Over the last few weeks, the Dodgers have been one of the primary suitors linked to a potential David Price trade, along with the Mariners and Cardinals. However, the Rays hot streak has made Price’s availability an open question, and now, perhaps the more likely scenario is that the team could trade for Jon Lester instead. The Red Sox playoff odds are down to about 3%, and Lester has publicly said that he won’t hold it against the team if they trade when it comes to offseason negotiations for a new contract. Given those two variables, trading Lester makes a lot of sense, and the Dodgers are apparently quite interested in him as well.

I’d like to make a suggestion to Ned Coletti, however: you don’t need to do it. In fact, you probably shouldn’t.

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At different points in his career, Dallas Keuchel has thrown a slurve and a spike curve. Due to ineffectiveness and injury, he’s had to step down his usage of either breaking ball over his short career. But they’ll be back.

The first breaking ball Keuchel ever threw was a slurve back in high school. But when he got to college, pitching coach Dave Jorn showed him a three-finger change up grip. In what is almost a pitchfork style grip, Keuchel’s thumb doesn’t touch the ball. Perhaps it’s that loose grip that’s given him the third-largest horizontal movement on his change among lefty starters in the game.

The pitchfork grip that launched a career.

Along with his low-90s sinker, that change gave him enough weapons to get by without using his breaking pitch much in college.

That arsenal served him well, but felt he needed a breaking pitch. He had “lost feel for the slurve” he used to have while in high school and so he “came up with a couple spike grips.” One won out, and it helped him advance through the minor leagues. It was good enough.

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In a series of three GIFs from Friday night’s baseballing match between the Indians of Cleveland and the Royals of Kansas City, I’ll attempt to visually encapsulate Carlos Santana’s 2014 season to date:
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The Minnesota Twins have learned to love the shift. According to Baseball Info Solutions, Ron Gardenhire’s club went into the All-Star break having shifted on 251 balls in play, 13th-most in baseball. Last year they shifted just 84 times on balls in play, sixth-fewest in baseball.

Paul Molitor is in charge of Minnesota’s infield defense. The Hall of Famer assumed the role prior to this season, and the modernization of the team’s approach has been in the works since he took over. In January, Molitor told MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger, “The game has changed so much; we’re seeing more overshifts and people not afraid to give up space based on tendencies, so it’s something I’m excited about learning about and applying to the way we play defense.”

When I talked to Molitor last month, it was apparent he’s learned a lot. And while he was clearly still forming opinions on certain specifics, he seemed pleased with the results he’d seen.

“I discussed it with Gardy [manager Ron Gardenhire] before the season and we decided if it would increase our chances of getting outs, we were going to go ahead and try it,” Molitor told me. “Sometimes it’s a little dicey because hitters are smart and some will react to the defense. They have enough confidence and bat control to counteract what you’re doing. But I’d have to say that more times than not, our shifts have worked fairly well. We’ve been burned a few times, as have most teams, but overall it’s been working in our favor.”

Molitor’s mention of confidence prompted me to ask about the psychological aspect. If a hitter is thinking about – and possibly questioning – his approach, has the defense already gained an advantage? Read the rest of this entry »

The Red Sox and Giants struck a Saturday morning near-trading deadline special, with Jake Peavy headed west in exchange for pitching prospects Edwin Escobar and Heath Hembree, with the clubs splitting Peavy’s $5M remaining 2014 salary. As with most of this month’s trades to date, real, actual, solid prospects were netted by the selling club. In this case, they’re both pretty close to big league ready. Before anyone rushes to call this a clear win for the Giants – Peavy is 1-9, 4.72, for the season, after all – let’s take a closer look at what the Giants are getting, and how Peavy fits into his new environment. Read the rest of this entry »

**Updated at bottom**

Until yesterday, when I thought of Ryan Raburn, I thought of one thing. A year ago, 399 batters came to the plate at least 150 times. Raburn finished 13th among them in wRC+, right between David Ortiz and Shin-Soo Choo. This year, 322 batters have come to the plate at least 150 times. Raburn ranks 319th among them in wRC+, right between Andrew Romine and Mark Ellis. So, Raburn was one of the very best hitters in the league, and he has also been one of the very worst hitters in the league, and people get upset with defensive statistics for sometimes bouncing around all over the place. There’s nothing inaccurate about Ryan Raburn’s offensive statistics. They’re accurate and weird and stupid.

Now, when I think of Ryan Raburn, I think of two things.

I don’t know how possible it is to get a whole -1 UZR on one play, but Raburn at least explored beyond the frontiers. It’s not his first time trying to get -1 UZR on one play, either. Raburn failed to make the catch on a blooper. In fairness, it was not an easy blooper to catch, particularly if you have Ryan Raburn’s legs. But that wasn’t the end of it. That was half of the end of it. There’s nothing real remarkable about Mike Moustakas hitting a pop-up and getting lucky enough to reach base. But then Raburn tried to throw the baseball, and though he was technically successful in throwing the baseball, he was unsuccessful in handling the baseball as he intended, and the Royals wound up with an improbable run. It wasn’t a run that won them the game, but it was easily a run that could’ve.

When Yoenis Cespedes made that crazy throw, it inspired people to look up other amazing outfield throws. Ryan Raburn threw a lawn dart. Here, then, is a recent and presumably incomplete history of the lawn dart. We’ll begin with the godfather of the genre.

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Last night was about the pitchers. Nearly every game had at least one good starting pitcher performance, and many of them we’re not even going to talk about today. Max Scherzer’s 11 strikeouts? Nope. What about Tyson Ross‘ 11 strikeouts? Nope, not them either. We’re not even going to talk about Jeff Samardzija and Wei-Yin Chen, who combined to allow one run across 16 innings. No, we’re going to talk about the five pitchers who posted a Game Score of 75 or better last night — Corey Kluber, Marcus Stroman, Danny Duffy, Matt Garza and Cole Hamels.
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As Jeff noted the other day, there stands to be a very good chance that Jeff Samardzija is the only real impact pitcher traded this month. The Rays keep winning, which reduces their incentive to move David Price. The Red Sox still say they want to re-sign Jon Lester, so trading him mid-season would be counterproductive to that goal. The Royals still think they’re contenders, so they aren’t going to move James Shields. The Padres want to keep Ian Kennedy. Right now, the best pitcher who is actually available is probably Bartolo Colon, who remains an average pitcher by FIP and xFIP but has apparently lost his runner-stranding fairy dust, and so he’s running a 114 ERA- at age-41 and is under contract for another $11 million next year, when he’ll be 42.

If ever there was a time to sell high on a starting pitcher, this would be it. This is maybe the most obvious seller’s market for arms we’ve seen in some time. And yet, in the middle of a golden opportunity, the Phillies have apparently taken this stance:

To date, Phillies telling other teams Cole Hamels is not available.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) July 22, 2014

I get that the Phillies have their own way of doing things, and they see themselves as a franchise that should reload and not rebuild, but at some point, they have to accept reality.

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The Phillies’ 2011 season ended with Ryan Howard crumpled in a heap between the batter’s box and first base. What was suspected then was confirmed later: Howard had suffered a rupture of his Achilles. Howard’s five-year, $125-million extension was to begin in 2012.

It just about goes without saying that Howard’s contract with the Phillies has been a disaster. It’s important to understand that most analysts predicted that the deal would be a problem for the organization. It’s just as important to understand that the deal has gone far worse than anyone could’ve thought. The most-wrong person here is Ruben Amaro, but in a way the skeptical analysts were also wrong, for not projecting a bad-enough outcome. That’s not entirely fair, but the point is that even the biggest cynics didn’t think what has happened with Howard would happen.

And here’s what’s happening: it’s 2014, and Howard’s deal has two more years left. According to Jon Heyman, the Phillies are trying hard to deal Howard away, expressing a willingness to eat a lot of the money. So far, of course, there have been no takers. Meanwhile, Ryne Sandberg is starting to sit Howard, trying to find room for Darin Ruf. Ruf, in Triple-A, has hit one home run. Contained within that piece is a note that the Phillies have internally discussed just dropping Howard from the roster, paying him, and moving on. His contract is a little more than halfway over. Said Amaro at the time of the extension agreement: “There’s always risk when you’re doing guaranteed deals, but based on what he’s done, I think it’s a good risk.”

The contract, for the Phillies, has been catastrophic. It hasn’t singlehandedly prevented them from competing, but no reasonable contract can do that to a team, and it’s certainly made the situation more difficult. Probably, it’s not the worst contract in the history of baseball, in terms of the difference between dollars paid and dollars worth. The one bit of good news is that Howard inked a five-year deal, whereas, say, Albert Pujols is under contract through 2021. So, at some point in the somewhat near future, Howard will be off the Phillies’ books. But Howard is well on his way to an ugly feat. One that seems almost inconceivable, but one that captures the reality of all that’s gone down.

Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside.