Although St. Louis’s 67-66 record puts them 5.0 games out of a Wild Card berth, our projections continue to give them a still-realistic 13.0% chance at cracking the playoffs due to the talent on their roster. Mike Leake wasn’t helping much, as the veteran righty had allowed at least four runs in each of his last four starts, yielding a protuberant 10.24 ERA. St. Louis had apparently seen enough, trading Leake to Seattle. In his place, they’ve called up top prospect Jack Flaherty to make his major-league debut tonight at San Francisco. Flaherty ranked No. 57 on Eric Longenhagen’s updated top-100 list.

Flaherty was nothing short of excellent in the minors this year, pitching to a stellar 2.18 ERA in 25 starts between Double-A and Triple-A. Most impressively, he struck out 25% of opposing batters while walking just 6%. If you’re looking for a nit to pick, it’s that Flaherty isn’t much of a ground-ball pitcher and, largely as a result, was a little homer-prone in his 15 Triple-A starts. But otherwise, his recent minor-league track record is impeccable.

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For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, let me set the scene real quick. The Mariners are involved in that big giant fight for the AL’s second wild-card position. None of the teams in the picture are actually good, but all anyone will need is one more win than the rest of the pack. At that point, the playoffs will beckon, and, who knows? So that’s part of it. The other part is that the Mariners’ rotation was supposed to include James Paxton, Felix Hernandez, Drew Smyly, and Hisashi Iwakuma. Right now the rotation includes none of them. On the year, the Mariners’ rotation ranks 28th in baseball in WAR. Over the past month, they’re dead last, a few hairs below replacement. What do you do when you have a rotation that’s bad? One of the things you can do, I suppose, is acquire Mike Leake.

In part because of Luke Weaver, Leake became expendable in St. Louis. He remains under contract through 2020. Here are the details of the swap:

Mariners get

• Mike Leake
• $0.75 million in international bonus space
• About $17 million in salary relief (via Ken Rosenthal)

Cardinals get

• Rayder Ascanio
• Relief from the rest of Leake’s contract

The Mariners have added yet another back-end starter. At least this one is a little different from the others.

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Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

8/23

Mike O’Reilly, RHP, St. Louis (Profile)
Level: Hi-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: NR  Top 100: NR
Line: 6 IP, 9 H, 0 BB, 2 R, 7 K

Notes
A 27th rounder out of Flagler College last year, O’Reilly was promoted to High-A Palm Beach in late July after a dominant four-game stretch of Midwest League starts that included a complete game, one-hit, 12-strikeout performance. O’Reilly doesn’t throw all that hard, sitting 88-91, but he’s deceptive, he can locate his breaking ball for strikes, and he flashes a plus changeup. There’s some risk that O’Reilly’s fastball won’t be effective against upper-level hitters, but he has quality secondary stuff, throws strikes, and overall has a profile in line with valuable upper-level pitching depth.

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Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Pedro Avila, RHP, San Diego (Profile)
Level: Low-A   Age: 20   Org Rank: NR  Top 100: NR
Line: 7.1 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 1 R, 13 K

Notes
This was Avila’s fifth double-digit strikeout game this year and his second in the last three starts, as he K’d 18 at Great Lakes on August 8th. A stocky 5-foot-11, Avila doesn’t have a huge fastball, sitting mostly 91-93 and dipping just beneath that from the stretch, but he frequently demonstrates pinpoint command of it, working to both his arm and glove sides. That gets Avila ahead in the count and sets up his deep-diving curveball, which bites enough to miss bats in the strike zone as well as below it. He also flashes a plus changeup. Avila began the year in High-A and struggled to throw strikes (but not miss bats) there for nine starts before a demotion. He has 102 strikeouts in 74.2 innings since then. Avila was acquired during Winter Meetings from Washington in exchange for Derek Norris.

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Below are the updated summer top-10 prospect lists for the orgs in the National League Central. I have notes beneath the top 10s explaining why some of these prospects have moved up or down. For detailed scouting information on individual players, check out the player’s profile page which may include tool grades and/or links to Daily Prospect Notes posts in which they’ve appeared this season. For detailed info on players drafted or signed this year, check out our sortable boards.

Chicago Cubs (Preseason List)

1. Adbert Alzolay, RHP
2. Victor Caratini, C/1B
3. Oscar de la Cruz, RHP
4. Jose Albertos, RHP
5. Thomas Hatch, RHP
6. Aramis Ademan, SS
7. Alex Lange, RHP
8. Brendon Little, LHP
9. Mark Zagunis, 3B
10. D.J. Wilson, CF

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I don’t think many people expected the NL Central to be very close, but here we are, with four teams within four games of the divisional lead. Although the Cubs, as expected, have risen to sit in first, their closest rivals now are the Cardinals, but one single game behind. For those Cardinals, it’s been a pretty ordinary season, and it’s been a pretty weird one.

The best player on the Cardinals, by Wins Above Replacement, leads the team by a margin of one full win. The best player on the Cardinals didn’t crack the opening-day roster. As a consequence of that, the best player on the Cardinals gave serious thought to calling it quits. The best player on the Cardinals is a 29-year-old who came into the year with a half-season’s worth of major-league experience. The best player on the Cardinals has himself an extended injury history, and the best player on the Cardinals has also had to manage a degenerative eye condition, called keratoconus. The best player on the Cardinals probably isn’t supposed to be the best player on the Cardinals.

And still, at least statistically, the best player on the Cardinals has been Tommy Pham. It’s been fun for me to watch Mike Trout glide up the WAR leaderboard since his return to the bigs. As I write this, he’s tied with Paul Goldschmidt for third place, as hitters go. Pham is no Trout — he’s down there in 22nd, among position players. But that’s 22nd out of a sample a lot bigger than 22 players. That’s 22nd even though Pham hasn’t been up all year. That’s 22nd, which puts Pham above guys like Michael Conforto, Travis Shaw, and Andrew McCutchen.

Watch Tommy Pham hit a dinger. I don’t know what purpose this clip serves, but, who doesn’t want to watch a dinger? It’s a visual break from the wall of text.

Pham’s personal story is far too deep, complex, and interesting for a short blog post. I’d recommend reading this feature, or this one, or this one. Pham’s dealt with adversity from nearly the start of his life, and that’s for reasons even beyond his compromised vision. But just from a baseball perspective: Can you imagine trying to hit with compromised vision? This is an excerpt from the first of those links.

Pham said he is legally blind in his left eye due to keratoconus.

At present, Pham is able to play and perform through careful management of special contact lenses. I’ve already mentioned that Pham looks excellent according to WAR. He’s gotten there by being an all-around contributor. This is the kind of thing I’ve called attention to before when talking about Anthony Rendon. I looked at a spreadsheet of this year’s players with at least 250 plate appearances. I narrowed the pool down to only those players who’ve been at least average by K-BB%, ISO, BABIP, baserunning, and defense. The group includes only nine players. Rendon, yeah. Pham, too. Pham’s been solid across the board. He’s even cleaned up his biggest on-field weakness.

This right here is probably the highlight of this entry. We’ve got some plate-discipline data stretching back more than a decade and a half. I looked at every single player over that span to bat at least 100 times in consecutive seasons. Here are the 10 biggest year-to-year improvements in contact rate:

That’s a hard thing to pull off by accident. As a result, Pham has trimmed his strikeout rate by an unbelievable 15 percentage points, and although Pham now just looks pretty similar to what he was as a part-time player in 2015, he’s doing it now over greater playing time. And so Pham is now a player with a career WAR/600 of 4.5.

The St. Louis outfield remains crowded. Pham remains an objectively risky player, or at least a player with a higher degree of volatility. I don’t know to what extent the Cardinals actually trust him, but that trust has to be a lot stronger than it was a few months ago, and, if it weren’t for Pham, the Cardinals wouldn’t be where they are today in the standings. The best player on the Cardinals is a miracle. I don’t think I’m even exaggerating.

Below is a ranking of the prospects traded this month, tiered by our Future Value scale. A reminder that there’s lots of room for argument as to how these players line up, especially within the same FV tier. If you need further explanation about FV, bang it here and here. Full writeups of the prospects are linked next to their names. If the player didn’t receive an entire post, I’ve got a brief scouting report included below. Enjoy.
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This is not just about the Cardinals’ shortstop Paul DeJong. He’s the subject of the sarcastic tweet below, but the point is that this sort of sentiment — surprise at a walk from a player with poor plate discipline — is increasingly more common in today’s game.

PAUL DEJONG WALK

— Gif Weaver (@SimulacruMusial) July 28, 2017

It’s true, he walked! It’s also true he hasn’t walked much this year, and that he strikes out a lot. For the season, he has coupled a 2.6% BB% with a 31.3% K%. Yikes! But, with today’s power environment, this sort of plate discipline is more…allowable. Used to be, if you struck out four times for every walk, you just didn’t have a spot in baseball. That’s not true any more.

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Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Luis Ortiz, RHP, Milwaukee (Profile)
Level: Double-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 3   Top 100: 57
Line: 7 IP, 4 H, 0 BB, 1 R, 7 K

Notes
After walking five hitters on July 13, Ortiz hasn’t issues a free pass in two starts since then. He has good glove-side command of his fastball and has kept his body, which drew Rich Garces comparisons when Ortiz was 19, in check. Reports of his slider’s effectiveness, especially within the strike zone, have become mixed but Ortiz is purposefully working with his changeup more often, even against righties, and not getting as many reps with the slider. His curveball remains about average. Ortiz has had hamstring issues this season and various ailments throughout his career, but he’s still just 21, pitching pretty well at Double-A and projects as an above-average big-league starter.

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With Dexter Fowler out of commission after suffering a wrist strain, the Cardinals have promoted top prospect Harrison Bader to take over center-field duties. Bader had been crushing Triple-A pitching to the tune of .297/.354/.517, though those numbers are inflated by the run environment of PCL. In his big-league debut last night, Bader doubled and scored the winning run.

Even after accounting for the effects of the PCL, Bader has hit for a healthy amount of power this year, belting 19 homers in 97 games. There’s more to Bader than his power, however. Eric Longenhagen rated him as a 60 runner, which parlays into good baserunning and center-field defense — Clay Davenport’s numbers consistently have him above average in center.

Bader profile isn’t all roses and sunshine, as his strikeout and walk rates both leave much to be desired. These metrics suggest he may have issues getting on base in the majors. Eric also voiced concerns about the prospect of Baders’ swing working against major-league pitching.

Bader has plus bat speed and some raw power, but it’s hard for him to utilize it in games because his swing is so flat and linear. He has to really adjust his lower half to move his barrel up and down in the hitting zone and, while this worked at Double-A, not everyone thinks it’s sustainable in the big leagues. Additionally, Bader has trouble seeing the ball against right-handed pitching, especially breaking balls, over the top of which he often swings. It’s more of a 40/45 hit/power profile which doesn’t play everyday in a corner, but Bader was an above-average runner for me in the Fall League and plus during the season for some scouts with whom I spoke, so some orgs think he can moonlight in center field.

No outlet has ranked Bader in their top 100, presumably for the reasons Eric laid out in his write-up. But my KATOH system disagrees with this assessment. My system pegs Bader for 5.7 WAR over his first six seasons by the stats-only method and 4.5 WAR by KATOH+, which incorporates his prospect ranking. Those marks place him 61st and 73rd, respectively, among prospects.

To put some faces to Bader’s statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps. I calculated a Mahalanobis distance between Bader’s 2017 performance and every season since 1991. In the table below, you’ll find the 10 most similar seasons, ranked from most to least similar. The WAR totals refer to each player’s first six seasons in the major leagues.

Please note that the Mahalanobis analysis is separate from KATOH. KATOH relies on macro-level trends, rather than comps. The fates of a few statistically similar players shouldn’t be used to draw sweeping conclusions about a prospect’s future. For this reason, I recommend using a player’s KATOH forecast to assess his future potential. The comps give us some interesting names that sometimes feel spot-on, but they’re mostly just there for fun.

Bader his flaws, but he also has a lot going for him. Most notably, he’s a 23-year-old who’s now succeeded at the highest level of the minor leagues. Sure, his numbers were helped by the PCL. But even if this year’s numbers are largely smoke and mirrors, Bader remains a speedy center fielder with power and passable defense. Those can be quite valuable.