Owen just wrote about the fact that Joey Votto is having a fantastic season on a team that isn’t fantastic. That’s not exactly what Votto would prefer — on some level, every player has to be selfish, but Votto, like everyone, wants to be on a winner. One benefit of playing for a winner: winning is fun. Another benefit of playing for a winner: winners get attention. Votto is having an MVP-caliber year, but because of the team built around him, he’s putting his season together in almost total silence, which is greatly unfortunate. His overall numbers are outstanding. And his more recent numbers are almost inconceivable.

Maybe you’ve seen some of these; maybe you haven’t. If you saw some of these a few weeks ago, it’s not like Votto has slowed down. I’ll concede that splitting at the All-Star break is mostly arbitrary, but if we do that, then what’s revealed is nuts. It’s not just the categories that Votto’s leading. It’s the extent by which he’s in front. Over the last several weeks, Votto’s posted the highest walk rate in baseball, by eight percentage points. He’s posted the highest wOBA in baseball, by 69 points. He’s posted the highest OBP in baseball, by 101 points. Since about the time the All-Star Game rolled around, we’ve seen a player go the full Votto. The output is bewildering. We can see what’s happened. What’s driven what’s been happening?

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Aaron Nola is 22 years old and just nine starts into his big-league career. He still has a lot to learn. At the same time, his approach is akin to that of a veteran. Drafted seventh overall last year by the Philadelphia Phillies, the Louisiana State University product has a mature mindset that belies his age.

Nola features two- and four-seam fastballs, a changeup, and a curveball. Each offering is of solid quality, but more importantly, he knows how to employ them. The right-hander isn’t a flamethrower — his fastball is averaging 91.7 mph — but that’s not his game. Mixing and matching, and commanding to both sides of the plate, is his M.O. Unlike most youngsters getting their feet wet at the highest level, Nola is more of a pitcher than a thrower.

Nola — who has won five of his seven decisions and has a 4.02 ERA — talked about his game when the Phillies visited Fenway Park over the weekend.

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Nola on simplicity and preparation: “Nothing in baseball is easy or simple. Everybody out there has a plan, and mine is to get guys out any way that I can. Everybody has their way of approaching pitching, and the game. But while a lot goes into it, you do want to try to simplify pitching. Over-thinking can get in your way.

“There’s a lot more information available up here. Nothing is really a secret anymore. We all study hitters, and the hitters study us. Especially when you haven’t pitched against a team — it’s good to look at the information to see what their approaches are. I definitely use it.

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To say the Dodgers have a surplus of infielders on their roster would be an understatement. Justin Turner, Howie Kendrick, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Enrique Hernandez, Alex Guerrero and Jose Peraza all have their merits as major leaguers, and all happen to play either second base, third base or shortstop. Not all of them have had the best of seasons this year, but still: that’s seven players capable of playing the infield for just three spots.

Unfortunately for the Dodgers, the injury bug has taken a huge bite out of that infield depth. Kendrick, perhaps the team’s best infielder, has been out for nearly a month with a hamstring strain. Peraza and Hernandez, who’s been on a tear of late, also went down with hamstring strains last week. Suddenly, the Los Angeles didn’t look all that deep in the infield, especially considering how poorly Utley and Rollins have hit this year.

Enter Corey Seager. In an effort to shore up their ailing infield, the Dodgers summoned their top prospect to the big leagues last week, providing them with another option at shortstop and third base. Seager was the consensus top prospect left in the minor leagues at the time of his call-up. He topped just about every outlet’s mid-season prospect list this summer, and his .300/.346/.464 performance since August 1st certainly hasn’t diminished his case. Overall, Seager hit .293/.344/.487 in 125 minor-league games this year, with all but 20 of those games coming at the Triple-A level.

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Michael Conforto got to the big leagues in a hurry; the 10th overall pick in last year’s draft is already wearing a New York Mets uniform. It fits comfortably. The 22-year-old Oregon State product is hitting a stylish .292/.375/.531, with five long balls, in 112 plate appearances.

Conforto flew through the system this summer, punishing pitchers at two levels before being promoted directly from Double-A. Hoopla accompanied his arrival and he wasted little time justifying the buzz. In his second game, the left-handed-hitting outfielder stroked four hits, including a pair of doubles. He did so with access to data never before at his disposal.

“When I came up, I wanted to use all of it,” Coforto told me on Wednesday. “I wanted to see the heat charts of pitchers, and the percentages of pitches they use in certain counts and with runners on base. Everything. I tried to digest all of the information, but it’s tough to put all of those things into your head and still hit.”

Veteran teammates cautioned the youngster to keep it simple, telling him “You didn’t have those things in the minor leagues and you still hit.” He heeded their advice, but not to the point of eschewing all available data. Read the rest of this entry »

A home run is generally the result of a one-on-one battle between pitcher and hitter. A pitcher throws the ball, the batter hits it, and all the other players are more or less observers as the ball sails out of the park. Weather and park factors play a role in whether the ball leaves the yard. An outfielder might give chase. Then teammates show elation or disgust depending on the side of the battle where they are aligned. An inside-the-park home run is not like those other home runs. An inside-the-park home run needs this:

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The Mets closer has a new pitch, and it is fantastic. A 95 mph split-finger fastball is already superlative by name, but when you drill down into the arsenal of Jeurys Familia, it starts to look unique… and unfair.

But first we must appreciate the pitch in all its GIF glory.

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Just in case, let’s get this out of the way early: Kevin Kiermaier is the Rays’ center fielder. You probably already knew that, but you can never be too safe. Kiermaier is considered by everyone to be something of a defensive whiz. They say you’re supposed to open with a joke. Here’s a funny picture that proves even a defensive whiz can end up in a humiliating screenshot:

There’s a perfectly good explanation for what happened that relieves Kiermaier of pretty much all blame, but it’s more fun if you don’t know. Look at that guy! What a silly person.

Realistically, for the hitter, it’s probably a good thing that what happened happened. Spoiler alert: By rule, the hitter was awarded a home run. Had a physical structure not interrupted the flight of the baseball, there’s a decent chance Kevin Kiermaier would have, a few seconds later.

Major League Baseball fans were first introduced to Kiermaier late in 2013, when the Rays called him up for tiebreaker game 163, and the AL Wild Card Game. Kiermaier wasn’t promoted to serve as some sort of dangerous slugger off the bench. Nor was he around to be a potential pinch runner. Kiermaier was brought up specifically for his outfield defense. The Rays knew it was a little crazy, but they thought Kiermaier was the best defensive outfielder in the organization, so it wasn’t hard to talk themselves into it. Kiermaier played an inning in the first game. He played two in the second. That was it. Over the winter, Baseball America called Kiermaier the No. 10 prospect in the system.

Some prospects go away. Some hype proves to be unjustified. I don’t think it would’ve been a shock had Kiermaier never shown up again, or had he been limited to a bench role. But he wound up playing 108 games last year as a rookie, and he’s already close to 130 as a sophomore. Kiermaier’s bat has developed enough for him to play nearly every day. And because he’s played so often, we’ve seen ample evidence of his defensive skill. The Rays, back then, were on to something. I’m obligated to share some defensive highlights. The hardest thing is picking.

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Talk to any player in baseball and that player will tell you the most important thing is winning. That player will tell you he doesn’t care if he goes 0-for-4 if his team still wins the game. That isn’t always all true, but winning tends to be the priority, and at least in the moment, players don’t care so much about the numbers. It’s one of the many differences between baseball players and baseball fans. Players just want to go to the park and have their team get the job done. Fans want to consume as much baseball as they can, and that’s where the stats come in, to fill the void in between baseball games. Each day, a game entertains for three hours. That means numbers could conceivably entertain for 21 hours, given a particularly unhealthy individual.

Many of the best players in baseball are almost as entertaining on paper as they are on the field. Barry Bonds‘ player pages continue to amaze to this day, even though his career has been over for years. Clayton Kershaw is turning into a sort of pitcher version. Kershaw goes above and beyond what his own team would deem necessary. There’s no need for Kershaw to be this good. The Dodgers would still win if he were a little bit worse, but he’s not a little bit worse, so the numbers are like a toy box. If you want to observe Clayton Kershaw, and he’s not actively pitching, you can get by from looking at his statistics, because they’re like the numerical version of a perfectly-located curveball.

Kershaw pitched on Wednesday. He faced a lineup of players all worse than him, and he was something close to perfect, striking the hitters out 15 times. What that meant, for Kershaw, is that the Dodgers won a game against a division rival. What it means, for us: Kershaw has positioned himself to have a shot at 300 strikeouts.

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Before this season, Manny Machado was a talented young player who’s remained something less than elite due to injuries and a bat that was closer to average than star. He added offense to his game this season and earned his status as a star-level player. Debuting just a month removed from his 20th birthday back in 2012, Machado combined an above-average bat with amazing defense, but a switch flipped this season and Machado joined Mike Trout and Bryce Harper as one of the very best players in the game. Machado is one of the game’s very best third baseman defensively, but a couple times this week, the Orioles have experimented with him at shortstop. While the long-term implications for Machado and the Orioles are unclear, early returns suggest a happy outcome for the club and the 23-year-old, were he to return to his original spot on the diamond.

Drafted out of high school as a shortstop, Machado was projected to remain at shortstop given his solid hands and arm, although there were whispers that somewhere down the line his body might outgrow the position. The Orioles certainly expected his future was as a shortstop, putting him there for all but two of his 208 minor league games. When the Orioles found themselves in a pennant race in 2012, they already had one of the best defensive shortstops in the game with J.J. Hardy so they moved Machado to third base. The move worked, as the Orioles won a wild-card spot and an ensuing wild-card game to make the American League Division Series. With Hardy continuing to provide excellent defense, Machado has remained at third base until now.

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The Rangers sure are exciting these days. They’re only two games behind Houston for the AL West lead and one game up on Minnesota for the last Wild Card while still holding the title of The Best Team With a Negative Run Differential. That is, if nothing else, an unwieldy banner. It’s the banner equivalent of Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s name on a t-shirt in that it would start on one side and end on the other. Negative run differential or not, the Rangers are winning games and doing it in exciting fashion. Tuesday the Rangers beat the Padres while Elvis Andrus stole home. I’m happy that happened because that this is an article about Elvis Andrus stealing home and if he hadn’t stolen home this would be a pretty weird article.

The Rangers have had some good luck in addition to playing well. For example, the San Diego Padres just wanted to play a baseball game Tuesday. I’m not even sure they wanted to win it. I mean, they’d probably have been fine with winning, but they’d have been fine with not winning, too. Let’s just play a game, they probably thought, then get some sleep. Instead they got Tuesday’s game which was much, much worse.

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