Episode 826
Lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen recently traveled from Phoenix to Baltimore to Washington DC to Chicago to Catasauqua to Hartford to Wilmington, not necessarily in that order. What he does in this episode of FanGraphs Audio is to recount his travels.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 11 min play time.)

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Back in May, the Mariners agreed to a lease deal that would keep them in Safeco Field for another 25 years. At the time, I wrote that the Mariners appeared to be bucking a trend by foregoing public money for a new stadium in favor of staying where they were.

Then, last week, things seemed to change.

Predictably, this was not well received.

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Kyle Gibson turned a corner midway through last season, and an eye-opening email was a big reason why. The 30-year-old right-hander received a valuable piece of information from the Minnesota Twins brain trust, and he’s used it to his full advantage. Gibson went 7-3 with a 3.76 ERA over the second half, and this year he’s been even better. In 22 starts for Derek Falvey and Thad Levine’s ball club, he has career lows in both ERA (3.47) and FIP (3.73), and his 8.80 strikeout rate is also a personal best.

Gibson talked about his career-altering adjustment, and his overall approach to pitching, when the Twins visited Fenway Park this past weekend.

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Kyle Gibson: “When I got sent down last year, Derek and Thad emailed me, breaking down each of my starts over the past two years. It was the percentage of time I got my fastball in the strike zone, and it was astounding. When my fastball had an in-zone percentage over 50%, I hadn’t been beaten. That really opened my eyes.

“It was at that point when I started to figure out how my four-seamer plays early in the count, and how I can use my fastball to get guys to be more aggressive. My outlook on how I use that pitch has really changed. Before, I’d been thinking about executing fastballs in the right part of the zone. I’d been overcomplicating things. Now I’m simply trying to throw more fastballs in the zone.

“It’s about attacking middle early. You can’t pitch in the middle of the zone, but you can try to pitch to thirds. It started with, ‘Get more fastballs in the zone.’ Like, OK, how can we… my sinker, right? I relied so much on chase my first two years in the league — throwing sinkers in the zone and then just out of the zone. Well, let’s figure out how to keep the sinker in the zone. Let’s figure out how the four-seamer plays, both up and down. From there, let everything else fall into place. My fastball usage hasn’t increased. I’m just more efficient with it, and it’s helped make my offspeed better.

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In recent years, Major League Baseball has taken steps to make its product available by means of multiple platforms. A daily broadcast, for example, is offered both on ESPN+ and MLB.TV. A weekly one is carried by Facebook. MLB Network is accessible as part of basic packages available through streaming providers like DirecTVNow, Playstation Vue, and YoutubeTV, while the league broadcasts national games on its own network, at ESPN, FOX, FS1, and TBS. The game is out there for consumers who are interested.

That said, there is still a transition to be made before baseball can fully introduce itself to a younger generation of fans. The presence of Regional Sports Networks (RSNs), however, remains an impediment to evolution. RSNs generate massive revenues for MLB teams, either through contracts or ownership, but also require exclusivity. The reason for that arrangement is pretty clear when examining the viewership numbers and ratings (recently published at Forbes) for all teams except the Blue Jays. The graph below shows the average household numbers (HH) per team.

The numbers look how you might except, with New York, Boston, and Chicago (Cubs) drawing the most viewers, while smaller markets and bad teams occupy the lower ranks. The Dodgers’ audience should hypothetically be a lot larger, but the club still hasn’t been able to reach an agreement to get on DirecTV in Los Angeles. Despite that, more than two million people are watching baseball on an almost daily basis for six months out of the year. That’s incredibly valuable.

For networks, those loyal customers help RSNs secure large carriage deals with cable providers and to appear among standard cable packages, charging several dollars per subscriber. Advertising is nice, but RSNs make a vast majority of their money from per-subscriber fees. In turn, the networks dole out large guarantees to teams. The continued high ratings tend to justify these deals. The graph below shows the ratings, which are based on viewers within a market, as opposed to the total household figures.

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One of my favorite post-deadline activities to do is to force ZiPS to act a bit like a time machine. Not the cool kind that goes back in history and saves James Garfield or into the future to see the dependable hoverboards that we were supposed to get in 2015, but to give a bottom-line estimate of how, based on projections, the trade deadline mixed up those playoff races.

To do this, I first start with the updated ZiPS projections as of the morning of August 1st, which includes my spin on the new depth charts. There’s some variation from the FanGraphs Depth Charts, but they tend to be in the same neighborhood given that the disagreements between playing-time predictions typically involve mostly fringe-type players; it’s not like one of us thinks Clayton Kershaw will start for the Dodgers and the other things they’ll release him or something.

Then, I “undo” every transaction made since June 15th, both reshuffling the depth charts as if the trades never happened and removing or adding the fractional wins that players have added to their new teams since those trades. Then… ZiPS-zap-zippity-zoop… out come the new projections and a bottom line of the changes in playoff odds. Let’s start with the American League with the bottom-line playoff improvements. (We’ll get into the divisions next.)

The rather prosaic results here demonstrate just how relatively set the American League is in 2018. Four of the teams are nearly guaranteed playoff appearances: Boston, Cleveland, Houston, and New York. The fifth playoff spot essentially has only two real contenders in the Seattle Mariners and Oakland A’s. There are a few additional questions here, mainly whether the Yankees can catch the Red Sox or Seattle can shock Houston, but after those six teams, the odds of a seventh team becoming playoff-relevant down the stretch are very long. Sure, the Angels and Rays aren’t mathematically out of the hunt by any means — they both have something better than a Dumb and Dumber “So you’re saying there’s a chance?” probability — but even those two teams didn’t act like they believed it was anything more than pure moon shot.

If you haven’t figured it out from the context, “PrePlayoff” represents the team’s playoff probability without any of the trades of the last six weeks.

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The Dodgers have seemingly courted Brian Dozier for years. Last offseason, they seemed to settle for Logan Forsythe to fill their second-base needs. But the desire lingered and, in the final hour leading up to Tuesday’s 4 p.m. non-waiver trade deadline, the Dodgers and Dozier finally got together.

The price of Dozier on Tuesday was cheaper than it was two years ago when the Twins refused an offer of Jose De Leon, who was later shipped to the Rays for Forsythe. To acquire Dozier, the Dodgers sent Forsythe and minor-league pitcher Devin Smeltzer and corner bat Luke Raley to the Twins. Neither was ranked by FanGraphs among the Dodgers’ top 21 prospects in the spring.

While the cost came down, Dozier, 31, is nearly two years older and perhaps not the same player. He’s also headed to free agency after the season. Still, this is a trade about today for the Dodgers. Second base is a real need for Los Angeles, and even a subpar Dozier, whose 91 wRC+ represents a six-year low, is a real upgrade.

Dodgers second basemen have produced an anemic .213/.303/.287 slash line to date, ranking 28th in the majors in wRC+ (66) and 27th in second base WAR (-0.3). Forsythe (55 wRC+), Chase Utley (84 wRC+), and company were just not getting the job done, producing a drag effect on the lineup.

The Dodgers have ridden the game’s macro-level trends about as well as any team in recent years. They’ve manipulated the 10-day DL, have employed an opener, limited pitchers’ trips through lineups, and were willing to give more dollars and years than any other club to Rich Hill’s unconventional pitch mix two winters ago. (Hill’s usage is now becoming more and more conventional.) Justin Turner has preached the power of the air ball to teammates like Chris Taylor. In Dozier, they get another hitter with natural loft and pull-side power.

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I think of the Pirates and Rays as being similar to one another. The A’s belong to the same small group. There are differences, obviously, and the organizations each have their own specific approaches, but these are smaller-budget operations that adhere to similar roster-building philosophies. They try not to ever completely tear down, accumulating years of team control while aiming for something close to .500. Constant churn is an unavoidable reality. It’s almost a feature instead of a bug. In a case like this year’s A’s, a club can get hot, but I’m used to seeing these teams in similar positions. So I wouldn’t expect them to swing major trades with one another.

Less than a month ago, the Rays were 11 games back of the second wild-card slot. In the other league, the Pirates were 10 games back of the second wild-card slot. Both of the teams were expected to sell, because competing down the stretch was unrealistic. Since then, the Rays have won nine times and lost nine times. The Pirates, however, have gone 15-4. The Rays are still very much out of the hunt, but the Pirates are within 3.5 games of the playoffs. That imbalance in the short-term outlooks has led us to a blockbuster. This is the time of year when a very small sample can dramatically change a team’s course. Because they caught fire at just the right time, the Pirates have decided to go for it.

Pirates get:

• Chris Archer

Rays get:

• Austin Meadows
• Tyler Glasnow
• (some player to be named later)

Both the Rays and Pirates already thought they could be close in the future. The Pirates’ last 19 games have made all the difference. They’ve opened up a shot in 2018, which was enough to tip all the necessary scales.

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Ahead of the deadline, the Brewers traded for bullpen help in the form of Joakim Soria. They appeared to need a second baseman, but then they traded for Mike Moustakas and moved Travis Shaw to second base in an unusual experiment. With those needs met, the Brewers turned their attention to the starting-pitching market. Then Chris Archer went to the Pirates, Kevin Gausman went to the Braves, Matt Harvey stayed in Cincinnati, and Kyle Gibson remained in Minnesota. Without seeing any other starting options available, the team landed another infielder in the form of Jonathan Schoop of the Orioles.

Brewers receive:

• 2B Jonathan Schoop

Orioles receive:

• 2B Jonathan Villar
• RHP Luis Ortiz
• SS Jean Carmona

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Earlier this afternoon, the Mariners acquired Cameron Maybin from the Marlins for infield prospect Bryson Brigman and international slot money. This isn’t an especially big trade, but it might end up being an important one for Seattle, who, at this very moment, is just two games ahead of the A’s for the second AL wild card spot.

If we were inclined to be charitable, we might say that center field hasn’t been a strength for the Mariners this season. The nastier sorts among us might describe the play there as having been lousy. The collection of players Seattle has run out rank 20th at the position in team WAR, and the defense has been worse, checking in at 24th. Some of that is the result of the short-lived Dee Gordon, Center Fielder experiment, but the trouble hasn’t stopped there. Guillermo Heredia is a useful fourth outfielder, but he has been exposed since being pressed into more regular service with Gordon’s shift back to the infield. He’s mustered a meager .229/.314/.335 slash line and an 85 wRC+, and even that is buoyed by a hot April and May. He is oddly performing better against righties than lefties but not doing well against either. And in what is admittedly a limited 90-game sample, he hasn’t been the sort of defensive standout whose play in the field compensates for his struggles at the plate.

With the trade, the Mariners outfield shifts some. Maybin, who has been a plus defender before and grades well now, will slot into center, with Mitch Haniger shifting back to right field and some combination of Denard Span and Ben Gamel playing in left.

Maybin may not represent a huge offensive upgrade (his season slash line of .251/.338/.343 and wRC+ of 91 aren’t All-Star level, though July has gone better with a 148 wRC+), but the slightly better bat and more-than-slightly better defense constitute a definite improvement. Haniger can play a capable enough center field, and he may still play there on occasion, but acquiring Maybin allows the Mariners to keep Gordon at second base (Robinson Cano is slated to assume first base duties when he returns from his PED suspension) and give Heredia a breather on the bench or in Tacoma.

For that, the Mariners give up slot money and Brigman, who Eric Longenhagen described thusly:

Acquiring Maybin is something of a marginal trade, but the AL postseason picture seems likely to be decided at the margins. In that respect, it might end up mattering quite a bit.

At 53-53, the Rays aren’t bad, but they’re also not anywhere close to the race. At 54-52, the Cardinals aren’t much better, but a wild-card slot remains within reach. Given that, you’d think, if anything, the Cardinals would be improving, while the Rays would be selling. Instead, we have a trade that goes in the other direction. It’s a little bit of a surprising deadline maneuver, yet the Rays are gearing up for a run next season. And the Cardinals are just making more room for Harrison Bader and Tyler O’Neill. I’ll give you the specifics:

Rays get:

• Tommy Pham
• $500,000 international bonus-pool money

Cardinals get:

• Justin Williams
• Genesis Cabrera
• Roel Ramirez

On the surface, you can understand the Cardinals’ perspective here. Pham is 30 years old, and his numbers don’t look like they did last season. Pham and the organization haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, and besides, Bader looks like one of the better defensive outfielders in either league, so it makes sense to play him more often. I can see why they might’ve wanted to make a trade. Still, it feels like they’ve sold Pham low. The Rays are getting a possible difference-maker here, and you don’t have to dig too far into the numbers to see it.

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