In one form or another, the majority of posts at this site are based on some type of leaderboard. Highest average velocity among qualified pitchers, lowest ground-ball rate among qualified batters: these are the sort of distinctions that attract the attention both of writers and readers — and even illustrate the game’s trends towards one pole or another.

Generally speaking, when Mike Trout appears on a leaderboard at FanGraphs, it’s because he’s exerted his excellence in yet another way. Currently, for example, Trout possesses the top batting line among all active players and also the second-most baserunning runs among active players and the second-highest WAR total among all major-league batters ever through age 25.

One capacity in which Trout hasn’t been able to exert his excellence, however, is team success. During his time in Anaheim, Trout has made the playoffs on just one occasion. It was in 2014, and his Angels were swept out of the playoffs promptly. The Angels have had some decent seasons during Trout’s career — they won 89 in 2012, 85 in 2015, and they also currently have a winning record. Odds are, however, that Trout is about to finish his sixth full season as the best player in baseball, and he’s never won a single game in the playoffs. That’s odd.

We know that baseball is a team sport, and even when one-third of teams make the playoffs every year, one player can’t do it alone. Every player is very much reliant on his team. Even Mike Trout.

If it seems unusual that a player of Trout’s stature has failed to win even a single postseason game, that’s because it is. To provide a little context before taking a more historic approach, below is a table featuring the best position players by WAR since Trout exhausted his rookie eligibility in 2012. I’ve also included the total number of postseason games each player has won during that time.

This is one of the few bad leaderboards on which Trout’s name appears. Since becoming an MLB regular in 2012, Trout has recorded double the WAR of all but 10 players. Of those 10 players, Paul Goldschmidt is the only one (besides Trout) not to win a playoff game. Arizona will get an opportunity this season to address that issue — and, of course, Goldschmidt himself recorded two playoff with the Diamondbacks in 2011. Of the top-20 position players since 2012, the only others not to win a playoff game are Giancarlo Stanton and Kyle Seager. With expanded playoffs, good players generally get opportunities to appear on a winning club at some point, and reaching a playoff series generally means winning a playoff game.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about another odd end to an American Association game, a recent javelin-baseball crossover, Nick Sinay, the first Tibetan-born player signed by an MLB team, and MLB’s new record single-season home-run total, then answer listener emails about Mike Trout’s defense, multiple aspects of BABIP, the most Alexa’d MLB players, the worst scoreless starts, Blue Jays reliever Carlos Ramirez, the 2018 schedule’s pitching implications, getting ejected mid-play, rules against on-field fraternization, a season-ending series between two prospective playoff opponents, what would happen if pitches could be bounced for strikes, and more.

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Episode 769
The guest on this edition of the program, managing editor Dave Cameron, has a new MacBook. He can’t use it to record the podcast, however, because his mic has a USB cable; his new computer, only USB-C ports. It’s a case of planned obsolescence in action. How might that concept apply to baseball? Is there a type of player likely to be rendered obsolete? Cameron’s short answer: “Yes.” His longer answer: that’s the content of this episode of the podcast.

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Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 46 min play time.)

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Even the Cleveland Indians, the best team in baseball by run differential and authors of an AL-record winning streak, aren’t without question marks.

Currently, they’ve got a significant one — namely, in center field. Just over a week ago, Chris Davis stepped on Bradley Zimmer’s left hand as the latter attempted a head-first slide into first base. The result: a broken fourth metacarpal. Zimmer, who had taken over the lion’s share of work in center field, is now probably out for the rest of the season, including the postseason.

In the absence of Zimmer, Cleveland was left with a void in center. To understand how they’ve decided to address that void, it’s necessary to know a little something about the infield.

The Indians like their infield alignment. Recently, the club shifted Jose Ramirez from third base to second — where he rates as a well above-average defender — and assigned third-base duties to fellow Fringe Five alum Yandy Diaz and his intriguing gifts. That pair is complemented by Giovanny Urshela — at the very least, an excellent late-inning defensive replacement who also possesses enough glove to back up Francisco Lindor at shortstop. This was the formula the club used during their 22-game win streak.

With the infield settled, the Indians found themselves wondering what to do with longtime second baseman Jason Kipnis, who has recently returned from another stint on the DL.

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Sure, this might be a weird time to talk about something from June 4. It’s not like there’s any real urgency to this. And I will grant the unfamiliar phraseology.

I’ll explain how I got here. As I write this, the Twins are getting pasted by the Yankees. The Yankees are winning 11-3, but at one point, in the third, they were losing 3-0. In that inning, Byron Buxton came up with two outs and runners on the corners, and when he saw the first pitch from Luis Severino, he tried to bunt. The bunt went foul, but the very attempt struck me as odd. I went to look up some stuff about bunts.

The Buxton bunt attempt, sure, was unusual. Rare is the two-out bunt with a runner in scoring position. But, forget all about the Buxton bunt, because I’d like to call your attention to a Cody Bellinger bunt. Three and a half months ago, Bellinger batted against Zach Davies, with nobody out and a runner on first. With the count 3-and-0, Bellinger bunted for a single.

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As this year’s June amateur draft was about to get underway, The Sporting News published an article called Jo Adell Embraces Opportunity to Be Role Model for African-American Youth. The title was soon amended to include the word “Angels”: Anaheim selected the 18-year-old outfielder from Louisville, Kentucky, with the 10th-overall pick.

Adell’s intentions are admirable. Good role models are an asset to society, and as the son of an educator, the Ballard High School product understands that as well as anyone. He also knows that professional athletes — like it or not — serve as role models. Their words and actions influence others. With that influence comes responsibility.

Adell has a bright future in the game. Touted as a five-tool player — Byron Buxton has been a common comp — he slashed .325/.376/.532 over his first 222 professional plate appearances. That fact that those numbers came in Rookie ball stands out as meaningful. While Adell is talented, he’s also a few months removed from having received a high-school diploma. There’s still a lot for him to learn, and that includes how to go about being a role model as a professional athlete.

I asked a number of MLB players what advice they would give Adell with respect to his goal of becoming a role model, particularly for African-American youth.

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Chris Archer, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher: “Encouraging more black players to play baseball would be awesome. Baseball teaches you so many valuable life lessons. It’s not all about making it to the major leagues, but rather the opportunities that college may provide, or the life lessons you learn, like how to handle adversity.

“Being a role model is a large responsibility. If you want to be a role model, you’re not allowed to make mistakes. But the more role models you have — just in general — it’s going to be for the betterment of our community, our environment, and the world. My advice is to have the ability to speak out, but not be outspoken.”

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I was driving recently in Pittsburgh, in my decade-old Honda Accord, when an NPR radio interview captured my attention.

I can’t recall the names of the particular guests on this program (perhaps a reader can assist me in this effort), but they were discussing the expenses associated with building nuclear submarines, the expected life of a sub’s operation, and the concern that such costly projects could be made prematurely obsolete by advancements in technology.

Rich Smith of the Motley Fool confirms: nuclear subs are really expensive. Some estimates place the start-up costs for the construction of the first Ohio-class replacement sub of the Columbia class at $13 billion, or about 13 Jerry Worlds. Adds Smith:

After the first boat is built, subsequent subs should average closer to $7.7 billion each, according to the CBO. (The Navy thinks it can get them cheaper — $6.6 billion apiece, or $79 billion total.)

These Columbia-class subs are expected to remain in service for decades, from 2031 to 2085, writes Franz-Stefan Gady of The Diplomat.

The Navy is betting these ships can deter and operate stealthily for 50 years. That seems very optimistic. I’m not a naval expert, but I’m skeptical about the capacity to forecast the state of anything, let alone advanced martial practices and technologies, in the year 2085. It’s quite possible, I think, that the taxpaying citizens of the United States would be spending quite a bit of money on something that could be made obsolete well before 2085.

The subs are so expensive that the Navy might not be able to complete other projects without significant budget increase. There’s internal debate on how to spread current resources most effectively. I bring this up not to begin a discussion on military spending, but to illustrate how difficult it is to plan for the long term in any field, particularly in an age when technology is so disruptive, when capabilities and trends can change so quickly.

With that heavy topic in mind, let’s segue to something lighter but interesting: this year’s home-run surge.

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For a while, it seemed like Chris Sale was going to be an American League Cy Young Award shoo-in. Now, while Sale hasn’t exactly gotten much worse, the favorite might be Corey Kluber, who basically hasn’t allowed a run since coming off the disabled list three and a half months ago. If the winner isn’t Kluber, it’ll be Sale. If the winner isn’t Sale, it’ll be Kluber. I don’t know what it would take for neither to win, short of some weird form of voter collusion. The race is pretty obviously down to two horses.

In here, I’d like to highlight the performance of Luis Severino. Severino has not been as good as Sale, and he has not been as good as Kluber. Yet, in part because of those two pitchers, Severino might not have fully gotten his due, because he’s been the next-best pitcher in his own league. Last season, at 22, Severino was demoted from the Yankees’ starting rotation. Now he’s one of the biggest reasons why the 2017 Yankees have overachieved and nearly locked up a spot in the playoffs. The Yankees dreamed that Severino would one day turn into an ace. As young as Severino still is, it seems those dreams might’ve already come true.

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When examining the 2018 draft’s collection of top high-school shortstops, one is confronted with three vastly different physical entities in Santiago HS (CA) SS Brice Turang, Montverde Academy (FL) SS Nader De Sedas, and North Broward Prep (FL) infielder Xavier Edwards.

Edwards is explosive. A plus-plus runner with good hands and enough arm for the left side of the infield, he also possesses gap-to-gap power. He’s performed, in games, against elite pitching and might be my first pick among all 2018 high schoolers if we were picking teams for a game of sandlot ball tomorrow. He’s also a slight 5-foot-9 and 155 pounds.

De Sedas is a switch-hitting hammer who was being covered in his native Panama when he was just 13 years old. He moved to Florida late in adolescence and has shown big raw power from both sides of the plate, as well as feel to hit in games despite having adopted switch-hitting somewhat recently. But while De Sedas has premium arm strength and is smooth for his size, he’s also rather big. At a listed 6-foot-2, 192 pounds, De Sedas is already larger than Manny Machado (6-foot-3, 185) and Evan Longoria (6-foot-2, 170) were when coming out of high school.

Finally, there’s Turang. Lean, rangy, and acrobatic, he also features a plus arm. He’s instinctive, procedurally advanced, and a potential plus defender at short, but he may have limited, one-dimensional offensive impact.

As with any prospect, I’ve attempted to project the future defensive value of the three players mentioned here. Because of their vastly different builds, however, I became curious about the physical makeup of major-league baseball’s current shortstops and how the upcoming draft class — especially De Sedas, who belongs near the top of the class if he can stay at short — fits among them.

To address my curiosity, I began compiling not only the current heights and weights of the league’s shortstops but also their heights and weights at age 17 — or, roughly the age at which each of them was either drafted or signed out of Latin America. I then expanded my criteria to include all players who had recorded at least 450 innings at shortstop during the last three seasons. I also calculated both current BMI and also BMI at age 17 — as well as changes in height, weight, and BMI during that span.

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