This might seem like a weird time to be writing an article about James Shields experiencing a breakout season, given that his 3.95 ERA this season is over a run higher than the 2.82 mark he posted last year. From a traditional standpoint, if Shields made an ace like leap, it was last season, and this year he’s simply regressing back to something less than ace-worthiness.

But, of course, I’m not exactly a big fan of ERA, especially when it comes to evaluating changes in pitcher performance. There are so many variables in ERA that a pitcher has little or no control over, and evaluating a pitcher by the amount of “earned runs” (whatever that means) he allows often causes us to miss real changes that do tell us something about what we should expect in the future. That looks to be the case with James Shields right now.

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This afternoon, ESPN is hosting their Franchise Player Draft, tapping 30 of their writers and television personalities to select the player that they would want to build a franchise from scratch around for the next 10 years. As with last year’s version, I was invited to participate, and I was given the eighth overall selection through the random draft order.

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This week officially has a theme – after Ted Lilly (strained shoulder), Roy Halladay (strained lat) and Jered Weaver (strained back) landed on the disabled list over the last two days, Ken Rosenthal is reporting that Doug Fister (strained side) has now joined the party, and is heading back to the DL with the same injury that caused him to miss most of April. There’s been a lot of straining going on as of late.

Fister was deactivated after his first start of the year with a costochondral strain, and the hope was that a few weeks of rest would cause the issue to resolve itself. He was able to make five starts – and pitch well in those five starts, posting 3.47 xFIP during May – but the issue has returned, and now Fister is back on the DL for another period of rest.

Losing Fister for a few weeks isn’t the end of the world, but the injury’s recurrence has to concern the Tigers beyond just the time he’ll spend on the sidelines. Muscle strains have a history of lingering, and if Fister has to pitch through the injury all season, it could be a continuous issue. It does not appear to be serious enough that it prevents him from being effective when he is able to take the mound, but his ability to remain in the rotation on a consistent basis for the next four months has to be a question at this point.

To make his start on Friday, the Tigers have called up Casey Crosby from Triple-A, whom Marc Hulet rated as the Tigers fourth best prospect before the season began. Crosby is the anti-Fister, throwing good stuff from the left side with well below average control, and hoping he can get enough strikeouts to offset all the walks. His last two starts have been two of his best, as he’s run up 16 strikeouts against just one walk in 15 innings pitched, but he’d walked 15 batters in his three previous starts, so consistency is probably going to be an issue.

It’s certainly worth the Tigers time to give the kid a look and see if his stuff can translate to the big league level even with spotty command, but with Fister’s status up in the air, you can probably add the Tigers to the list of teams that may very well be hunting for a big league starter at the trade deadline. That list has gotten very crowded in the last few days.

Roy Halladay began the year battling diminished velocity and has struggled to pitch at a Halladay-esque level on a consistent basis. On Sunday, he left his start after just two innings, and after being evaluated today, the Phillies placed him on the disabled list with a strained latissimus dorsi muscle.

On the one hand, at least it’s not an elbow or shoulder injury that sidelines him for the entire season. On the other hand, the Phillies just lost their ace for the next couple of months, and were already attempting to dig themselves out of a four game deficit in the NL East. Losing Halladay for two months is a significant blow, as he’s been a steady +6 to +8 win pitcher over the last six years. In reality, replacing Halladay with anything close to a replacement level arm will cost the Phillies about a win per month, and if the injury lingers and effects him even after his return, it could be as much as a +3 win swing off their expected win total.

This doesn’t doom the Phillies chances, and they shouldn’t overreact to this news by throwing in the towel on the 2012 season, but their playoff odds just took a very real hit today. This was already a flawed team that needed to make a couple of upgrades in order to put on a strong finish in the second half, and now they’re going to be without their best player until after the All-Star break. The eventual return of Chase Utley and Ryan Howard will help, but the Phillies are going to need more help than that now, especially with Vance Worley battling arm problems of his own. The Phillies are too good to punt the season, but they need another starting pitcher, and they need another starter sooner than later.

The teams that are likely to be sellers in the near future include Minnesota, Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Kansas City, and Colorado. The Padres, Twins, Rockies, and Royals have their own pitching issues, and probably don’t have anyone who would appeal to the Phillies as a trade target. The Cubs could certainly dangle Ryan Dempster, but might prefer to wait for the trade deadline to market a guy who will probably be the best arm to switch teams this summer. That might leave the Mariners, who have a bevy of pitching prospects on the way and could part with a low-cost veteran like Kevin Millwood or ship Jason Vargas off if they wanted a more significant prospect in return. Given Halladay’s expected summer return, a guy like Millwood might make more sense, as he’d provide some rotation insurance without costing them any kind of top prospect to bring him aboard.

Whether it’s Millwood or some other type of emergency fill-in, I’d imagine the Phillies are already making phone calls to try and find another arm to help keep the rotation stabilized. It’s the strength of the Phillies team, and it just took a big blow.

The fact that Bryce Harper got to the Major Leagues at age 19 is pretty remarkable, as not many players are talented enough to earn the call to the bigs before they turn 20. The ones that do stick around usually don’t perform all that well, showing flashes of ability but getting overmatched on a more regular basis. Harper, though, is not only holding his own against big league pitchers, he’s threatening to put up the best offensive season by a 19-year-old in the history of baseball.

In his first 121 plate appearances of his career, Harper is hitting .286/.372/.514, good for a .376 wOBA and a 138 wRC+. Here’s where those numbers rank on the all-time top 10 for 19-year-olds:

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Last Friday, I wrote that if Adam Jones sustains his performance all year, he could be looking at a contract extension in the range of $120 to $140 million by selling himself as Matt Kemp Lite. Today, the Orioles are rumored to have come to an agreement with Jones on a deal for a reported $85 million over six years.

For the Orioles, getting Jones at this price is a slam dunk. Given what he’s already accomplished in the first several months of the season, Jones was going to get a significant raise in arbitration from the $6 million he’s making this year, likely putting him in line for a $10 or $11 million salary in 2013. Given that the Orioles clearly weren’t going to non-tender Jones under any scenario, we can essentially assume that part of the deal was already predetermined to a large extent, so the Orioles are essentially adding five years and $75 million or so onto their existing commitment.

Have you seen what 5/75 buys in free agency lately? Last winter, that was close to the amount C.J. Wilson signed for, but he took less money to stay on the west coast, and the Angels were buying his age 31-35 seasons. In 2010, 5/75 would have left you without enough cash to sign Adrian Beltre, but you could have won the bidding for Adam Dunn and had enough left over to sign Carl Pavano or John Buck. In 2009, that money could have gotten you really close to signing John Lackey or you could have had some leftovers if you signed Jason Bay instead. In 2008, you would have come up just shy for A.J. Burnett or outbid the Braves for Derek Lowe. In 2007, you’d have had enough for Aaron Rowand but not quite enough for Torii Hunter. I think you get the idea.

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On Tuesday, Dan Szymborski utilized his ZIPS projection system and the standings as of Monday night to re-cast the projected standings for the end of the season in a piece for ESPN Insider. In those standings, the Detroit Tigers were still listed as the projected winners of the AL Central, nudging out the Indians by a two game margin with their projected final total of 87 wins.

Since that article was posted, the Indians completed a three game sweep of the Tigers, even beating Detroit with Justin Verlander on the mound this afternoon. The sweep widened the Indians lead to six games (with 118 to go), and made the Indians the new favorites to end the year as the division winners.

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