PJ Conlon doesn’t fit the profile of a New York Mets starter. The defending National League champions have a rotation populated by deGroms, Harveys and Syndergaards. Conlon, meanwhile, isn’t a power arm. The 22-year-old pitching prospect is your prototypical finesse lefty who relies more on guile than gas.

Twenty-seven games into his professional career, Conlon resembles a half-his-age Jamie Moyer. He looks hittable, but squaring him up is often an exercise in futility. Since being drafted in the 13th round last year out of the University of San Diego, Conlon has allowed a grand total of nine earned runs in 84 innings. On Saturday, he took the hill for the Low-A Columbia Fireflies and breezed through 10 innings on just 97 pitches. He flirted with a no-hitter and held Hagerstown to a lone tally.

Soon after that start, Conlon was named to the South Atlantic League’s mid-season All-Star team. He leads the circuit in both wins and ERA, and ranks second in WHIP.

Conlon was featured in this past Sunday’s Notes column, with his Irish heritage being the main focus (he was born in Belfast). Today we hear from the southpaw on his pitching prowess.

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Conlon on pitching: “I’d describe myself as a shorter lefty who doesn’t have great velocity. I’m about 6-foot and will top out at 91 on a good day. I’m usually between 87-90, but I can run the ball and do different things with it. I don’t really throw anything straight.

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It’s probably no secret that, when the Blue Jays decided to try Aaron Sanchez as a starter, we were skeptics. It was nothing against Sanchez personally; from my perspective, at least, it was really quite simple. As a starter in the past, Sanchez never threw enough strikes. Big velocity and everything, but, not enough strikes. Most of the time, pitchers who struggle with strikes continue to struggle with strikes. It was just a way of playing the odds. So often, wishing for a pitcher to show better control is like wishing for a hitter to show better discipline. Those improvements are relatively rare.

They do happen, though, and often enough that optimism isn’t unwarranted. The Blue Jays wanted to see if Sanchez would find a way to more consistently own the zone. With strikes, Sanchez would have significant upside. The Jays went for it, and, wouldn’t you know it, but Sanchez has been utterly fantastic. Last year’s starting experiment is now a distant memory, as Sanchez is in the process of establishing himself as one of the more electric young starters in the league.

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Today, MLB Advanced Media is making a pretty exciting announcement, as they’ve brought in Tom Tango — who created many of the metrics we use here on FanGraphs, and is probably the closest thing this generation has had to Bill James in terms of advancing the understanding of the game — to serve as their Senior Database Architect of Stats. In other words, he’ll help facilitate the development and deployment of Statcast data.

While the league has previously been somewhat reserved in discussions about which direction they would take this technology, the fact that MLB has brought in one of the game’s most respected public analysts, and is putting him in a position to develop tools for the public, seems like a great sign for the future of the data.

To help put some context behind this announcement, I conducted a Q&A with Tango via email last week, and I think his answers were quite encouraging. Our conversation is below, and if you’re interested in hearing more, Tango also recorded an episode of the Statcast Podcast with Mike Petriello, which will be up shortly. On to the Q&A.

DC: First off, congratulations on the new gig.

TT: Thank you, I’ve been waiting for this day to officially arrive.

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The amateur draft is just one day away, and it’s still unclear whom the Phillies plan to take first overall. One player who’s vaulted himself into top-five consideration, and might even be in the mix for 1-1, is Kyle Lewis, an outfielder from Mercer University. Lewis’ stat line is about as good you’ll see from a college hitter: .395/.535/.731. But there’s a catch: he’s a product of the Southern Conference, which churns out very few big leaguers and features a rather low level of competition.

Lewis’ competition level makes it a bit difficult to gauge just how good he is, especially from a statistical standpoint. Yes, .395/.535/.731 is a very good stat line, but it isn’t immediately clear how that compares to Corey Ray’s .319/.396/.562 performance in the ACC — a conference that is likely chock-full of future professional ballplayers.

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If you hit 10 home runs in 15 games for an awful, last-place team, will anyone notice? What if you hit 10 home runs in 15 games after entering the season with just eight major-league homers to your name — will anyone notice then? These are the questions Adam Duvall is asking the baseball world right now. While spending his first season as a major-league regular in the relative baseball obscurity that is 2016 Cincinnati, the 27-year-old Duvall is suddenly begging the baseball world to take notice. Well, we see you, Adam, and we want to get to know you better.

Power has always been the key component to Duvall’s game. He has 130 career minor-league home runs, most of which came during his time with the Giants organization. In June 2014, during Duvall’s major-league debut, he homered off Reds pitcher Mike Leake. Just over a year later, the Reds traded Leake to the Giants and in return received none other than Adam Duvall in return. As a September call-up for Cincinnati last fall, Duvall made an early case for the 2016 everyday left-field job, recording five home runs in just 72 plate appearances. This spring, he officially won the job over guys like Jake Cave, Scott Schebler, and Kyle Waldrop. So far, it sure looks like the Reds made the right decision.

Duvall’s current hot streak is part of a larger season-long trend of tremendous power-hitting — historically tremendous power-hitting, even. Of his 50 hits this season, 31 have been of the extra-base variety — 17 home runs and 14 doubles – which gives Duvall a 62.0% extra-base hit rate. In the modern era (since 1901), only two players have posted a higher XBH/H% over a full season: 2010 Jose Bautista (62.2%) and, naturally, 2001 Barry Bonds (68.6%).

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Out of all the sports, it’s got to be toughest for a baseball fan to endure a rebuild season. During a baseball rebuild season, the suck lasts 162 games. Every fan of every team begins the year with enthusiasm — it’s meaningful baseball again, all the teams are tied, and there’s both fresh faces and the ones you’ve grown to love — but for fans of those rebuilding clubs, the enthusiasm wears off the quickest, and the suck grows exponentially as the season goes on.

The enthusiasm has well worn off for fans of the 2016 Cincinnati Reds. They’re 22-36, better only than the Braves and Twins. Their playoff odds officially flatlined back on April 30. Their best player, Joey Votto, hasn’t even brought much in the way of excitement, and perhaps worse than all that, they’ve played 58 games, and 57 times they’ve had to endure a historically bad bullpen.

Not much to cheer for in Cincinnati this year! Cincinnati fans: I’m sorry I just made you relive all that. But I’ve got good news! In this one way, your team’s season can actually be a success! I’m serious! See, in years like these, with the 162 games of suck and whathaveyou, you’ve got to maintain perspective. This season was never about winning games. It was never about being better than the Braves and the Twins, or having playoff odds, or not having a bullpen that makes your eyes bleed. It was about learning, and it was about acquiring future assets.

The Reds have learned. Oh, the Reds have learned. The Reds have learned that nobody in their current bullpen will be in their next good bullpen. You’d prefer to learn positive things about your team, but there’s value in knowing ahead of time which fat to trim. For a positive thing, the Reds have learned that Adam Duvall might really be a player. There’s value in knowing which pieces might be here to stay.

But beyond just some learning, this Reds’ season has gone to plan in that their two most encouraging comeback stories just so happen to be their two most sensible trade chips.

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Last night, Yordano Ventura once again lived down to his reputation. The video at MLB.com shows not just the 99 mph fastball that drilled Manny Machado in the back in the 5th inning, but the 2nd inning pitches that led Ventura to decide to throw at the Orioles best player. If you haven’t seen the context that precipitated the brawl, this is worth watching.

As referenced by the announcers, this is nothing new for Ventura. Last April, he was unhappy with Mike Trout, and caused the benches to clear by mouthing off after pitching poorly. He was then ejected from his next start for hitting Brett Lawrie with a fastball, and in the start after that, he got the benches to clear by yelling at Adam Eaton after a groundball back to the mound.

As Jeff Passan — who lives in Kansas City and knows more about the Royals than most national writers — noted this morning, Ventura’s act has worn thin, not just with everyone else in baseball, but his own organization as well.

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It’s been a long, strange trip to the major leagues for Jameson Taillon. Sandwiched at second overall between Bryce Harper and Manny Machado in the 2010 draft, Taillon missed all of 2014 and 2015 while recovering from Tommy John and inguinal hernia surgeries, respectively. His stuff flashed last fall during instructional league and there was hope coming into the season that he would be able to pick up somewhere close to where he left off in 2013 when he had a brief and wild but effective stint in Triple-A.

This year, Taillon has exceeded all hopes and expectations and laid waste to the International League. In ten starts (61.2 innings), Taillon has struck out 61 and walked just six, while generating a ton of ground balls. Per MLBfarm.com, 83 of the 168 balls put in play versus Taillon this year have been on the ground. He debuts for the Pirates tonight against Noah Syndergaard and the Mets.

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We all know that the strike zone isn’t always called correctly, and we all know that the mistakes aren’t just randomly distributed. Have you ever stopped to think about how weird that is? The zone is at the core of the entire game, and for as long as baseball has existed, some teams have gotten more generous zones than others. It’s like if some football teams only needed to gain nine and a half yards for a first down. It’s like if a hockey team, or a basketball team, or a soccer team got to shoot at a slightly larger goal. These adjustments wouldn’t make all the difference, but they would make a difference, and they’d be weird, too. Inequality is weird.

On the other hand, it’s not like the other sports don’t have their own areas of subjectivity. Football penalties. Hockey penalties. Basketball fouls. Soccer fouls. Fouls, basically. Those might not be randomly distributed, either. I don’t know enough about that research, but thankfully, I’m about at the end of this introduction, so we can get back to the baseball stuff.

Known fact: not all strike zones are called the same.

Question: so how have teams benefited or been hurt by the strike zones this year?

Analysis: to follow.

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It was a strange start to the season, you’ll remember. Even though the Astros, as a whole, were completely disappointing, Jose Altuve came out absolutely on fire. He put up numbers you’d expect from some elite-level slugger, and on May 5, he bashed his ninth home run. That put him on pace for something like 50, and though Altuve was never going to get all the way to 50, he was impossible not to notice. He already had the remarkable bat-to-ball skills. To that, he was adding selective strength. Call it a superstar turn.

It’s overly simplistic, but when you look at Altuve, you don’t see a home-run hitter. I shouldn’t need to explain why. The extent of the power was hard to believe, and now you could say things have calmed down: Last night, Altuve hit his first dinger in a month. I want to talk about that dinger, but more importantly, I want to talk about the process that led to that dinger. It’s not that Altuve’s start was a mirage. It’s that he was getting opportunities they’re not giving him anymore.

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