yet still remain in contention. The Orioles moved close, but now seem far away. The Rays hover, never in the lead, but never completely out. The Rangers, seemingly out of the race as the trade deadline approached, have moved to leader of the race. And finally there appears to be in Cleveland, once sellers and swappers of bad contracts, a stalking horse which has emerged on the periphery of the race, with no other clubs looking likely to separate themselves from the pack.

After dropping a game last night in a tough extra-inning loss to the Toronto Blue Jays and falling five games behind the Wild Card-leading Rangers, Cleveland is still very much on the outside, but they are within range of the playoffs as we move to September. Cleveland has a lot going against them at this point. There are four teams ahead of Cleveland in the standings: the Rangers, Twins, Angels, and Rays (in that order). The five-game deficit, the four teams ahead of them, and the limited time left in the season all give the team just a 6.9% chance of making the playoffs, with almost all of that percentage devoted to the Wild Card with the Kansas City Royals a lock to win the AL Central.

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We’ve made it to September, which means September call-ups are upon us. Like every year, most of the players called up during roster expansions aren’t all that interesting. They’re mostly spare parts, like third catchers and replacement-level bullpen arms. But a few of the guys who were called up yesterday stand a good chance of making an impact in the big leagues over the next few years. Here’s a quick look at three of the more intriguing young pitchers who will get their first taste of the big leagues this month: Zach Davies, Frankie Montas and Miguel Almonte. I anticipate more top prospects will get the call over the next week or so once the minor league seasons come to a close. I’ll hit on them as they’re called up. (Note: WAR figures, unless otherwise specified, indicate total WAR through age-28 season.)

Zach Davies, Milwaukee Brewers, 5.2 WAR

Zach Davies fell all the way to the 26th round in the 2011 draft, but rose through the prospect ranks by performing at every minor-league stop. He spent the 2015 season in Triple-A, where he’s pitched to an impressive 3.30 ERA and 3.36 FIP over 23-starts. Although he rarely tops 90 mph with his fastball, Davies has still managed to post average-ish strikeout and walk numbers as a 22-year-old in Triple-A. Furthermore, he’s managed to induce plenty of ground balls (55% ground-ball rate according to MLBfarm), which helps explain how he’s allowed just six homers in 128 innings on the year.

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Not unlike the rest of us, the Red Sox are just tossing in the surf waiting for the inevitable to happen. Inevitable demise = fun! Their starting pitching is a huge reason why they’re in this unenviable position, and as a starting pitcher for Boston, Joe Kelly is an individual part of that collective failure. Boston was depending on him to pitch like a major-league starter, to be serviceable, but mostly Kelly was just bad. But now, all of the sudden, he’s pitching well! Kelly has always had potential if not results to spare. Does the past month cancel out the rest of the season before it? Is Kelly a good pitcher now and, if so, should he be considered a part of the Red Sox’s rotation next season? Some people are saying yes. I’m saying slow down, some people!

On Aug. 1, Joe Kelly gave up five runs in five innings to Tampa Bay, the lowest-scoring team in the American League. That brought Kelly’s ERA up to 6.11, the highest it had been all season. It’s hard to call that the low point of Kelly’s season because he previously pitched so badly he was sent down to Triple-A, so perhaps we can stipulate it to be one of multiple low points. What’s worse: Slipping and falling into a cake, or the fact it was your boss’ wedding? Tough choice! In Kelly’s case we can ignore which is the lowest point, call it a bad season and move on to the rest of this article.

The lousiness of Kelly and his rotation-mates was not an insignificant point in now-ex-GM Ben Cherington getting replaced as head of baseball operations in Boston. Now, with new team president Dave Dombrowski in charge, the team is using the last few weeks of the season to assess players already on the roster in order to determine what must be done this offseason in preparation for next year. You might think the whole 6.11 ERA thing would have sealed Kelly’s fate, but over his past five starts Kelly is 5-0 with a 1.69 ERA. So, hooray, right? This is the Joe Kelly the team traded for last season! The one with great stuff, the one who can be a contributing member of a major-league rotation on the cheap, the one who can grow a mustache that you might not laugh at immediately upon seeing it (but you should)!

People are already writing Kelly into next year’s rotation because when we believe a player is capable of something and he goes out on the field and conforms to our beliefs, we tend to not look past those beliefs to any greater truths. “Joe Kelly: part of the failure of 2015” is now “Joe Kelly: part of the solution for 2016.” But is this Joe Kelly really any different from the one we saw earlier this season?

Read the rest on Just A Bit Outside.

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In a slump, the mental and physical combine to confuse, and the player ends up in a spiral. “You go up to the plate and you think about your weaknesses, and you start focusing on them, and you start chasing,” Brandon Moss said before a game against the Giants, adding “it all starts to spin around.” Since having offseason hip surgery, the Cardinals’ slugger has been spinning in both facets of the game.

A recent tear might be the result of getting right, though. An adjustment to his mechanics, a milestone in his workouts, and a slight tweak to his approach all recently came together. The result looks more like the Moss that averaged 33 home runs for every 600 plate appearances coming into this season.

To illustrate how he’s gotten his game back together, there might not be a better way than to have Moss take us through three plate appearances against Rubby de la Rosa last week. The pitcher got the better of him once, but when the batter did his damage, it was the result of a convergence of factors.

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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
Seattle at Houston | 20:10 ET
Walker (153.0 IP, 93 xFIP-) vs. Kazmir (154.0 IP, 94 xFIP-)
Baseball, in its current recognizable state, is roughly 150 years old — nor do the various earlier permutations of the sport appear to extend back much further than 1840. The Western sporting tradition, meanwhile, can be traced at least as far back as 776 BCE, i.e. the year of the first Olympic games. Broadly speaking, then, it’s not entirely inaccurate to suggest that baseball has existed for roughly 5% of all sporting history. As a sort of spiritual exercise, contemplate that figure while observing tonight’s game. Also contemplate, if you have time left over or whatever, the wonderful improbability of the Astros’ season.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Houston Television.

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So, I’m browsing around Twitter. I’m not looking for anything in particular, but then something catches my eye. It isn’t a tweet — it’s a trend, based on a series of tweets, happening somewhere outside of my circle. You know how trends work. The thing I saw Tuesday evening:

I’m not unaccustomed to seeing baseball topics pop up over there. They tend to mirror the ongoing action, and sometimes the trends are accompanied by featured links to stories. This one linked to an article from Jeff Blair. The teaser is something made just for me: It suggests a change in performance, following a change in approach. I’m a total sucker for that genre. I’m fascinated by stories of baseball players who work hard to make themselves better. What was throwing me in this case was the name. I consider myself prepared for most players to improve.

This is about Ryan Goins.

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The Angels ascended to first place in the AL West in the final game before the All-Star break. A week and a half later, they had a two-game lead, and since that point, they’ve lost the two-game lead, and then several more games beyond that, in a team-wide collapse that’s threatened to leave the Angels on the outside of the playoff picture. They’ve lost 26 of 37, losing 9.5 games in the standings to the Astros, and 12.5 to the Rangers. Over the span, they’re last in the AL in runs scored. Over the span, they’re second-to-last in the AL in runs allowed. The season can still be salvaged — clearly, things can change in a jiffy — but this has been a nightmare stretch, lasting nearly a quarter of the season. It’s hard to survive a lost quarter.

Obviously, in a slump like this, several parties are partly responsible. A team doesn’t sink based on one or two players. But, generally, when a team sinks, people don’t look to blame players like, say, Erick Aybar. They don’t blame players like Hector Santiago. They look to the stars who aren’t pulling their weight, and one can’t help but note that Mike Trout hasn’t quite produced like himself. Like many of his teammates, Trout’s been in a rut, and that’s done more than just open the MVP race to Josh Donaldson. As Trout’s concerned, there are questions, and I feel like it’s my obligation to try to answer them as best I can. I know my role, here.

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Since the New York Yankees’ incredible five-year run at the end of the last century, which saw the club win four titles with a youth-filled core, the Yankees have long been seen as an aging group of veteran free-agent purchases. Jason Giambi, Mike Mussina, and Alex Rodriguez supplemented Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera as the group entered their 30s. Whether that perception was fair or merely irrelevant, the club remained successful for much of the last decade as players aged slowly and made great contributions into their 30s. As Major League Baseball got younger, though, the Yankees’ core aged without young replacements on the farm. It appeared as though the Yankees might have a rough couple of years when, after the club missed the playoffs in 2013, ownership tried to reduce payroll below $189 million in attempt to save millions in salary cap money and revenue sharing.

As sometimes happens, though, the Yankees’ owners appeared to change their mind and a spending spree in the winter of 2013 brought in free agents Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann, and Carlos Beltran, as well as the acquisition of Masahiro Tanaka in order to compete in 2014. That effort fell short as injuries, age, and the missing production of Alex Rodriguez all took their toll on the franchise and the team fell short of the playoffs. In 2015, the team’s elder batsmen — Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, and Carlos Beltran — have remained healthy for much of the season and led the way for an offense sporting a 107 wRC+, second only to the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League.

Mark Teixeira had been having a phenomenal year prior to his recent injury, Alex Rodriguez has been strong in his return from suspension, and Carlos Beltran has recovered nicely from a very poor start to the season. All three are among the very best in the league among position players 35 years old and older this season.

Best 2015 Seasons by Players at Least 35 Years of Age

Name	Team	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+	WAR	Age
Mark Teixeira	Yankees	.255	.357	.548	145	2.9	35
Adrian Beltre	Rangers	.273	.314	.427	96	2.7	36
Alex Rodriguez	Yankees	.257	.363	.489	133	2.3	39
David Ortiz	Red Sox	.264	.352	.515	128	1.9	39
Albert Pujols	Angels	.247	.305	.493	121	1.8	35
Juan Uribe	Braves	.254	.318	.418	103	1.7	36
A.J. Pierzynski	Braves	.293	.333	.424	107	1.7	38
Carlos Beltran	Yankees	.282	.344	.480	125	1.6	38
Matt Holliday	Cardinals	.290	.409	.420	132	1.2	35

The above list constitutes every player 35 and older with at least one win above replacement on the season. Just a decade ago, there were double that amount, and two previous years had a dozen players each. The Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies are the only teams with more than 1,000 plate appearances from players at least 35 years old, and the Yankees’ 6.8 WAR from those players is more than double the second-place Braves — and actually higher than the rest of MLB combined (6.6 WAR).

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