The most unhittable arm in the minors is a 24-year-old lefty reliever. Two months ago, he was selected as a player to be named later in a major-league trade swung in February. He’s never made a prospect list of any significance, be it league-wide or organizational, and he doesn’t have any video clips on the official Minor League Baseball website. Whenever we write posts here, we’re supposed to include photos to go out to accompany the tweets, and I had to use a photo of the player from his previous club. I didn’t even know how to pronounce the guy’s last name until this morning.

The most unhittable arm in the minors is Colin Poche. Last year, he led the minor leagues in strikeout rate. This year, he again leads the minor leagues in strikeout rate, having increased his own strikeout rate by a dozen points despite going up against much stiffer competition. When Poche pitched in High-A last year, he struck out 37% of the hitters. In Double-A this year, he struck out 60% of the hitters. In Triple-A this year, he’s struck out 50% of the hitters. All year long, over 41.1 innings, he’s allowed just three runs. He’s allowed an OBP of .185, and he’s allowed a slugging percentage of .184. Colin Poche is turning in one of the most unbelievable performances you might ever see. Better still, it’s not entirely clear how he’s doing it.

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Notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Jabari Blash, OF, Los Angeles Angels (Profile)
Level: Triple-A   Age: 28   Org Rank: NR  FV: 35
Line: 3-for-3, 3 HR, BB

Notes
Blash is no longer rookie-eligible, so while he’s a fun player to watch hit bombs and had a hell of a game last night, he’s on here today as a conduit to discuss what’s going on with some of the Angels hitters in the lowest levels of the minors. This is Trent Deveaux last fall, when he first arrived in the states. His swing was largely the same early this spring, albeit with a stronger, more involved top hand, which helped him drive the ball with more authority. This is what he looks like right now, which bears quite a bit of resemblance to Blash. No offense to Blash, who has had a long pro career and will probably play for another half-decade or so, but I’m not sure I’d proactively alter an ultra-talented 18-year-old’s swing to mimic that of a notoriously frustrating replacement-level player. Deveaux isn’t the only low-level Angels hitting prospect whose swing now looks like this.

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In terms of playoff odds, Mike Trout gives the Angels a pretty good head start over the rest of the field every season. Where Los Angeles has had trouble over the last few years, however, is surrounding Trout with enough talent to make the postseason. They tried spending big, bringing in Josh Hamilton, Albert Pujols, and C.J. Wilson and extending Jered Weaver. That netted them exactly one playoff appearance, in 2014, when they were swept in three games. They’ve slowed down spending a bit in recent years, but made a savvy trade to bring Andrelton Simmons aboard, brought in Justin Upton and signed him to an extension, jumped on Ian Kinsler in a trade, signed Zack Cozart, and then lucked out in the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes.

Despite what appears to be a collection of good moves, the results are still lacking. Now, news that Cozart will miss the rest of the season diminishes the Angels’ chances even further.

At the moment, there are only seven teams with at least a 5% chance at the playoffs in the American League. In the National League, there are nine teams with a similar chance. A week ago that number was 11 (sorry, Pirates and Rockies), and two weeks ago it was 12 (sorry, Mets). The National League looks very competitive this season, with a bunch of teams in the hunt and no single club possessing more than a 90% playoff probability. The American League, on the other hand, looks like this:

Four of the five playoff spots appear to be locked up, with the Mariners currently looking likely to take the final one. The pennant race is not without intrigue — the Yankees and Red Sox will battle to avoid a one-and-done Wild Card round — but Cleveland looks to be running away with the AL Central, and unless the Mariners have another gear, the Astros are going to take the West. As for the non-Yankees/Red Sox Wild Card, the Mariners have a seven-game edge over the Athletics and a nine-game lead over the Angels. If the Mariners win half the rest of their games, the Angels would need to win 50 to catch them. That’s 62% of their remaining dates, close to a 100-win pace over the course of the rest of the season.

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This past Saturday, with the FanGraphs staff in attendance at Coors Field, the Rockies honored their 25th anniversary team, which was selected last December. The pregame ceremony was a chance for fans to cheer franchise favorites such as Todd Helton, Larry Walker and Ellis Burks — and a missed opportunity as well, because given the state of the Rockies’ offense, you might be forgiven for thinking that those old-timers could outplay the team’s current regulars. Save for a four-game sweep during which they piled up 37 runs on the hapless Mets, the Rockies have gone 4-17 since May 29, falling from first place to fourth in the NL West race at 38-42.

I kid about the old-timers, but not entirely. As I sat in the Captain’s Deck in high right field, viewing the sprawling expanse of grass while chatting with my colleagues, I conceded for the umpteenth time that I simply don’t know why the Rockies can’t assemble a productive outfield. I’ve puzzled over it at Sports Illustrated. I’ve puzzled over it on a weekly basis in my FanGraphs chats. Now I’ve puzzled over it in person, and I still have more questions than answers.

The current unit, which primarily consists of Gerardo Parra in left, Charlie Blackmon in center and Carlos Gonzalez in right, entered Wednesday hitting .274/.326/.437, which wouldn’t be awful if it were produced at sea level, but their 90 wRC+ ranks 14th among NL outfields. Because of the club’s home park, there’s a lot of air in those raw numbers; the Padres’ outfield is at 96 wRC+ based on a .251/.312/.397 line. The Rockies look even worse when defense is brought into the equation, as that trio — plus Noel Cuevas, David Dahl, Ian Desmond and Mike Tauchman, the others they’ve used — has combined for -6 UZR (10th in the league), and lest you think they’ve been shortchanged by that metric, their -26 DRS is dead last by five runs. It’s UZR that’s included in our version of WAR, and even with that more favorable number, their 0.6 WAR is last as well. (All stats through Tuesday unless otherwise indicated.)

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Luis Severino currently ranks second among all major-league pitchers in WAR. He’s third by park-adjusted ERA, he’s first by park-adjusted FIP, and he’s sixth by park-adjusted xFIP, and he’s done this while facing the seventh-toughest average opponent, among everyone with at least 50 innings. There was a time when a lot of the attention was on the development of Severino’s changeup. The changeup is there, and it’s not like Severino is afraid of it, but he’s blossomed into one of the best pitchers in either league largely on the back of his fastball and slider. Two pitches can be all you need, when said pitches are elite.

Just Tuesday, Severino blanked the Phillies over seven innings, whiffing nine without issuing a single walk. In all, 95% of his pitches were fastballs or sliders, and Severino’s 101st pitch clocked in at an even 100 miles per hour. It’s been said before that high velocity affords a pitcher a greater margin of error. That’s true, and part of the story behind Severino’s emergence simply comes down to how hard he can throw. Yet there’s more there, more that underscores how difficult Severino is for hitters. Let’s take a look at how his pitches play off of one another.

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Torey Lovullo relies a lot on his coaching staff. Each has his own role and responsibilities, and the Arizona Diamondbacks skipper is well aware of the value they provide. He’d be the first to tell you that 2017 NL Manager of the Year honors — ditto the D-Backs’ playoff berth — wouldn’t have been possible without the contributions of his coaches.

He interacts with them frequently. Communication is vital to any relationship, and Lovullo is a big believer in getting input before making a decision. It’s common to see him conferring with one of his coaches during a game, and behind-the-scenes conversations are a constant. Managers may ultimately have the final say — that’s the case here — but when Lovullo makes a move, there’s a pretty good chance collaboration was part of the process.

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Torey Lovullo: “[Bench coach Jerry Narron] understands the strategy of the game — the moving parts of the game — as well as anybody I’ve been around. He understands the rules as well as anybody. And Jerry’s ability to communicate is something I’m really thankful for. We can hit on any range of our daily communication and not miss.

“I rely on him mostly as my backbone. He’s watching the game in much the same way I am, projecting a lot of moves. I can throw an assortment of things out there — machine gun five thoughts — and he’ll quickly find the information whether it’s on one of the iPads or something we have on paper in the dugout. He’ll give me his thoughts on a particular move.

“He’s projecting what’s happening inside their dugout, or in their bullpen, and then giving me options — two or three options at a time — of what we should do. They’re thoughts I’m having, but I haven’t quite got there. And his timing is perfect. He know when, and how, to say things for a given situation.

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A little more than four years ago, on the cusp of the 2014 big-league baseball season, you could have been forgiven for not paying all that much attention to Eddie Rosario. His performance as a 21-year-old between High-A and Double-A in 2013 had been good but not exceptional (a .275/.324/.415 line over 746 plate appearances), and he’d just been popped for use of a banned substance, which would keep him off the field for the first 50 games of 2014. He was a back-end top-100 prospect — No. 60 on BP’s list, 76 on ours, and 119 on Minor League Ball’s — but sufficiently outclassed by the four Twins ranked above him on all three lists (Byron Buxton at No. 1 on our list, Miguel Sano at No. 10, Alex Meyer at No. 23, and Kohl Stewart at No. 32) that he missed out on much of the national attention then showered on his colleagues.

Four years later, it’s a different story in Minnesota. Stewart is in Double-A, Meyer is in Anaheim, and Rosario’s 9.0 career WAR outclasses every single one of the Twins’ prospects from that loaded class, including Sano and Buxton — even if you throw the rest of our 2014 Twins top-10 list into the hopper for comparison’s sake:

Now, let’s be clear about what I’m not saying here: I’m not saying that Rosario will end his career with more WAR than Buxton, Sano, or even Berrios, who’s had a pretty nice start in the majors, as well. At 25, Rosario is older than all three of those men, and more than a third of his career WAR has come in the last three months. We’re nowhere near being able to render a final verdict on the Twins prospects of recent vintage. So I’m not saying Rosario has “won” anything or that his peers have flopped.

What I am saying, though, is that it’s perhaps at least a little surprising that Rosario — and not any of the other men on this list — has been the most productive member of that loaded Twins farm system to date and, further, that perhaps his performance to date merits a little bit of examination as a result. So let’s examine, shall we?

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Notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Taylor Hearn, LHP, Pittsburgh Pirates (Profile)
Level: Double-A   Age: 23   Org Rank: 8  FV: 45
Line: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 7 K, 0 R

Notes
Hearn’s peripherals (27.5% K, 9.3% BB) are exactly the same as they were last year when he was in High-A. He’s a little old for Double-A, but that matters less for pitchers and Hearn’s early-career injuries set back his development pretty significantly. He’ll flash a 55 slider and average changeup, and he throws enough strikes to start, though he’s not overly efficient. He was up to 97 last night and projects as a fourth starter or late-inning reliever. Here are his swinging strikes from yesterday…

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This is the weird story of how Hanley Ramirez, late of the Boston Red Sox, went from unemployed former star to supposed drug kingpin back to unemployed – and unjustly tarnished – former star all in one weekend.

And it’s also a warning about not to jump to conclusions, especially about legal matters.

Once upon a time, Hanley Ramirez was a dynamic shortstop for the then-Florida Marlins. He had power, speed, and youth. Later, he reinvented himself as a middle-of-the-order force for the Dodgers. His tenure with the Red Sox after signing a four-year, $88 million deal was less successful, including a disastrous experiment in left field and culminating in his release earlier this year. Still, he hit 88 homers in a BoSox uniform and remained useful against left-handed pitching. We all expected he would land somewhere in relatively short order, with the Orioles emerging as a frontrunner.

Then all fell silent for a while. At least, until this past weekend.

As with so many things, it all started with a tweet.

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It’s been a strange few months for the Tampa Bay Rays. The front office spent the spring denying accusations they were trying to tank, and even at a half-decent 39-40, the club is nowhere particularly close to the playoff hunt. And yet, if you prefer the BaseRuns standings to the actual ones, the Rays have been a top-ten baseball team, even while playing a difficult schedule. And while injuries and being shorthanded led the Rays toward their “opener” experiment in the middle of May, as a team they’ve allowed the lowest ERA in baseball ever since. They’ve also allowed the lowest wOBA. This is where the Rays have gotten without Brent Honeywell. This is where they’ve gotten without Jose De Leon. Injuries have sidelined Nathan Eovaldi, Chris Archer, Anthony Banda, Jake Faria, and Kevin Kiermaier, among others. A month ago, Denard Span and Alex Colome were traded.

Through one lens, the Rays have been mediocre. They are how they were designed. Through another lens, the Rays have been an inspiring success. One could argue only luck separates them from a wild-card spot. No matter the lens, though, the Rays haven’t been boring. It’s a young club, stocked with talent. The strategy around the starting rotation and the subsequent relievers has been inventive. And on Tuesday, in the ninth inning of a one-run game, manager Kevin Cash played a pitcher at first base. The circumstances weren’t extraordinary. It was done very much on purpose.

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