My sense is that the fly-ball revolution isn’t something I even need to explain. You know the argument, you know the theory, and you know about some of the most successful cases. Ground balls are mostly unhelpful, right? So why not…not…hit ground balls? Francisco Lindor has attempted to stop hitting ground balls. He’s doubled his home-run total, from 15 to 30. Good luck finding someone who scouted him in the minors who thought he’d hit for that kind of pop.

Yet, largely, the fly-ball revolution’s very existence feels anecdotal. One can’t help but notice the league-wide numbers, and how little they’ve shifted. Compared to last year, this year’s average ground-ball rate is down half a percentage point. The league has hit 44% ground balls. A decade ago, the league hit 44% ground balls. Who cares? Is anything actually going on?

It is. It’s just a little bit hidden. Thanks to the wonders of Statcast, we can see where the league has been actively changing.

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You wouldn’t believe what the Angels have had to deal with on the mound. I know that you wouldn’t believe it, because I’ve had trouble believing it, and I look at this stuff every day. The Angels aren’t the only team in baseball that’s had to work around pitcher injury and ineffectiveness, but their staff has been left in relative tatters, and still they’re pushing to advance to the playoffs. Now, when you’re thinking about the Angels, you have to think about Mike Trout, and he’s been very obviously the best player on the team. Andrelton Simmons, too, has had an outstanding five-odd months. But teams need to have some manner of pitching. The Angels have had to find ways to survive.

It’s the rotation that’s been depleted in particular. As I write this, the Angels rotation ranks 28th in baseball in WAR, with only the White Sox and Reds down below them. Out of curiosity, I pulled up every single individual team-season since 1950. For every team in every season, I identified the starting pitcher with the highest WAR. The Angels’ starter with the highest WAR this year stands at 1.2. That currently has the Angels ranked third from the bottom, in terms of having the worst best starter. And I should say, while there are a few weeks left to play out, that guy at 1.2 is done for the season. So if a pitcher will surpass 1.2, it’ll have to be somebody else. The 1983 Padres rank lowest, among teams that finished at least .500. Their best starter had a WAR of 1.6.

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No other sport loves its records in the way that baseball does. Baseball, from the beginning, has lent itself to being tracked by statistics, and it’s almost impossible to talk about baseball without discussing its numbers. Certain numbers are held in particularly high esteem, which is why so many people remain unwilling to accept Barry Bonds as the legitimate all-time leader in single-season home runs. The record is considered too sacred to be held by someone who bent or broke the rules. The all-time hits record is also something sacred, and an international conversation developed as Ichiro Suzuki plugged away. He surpassed Pete Rose in career professional hits, counting his hits in Japan, but Rose was defensive about it, arguing that combining the numbers isn’t fair. Rose has built much of his identity around being the Hit King, and most of us would act defensive when we perceive we’re under threat.

Rose cares about his records. He cares about his legacy. Yet, he lost a record Monday night. I have yet to see a statement or an interview. Maybe he doesn’t care, or maybe he doesn’t know. But as of yesterday, Pete Rose no longer ranks in first place on a major-league leaderboard.

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The Pirates, last year, finished under .500. The Pirates, this year, will almost certainly finish under .500 again. There’s been no shortage of bad breaks, bouts of misfortune no one could’ve seen coming, but the shine, you could say, is off the apple. Late last week, Travis wrote about a disconnect between how fans seem to feel about the team, and how they arguably ought to. In the slightly bigger picture, the Pirates have been a tremendous success, yet there’s no making up for lousy results in the present.

The Pirates are a team in need of a jolt. That doesn’t mean they ought to rebuild. Nor does it mean they ought to play in the upper tier of free agency. What the Pirates could really use is the emergence of a bright young talent from their own internal system. Nothing’s more valuable than a young and homegrown star, and there’s a player now for the fan base to dream on. Spoiler alert: It’s Tyler Glasnow again. This time, though, he could be ready to deliver.

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I can tell you the instant Josh Hader made me sit up and take notice. We’re going back a week and a half, to what was, for me, a lazy Friday night. I was watching the Brewers attempt to close out the Nationals, and the Brewers held a 1-0 lead in the top of the eighth. Hader took the mound, in relief of Jimmy Nelson.

Right away, Hader attacked Trea Turner and struck him out on three pitches. It was impressive, but, ehh, Turner will strike out. The next batter was Wilmer Difo, and Hader struck him out on six pitches. It was also impressive, but, ehh, Wilmer Difo. The third batter was Daniel Murphy. Murphy has developed into a power hitter without sacrificing much at all in the way of his making contact. Murphy remains one of the premier bat-to-ball hitters in either league. With two down and the bases empty, Hader went to work.

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Sunday night, the Indians pushed their winning streak to 18 games. The next-longest active winning streak in baseball is five. Since this all began, the Indians, of course, have gone 18-0, and the next-best record in the American League has been 9-7. The goal is to win the World Series, and the Indians will be disappointed if they again come up short, but at a certain point, this will just become their legacy. Somebody wins the World Series every year. The Indians have one of the longest winning streaks that baseball’s ever seen. Doing something like this is more improbable, and it’s a reflection of how well the Indians have been built, from top to bottom.

A truth about baseball is that a winning team is never as good as it looks when it’s winning, and a losing team is never as bad as it looks when it’s losing. The Indians feel like they’re bulletproof, mostly because they’ve been bulletproof for about three weeks. Their odds of winning everything haven’t meaningfully changed. It’s useful to keep the Dodgers in mind. The change in perception has been abrupt, even though it’s more or less the same active roster. Invulnerability isn’t forever, as demonstrated by the reality that everything dies.

The Indians aren’t unbeatable. The chances are still that they won’t win it all. Upon eventual reflection, the team shouldn’t be judged only by how it performed when it didn’t lose a game. One should attempt to consider the whole of the picture. Let’s do that right now. Let’s talk about the Indians’ pitching.

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Early Thursday, I listened to an exchange between Buster Olney and Indians president Chris Antonetti. As you’d expect, there was talk about the Indians’ winning streak, and about the impressive play of Jose Ramirez. But Olney also asked Antonetti about an observation that had been relayed to him by some number of league evaluators. In the opinions of those evaluators, one area where the Indians stand out is in their reluctance to throw predictable fastballs. Pitchers have been taught forever that the fastball needs to be established early on. What if a team simply didn’t believe that?

Listening to the segment got some gears whirring. This isn’t a post about the Indians. This is a post inspired by an observation about the Indians. Let’s have a little talk about fastball usage.

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Doug Fister has only made more and more sense. He was most surprising in the early days, the successful days, the days when Fister was a command-first No. 2. He was never considered much of a prospect, because prospect evaluators love them some velocity, but Fister made it work through his pinpoint location. He was, in a sense, in the same mold as Dallas Keuchel and Kyle Hendricks. And then, gradually, Fister got worse, as his repertoire eroded. He lost what speed he had, and he lost his results, having exceeded his own narrow margin of error. Fister joined the Astros in 2016 as a roll of the dice. He wasn’t very good, and then he was a free agent. He didn’t get a job until the desperate Angels signed him in May. He was dropped a month later. Fister became what he was going to become, having gotten to the end of the line.

Yet one last opportunity beckoned, one with the Red Sox. Dave Dombrowski had seen Fister’s best self, and he needed a pitcher. Over Fister’s first month, he allowed nearly a run per inning. A shift to the bullpen ended on July 31 anyway, and Fister has taken off. He’s thrown seven games, and he’s looked like…classic Doug Fister. I mean that. Seemingly out of nowhere, Doug Fister has turned back the clock.

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I don’t know what brings you joy. Baseball, probably, or else you’re hopelessly lost on the internet. Chances are, you’re a fan of a team, so you root every day for that team’s success. Me, I’m less a fan of a team, and more a fan of players and subjects. One of the things that’s been bringing me joy is observing Mike Trout climb up the WAR leaderboard. It’s amusing because, obviously, Trout missed about six weeks due to injury, and it’s hard, obviously, to accumulate WAR when you miss a quarter of a season. Trout is amazing.

There’s a slightly lesser version of that same exact story. The best pitcher in baseball, by WAR, is Chris Sale. That’s not very surprising, recent stumbles aside. Yet, the second-best pitcher in baseball, by WAR? That would be Corey Kluber, who missed a whole month due to a back problem. Even though a month is a long time, in baseball terms, Kluber has put that unfortunate episode behind him, even threatening to create something of a Cy Young race. Kluber, generally, has been pitching like Corey Kluber. Just, an even better version. The Kluber of today might have baseball’s best pitch.

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