Ever since Voros McCracken revealed his DIPS theory, stating that pitchers had little control over the outcomes of batted balls, people have been looking for exceptions to the rules. The first ones identified were knuckleballers, who consistently and relisably post some of the lowest BABIPs of any pitchers during their careers. From there, it was found that flyball pitchers, especially ones who generate a lot of pop-ups, can also run relatively low BABIPs over long periods of time. And then there are guys like Bronson Arroyo, who don’t easily fit into a bucket of pitcher-types, but managed to suppress outs on balls in play for over a few thousand innings, showing that he had some ability to induce weak contact.

Often times, the guys who fit the mold of a FIP-beater are guys who wouldn’t be in the big leagues if they hadn’t figured out how to exploit this advantage. The list of guys that we have to write the “FIP is wrong about them” disclaimer currently includes the likes of Chris Young, Marco Estrada, Jered Weaver, Tyler Clippard, and Darren O’Day. You’ll notice that these guys all throw in the 80s, and in Weaver and Young’s case, the low-80s. The guys who don’t conform to the normal range of BABIP variance use their ability to generate weak contact to offset their lack of stuff. They can’t dominate the strike zone — O’Day is the exception to that point — so they get batters out by allowing the kinds of contact that their fielders can get to. I’m sure they’d rather just strike everyone out, but since they can’t do that, they’ve learned to succeed in another way.

But while Weaver and Estrada are still chugging along, soaking up innings and keeping their teams in the ballgame, there’s a new king of weak contact in Major League Baseball. And to make life unfair, he also happens to throw 95.

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On Monday, we talked a bit about Bryce Harper, and the fact that he is making a legitimate run at Mike Trout for the title of best player in baseball. Harper is somehow building off of last year’s dominant season, and at 23, he’s taking his remarkable performance up another level. But Harper isn’t the only 23 year old superstar playing near the beltway, and remarkably, he hasn’t even been the best player in the area this year. That title belongs to Manny Machado.

Through the first couple weeks of the season, Machado ranks second in the majors in batting average (.407), fourth in on-base percentage (.467), and second in slugging percentage (.796). This across-the-board dominance means that his .530 wOBA edges out Harper’s .526 wOBA for the top spot on the leaderboard, and Machado is the primary reason the Orioles are in first place in the AL East. While he has been overshadowed by the remarkable early-career success of Trout and Harper, and to some extent by Carlos Correa’s arrival last summer, it’s important to realize just how great Machado has become.

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Trevor Story hit another homer last night, his league-leading eighth home run of the season. That’s eight home runs in just 13 games, totaling 59 plate appearances. He also hit a double, giving him 12 extra base hits on the year; Josh Donaldson is the only other player in the majors in double-digits, and he has 10. At this point, it’s pretty clear that, while still a player with holes in his swing, Trevor Story hits the ball really hard when he does make contact.

Last night’s home run, for instance, was hit at 108 mph. It was the eighth ball he’s hit this year that left the bat with an exit velocity north of 105. For reference, here is the full list of the 13 players that already have eight or more balls hit at 105+.

Most 105+ Exit Velocities

Player	Results	Total Pitches
Carlos Gonzalez	15	215
Domingo Santana	13	230
Mark Trumbo	12	178
Manny Machado	11	175
Carlos Correa	10	189
Gregory Polanco	9	223
Josh Donaldson	9	248
Trevor Story	8	245
Giancarlo Stanton	8	219
J.D. Martinez	8	169
Bryce Harper	8	186
Danny Valencia	8	160
Jonathan Schoop	8	147

SOURCE: BaseballSavant.MLB.com

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Since the 2012 season, the question of the best player in baseball has been pretty boring. Mike Trout busted onto the scene with a +10.3 WAR season as a 20 year old, and he’s since dominated the sport in a way that has rarely been seen in the game’s history. There were good players having great seasons in Trout’s shadow, but no one put up any real serious challenge to the idea that they were a better player than Trout. But now, that might be changing, as Bryce Harper is putting together a realistic run at the title of the best player in baseball.

Obviously, Harper’s 2015 season was outstanding, as he won the NL MVP by wrecking opposing pitchers on a daily basis. But because of how good he was last year, it can be easy to forget that Harper is still just 23 years old, and he appears to be getting even better.

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The Houston Astros are not off to the start they had hoped for. At 3-7, they find themselves in last place in the AL West, and ahead of only the winless Minnesota Twins in the American League overall. The cause of their slow start? The pitching, which ranks 27th in ERA and 24th in FIP. The back end of the rotation has been particularly lousy, with Collin McHugh, Doug Fister, and Mike Fiers having combined to allow 23 runs in 29 innings. And yet, those aren’t the Astros starters I’d be most concerned about right now. Instead, I’m a bit worried about reigning Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel.

From a results perspective, he’s been okay-ish, with a 3.55 ERA through his first two starts. But the underlying numbers during those first two starts are a bit concerning. First, there’s this.

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Over the last few years, we’ve done a random collection of events in cities around the country, usually calling them something like FanGraphs Live. We’d get a few of our staff members together to hang out with a bunch of our readers, spend a few hours talking baseball, and generally have a great time. We always meant to do more of them, but the logistics of finding places to host the events always served as something of a barrier, so they ended up being scheduled sporadically.

Well, for those who were hoping for more of these kinds of events, we have some good news. We’ve teamed up with the guys behind the Pitch Talks series, and as they roll out their baseball speaker series across the U.S., we’re going to be pretty heavily involved, with our writers as part of the show and friends of FanGraphs joining in for some fun discussions. I was up in Toronto for the two year anniversary show last week, and it was a blast, with roughly 600 Blue Jays fans packing out a music venue for a few hours of fantastic discussion and mildly-drunken banter about the game we all love. We are really looking forward to helping bring that kind of fun to more cities around the U.S.

For the first stop on the tour this summer, we’re coming to Boston.

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The Orioles are 5-0, Ross Stripling almost threw a no-hitter in his Major League debut, and Eugenio Suarez apparently doesn’t make outs anymore, but those were all just footnotes of the first week of the 2016 season. There’s only one big story in MLB right now, and no, that’s not another easy setup for a pun based on Trevor Story’s last name. Okay, maybe it is. They’re so easy!

But despite Trevor’s made-for-headline-writers last name, it’s his performance that keeps him in the news. After finally failing to hit a home run on Saturday, the first time in five big league games that he didn’t go yard, Story launched another one last night, bringing his season total to seven. No one else has more than four. 16 teams have fewer home runs than Trevor Story right now. He has as many long balls as the Mets, Marlins, Pirates, and Angels combined.

So, yeah, welcome to the big leagues, kid. It’s not often that rookie shortstops put on this type of show, and no player of any type has ever hit for this kind of power in their first week in the Major Leagues.

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