Last night, in the middle of his start against the Detroit Tigers, news leaked out that Stephen Strasburg had agreed to a seven year, $175 million extension with the Washington Nationals. As Jeff Sullivan noted last night, this is seen as surprising news, as Scott Boras clients usually end up testing free agency, and Strasburg was four months away from being not just the best free agent on the market this winter, but the only high-end pitching option available.

And it’s not like the Nationals broke the bank to keep Strasburg away from free agency. The 7 year, $175 million total essentially matches the contract figures that Justin Verlander and Felix Hernandez received in their long-term extensions three years ago, except Strasburg’s actual contract is valued significantly less than those two, because it also includes $70 million in interest-free deferrals. Once you account for the payment structure of Strasburg’s deal, the net present value is $135 million, which is the NPV a player would get if he signed a 7 year, $158 million contract without backloading or deferrals.

That total puts Strasburg south of not only Hernandez and Verlander (not even accounting for the inflation that has happened in MLB salaries since those deals were signed) but even less annually than Jon Lester, who got $155 million from the Cubs for six years. Lester was selling his age 31-36 seasons when he signed with Chicago, while Strasburg would have been selling his age 28-34 seasons had he entered the market this winter; combined with his superior stuff and the dearth of alternatives on the market, I would have guessed that Strasburg would have been able to do significantly better than this as a free agent.

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Stephen Strasburg made his worst start of the season last night. At home, against the Detroit Tigers, Strasburg struck out 11 over seven innings, allowing four earned runs on six hits, three walks, and two home runs. The Nationals won the game on a walk-off home run by Clint Robinson in the ninth inning, and Strasburg took the no decision. A game in which Strasburg completed seven innings and struck out double digits was his worst start of the year in terms of ERA, and his worst start of the year in terms of FIP. It was his best start of the year in terms of signing massive contract extensions bordering on $200 million.

That last night’s performance was Strasburg’s least impressive of the season is impressive in and of itself. He’s been baseball’s third-most valuable pitcher by FIP-WAR, eighth-most valuable pitcher by RA9-WAR, and fifth-most valuable pitcher by an even mix of the two. And while what he’s done this seasons is an elevated level of performance relative to previous seasons, Strasburg’s been on this run for a while now. You could make the case that this is the best we’ve ever seen him.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman 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
Tampa Bay at Seattle | 22:10 ET
Smyly (39.2 IP, 81 xFIP-) vs. Miley (38.0 IP, 98 xFIP-)
Here one finds the Ben Zobrist of baseball games — which is to say, one distinguished not by the promise of dizzying heights, but by its thoroughgoing competence. Drew Smyly and Wade Miley both offer some aesthetic value, the former for his capacity to induce swings and misses (1.7 standard deviations more frequently than other starters), the latter for the multitude of strikes he throws (67.3% of pitches, 1.5 standard deviations better than average) and the pace at which he works (two standard deviations faster than average starter). Tampa Bay and Seattle’s hitters, meanwhile, also possess their merits. The Rays, a team composed merely of Tampa-area orphan children, have nevertheless produced the second-best park-adjusted home-run rate among all major-league clubs. The Mariners, meanwhile, are well-acquitted by that same measure.

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Deep in the bowels of Oakland’s Coliseum, you’ll see Ryan Madson working out with wires strapped to his body. The wires head to a little pack he carries with him, and in that pack is a machine that has helped him recover his career.

The device, pictured here, is the Accelerated Recovery Performance machine, which was administered to Madson by the EVO Ultrafit group in Arizona. The ARP sends electrical stimulation to your muscles much like the stim packs and microcurrent versions out there, but claims to have a proprietary wave form that allows for deeper penetration of the muscles.

The Oakland closer is not alone in believing in the benefits of the ARP machine — many out there tout its abilities to help the body recover and retrain — and yet there are equal shares of doubt about its efficacy.

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Episode 651
Dave Cameron is the managing editor of FanGraphs. During this edition of FanGraphs Audio he examines the Chicago Cubs in no little depth — how, for example, they’ve produced one of the great run-differentials of all time and how, strangely, they might have benefited from Kyle Schwarber‘s early-season injury. Also discussed: Bryce Harper’s lengthy swing-less streak. And also: what makes a knuckleballer like Steven Wright effective when he’s being effective.

This episode of the program is sponsored by SeatGeek, which site removes both the work and also the hassle from the process of shopping for tickets.

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 47 min play time.)

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Buckle up, because this is going to be exhausting. Bryce Harper just batted 19 times during a four-game series between the Nationals and Cubs in Chicago. Harper batted a meager .250, and he slugged a meager .250, but he came away with an OBP of .789, thanks in large part to literally 13 walks. Joe Maddon acknowledged that the Cubs were pitching around him, but he didn’t really need to do so for us to get the message, given what was taking place. How did Harper get pitched? Here are all the final locations:

The expression of the day is “the Bonds treatment.” For one four-game series, Bryce Harper was getting pitched like the greatest hitter any of us have ever seen. What’s kind of funny is that Harper has recently been in a slump — he has five hits in 34 official at-bats over the past couple weeks. The Cubs didn’t care, seemingly preferring to go about their business with Ryan Zimmerman and one extra baserunner. At least, much of the time.

Just to what extent did Harper get pitched around? Below, you may behold all 19 plate appearances. For each, I’ll show the sequence, and I’ll assign a 1-to-10 grade indicating how little interest I think the Cubs had in attacking. The grade is entirely subjective and meaningless, but to give it the illusion of meaning, let’s say 1 is pure attack mode, and 10 is unabashed threat avoidance. Here come the Cubs, Bryce Harper, and the Pitching Terrified Index.

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Shelby Miller just pitched six innings and allowed just two runs on Saturday. For a pitcher who entered that game having given up 22 runs in 23.1 innings — while also recording as many walks as strikeouts and averaging under four innings per appearance — the start was definitely an encouraging one.

However, there are some caveats, as well. For one, it occurred against a terrible Braves offense. And Miller still gave up another home run. And he recorded two walks against just one strikeout. Miller is far from out of the woods at this point. His main problems so far this season have been pitch selection and lack of velocity. The former is easily fixable. The latter could be a source of trouble if he can’t find the lost velocity at some point — or, alternatively, if the lost velocity is the result of some physical problem that has prevented him from maintaining consistent mechanics.

In each of the past two offseasons, Shelby Miller’s teams have decided to move him. Depending on your narrative, that’s maybe a sign that two organizations gave up on a young pitcher. On the other hand, though, the Cardinals’ receipt of Jason Heyward and the Braves’ massive haul a year later both contradict that narrative: both receiving clubs gave up quite a bit for Miller. When the Cardinals gave up Miller, he was coming off a relatively disappointing 2014 season where his 17% strikeout rate, 10% walk rate, 3.74 ERA and 4.54 FIP were all worse than his promising 2013 season. While the season overall was underwhelming, there were reasons for optimism on Miller when the Braves trade for him, and he delivered on that optimism last season.

During the 2014 campaign, the Cardinals made a deadline deal for Justin Masterson, and while Masterson did not pitch well for St. Louis and has yet to recapture his old form, he did teach Miller a two-seamer grip that Miller was able to use the rest of the 2014 season. At the time of Masterson’s arrival, Miller had recorded a 4.14 ERA and 4.81 FIP, with a 16% strikeout rate and 11% walk rate. To that point in the season, Miller was throwing his four-seam fastball 68% of the time along with a two-seam fastball less than 5% of the time. The rest of the season, Miller threw his four-seamer 48% of the time while upping his two-seamer to 22%. The result? An increased strikeout rate, fewer walks, a better, but not great 4.00 FIP, plus a nice 2.95 ERA over his final 10 starts.

Miller carried that two-seamer to Atlanta, throwing it even more last season (34% of the time vs. 33% on the four-seamer). His walk and strikeout rates remained the same as his late-season run in 2014. Halving his home-run rate helped Miller to a 3.45 FIP and 3.02 ERA — and Miller’s best season as a professional. Arizona made Atlanta an offer it couldn’t refuse and Miller headed into the season hoping to continue last year’s success. 

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Due to a fractured thumb, the Royals will be without Mike Moustakas for at least the next few weeks. No doubt, Kansas City will miss their three-plus win, All-Star third baseman. But as is often the case in baseball, one man’s misfortune is another’s opportunity. In this instance, the beneficiary is Cheslor Cuthbert, whom the Royals recalled from the minors to replace Moustakas.

Unless you’re a Royals fan or a prospect connoisseur, you might have no idea who Cheslor Cuthbert is, but my nerdily-sorted spreadsheets really like the Nicaraguan infielder. Last year, he hit .277/.339/.429 as a 22-year-old in Triple-A. He also struck out in an encouragingly low 14% of his trips to the plate. He already looks like a Royal.

That performance, along with the fact that he plays primarily third base — a somewhat premium defensive position — landed Cuthbert at 74th on KATOH’s preseason top-100 list, placing him tops among Royals farmhands. That was before he opened this season by slashing .333/.402/.624 in 24 games. He was one of the very best hitters at Triple-A over the season’s first month, and was quite possibly the best prospect-age hitter in Triple-A.

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On Thursday, the Nationals arrived on the north side of Chicago to begin a four game series that was billed as a potential NLCS preview. The 20-6 Cubs were squaring off with the 19-8 Nationals in a match-up of two of the best teams in baseball, and while it’s still early, the series was supposed to serve as something of a test for a Cubs team that spent April beating up on a lot of weak opponents.

Test passed. Javier Baez’s 13th inning homer yesterday gave the Cubs a four game sweep over Washington, which followed their three game sweep in Pittsburgh, so the boys from Chicago’s north side have now have a seven game winning streak, with all seven games coming against legitimate contenders. Questions about early season strength of schedule can now be put away, and with the way the Cubs are not only winning games but crushing their opponents, it’s pretty clear that this Cubs team is currently in a class of their own.

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