In a perfect world, a bench wouldn’t need to contribute much at all, because in a perfect world, all nine (or eight) starters would be so productive and so consistent that a bench would barely be needed. But that’s not how it works. People get hurt, people go through slumps and people simply need a rest now and then, so the luxury of having not only depth, but productive depth, becomes a pretty important and easily forgotten part of a roster’s construction. The difference between the best and worst bench units this year is already around six wins, so the value of a good bench can really add up over time and have a pretty significant impact on a season.

What I’ve done is attempted to find the best and worst bench units of the 2014 season, so far. In the American League, I’ve added up the WAR of all players after the top nine plate appearance leaders. In the National League, all after the top eight, to reflect for the absence of a designated hitter. We’ll go over the worst and best top five teams in a little detail, with full results in graph form at the bottom. I’ve decided to present the worst group first, and I’ve decided to count down from five to one for the best group for the sake of suspense. Because that’s what FanGraphs is really all about. Building suspense. Let’s begin.
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In ways, the 2013 Royals were both a success and a failure, but I’ll probably always remember them for one particular thing. Around the All-Star break, general manager Dayton Moore said that he wasn’t going to sell, and his big reason, paraphrased, was that there was no reason the Royals couldn’t win 15 of 20 games. Everybody made fun of Moore for being irrational and getting carried away, and shortly after that, the Royals began a run during which they won 17 of 20 games. They didn’t make the playoffs, but they were playing interesting baseball well into August.

This year’s Royals kind of backed into the All-Star break, and a few days later, they were a couple games under .500. There were reasons, legitimate reasons, for them to look into trading James Shields, but Moore never really entertained the idea, electing to charge ahead with the roster he’d built. Since then the Royals have won 15 of 18, including seven in a row, and not only are they the current second wild card — the Royals trail the Tigers by no wins and one loss. When the Tigers added David Price, it seemed to be a maneuver to prepare for the postseason. It’s far from clear now the Tigers will even sniff a play-in game.

Two years in a row, then, the Royals have surged after the break, playing themselves right into the race. It’s exciting, because it’s meaningful Royals baseball within the final two months. And what’s funny, if unsurprising, is that this isn’t the only parallel. What’s the strength of the 2014 Royals? Look to the strength of the 2013 Royals.

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Francisco Lindor got one step closer to Cleveland when the Indians dealt Asdrubal Cabrera at the trading deadline. The 20-year-old shortstop was already making great strides. Ten days earlier, the Puerto Rican-born Lindor moved from Double-A Akron to Triple-A Columbus. Drafted 8th overall in 2011 out of a Florida high school, he’s rated the sixth-best prospect in the game by Baseball America.

I first interviewed Lindor two years ago when he was playing in the low-A Midwest League. When I caught up to him last week, I started by asking what has changed, developmentally, since that time.

“When it comes do defense, I’m just trying to avoid a lot of extra movements,” answered Lindor. “You can’t be trying to look too fancy. You want to go straight to the point. Make sure you catch the ball in the middle, set your feet, make a good throw. I’m just trying to make all the routine plays.

“With hitting, it’s the same thing. Try to avoid extra movement. Don’t have extra movement with your bat or with your legs. Go straight to the point and make sure you’re nice and easy. Hit the ball hard.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Not only did he come across as the same humble guy, he largely echoed his words from two years ago.Was it a matter of walking the walk instead of just talking the talk?

“Not really,” replied Lindor. “I was doing it then, but I couldn’t do it consistently. That’s the difference between today and two years ago. The organization is really good at telling me things and helping me develop, so I knew what I had to do. It’s the same as when I was growing up and my dad would tell me what I had to do. I listened, I just couldn’t do it consistently, every day. I’m still trying to do it day in and day out, but I do it a lot more often than I used to.”

Derek Jeter has been doing it for a long time. The Yankees captain had just intimated to me the day before that any adjustments he makes are within the framework of the same approach. I related that to the young shortstop.

“He’s right, and he’s one of the best that’s ever played this game,” said Lindor. “It’s always the same thing. You make adjustments, of course – you make adjustments on every pitch – but you’re still doing the same thing every game. You’re completely repeating yourself to be the same player every day.”

I asked him if it’s mostly a matter of maintaining focus. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is Mike Trout hitting an anomalous dinger:

The homer demonstrated that Mike Trout is special, because that’s not really a pitch people hit homers on. Trout hit a game-tying grand slam off one of the, I don’t know, five best starting pitchers in the world.

Here is Giancarlo Stanton hitting an anomalous dinger:

The homer demonstrated that Giancarlo Stanton is special, because people don’t really hit home runs like that. We’re all familiar with low-liner home runs, but it’s not like we ever see them hit down the line to the opposite field. That’s actually the opposite of how we see them.

So, Javier Baez is in the major leagues now.

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Chris Capuano and Shane Greene have not given up an earned run in the last two Yankee games, and it’s just like Brian Cashman must have drawn it up. A veteran lefty who hadn’t started all year and a sinker-slider righty that put up an ERA in the high fours in Triple-A this year — of course it’s working out.

Capuano has a track record that suggests he’s not too far from his true talent level, but Greene’s rest-of-season ERA projections (by ZiPs at least) are two runs higher than what he’s showing right now. Given his minor league numbers, we know why that is. But given what he’s doing now, is there a chance he might beat those projections?

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The Rockies have been in a free fall for more than two months. And with apologies to Tom Petty, it hasn’t felt good for their team or fan base. They’ve suffered on-field slights, and off-field slights. They’ve suffered injuries, and embarrassment at the hands of those who have replaced those injured. Simply put, it’s been ugly.

Things have seemingly come to a head with Troy Tulowitzki’s comments earlier this week. Tulowitzki’s voice is going to carry a lot of weight, and if he doesn’t back down from his words, then this offseason ownership may need to decide who is more valuable — Tulowitzki or their baseball operations braintrust. Assuming Mrrs. Monfort come to their senses and choose Tulowitzki, the new baseball operations team will need to pick a new direction. Consider this my suggestion.

See, the thing is that the Rockies have plenty of talent. And there are elements of their strategy that have been sound, even if they took the long way to go about things. Jordan Lyles, for instance, has been an asset given his extreme groundball tendencies. With Nolan Arenado, DJ Lemahieu and Tulowitzki, the Rockies have about as good an infield defense as there is. Getting Lyles fits that strategy, even if he wasn’t good value for Dexter Fowler.

Still, given the talent that the team has, there are plenty of steps between where they are now and being a contending team. Let’s go in.

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If you check out the FanGraphs leaderboard of the best pitchers so far, you’ve got a lot of awfully familiar names. Felix Hernandez and Clayton Kershaw are obvious. Chris Sale? Jon Lester? No shock. The guy that stands out — the guy currently in third place in Wins Above Replacement — is Corey Kluber.

People are gradually coming to terms with the reality of Kluber being a rotation ace, but there’s still the question of how. It’s uncommon to have an ace come completely out of nowhere, and a few years ago Kluber was a little-thought-of trade return for Ryan Ludwick. Even the Indians couldn’t have seen all this coming.

The Corey Kluber story is complicated, as all of them are. He’s extremely dedicated and focused off the field. He’s changed the fastball that he throws. He’s made all kinds of little tweaks and adjustments, and he’s benefiting now from just having gotten an opportunity in the majors. But there is this one little signature of his that’s never been as good as it is today. Recently, Baseball America polled big-league managers on the best tools in the league. One of the prompts concerned the owner of the best curveball in the American League. Justin Verlander came in third, and, yeah, his curveball is really good. Dellin Betances came in first, and he’s really gotten comfortable in the bullpen. Corey Kluber came in second. That is, according to people who coach at the highest level, Kluber has one of baseball’s true elite curveballs.

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The San Francisco Giants currently sit comfortably in a playoff spot in the National League. They are but 3.5 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West race. Only two teams in the NL have more wins than the Giants’ 62.

And yet, the Giants are probably not a great team. They project to land square in the middle of a Wild Card dogfight. They are either the worst good team in baseball or the best bad team in baseball. Sometimes they look the part, other nights their lineup betrays the mediocrity lurking within.

In my mind, these key traits of the the Giants are reflected in two of their best-known players, Tim Lincecum and Pablo Sandoval. Brilliant at times but perplexing at others. While Lincecum is quickly becoming a beloved enigma, Sandoval is a little tougher to figure. He’s not what he once was or what he might have been, but he remains a vital contributor to the Giants’ success.

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What Mike Petriello wrote in July, continues to be true in August: the Orioles are tough to figure out. What is objectively true is that Baltimore is leading the American League East by a substantial margin, and that it unlikely to change.

As Mike noted in July, the Orioles are doing this despite many things not going as expected. However, one player is pretty much the same as he always: Adam Jones. From 2010 to 2013, Jones’ cumulative wRC+ was 116. To date in 2014, his wRC+ is 115. Jones’ offensive production so far this season may be a bit down from his 2012 and 2013 performances, but he is still pretty much the same hitter: good (not great) production based on average and power despite a low walk rate.

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Arguably the best team in baseball history wasn’t built around superstars. It was built instead around depth and consistency, and as the 2001 Mariners won 116 games during the regular season, they posted an 82 ERA- that was, therefore, 18% better than league-average. While the pitching staff wasn’t particularly noteworthy, it was healthy and solid and bolstered by an all-time-great defense, which made for an outstanding level of run prevention. The 2014 Mariners aren’t anywhere near a 116-win pace — that would be almost impossible, and in fact these Mariners have already lost eight more games than those other Mariners. But to date, these Mariners have posted an ERA- of 79.

Following the trade deadline, much of the talk concerns the rotations built in Detroit and Oakland. Both were strong before adding, respectively, David Price and Jon Lester, and those are the teams considered to have the most intimidating pitching staffs down the stretch. But it’s the Mariners who’ve had better run prevention than anybody else, by a decent margin, and two things are remarkable: it’s remarkable that that’s true, and it’s remarkable that the Mariners still aren’t presently in a playoff position.

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