The Mets won’t get an opportunity to see their former prospect in person until early August, when they travel to Detroit. If Michael Fulmer is still running a scoreless innings streak by then, we’ll really have a story. For now, we have a neat anecdote, and an encouraging start to a career.

Fulmer, the Tigers’ rookie right-hander traded by the Mets in exchange for Yoenis Cespedes last year, hasn’t allowed a run in 28.1 innings. It’s a stretch of starts that’s gotten him compared (fairly or not*) to Jake Arrieta just nine games into his career. It’s a stretch of starts worthy of consideration, especially given Fulmer’s first four were nothing short of a disaster. Is the real Fulmer closer to those first four, closer to these recent five, or somewhere in between? What changed?

*Not.

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It was the tale of two cities in Pittsburgh this weekend. On Sunday, the local hockey team won the Stanley Cup, reaching the highest heights an NHL team can manage, adding another championship to the cities storied legacy. But at the same time the Penguins were setting in motion plans for a parade, the Pirates were getting swept by their division-rival from St. Louis. At home, no less. And that wasn’t even the worst part of the weekend.

During Friday’s contest with the Cardinals, team-ace Gerrit Cole had to be lifted after two innings on the mound, leaving with what has only been called “triceps tightness” to this point, but is likely to force Cole to miss at least one start, if not land on the disabled list. Catcher Francisco Cervelli then left the game in the fourth inning after suffering a broken hamate bone; he’s out at least a month, and hamate injuries are known to sap power from hitters even after they return to the field. These were blows the team couldn’t really afford to suffer, especially given how the rest of the weekend went.

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To begin with a gross oversimplification of a maddeningly complex sport, there are two ways to win a baseball game: score runs and prevent runs. Those two acts inform the predictive significance of run differentials and Pythagorean record and represent the reason I enjoy perusing leaderboards to see which teams are currently the best at run generation and prevention. We’re at the point in the season where the tops of the leaderboards aren’t terribly surprising – the Red Sox score frequently, the Mets don’t allow many runs, the Cubs are ridiculously great in both categories – but one team I’m still getting accustomed to finding near the top of the runs-scored leaderboard is the Mariners.

After years of battling mediocrity and a frustrating relegation to relative baseball obscurity, the Mariners have scored more runs than any American League team not named the Red Sox. With 315 runs scored through 63 games played, the Seattle is now averaging five runs scored per game — a rate they haven’t sustained over a full season since averaging 5.02 runs per game in 2002… you know, back when they had a designated hitter named Edgar Martinez, a second baseman named Bret Boone and a catcher named Dan Wilson. As offense has declined around the league during the last decade and a half, the Mariners’ offense has more than followed suit. In all but one season from 2004 to 2015, the Mariners finished anywhere from 11th to 14th in the AL in R/G. (Recall that, for a majority of that stretch, the American League consisted of only 14 teams.)

But now they’re scoring five runs a game – and are on a pace equivalent to 810 runs over a full 162-game schedule. Only five teams in the past five seasons have scored 810 runs and, of those five, all but the 2011 Red Sox made the postseason. And you might remember that the 2011 Red Sox team had to work darn hard to not make the playoffs. What the Mariners are doing right now is an undeniably good thing, and one that’s very much conducive to winning. And a little further digging reveals something endearingly quirky about the way the Mariners are scoring all of their runs.

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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
Chicago NL at Washington | 19:05 ET
Hendricks (68.1 IP, 84 xFIP-) vs. Scherzer (88.1 IP, 84 xFIP-)
Here’s a thought experiment the reader can conduct with a view towards (a) sharpening his or her understanding of playoff probabilities and/or (b) pushing away the sadness for another moment or two.

Regard, some relevant facts:

• The Cubs and Nationals possess the two best records in the NL.
• The Cubs lead their division by 9.0 games; the Nationals, by 4.5.
• The season is roughly 40% complete.

Given the information presented here, what do you think are the Cubs’ and Nationals’ odds of winning their respective divisions (using the FanGraphs Projections methodology)?

The answer for Washington is here; for Chicago, here. Divisional odds are denoted as DIV.

Readers’ Preferred Television Broadcast: Washington Radio.

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On Friday, I published a post projecting the players taken on day one of the draft. On Saturday, I did the same for the players taken on day two. Let’s see what my math says about the college players taken on day three of draft, which covered rounds 11-40. The vast majority of these players will flame out in the minor leagues over the next couple of years, and you’ll never hear from them again. But at least a few of them will go on to play in the big leagues.

As a reminder, I only have projections for college players who logged at least 100 plate appearances or batters faced in select major NCAA conferences this year, including the: AAC, ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big West, Pac 12 and SEC. I do not have projections for high-school players.

Below, you’ll find thoughts on some players of note from rounds 11-40, followed by a giant, sortable table with projections for all drafted players for whom I have projections. The cumulative WAR projections will probably feel a bit low to you. They feel low to me too. For this reason, I recommend you don’t take the projections themselves literally, but instead use them to compare draftees to other draftees.

*****

337. Chad Donato, RHP, Houston

Proj. WAR thru age-27: 2.1

Donato pitched excellently in West Virginia’s rotation. His strikeout- and walk-rate differential was among the best for starters in major conferences. The Astros have several KATOH darlings in this group. Houston’s front office has either hacked my computer or is doing something similar to what I’m doing.

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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
Detroit at New York AL | 14:05 ET
Fulmer (47.2 IP, 84 xFIP-) vs. Pineda (66.0 IP, 86 xFIP-)
One of the earliest and longest abiding lessons of field-independent metrics for the present author was the ease with which they illustrate how little control one ultimately exercises over the course of events. For those (like the author) whose personal ledgers are marked largely by failure, FIP offers some consolation. “Perhaps it isn’t entirely my fault,” one is able to say. “Perhaps it’s the merely vagaries of chance.”

By the fielding-independent metrics, Michael Fulmer was basically the same pitcher over his first four starts as his next four. His run-prevention numbers have not been identical over those two samples, however.

Michael Fulmer’s Eight Starts

Starts	IP	K%	BB%	xFIP	ERA	Diff
First Four	19.1	23.7%	9.7%	3.59	6.52	+2.93
Next Four	28.1	26.5%	6.9%	3.44	0.32	-3.12

Fulmer is a talented pitcher, one for whom — by virtue both of his physical tools and youth — it’s possible to expect great things. He’s neither so indomitable nor domitable as he’s alternately appeared this season.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Detroit Radio.

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Casey Meisner is having a fairly decent season. The 21-year-old Oakland A’s prospect has allowed three or fewer earned runs in nine of his 12 starts. That’s even more impressive when you consider that he’s pitching in the hitter-friendly California League.

His W-L record is 0-10.

Fortunately for his sanity, the righty understands that wins and losses are largely out of a pitcher’s control.

“It’s obviously really bad to be (0-10), but I can’t do anything about that,” said Meisner, who has been taking the mound for the Stockton Ports. “I’ve deserved a few of the losses, but we’ve scored more than two runs in only two of my starts. As a team, we’re not having a very good season.”

Meisner projects to have a good career. A third-round pick by the Mets in 2013, he came to Oakland two years later in exchange for Tyler Clippard. Six-foot-seven with a fastball-changeup-curveball mix, he went 13-5 with a 2.45 ERA last season between two levels.

The Cypress, Texas product is satisfied with the quality of his pitches — “Everything is good on that end” — but he’s not pleased with his 4.9 walk rate. He attributes the free passes to two things, only one of which he can control. Read the rest of this entry »

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
Texas at Seattle | 22:10 ET
Lewis (76.0 IP, 112 xFIP-) vs. Paxton (9.2 IP, 29 xFIP-)
The left-handed Paxton established a career-high single-game average fastball velocity in his season debut on June 1st at San Diego. He established a new career-high mark in his next start — this one on June 6th against Cleveland. This evening’s game between Texas and Seattle represents Paxton’s third appearance of the year.

The difference between this version of Paxton and previous ones? Quite a bit, finds Eno Sarris — including a new arm slot, different pitch mix, and more dogged approach. The result has been basically a left-handed version of Noah Syndergaard. Regard, his average velocity marks per pitch type from that June 6th start compared to Syndergaard’s season figures.

Syndergaard vs. Paxton, Velocity Comparison

Pitch	Syndergaard in 2016	Paxton on June 6	Difference
Fastball	99.2	98.9	-0.3
Changeup	90.4	89.9	-0.5
Slider	92.0	91.1	-0.9
Curveball	82.8	84.4	+1.6

SOURCE: Brooks Baseball

The elite velocity hasn’t translated into elite run-prevention so far: Paxton has conceded 11 runs (only four earned) in 9.2 innings since this return. The strikeout and walk numbers have been elite, however, and are likely more indicative of his ability to record outs.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Texas Radio.

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Yesterday, I published a post projecting the players taken on day one of the draft. Between then and now, an additional 239 players were drafted. Let’s take a look at what my math says about some of those players. As a reminder, I only have projections for college players who logged at least 100 plate appearances or batters faced in select major NCAA conferences this year, including the: AAC, ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big West, Pac 12 and SEC. I do not have projections for high school players.

Below, you’ll find thoughts on some players of note from rounds 3-10, followed by a giant, sortable table with projections for all drafted players for whom I have projections. The cumulative WAR projections will probably feel a bit low to you. They feel low to me too. For this reason, I recommend you don’t take the projections themselves literally, but instead use them to compare draftees to other draftees. Read the rest of this entry »