Do you like pornography? You don’t have to answer that. Just, here’s some pornography, only of the type that…well, you’re still not supposed to watch at work, but you could at least get away with watching it with your parents:

That’s Joc Pederson, either befriending Coors Field or trying to assault it. According to the ESPN Home Run Tracker, it’s the longest home run of the year, although there is that Coors-related asterisk. Also yesterday, Pederson hit a different mammoth dinger. The day before, he hit a different mammoth dinger. Among those with at least six homers, Pederson has the greatest average distance. Strong hitter. Good rookie.

These are indicators of strength. And there are some other familiar ones. For example, Pederson is tied for second in isolated power, behind only Bryce Harper. He’s barely a percentage point off the lead in home runs per fly ball. The comparisons to Adam Dunn are being made for a reason — lots of walks, lots of strikeouts, lots of power. We know that Pederson has pop. But how else might we be able to think about this? Enter Statcast. Glorious Statcast!

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Some months ago, we moved our internal communications platform from Yammer to Slack. That part shouldn’t interest you, but I just had to explain where this screenshot of a direct message came from:

August is a good guy. So who am I to deny his request?

I remember I first started thinking about the relationship between velocity and batted-ball angle during Michael Pineda’s rookie season. I was probably trying to explain a low home-run rate or something, and that’s when it came to me — Pineda threw hard, and because of his size, it looked like he threw even harder. Wouldn’t it make sense that hard throwers would be more difficult to pull? And it tends to be those pulled fly balls that do the most damage. As a pitcher, you want air balls going the other way. They frequently suck.

When I thought about this stuff back then, it was mostly theoretical. Didn’t have many numbers. We’ve come a long way. There is a relationship between angle and velocity. It’s not perfect, but it’s real, with the pattern you’d expect.

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Hello, and welcome to a post where you do the answering. Usually, in the course of writing our content, we try to offer something conclusive. We tackle a subject, and toward the end of the article, we discuss what might lie ahead for the player, or the team, or the policy. None of that here. What’s offered below is relevant information, but then there’s a poll, where you decide which answer suits you better. The question being asked: of the following two players, which one do you think will sooner record his first-ever major-league hit?

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Strictly based on WAR, the top middle-infield tandem so far has been playing half the time in Miami. The season hasn’t been a complete disaster for the Marlins, because they’ve observed steps forward by Dee Gordon and Adeiny Hechavarria, and that bodes well for the future, if the present is a little bit shot. Also based on WAR, the Marlins’ lead is about as small as it gets. Right on their heels is the Giants’ tag-team of Brandon Crawford and Joe Panik. The difference is something like one-tenth of one point. Let’s not split figurative hairs.

It’s a really interesting evolution that’s taking place in San Francisco. Crawford’s offensive development has been something to behold, starting out as a glove-first shortstop with a better bat than most pitchers. Crawford, now, is one of the best shortstops in baseball, provided the season doesn’t wear him down. But any attention paid to Crawford is attention not paid to Panik. And while Panik didn’t begin his big-league career in the same sort of way, he’s also reaching a level at the plate few would’ve imagined. Joe Panik isn’t just a slap hitter. Joe Panik is a genuine threat!

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Sometimes, I feel like I have to set these things up. This isn’t one of those times. The other day, Bryce Harper batted against Aroldis Chapman. Who wouldn’t want to examine that plate appearance in detail? We’re talking about the game’s premier one-inning pitcher, a guy who does something that might never have been done before, and then you’ve got the hottest hitter on the planet, a guy whose at-bats are worth setting alerts for if you’re not already tuned the hell in. Yeah, they’ve matched up before. Yeah, Chapman struck Harper out all three times, on a combined 10 pitches. That was that Bryce Harper. This is this Bryce Harper. Or, as you might know him, Bryce Harper.

The evening: Friday, May 29. The setting: nobody cares. This is about the individuals, not the circumstance, and while the leverage could’ve been higher, the game was close enough everyone was trying their hardest. This was about something other than deciding the score. This was arguably the game’s most watchable hitter and arguably the game’s most watchable pitcher. So you know they had to combine for a watchable matchup.

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With Thursday’s 11-5 drubbing of the Padres, the Pirates have won seven straight games. It’s a well-timed winning streak, on the heels of what were previously mounting concerns. And the Pirates are very much in the thick of it, if you can say there’s even a thick of anything when it still reads “May” on the calendar.

The Pirates are 25-22. Not bad. Also potentially a bit misleading. Based on their runs scored and allowed, their record should be better than that. Based on their expected runs scored and allowed, their record should be better than that. I know that’s a weird thing to think about, since runs are runs and wins are wins, but trust me that wins and losses aren’t the only indicators of team performance and ability. We can also say this: at FanGraphs, the rest of the way, we have the Pirates projected as a top-five team.

Which is all to say, hey! The Pirates are pretty good. Not only have they been pretty good, it looks like they ought to remain pretty good, especially now that Andrew McCutchen has rediscovered his swing. Now, these days, times are different. Suddenly, it’s not strange to think of the Pirates as being a good team. But there was some concern here because between 2014 and 2015, the Pirates lost Russell Martin to free agency. They didn’t want to; he just got too expensive. Martin was one of the team’s best players. To say nothing of other guys they also lost, including Edinson Volquez, Ike Davis and Travis Snider. Martin was certain to be difficult to replace, and the Pirates understood that from the start.

So how did the organization conduct itself over the winter, with a key piece leaving for $82 million in the other league? The Pirates are anything but a big-budget franchise, so they focused, as always, on efficiency. And while it’s been only two months — so no chapters are closed — it looks like the Pirates had themselves an excellent offseason. An offseason that cost them less than what the Blue Jays invested in a catcher.

Let’s run some of this down. I’ll highlight some individual acquisitions.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.

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We’re conditioned to believe that it’s all about wins and losses. This is because, ultimately, it tends to all be about wins and losses. There’s the whole concept of “true talent”, but true talent isn’t what gets a team to the playoffs — teams get to the playoffs because they accumulate a sufficient number of wins, by whatever means possible. And so we put a lot of importance on team record. We figure the good teams are the teams with wins, and we figure the bad teams are the teams with losses. On some level it’s almost insane to think this could possibly be wrong.

But there are results, and there are evaluations. Right now, the Astros have the best record in the American League. Are the Astros the best team in the American League? According to wins and losses, the answer is inarguably yes. Go beyond wins and losses, though, and there’s a lot more to argue. Team record is only one indicator, and especially this early, it can be a misleading one. This all brings us to the question being addressed.

Which teams are the most changed since Opening Day? That is, which teams have gotten better, and which teams have gotten worse? If you just look at the standings, you’d say, for example, the Astros and Twins have clearly gotten better. The Red Sox have clearly gotten worse, and so have the A’s. But sometimes, results come down to fluky events. In a recent Twitter stream, MGL talked about how wins and losses can throw you off the scent. Let’s think about an alternative approach, that you’ve probably already figured out.

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You remember the offseason that was. It was the offseason in which the Phillies said outright they’d be better off without Ryan Howard. And it was the offseason that concluded with Ryan Howard still on the Phillies. Things could’ve been more awkward than they were, and a conversation did take place between the parties that tried to smooth things over. But, not very long ago, the Phillies had mentally moved on. The problem was that Howard hadn’t gone anywhere.

Then the season started, and Howard was bad. Maybe that wasn’t the biggest surprise. But the season continued, and now Howard’s been good. Isolating just the month of May, Howard’s posted a 156 wRC+, with familiar-looking power. Cole Hamels remarked that Howard looks like the old version of Ryan Howard, by which I mean the younger version of Ryan Howard, and Ruben Amaro has said before that the best thing Howard can do is hit. When Howard hits, then in theory, there are more options. So it’s worth wondering now: with Howard actually looking productive, what can we make of his trade value?

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Wednesday afternoon in Tampa Bay, Felix Hernandez wrapped up a complete-game shutout. It was just his second in the past three seasons, but you shouldn’t let that fool you. He’s one of the best pitchers in baseball — pitching at his peak — and he’s one of those guys where a single underwhelming outing is enough to make people wonder if something might be wrong. People don’t wonder very much these days, though. The two greatest challenges are hitting Felix and not taking Felix for granted.

For the most part, Felix is well understood. Among all of his strengths, the changeup stands out for its movement, for its velocity and for its location. It’s one of the best changeups in the world, and Felix is comfortable throwing it in any count to any hitter. It can be difficult to distinguish from his fastball, which is faster by only a handful of ticks. Everyone, therefore, is familiar with Felix’s main weapon. Fewer people think about another weapon. Felix’s slowest weapon. But he’s going to it with increasing frequency.

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