You don’t need to know what spinal stenosis is to know you don’t want it, and to know it’s bad that David Wright has it. No major-league baseball player would choose the condition for himself, and for Wright, the diagnosis raised innumerable questions about the state of his career. When this very regular season opened, there was chatter in the first series that Wright looked stiff, that he looked exploitable and weak. Early on, it looked like Wright could and would be a liability. It would be a most unfortunate turn for a beloved former superstar.

Let’s be clear: David Wright still has spinal stenosis. That isn’t going to change. He is very much limited, but at the same time, as I write this, Wright is sitting on a 136 wRC+, about dead even with his lifetime mark of 134. Wright might be compromised, but Wright has also made things work, and he’s done that by focusing on maximization. David Wright has turned himself into an all-or-nothing hitter.

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Yesterday’s big news was that the Nationals agreed to a long-term extension with Stephen Strasburg. So that’s exciting for him, and for them, but you always have to think about the side-effects of these things. Several people pointed out that, without Strasburg, the upcoming pitching market sucks. And several people also pointed out that, with Strasburg locked up, this puts Billy Beane in a better position with regard to Sonny Gray. There’s just the one problem right now: Sonny Gray hasn’t been very good.

He’s far from the only ace who’s had his struggles. If you look at all the qualified starters and sort by ERA, you see David Price at an unbelievable 6.75. There’s Adam Wainwright, with an uncharacteristic 6.30. Gray is hanging out at an even 6.00, after getting tattooed by the Red Sox. Every slump is accompanied by a search for explanations. Seems to me the explanation for Gray is that he’s been pitching without his best weapon.

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The historic start of the club residing on Chicago’s north side has obscured some pretty amazing things going on at US Cellular Field, as the White Sox have raced out to the best record in the American League. Hopes weren’t all that high entering the season, with the club’s only spring-training noise emanating from the aftershocks of Drake LaRoche-Gate.

A month-plus in, however, the poor-fielding and weak-hitting Chisox of 2015 are a distant memory. A fine starting staff, led by perennial Cy Young candidate Chris Sale and his wingmen Jose Quintana, Carlos Rodon and Mat Latos, are thrilled to find that most of the batted balls they allow are finding leather this time around.

About those batted balls: much is being made of the fact that Chris Sale is posting the best, small-sample traditional numbers of his career while pitching to much more contact than in the recent past. Today, let’s dig inside the numbers a little bit to see whether Sale is, in fact, new and improved.

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J.B. Wendelken had an inauspicious MLB debut. Called up by Oakland from Triple-A Nashville on Sunday, the 23-year-old right-hander retired just four of the nine batters he faced. Following a mound visit, he gave up a grand slam.

The native of Savannah, Ga., was originally Red Sox property. Drafted in 2012, he was subsequently swapped to the White Sox, and later to the A’s. Finding out he was going to the big leagues was every bit as surprising as being told he’d been traded. He was so stunned by the news that he sat down.

Wendelken didn’t have to wait long to get into a game. Hours after joining the team in Baltimore, he was standing on the mound with his eyes wide and his heart beating fast. Needless to say, it was an experience he’ll never forget.

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Wendelken on learning he was being called up: “We were in Nashville and coming up on a closing situation. I’d been told by my pitching coach, Rick Ro [Rick Rodriguez], that I’d either be the late-inning setup guy or our closer. That time came along, and I was left sitting there. I was a little confused, but there was nothing to it. I didn’t think too much about another guy being up.

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We have updated the graphs on our player pages that have been a part of the site since FanGraphs was founded in 2005. The player graphs are now much more interactive and have been updated to feature some of the most popular and commonly used advanced stats on FanGraphs, such as WAR, wRC+, wOBA, OPS and FIP. We are also retaining the left/right and home/away splits options. These new graphs are interactive and have tool tips available on some data points.

There are four modes that represent different ways to delineate time: By Year, By Age, By Day and By Game. By Year and By Age are similar to each other; they replicate what has previously been available on the player pages showing season stats on a line graph with a league-average line. The league-average line is the most noticeable difference between Year and Age. Since the league average for a season is different than the average production for a given age.

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Last night, in the middle of his start against the Detroit Tigers, news leaked out that Stephen Strasburg had agreed to a seven year, $175 million extension with the Washington Nationals. As Jeff Sullivan noted last night, this is seen as surprising news, as Scott Boras clients usually end up testing free agency, and Strasburg was four months away from being not just the best free agent on the market this winter, but the only high-end pitching option available.

And it’s not like the Nationals broke the bank to keep Strasburg away from free agency. The 7 year, $175 million total essentially matches the contract figures that Justin Verlander and Felix Hernandez received in their long-term extensions three years ago, except Strasburg’s actual contract is valued significantly less than those two, because it also includes $70 million in interest-free deferrals. Once you account for the payment structure of Strasburg’s deal, the net present value is $135 million, which is the NPV a player would get if he signed a 7 year, $158 million contract without backloading or deferrals.

That total puts Strasburg south of not only Hernandez and Verlander (not even accounting for the inflation that has happened in MLB salaries since those deals were signed) but even less annually than Jon Lester, who got $155 million from the Cubs for six years. Lester was selling his age 31-36 seasons when he signed with Chicago, while Strasburg would have been selling his age 28-34 seasons had he entered the market this winter; combined with his superior stuff and the dearth of alternatives on the market, I would have guessed that Strasburg would have been able to do significantly better than this as a free agent.

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Stephen Strasburg made his worst start of the season last night. At home, against the Detroit Tigers, Strasburg struck out 11 over seven innings, allowing four earned runs on six hits, three walks, and two home runs. The Nationals won the game on a walk-off home run by Clint Robinson in the ninth inning, and Strasburg took the no decision. A game in which Strasburg completed seven innings and struck out double digits was his worst start of the year in terms of ERA, and his worst start of the year in terms of FIP. It was his best start of the year in terms of signing massive contract extensions bordering on $200 million.

That last night’s performance was Strasburg’s least impressive of the season is impressive in and of itself. He’s been baseball’s third-most valuable pitcher by FIP-WAR, eighth-most valuable pitcher by RA9-WAR, and fifth-most valuable pitcher by an even mix of the two. And while what he’s done this seasons is an elevated level of performance relative to previous seasons, Strasburg’s been on this run for a while now. You could make the case that this is the best we’ve ever seen him.

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Deep in the bowels of Oakland’s Coliseum, you’ll see Ryan Madson working out with wires strapped to his body. The wires head to a little pack he carries with him, and in that pack is a machine that has helped him recover his career.

The device, pictured here, is the Accelerated Recovery Performance machine, which was administered to Madson by the EVO Ultrafit group in Arizona. The ARP sends electrical stimulation to your muscles much like the stim packs and microcurrent versions out there, but claims to have a proprietary wave form that allows for deeper penetration of the muscles.

The Oakland closer is not alone in believing in the benefits of the ARP machine — many out there tout its abilities to help the body recover and retrain — and yet there are equal shares of doubt about its efficacy.

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Buckle up, because this is going to be exhausting. Bryce Harper just batted 19 times during a four-game series between the Nationals and Cubs in Chicago. Harper batted a meager .250, and he slugged a meager .250, but he came away with an OBP of .789, thanks in large part to literally 13 walks. Joe Maddon acknowledged that the Cubs were pitching around him, but he didn’t really need to do so for us to get the message, given what was taking place. How did Harper get pitched? Here are all the final locations:

The expression of the day is “the Bonds treatment.” For one four-game series, Bryce Harper was getting pitched like the greatest hitter any of us have ever seen. What’s kind of funny is that Harper has recently been in a slump — he has five hits in 34 official at-bats over the past couple weeks. The Cubs didn’t care, seemingly preferring to go about their business with Ryan Zimmerman and one extra baserunner. At least, much of the time.

Just to what extent did Harper get pitched around? Below, you may behold all 19 plate appearances. For each, I’ll show the sequence, and I’ll assign a 1-to-10 grade indicating how little interest I think the Cubs had in attacking. The grade is entirely subjective and meaningless, but to give it the illusion of meaning, let’s say 1 is pure attack mode, and 10 is unabashed threat avoidance. Here come the Cubs, Bryce Harper, and the Pitching Terrified Index.

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Shelby Miller just pitched six innings and allowed just two runs on Saturday. For a pitcher who entered that game having given up 22 runs in 23.1 innings — while also recording as many walks as strikeouts and averaging under four innings per appearance — the start was definitely an encouraging one.

However, there are some caveats, as well. For one, it occurred against a terrible Braves offense. And Miller still gave up another home run. And he recorded two walks against just one strikeout. Miller is far from out of the woods at this point. His main problems so far this season have been pitch selection and lack of velocity. The former is easily fixable. The latter could be a source of trouble if he can’t find the lost velocity at some point — or, alternatively, if the lost velocity is the result of some physical problem that has prevented him from maintaining consistent mechanics.

In each of the past two offseasons, Shelby Miller’s teams have decided to move him. Depending on your narrative, that’s maybe a sign that two organizations gave up on a young pitcher. On the other hand, though, the Cardinals’ receipt of Jason Heyward and the Braves’ massive haul a year later both contradict that narrative: both receiving clubs gave up quite a bit for Miller. When the Cardinals gave up Miller, he was coming off a relatively disappointing 2014 season where his 17% strikeout rate, 10% walk rate, 3.74 ERA and 4.54 FIP were all worse than his promising 2013 season. While the season overall was underwhelming, there were reasons for optimism on Miller when the Braves trade for him, and he delivered on that optimism last season.

During the 2014 campaign, the Cardinals made a deadline deal for Justin Masterson, and while Masterson did not pitch well for St. Louis and has yet to recapture his old form, he did teach Miller a two-seamer grip that Miller was able to use the rest of the 2014 season. At the time of Masterson’s arrival, Miller had recorded a 4.14 ERA and 4.81 FIP, with a 16% strikeout rate and 11% walk rate. To that point in the season, Miller was throwing his four-seam fastball 68% of the time along with a two-seam fastball less than 5% of the time. The rest of the season, Miller threw his four-seamer 48% of the time while upping his two-seamer to 22%. The result? An increased strikeout rate, fewer walks, a better, but not great 4.00 FIP, plus a nice 2.95 ERA over his final 10 starts.

Miller carried that two-seamer to Atlanta, throwing it even more last season (34% of the time vs. 33% on the four-seamer). His walk and strikeout rates remained the same as his late-season run in 2014. Halving his home-run rate helped Miller to a 3.45 FIP and 3.02 ERA — and Miller’s best season as a professional. Arizona made Atlanta an offer it couldn’t refuse and Miller headed into the season hoping to continue last year’s success. 

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