It’s difficult to overstate how much Freddie Freeman means to the Braves. He is, at present, the face of the franchise, and rather than trade Freeman, his general manager would sooner give his right arm. It’s not just that Freeman’s the best player on the Braves — Freeman is the Braves, for all intents and purposes. Although he isn’t Mike Trout, he’s the Braves’ Mike Trout, and the Angels aren’t going to trade Mike Trout. They’re going to cherish him, feature him, build around him, promote the hell out of him. The Braves have been going through a difficult stage. Freeman’s helped to keep them marketable.

Freeman’s great. He’s gotten some amount of MVP support in three separate years. He’s long been firmly entrenched as the Braves’ everyday first baseman, and there was never really any question about that. That is, until now. As soon as Freeman got injured, the team dealt for Matt Adams. Adams started to hit well almost immediately. Now it looks like a healthy Freeman could play third base in order to keep Adams in the lineup. What’s even weirder is, I think it makes sense?

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Here’s an advertisement I saw while reading an article earlier this morning:

I know how internet advertising works. I know it doesn’t matter that I saw that ad while reading an article that had nothing to do with sports. The internet knows I spend a lot of time on baseball websites. Hence, a baseball ad. But the specific ad itself doesn’t know that I’ve been interested in Eric Thames. That ad was prepped with Thames in the middle of it. It wasn’t prepped before the start of the season — it wouldn’t have made sense to feature Thames, or really any Brewer. This ad is a reflection of how well Thames started the year. It’s a reflection of how quickly he achieved broad recognition. Eric Thames was selected to help promote MLB.tv. Not Mike Trout. Not Bryce Harper. Eric Thames.

Thames’ start was absolutely incredible. He hit the ground sprinting, and I’m sure you remember all the coverage he was given. He was, and still is, a heck of a story. The Brewers are still happy to have him. But it’s worth pointing out that Thames hasn’t been the same. For whatever reason, he’s slipped into a slump.

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There are two types of stories you might be growing tired of reading. This guy figured out how to hit home runs. Well, there are home runs everywhere. And, this guy figured out how to get more strikeouts. Well, there are also strikeouts everywhere. Home runs. Strikeouts. Home runs. Strikeouts. It can feel sometimes like the game is nothing but home runs and strikeouts. It’s not, but it is more than it’s ever been. I’m sure many of you are craving diversity.

But Brad Peacock is leading all starting pitchers in strikeout rate. Not Chris Sale. Not Max Scherzer or Clayton Kershaw or Corey Kluber. Brad Peacock. Yeah, I had to lower the innings minimum, because Peacock hasn’t been starting the whole time, but when he was a reliever earlier on, he got a whole bunch of strikeouts, too. Let me show you a table, including 2016 and 2017 contact rates allowed:

Peacock has a long history of pretty average contact rates. Relatedly, he was essentially a replacement-level pitcher. Now a third of all swing attempts are missing. This can’t not be discussed. Strikeouts might be everywhere, sure, but this is the first time Peacock has managed to find them.

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Clayton Kershaw got the win against the Mets last night. From one perspective, he was fantastic. He faced 25 batters, and struck 10 of them out, issuing but one single walk. He threw more than two-thirds of his pitches for strikes, and he pitched himself into the seventh inning. The problem was that, of the 14 batters who hit the ball fair, four of them went deep. Kershaw was charged with a season-high six runs allowed, giving him a game ERA of just about 9.

Let it be acknowledged right away: Kershaw’s still amazing. Kershaw’s still an ace. He still has one of the game’s highest strikeout rates, and he still seldom issues any walks. He’s near the top among starters in ERA-, and he’s even closer to the top by xFIP-. Kershaw might be literally the last pitcher on the planet you’d want to catch yourself worrying about. There’s just this one thing I can’t get past: Kershaw has coughed up 17 homers. That is, already, a new career high.

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Much of the time, a jam isn’t confusing. What counts as a jam, and what doesn’t, tends to be obvious. The bases are loaded with nobody out in the ninth inning of a tie game? That’s a jam. There are two outs and nobody on in the fourth inning of a blowout? Not very jammy. A jam is a gut thing, and gut things don’t come with explicit rules, but you often know a jam when you see one.

Last week, I asked you, the FanGraphs community, to define what a jam is. Not exactly that, I guess — more like, I asked you to help come up with a jam definition. I presented you with a dozen different situations, and then thousands of you voted on whether the situation counted as a jam, in your own book. I didn’t know what the results might yield, but I figured it would help us in the in-between. Between the obvious jams and non-jams, there are iffy jams. I wanted to try to identify a cutoff.

Let me acknowledge, again, that jams are gut feelings. They’re situation-dependent in more ways than I could include in a poll, and there are presumably elements of momentum and opposition quality that matter to some extent. This is all basically for fun, and for exploration, and nothing is conclusive. We haven’t arrived at a set definition. But we can at least see where the crowd stands. What’s a jam? What isn’t a jam? I have a better idea now than I used to.

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From the case of Rich Hill, I’m not sure one could learn any lessons. For one thing, he still has more time to pitch, so his final chapters are unwritten. But even if Hill is already underwater, so what? No one needs to be told that there are risks inherent in committing to a free agent 37-year-old. And it’s not like anyone else is following the Rich Hill career path. His case is unique. What matters for him might not apply to anyone else. Everything about what he is is atypical, and so we stand to learn about Hill and Hill only.

It is fair to say, though, there are things to be learned. The Dodgers are probably anxious to learn them, because they’re counting on Hill, and he’s not pulling his weight. Now, no one thought Hill would throw 200 innings. I don’t think anyone expected 140. But here’s Hill now, at 35 innings after eight starts, eight starts in which he’s run up a 5+ ERA. Hill’s strikeouts have fallen and his walks have exploded, and Thursday in Cleveland saw him cough up seven runs. Rich Hill isn’t right, and although the Dodgers aren’t so worried about his June, they’d like to know if he’ll be fine by October. Something right now is borked up.

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Young players are fun, because young players are fresh. They give us something new to think about, keeping baseball just spicy enough to ward off too much boredom. Every young player comes with some form of strength, and it’s entertaining for a while. In time, we get used to it. Then there are new young players.

When Andrelton Simmons was younger, he was all over the internet. His strength was that he played like one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball history, and that made an immediate impression. It felt for a while like, every other day, there was a new Simmons clip that people would fawn over. And, justifiably so — Simmons was doing things other people couldn’t do. But, ultimately, humans are humans, and Simmons stopped feeling so exciting. We came to expect the defense. The bat didn’t develop. New players came around. Simmons turned just 27 last September, but he was all but absent from the conversation about the new wave of shortstops.

And, hell, that makes some since, given that by now Simmons counts as a veteran. This is his sixth year playing in the major leagues. I mentioned, though, that he’s only 27. Simmons is making himself relevant again. He’s showing off a new trick, one we waited for for years.

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Yesterday, toward the end of an absolute thrashing at the hands of the Twins, the Mariners sent Carlos Ruiz to the mound. That’s notable for the fact that Ruiz is a catcher, and not a pitcher, and yet Ruiz pitched, and he even registered a strikeout! He also walked two guys and coughed up a homer. Not supposed to pitch. Did pitch. It happens.

It’s actually been happening kind of a lot. The day before, the tables were turned, and as the Mariners were maiming the Twins, the Twins sent out Chris Gimenez to pitch. A few days before, the Padres used Erick Aybar. The day before that, the Phillies used Andres Blanco. The day before that, the Twins used…Chris Gimenez. A week before that, the Twins used Chris Gimenez. And on, and on. It used to feel special when a non-pitcher would pitch. It’s still more fun in a blowout than the alternative, but some of the shine has come off the apple.

It’s not too hard to figure out why. These appearances were special because they were rare. They’re still not common, but they’ve become more common than they’ve been. Baseball right now finds itself within a number of eras, but among them, this is the era of position players pitching.

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The Angels outlasted the Yankees Tuesday night, walking off 3-2 in the bottom of the 11th. As a result, the Angels moved to 34-34, a record which is the very definition of neither good nor bad. Some people would argue that playing .500 baseball is actually the worst possible path, but the Angels should be counting their blessings. They’re within easy striking distance of a wild-card spot, and, oh, by the way, they’ve won more games than they’ve lost since losing Mike Trout.

It doesn’t hurt that Eric Young has *played like* Mike Trout. That’s just one of those things. There is no explanation. But let’s think about where the Angels are. Before the year, I thought the Angels’ chances of success would come down to Garrett Richards, Matt Shoemaker, and Tyler Skaggs. They were projected for a combined 8.1 WAR. They’ve actually combined for a total of 1.0. So, that’s a bad look, and the rotation has had its predictable problems. What’s really astonishing to me, though, is the bullpen. Like the rotation, the bullpen has been made worse by injury. Unlike the rotation, the bullpen has still found a way.

This isn’t how this was supposed to go. The bullpen was supposed to be the liability, even when intact. A patchwork assortment of journeymen has helped to keep the Angels afloat.

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