Another day another tire fire. The Red Sox were beat by the Yankees 13-3 last night, dropping their record to 47-60. The team is in last place in the AL East again and looks destined for their third last place finish in four seasons, though there is a World Series win sandwiched in there (is a World Series a sandwich?) so it’s not like things are really that bad. Still, for a team of Boston’s means and expectations, a run of futility like this usually presages changes at the top, and low and behold, that’s exactly what has happened.

Two days ago it leaked out that Larry Lucchino, in the post of team president and CEO since 2002, would step down at the end of the season. He’ll be replaced by Sam Kennedy. Not exactly a bloodletting, but it should be noted that Kennedy will take only the CEO title (officially Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer) and focus solely on the business side of things. This leaves a hole in Boston’s baseball operations department. The Red Sox could let things sit as they are, with General Manager Ben Cherington in charge and right-hand-men Allard Baird, Brian O’Halloran, and Mike Hazen directly below him in the organizational structure, but there’s that impending three last place finishes in four seasons thing, so that seems unlikely. And when you consider the smoke from the media around a new addition to baseball operations combined with the removal of Lucchino, who is supposedly stepping down due to age but who rumors persist is poised to join another team rather than retire, then you’re entering the realm of ‘especially likely’.

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All right, here’s the deal. At the start of the season, everybody cares about schedule strength, but they care only a little bit. At this point in the season, far fewer people care about schedule strength, but they tend to care much much more, since the games are higher leverage than ever for those still in the race. So if you’re someone who cares about schedule strength, boy, do I have the post for you. At least, I have a post for you.

Two graphs follow, one for the American League, and one for the National League. This was actually really easy to put together. If you click on “Standings” above, you end up at this page, and that one has team projections on it. If you go to the Playoff Odds page, though, you see similar but different team projections. That second set adjusts for schedule, so to find a measure of schedule strength, one need only compare the projections on the two pages. It’s so easy you could do it yourself! You can do more than you think yourself.

There’s a key difference between this and what you might read elsewhere about schedule strength. People typically look at the number of games against, say, .500+ opponents. Or they’ll evaluate schedules based on team records so far. This is 100% about projections, so if there are projections you disagree with, that’ll have an effect. So this is kind of a FanGraphs measure, but then this is FanGraphs, so take it with however much salt you like. On the graphs, a positive number means an easier schedule. The bar shows the number of extra wins once you schedule-adjust. Of course, negative means the opposite. We’ll start with the American League, because here, the American League looks boring.

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Madison Bumgarner starts for the Giants today, in Atlanta. That’s good for them, for two reasons. One, it means the Giants get to have Bumgarner pitch. Two, it means the Giants get to have Bumgarner hit. Bumgarner regularly dazzles in batting practice, and that isn’t where his ability is confined — in his most recent start in an NL ballpark, he went deep. Bumgarner was outspoken in his disagreement with Max Scherzer earlier in the year, when Scherzer lobbied for the NL to adopt the designated hitter. Bumgarner, see, takes pride in his slugging, and he wouldn’t want to lose that advantage.

Not that Bumgarner was always much at the plate. As recently as 2013, he was a mess, like pretty much every other pitcher. But then he devoted more attention to the offensive side of things, and his successes have been numerous and remarkable. In honor of Bumgarner’s hitting, then, I’ve put together this poll-post, comparing Bumgarner and Josh Hamilton. Hamilton has obviously been a disappointment since signing his nine-figure contract, but he remains a threat, batting fifth or sixth in a Rangers lineup with a lot of name value. Below, there will be six polls, for six statistics. I’ll show you the high value, and ask you to pick which guy is responsible. Answers are revealed at the end. Good luck!

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On July 24, in what amounted to my FanGraphs debut, I wrote in so many words that Matt Harrison is – and I quote – “back.” Well, he’s back, all right – back on the disabled list, not only with stiffness in the surgically repaired back that kept him sidelined for the better – or, really, worse – part of two years but also with a diagnosis of hypothyroidism.

As I wrote in so many words: mercy.
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Don’t ask Corey Kluber if he throws a curveball or a slider. There’s only one response, and it will be so deadpan it’s almost a whisper on the wind: “Breaking ball.” Maybe it doesn’t matter, but maybe it does. But what is that breaking ball?

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The Yankees rotation is looking rather thin these days. After losing Michael Pineda to a forearm injury, the team was left with a gaping hole in their rotation behind Masahiro Tanaka, Nathan Eovaldi, Ivan Nova and CC Sabathia. Even before Pineda’s injury, the team already had a hole at the back of their rotation in Sabathia, whose days as a productive pitcher appear to be well behind him. Overall, that’s an underwhelming rotation for team that’s likely headed to the playoffs.

Somewhat curiously, the Yankees didn’t acquire any rotation help at the trade deadline. Even more curiously, it doesn’t seem like they made much of an effort to do so. Instead, they seemed more interested in fortifying the back of their bullpen, which is already one of the best in baseball.

The imminent arrival of top prospect Luis Severino may have been the primary reason for the Yankees’ inaction. Minutes after the non-waiver trade deadline had passed, Brian Cashman revealed the 21-year-old’s next start would be in the big leagues. He debuts tonight against the Red Sox.

Severino has little left to prove in the minor leagues. The hard-throwing righty split time between Double-A and Triple-A this year, where he recorded FIPs of 2.34 and 2.53, respectively. Severino was similarly dominant last season, when he rattled off a 2.46 ERA and 2.46 FIP across three minor league levels: Low-A, High-A and Double-A. Read the rest of this entry »

Just days after completing a pair of trades, sending both David Price and Yoenis Cespedes out of town for five pitching prospects, Dave Dombrowski was “released from his contract” by Tigers owner Mike Ilitch. The timing of the move was perhaps more surprising than the end result, as Dombrowski’s contract expired at the end of the season, and Jon Paul Morosi had speculated that this might be his final season with the Tigers a month ago. After 14 years at the helm, perhaps it was time for both sides to get a change of scenery.

Certainly, Dombrowski’s legacy in Detroit is already secure. He took a moribund franchise and turned it into a perennial winner, putting together rosters that managed a .500 or better record in eight of the nine seasons after they posted the worst record in baseball history. They made the playoffs five times during that stretch, and went to the World Series twice. Unquestionably, Dombrowski’s tenure with the Tigers was a smashing success, even without bringing Detroit a championship that has eluded Mr. Ilitch for so long.

The foundations of this nearly decade-long run of success was built on the back of some of the most successful trades in baseball during his tenure. While many organizations preach the value of building from within, Dombrowski put good teams on the field that were often pieced together with players extracted from other organizations. Whether it was outright heists for quality players like Carlos Guillen, Jhonny Peralta, or Doug Fister, or blockbusters like his deal for now franchise icon Miguel Cabrera, Dombrowski seemed to come out on the winning end of more than his fair share of trades.

And even when ownership boxed him in with a bad free agent signing — like the nine year, $216 million commitment to Prince Fielder that forced Cabrera to masquerade as a third baseman — Dombrowski figured out how to salvage that deal, picking up a valuable contributor in Ian Kinsler while dumping the majority of Fielder’s remaining contract on the Rangers. Certainly, he wasn’t perfect — his deal sending Doug Fister out of Detroit was as bad as his original deal to acquire Fister was good — but Dombrowski’s trade record can stand up next to any other executive in baseball.

But for his many strengths, Dombrowski’s Tigers had one critical weakness that he could seemingly never overcome. For whatever reason, Dave Dombrowski was absolutely terrible at putting together a Major League bullpen.

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Heading into the season, Kris Bryant enjoyed favored status when it came to predicting a National League Rookie of the Year. When FanGraphs writers were polled before the season, 20 of 36 votes went to the Chicago Cubs’ third baseman; seven went Joc Pederson; six were cast for Jorge Soler; Noah Syndergaard, Jung Ho Kang and Raisel Iglesias each got one. A couple months into the season, Pederson inserted himself into the race with 13 home runs by the end of May. As the year has moved on, Bryant and Pederson have come back to the pack a bit while Matt Duffy, Kang and Syndergaard have moved into the conversation for the NL’s top rookie. The award is no longer a two-horse battle, and all the players who have risen up are sure to see plenty of exposure since each of them is in the middle of a pennant race.

As Owen Watson wrote, this season has been a historic one for rookies, particularly position players. With Bryant and Pederson leading the way, the rookie class is producing at a greater level than any in the past decade. It’s likely the best class in nearly 30 years, back when Barry Bonds and Jose Canseco were rookies. In the past month, Bryant and Pederson have allowed a few other players to enter the race. Pederson — a three-true-outcomes player to begin the season — has removed the two positive outcomes over the past month, walking just 3% of the time and hitting only one home run. Bryant hasn’t fallen quite as far. He’s still drawing walks, but he is striking out nearly one-third of the time and has a wRC+ of 58 over the past 30 days. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Nationals picked up Jonathan Papelbon, they weren’t doing so to replace Drew Storen, but they knew they’d be giving him a demotion. It didn’t sit real well with Storen, nor did it sit well with a large number of fans, who wondered what Storen did to deserve getting booted from the closer role. Storen is in the middle of probably the best season of his career, with a strikeout rate that’s skyrocketed from last year’s one in five hitters to this year’s one in three. Storen has become a real shutdown reliever, and you generally don’t see those guys losing responsibilities.

But it is possible for Storen and Papelbon to share the later innings. Provided they get along, having both ought to be better than having one or the other, and Papelbon, for his part, was quickly impressed by the younger righty. A tweet that went around:

Jonathan Papelbon: “I was in the shower with Storen, I said ‘can you show me that slider grip tomorrow?’ He was really, really good.”

— Chris Johnson (@masnCJ) July 30, 2015

That slider — we should talk about that slider. Drew Storen has long thrown a slider, but his slider this year is behaving differently, and while you can’t simply chalk his entire improvement up to a tweak of one pitch, it seems to be a major component. Now, some weeks back, Owen already discussed a bit of what was going on. He highlighted some of the changes, and pointed out how successful the pitch is. So, Owen wrote about why the pitch is notable. I want to tell you why it might look familiar.

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