A short while ago, on the Effectively Wild podcast, Ben and I took a few minutes to respond to a listener email about jams. That triggered a conversation about what a jam actually is. In a sense, I think we could all agree we know a jam when we see one, but I long for greater precision. Where’s the line between a jam and a non-jam? I didn’t have the answer. Ben didn’t have the answer. This is where you come in.

The Wikipedia glossary of baseball defines a “jam” as a situation “when runners are in scoring position with less than two outs and good hitters coming up.” The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary defines a “jam” as “a difficult situation during a game.” It continues: “Usually it is said that a pitcher is in a “jam” when the opposing team is in a position to score, such as when the bases are loaded with no outs.”

Here’s a reference to Zach Davies being in a jam with the bases loaded in the bottom of the first. Here’s Jameson Taillon in a so-called jam with two on in the bottom of the fifth. Here’s Brett Cecil in a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the eighth. Here’s a random reference I found to a Brandon McCarthy jam in the third, when he kicked a frame off with a double and a walk.

Some situations are very obvious jams. Some situations are very obvious non-jams. I’m interested in the in-between, and this screams for a FanGraphs community polling project. As such, below, you will find 12 very simple polls. Each poll describes a different game situation. Assume, under all circumstances, that we’re dealing with average, regular players. Each poll then asks a yes-or-no question: Is the situation described a jam? Don’t worry about right or wrong answers. Just go with your gut. Your collective guts will lead us to some kind of truth.

I’ll analyze the results later on, if it indeed seems like they’re worthy of analysis, which I assume they will be. Thank you in advance, and, happy polling. It’s time to define the undefined.

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Writers have a tendency to fall all over themselves in their haste to identify the newest breakouts. I do it, myself, because that’s the kind of stuff that’s most exciting, and you always want to be first. So this is why, every April, you’ll see enthusiastic articles about players who seem to be over-achieving. Once April is in the books, then only April is in the books, and surprisingly strong numbers stand out. Potential breakouts make themselves known, and few writers have the willpower to resist.

What’s less common is the eventual follow-up. Absolutely, some of those potential breakouts turn into actual breakouts. Far more often than not, the potential breakouts end up having been just regular players on hot streaks. This specific article — this is a follow-up. The Yankees are in first place in large part because the Aaron Judge breakout seems to be real. And yet Judge isn’t alone in being a major contributor, because there’s also increasing reason to believe in Aaron Hicks. Hicks right now is tied for sixth among position players in WAR, and he started as one of the Yankees’ backups. He is a backup no longer.

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With the weekend now officially in the books, Aaron Judge is the new owner of the longest home run of the season. He’s also the new owner of the fastest-hit home run of the season, which is additionally the fastest-hit home run of the admittedly brief Statcast era. Allow me to note that these were two different home runs.

Aaron Judge is not the result of some kind of hype train gone off the rails. He’s not just some hot hitter who’s got number-types overexcited. Sure, he could cool off. Sure, further adjustments will be made. But Judge, in April, was baseball’s sixth-best hitter. In May, he was baseball’s fourth-best hitter. In June, he’s been baseball’s second-best hitter. Aaron Judge is a candidate to win both the Rookie of the Year and the MVP awards at the same time, and he’s doing things other players don’t do. At least, other players not named Giancarlo Stanton. Pre-Statcast, we would’ve assumed that Judge is a freak. With Statcast, we know that Judge is a freak, someone pushing the limits of on-field human capability. If you’re not in love with Aaron Judge, it’s not some noble rebellion against the media’s east-coast bias. It’s about you closing off your own heart.

Judge is amazing. He’s why every big-power type with a strikeout problem gets chance after chance. Judge is the embodiment of so many dreams come true. Here’s what’s just as nuts: Judge isn’t solely responsible for carrying the Yankees’ offense. Judge is but one soldier in the Yankees’ push for home-run supremacy.

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This year’s A’s have been something of a mystery to me. No matter how you break them down, they don’t ever look very good, but they’ve felt like a statistical underachiever. Let me explain. You know our BaseRuns standings? The A’s have an actual run differential of -59, which is one of the worst in the game. However, they have an estimated BaseRuns run differential of -2, which is perfectly ordinary. That means the A’s have a difference of 57 runs, where no other team has a difference greater than 35. And while the lineup is a part of it, the run prevention has been worse than the estimate by 0.79 runs per game. No other team has been worse by more than 0.36.

Something has caused the A’s to allow more runs than they arguably should have. Now, in reality, a variety of things have contributed. There’s seldom ever one explanation. Yet the major factor here is the one described in the headline, and it should come as no surprise to anyone who’s watched the A’s on a regular basis. We’re a third of the way into the season, and the Oakland defense has sucked.

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There are a couple good stories beginning to emerge in the American League. Just last night, the Mariners crawled their way all the way back to .500, despite suffering through a rash of significant early-season injuries. And, similarly, although the Blue Jays aren’t quite also at .500, they’re close, despite encountering a similar problem. There’s been talk of whether the Mariners and Blue Jays ought to sell. With their play much improved, each team is firmly back in the race, vying to contend for the wild card.

With any team in such a position, success is dependent upon there being some surprises. And when you look at the Jays, there may be no bigger surprise than the offensive performance of Justin Smoak. Before the year, there were 14 Jays projected to play at least semi-regularly, and Smoak stood as the eighth-best hitter. At this writing, there have been 14 Jays who have played at least semi-regularly, and Smoak has been the second-best hitter. By wRC+, he’s above Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, Daniel Murphy, and Kris Bryant. Smoak has a career WAR of 1.8. This season alone, he’s been worth 1.5.

As you know, Smoak is a former top prospect. Plenty of hype, for plenty of years. He’s also 30 years old, and until now, he looked like a replacement-level hitter. When the Jays signed him to a modest extension a year ago, it was met with mockery and disappointment. Welp. There was no putting off this post any longer.

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The 2017 MLB draft is going to kick off early next week. What do I know about the MLB draft? Nothing! What can I tell you about which teams are good drafters? Very little! I don’t really know what might count as my specific field of expertise, but I know some fields that definitely *aren’t*, and the draft is one of them. You and I, we’re on the same level. Unless you read about the draft a lot, in which case, you’re the smarter one here.

I can’t tell you the first thing about how the draft is going to go. I don’t know which picks might seem risky, and which picks might seem safe. The best I can do for draft-related content is analyze results. Why don’t we take a few minutes to review those? Who has drafted well? Who hasn’t? There, we can have some ideas, if we allow the numbers to be the guide.

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There’s not a soul out there that thought the 2017 Brewers would be as good as the 2017 Cubs. There’s not a soul out there that thinks the 2017 Brewers will be as good as the 2017 Cubs. And yet, the 2017 Brewers have been as good as the 2017 Cubs, at least by wins and losses, which are ultimately the only numbers that matter. The Cubs have three more wins than defeats. The Brewers can say the same of themselves. The Cubs have been billed as an active dynasty. The Brewers have been rebuilding. I’ll be damned. We’ll all be damned.

One key to understanding what’s going on: Before the start of the season, we ran our annual positional power rankings, and the Brewers rotation slotted in at 25th place. By actual WAR to this point, that same Brewers rotation ranks in seventh place. A certain amount of credit ought to go to Chase Anderson, who’s exceeding expectations. But he’s not exceeding them quite as much as Jimmy Nelson. In Nelson, it looks like the Brewers might have an ace.

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Sometimes baseball history requires an explanation. History is happening all of the time, and we try hard to point it out when it does. I don’t think requiring an explanation necessarily makes certain achievements any less remarkable, because context is important, and there are numbers that need adjustments. Like, it could take a while to convey just why last year’s Cubs defense was so amazing, but at the end, you’d understand how amazing it was. It just takes some mental digging and sorting.

Explanations, though, lose people. You’re left with a receptive audience, but the audience is smaller than it would’ve been, at the beginning. There’s baseball history of the sort that appeals to dorks, and there’s baseball history of the sort that appeals to everyone. That second kind is powerful. That second kind brings fans to their feet. Over the weekend, there was a standing ovation for Edinson Volquez. Tuesday evening, there was a standing ovation for Scooter Gennett. Scooter Gennett hit four home runs in a baseball game. That’s historic because he hit four home runs in a baseball game. That’s as simple as history’s ever going to get. And so Scooter Gennett has made himself unforgettable.

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I read a FiveThirtyEight article not too long ago from Michael Salfino, and it had the following headline:

Who Needs A DH? The NL Is Outhitting The AL, Somehow

Now, I’d never actually thought before to just look at league-by-league OPS. And, since that article was published, the point around which it was built has become untrue. Nevertheless, by OPS, the leagues are close. Courtesy of Baseball Reference, here’s how the leagues have compared over more than the past century:

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