This is the fourth installment of this year’s Team Entropy series, my recurring look not only at the races for the remaining playoff spots but the potential for end-of-season chaos in the form of down-to-the-wire suspense and even tiebreakers. Ideally, we want more ties than the men’s department at Macy’s. If you’re new to this, please read the introduction here.

The past couple of days have been very, very good ones for Team Entropy, at least in the NL (all five playoff teams in the AL have been determined). With the Cubs (now 91-66) losing back-to-back games to the Pirates while the Brewers (91-67) beat the Cardinals (87-71) twice, the top two teams in the NL Central are separated by just half a game heading into Wednesday evening. The two losses have dropped the Cardinals half a game behind the Rockies (87-70) in the race for the second NL Wild Card spot, while the resilient Rox, who have won five straight since being swept by the Dodgers (88-70) last week, are just half a game out of first place in the NL West. Five teams fighting for four playoff spots in three races, separated by three half-game margins. It’s that simple — and that complex.

The half-game stuff will resolve itself one way or another on Thursday, when the Cubs and Rockies both play (the last of a four-game set against the Pirates for the former, the first of a four-gamer against the Phillies for the latter) while the Cardinals and Dodgers are idle. After that, every team will have three games remaining, with the Cubs hosting the Cardinals, the Rockies hosting the Nationals, the Brewers hosting the Tigers, and the Dodgers visiting the Giants.

The current iteration of our playoff odds ties page shows a 23.9% chance of a tie in the NL Central after 162 games, with a 19.8% chance of a tie in the West and a 26.4% chance of a tie in the Wild Card race. Given all of that, it’s worth a quick review of how this works, but let’s start with the latest iteration of my Big Board, showing the head-to-head records of the relevant teams.

Let’s start with the NL West, where things are relatively simple. If the Dodgers and Rockies wind up tied after 162 games, the two teams would play a tiebreaker at Dodger Stadium on Monday, October 1, on the basis of Los Angeles’ 12-7 season series advantage. The winner would be the division champion, the loser a potential Wild Card team, with that Game 163 result having no impact in such a determination.

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This season can’t end soon enough for the Orioles, whose 111 losses match the 2004 Diamondbacks and 2013 Astros for the most defeats by any team since the Tigers lost 119 in 2003. While Tuesday night’s postponed game against the Red Sox — one that carries no implications for the playoffs, given that the Boston has clinched the league’s best record — will be made up as part of a day/night doubleheader at Fenway Park on Wednesday, the least that we can hope for is that Chris Davis‘ season is done.

You may recall that Davis, the all-or-nothing slugging first baseman who has belted as many as 53 homers in a season (2013) and struck out as many as 219 times (2016), got off to such a dreadful start that on June 15, I wrote that he might be having the worst season ever, at least as far as FanGraphs’ measurements go. Through the Orioles’ first 67 games (of which he had played 57), he had “hit” .150/.227/.227 for a 24 wRC+ and “produced” -1.9 WAR, putting him on pace for somewhere between -4.6 and -4.7 over a 162-game season, depending on the rounding — lower than any player in the annals.

The same day that my piece was published, the Orioles announced that they had benched Davis — who at that point hadn’t actually played since June 11 — indefinitely in an effort to pull him out of his slide. He ended up sitting for eight games, and homered in the second plate appearance of his return, off the Braves’ Sean Newcomb on June 22. The gambit worked, in that he generally wasn’t as bad after the benching as before; in fact, he rarely scraped bottom to the same degree:

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After part one of this series, many of you began debating whether, under Major League Rule 21(a), tanking — that is, deliberately conceding a season for the purposes of experiencing success in later seasons — was barred by the same Rule which bars deliberately losing a game. I’d like to address that matter here.

To refresh our memories, Rule 21(a) says this:

(a) MISCONDUCT IN PLAYING BASEBALL. Any player or person connected with a Club who shall promise or agree to lose, or to attempt to lose, or to fail to give his best efforts towards the winning of any baseball game with which he is or may be in any way concerned, or who shall intentionally lose or attempt to lose, or intentionally fail to give his best efforts towards the winning of any such baseball game, or who shall solicit or attempt to induce any player or person connected with a Club to lose or attempt to lose, or to fail to give his best efforts towards the winning of any baseball game with which such other player or person is or may be in any way concerned, or who, being solicited by any person, shall fail to inform the Commissioner (in the case of a player or person associated with a Major League Club) or the President of the Minor League Association (in the case of a player or person associated with an independent Minor League Club) immediately of such solicitation, and of all facts and circumstances connected therewith, shall be declared permanently ineligible.

To understand this in context, imagine (if you will) a scenario in which the 2018 Baltimore Orioles made a deal with the Devil at the All-Star break. As part of that deal, the Orioles agreed to voluntarily lose 90% of their games in the second half of the season. In exchange, Mephistopheles would agree to give the Orioles 95 wins and a playoff berth in 2021.

On the one hand, that would appear to violate the Rules, right? Indeed, we established last time that a team (including its front office, not just the players) can’t try to lose on purpose. On the other hand, this deal with the Devil isn’t all that different, practically speaking, from the efforts by a club to sell off assets at the trade deadline, is it? By trading Manny Machado, the Orioles made themselves deliberately worse — and less likely to win games in the second half — in hopes of winning in the future. But then, that can’t be right, because front offices don’t get barred from strip-mining their rosters in search of prospect gold.

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If 2001 romantic comedy Summer Catch provided any kind of service to humanity, it was to alert aspiring young ballplayers to the complicated but ultimately beneficial influence of Jessica Biel’s intoxicating charm on one’s talents. Many of our greatest minds have contemplated whether Freddie Prinze Jr.’s character Ryan Dunne would have, left to his own devices, received a contract offer from Phillies scout Hugh Alexander. It’s impossible to know, of course. Yet one suspects that the presence of Biel’s Tenley Parrish in Dunne’s life — whatever challenges it posed along the way — ultimately rendered him not only a better ballplayer but a better man.

Beyond this philosophical grist, Summer Catch offered another sort of gift to the public — specifically, by introducing a new demographic to the existence of the Cape Cod League. The country’s premier collegiate wood-bat summer circuit, the Cape League is one of those rare entities whose virtues are actually difficult for the soft-focus lens of a Hollywood film to embellish. The games feature some of the top amateur talent in the country, are played in a network of small parks along the New England coastline, and cost absolutely nothing to attend. It is, in some ways, the ideal way to experience the game.

And while the Cape’s version is, by a number of measures, the best of these wood-bat summer leagues, it certainly isn’t the only one. A map of collegiate summer teams compiled by Jeff Sackmann earlier this decade reveals their ubiquity:

Most of these teams follow a model similar to the one employed by the clubs on the Cape, offering families an opportunity to watch a fairly high level of baseball for something close to free. They draw 1,000 or 2,000 fans per game — in many cases, fewer than that — and are relatively modest in terms of presentation and ballpark experience.

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On Monday night in St. Louis, left-hander Dan Jennings received the start for the Milwaukee Brewers. It was notable because, of his 381 prior MLB games, he’d entered every one as a reliever. Outside of a few rehab games, Jennings’ previous 193 appearances in the minors had come in a relief capacity, as well. With the exception of 13 starts at Low-A back in 2008, in fact, Jennings had worked in relief for a decade solid.

Jennings’ appearance as a starter on Monday isn’t notable for what it says about Jennings, though. It’s notable for what it might reveal about the Milwaukee Brewers. Jennings didn’t pitch deep into the game. He didn’t exhibit an expanded repertoire. Instead, as he has on multiple occasions this year, he faced a single batter, recorded a lone out, and then departed the game in favor of a right-hander. Even with the use of an Opener spreading rapidly throughout the game, though, this was rare.

Chase Anderson had originally been on turn to start that night. After a solid 2017 campaign, Anderson has prevented runs well this year, too, recording a 3.93 ERA in 158.0 innings. He’s striking out fewer batters, though, walking more of them, and allowing more home runs. He’s been particularly vulnerable at Miller Park, which is friendly to hitters. As of Monday, he hadn’t pitched more than five innings in his last six starts and compiled only 7.2 innings over his previous two starts combined, putting up a 5.81 FIP and 4.57 ERA since the beginning of August. With one week to go and playoff ramifications attached to every game, Craig Counsell and the Brewers faced the choice of going with Anderson or doing something else. They chose something else.

The team could have opted to pitch Gio Gonzalez on regular rest, but that would have meant using Jhoulys Chacin on short rest the next day or relying on the bullpen to take care of that game. The team opted to get the bullpen game out of the way. The Cardinals’ lineup presented the team with an interesting opportunity. Over the 10 previous games, with 80 starting lineup spots to give out, the club had used left-handed batters in only 15 of them — including eight for leadoff hitter Matt Carpenter, one for Matt Adams, and seven for Kolten Wong, who had been out of the lineup the previous two days with an injury. That meant that, no matter how the Cardinals’ lineup looked on Monday, it was likely to include just one left-hander and that lefty would likely bat leadoff in the form of Matt Carpenter.

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Blake Snell has turned into one of the very best pitchers in baseball, and in order to understand how and why, we can start by just looking at the most recent batter he faced. A couple days ago, in the bottom of the seventh, Snell struck out Rowdy Tellez. The first pitch was a slider for a ball, at 88 miles per hour. The second pitch was another slider for a ball, at 89. The third pitch was a slider for a foul, at 87. Then came a fastball for a ball, at 96. Then a curveball for a whiff, at 82. Then a curveball for a foul, at 81. Finally, a fastball for a called strike, at 98. Tellez was gone, and Snell was replaced by Chaz Roe, having thrown exactly 100 pitches.

It’s not that Snell is only just beginning to emerge. His turnaround began in the middle of last year, and he hasn’t looked back. It’s last season that now looks more like a breakout. This season, however, Snell is a contender for the AL Cy Young award, even despite a DL stint that threatened to derail his progress. And while Snell was strong in the first half, before his bout of shoulder fatigue, he’s come back nearly unhittable. Between halves, he’s chopped more than a run off his ERA. He’s chopped a run and a half off his FIP, and he’s done basically the same with his xFIP. He’s added ten points to his strikeout rate while trimming his walks. Blake Snell is like a dominant closer who throws for six innings.

In one way, it’s not hard to see where Snell has improved. Yet his most recent changes are far more subtle. And they might well be the last changes he has to make for a long time. All that’s left for Blake Snell is to stay healthy.

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There are a lot of reasons why the Oakland A’s are bound for the playoffs this year. Matt Chapman has produced an MVP-level season, and the club’s bullpen is amazing. Khris Davis, Jed Lowrie, Matt Olson, and Marcus Semien are all having good years, as well.

Unsurprisingly, playoff teams tend to be composed of good players. All of the individuals mentioned so far, however, were also members of a club that won just 75 games a year ago. Their strong play this season has undoubtedly helped the 2018 version of the A’s, but the club has also gotten an important contribution from newcomer Stephen Piscotty.

The right fielder joined Oakland in a winter trade from the St. Louis following a difficult year and a half for him both on the field and off. Despite playing well following his call-up in the middle of 2015 until the All-Star break in 2016, Piscotty’s performance suffered after that. Off the field, Piscotty contended with an infinitely worse blow when his mother, Gretchen, was diagnosed with ALS in May 2017.

Piscotty took some time off that season to be with his family. On the field, he dealt with multiple DL stints and a trip to the minors. It’s hard, if not impossible, to understand what Piscotty was going through. One gets a sense of it, though, from Susan Slusser’s profile of the outfielder published this past May:

“It’s relatively hard to watch, to see the progression take place… I feel so bad. I want to put a positive spin on it, but there are things that are out of our control and we’re just trying to make the best of a bad situation, and hopefully with what we’re doing, we can one day get to a point where other folks don’t have to go through it.”

The trade to the A’s wasn’t a panacea. Piscotty continued to slump at the beginning of the season. His mother died in early May and Piscotty hit an emotional home run in his first game back.

A few weeks later, though, Oakland was still hovering around .500. At that point, Piscotty had reached base just six times in his 35 plate appearances after the homer. There was little indication that, over the next four months, Piscotty would be one of the best hitters in all of baseball. As the table below demonstrates, though, that’s precisely what happened.

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Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Ryan Borucki, and Jacob deGrom, and Yefry Ramirez — on how they learned and developed their changeups.

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Ryan Borucki, Blue Jays

“When I was 12, I hurt my arm. I had ‘Little League elbow’ from throwing too many curveballs at a young age. Because my elbow didn’t feel so good, my dad canned my curveball. He was like, ‘Alright. You’re just going to throw a fastball and a changeup.’

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