Last season, second basemen produced their best collective season ever in major-league history. There are a few different theories about what might have happened. With the increased use of the shift, it’s possible that teams were willing to deploy worse defenders at second in exchange for more offensive production. It’s also possible it was just a random blip of very good seasons by quite a few second basemen. Those are the most likely explanations, at least.

We’re now roughly halfway through the 2017 campaign, and the production from second basemen so far has been good — one of the better seasons of all time, if things hold up — but it also represents a big step back from what we saw last year.

How big a step back? Well, consider: last year, 11 second basemen recorded four-win seasons.

In contrast, here’s the list of players who are projected to hit 4.0 WAR by the end of the current season.

Even if you include the players who are “on pace” to hit four wins — if not forecast by the projections to do so — then the only additions are Josh Harrison (2.3 WAR as of Sunday) and Jed Lowrie (2.1 WAR).

It’s not just overall value that’s taken a step back, either. If you look at the first table from this post, you’ll see that nine second baseman recorded at least a 120 wRC+ last season. Matt Carpenter — who split time evenly between second, third, and first — would make a 10th. Nor does that include the 122 wRC+ or 3.7 WAR produced by Neil Walker, as he fell roughly 50 plate appearances short of qualifying for the batting title.

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Blake Parker is a proven closer, but only down on the farm. Of the 32-year-old right-hander’s 117 professional saves, only three have been in a big-league uniform. The most recent came a week ago, with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Playing at Fenway Park, Parker entered with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning, and punched out Chris Young to close out a 6-3 win over the Red Sox.

He’s having an All-Star-quality year. In 39 relief outings, the first-year Angel has a 2.04 ERA and a 1.38 FIP, and he’s fanning batters at a rate of 13 per nine innings. The extent to which that’s a surprise is a matter of debate. His MLB opportunities have been at a premium in recent seasons, but Parker’s Triple-A efforts have been exemplary. Sandwiched around an injury-truncated 2015 were a 25-save campaign that included a 1.77 ERA and a 13.1 K-rate, and a 19-save campaign with a 2.72 ERA and A 12.7 k-rate.

Parker believes that closing in the minors helps prepare a pitcher for doing so in the majors — “you learn how to deal with the emotional stress that comes with pitching the ninth” — and he likewise feels it impacts one’s ability to handle high-leverage situations in preceding innings.

“They say the last three outs are the hardest to get,” said Parker. “But while they may be the toughest mentally, sometimes you get the back end of the order in the ninth. I’m not saying those guys can’t hit, but there is something to getting those crucial outs in the seventh and eighth. I think my experience closing in the minors helps me harness my emotions to do both.”

Harnessing emotions was essential when he came on to face Young — and bail out a struggling Cam Bedrosian — with the game on the line. Fenway Park was a cauldron of expectant energy, with 36,000 fans on their feet. It was white-knuckle time, but the righty wasn’t intimidated. Read the rest of this entry »

If you were to pick a face, a player, to represent where baseball is trending, Joey Gallo might be the one.

This post isn’t intended to serve as an endorsement of Gallo as an elite player, but rather to suggest that he embodies its trends as well as anyone. The game continues to include more home runs, more strikeouts, more walks, and fewer balls in play — to the angst of some (many?). Gallo is one of the Three True Outcome kings in the sport, a point detailed by one of FanGraphs’ community writers earlier this year.

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Yesterday, I put on my dictator hat and suggested how I would fill out the National League All-Star team, if it was entirely up to me. Today, we’re going to do the American League, which is, in comparison, underwhelming. Actually, underwhelming is an underwhelming description for what it was like to assemble this roster after doing the NL yesterday. It was essentially an exercise in saying “wait, really, these are my choices?” over and over.

There are, of course, some really exciting talents in the American League. And there are guys having really great All-Star caliber seasons. But there are shockingly few players who fit both of those criteria, as basically all the big names that you’d expect to be here haven’t had seasons good enough to justify their presence. Mike Trout? Injured. Miguel Cabrera? 115 wRC+. Manny Machado? 86 wRC+. Josh Donaldson? Missed a good chunk of the first half, and hasn’t been great since coming off the DL.

As I noted yesterday, I lean towards the All-Star game being a reward for a player’s performance to this point, with track record a factor but a less important one than how you’ve played this year. That’s why they have the event every year; to honor the players playing like stars this season. In the first half of the 2017 season, the stars of the AL mostly haven’t played like stars, and the guys who have are not guys you would have pegged for the All-Star team before the year started.

So, prepare to be underwhelmed by the names to follow. This is just what the league has given us.

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This year, we’ve seen the debut of two 24-year-old lefties who have taken their own paths to the big leagues. Jordan Montgomery in New York and Sean Newcomb in Atlanta both look like they’re dealing, but they’ve had to work to get here. Listed at 6-foot-6 and 6-foot-5, respectively, it’s worth wondering if their height has slowed down the development of their command, if it’s taken them longer to get their impressive levers in the right places. There’s some evidence that might be the case. But these two pitchers remind us that there are very few absolutes when it comes to mechanics, and that even tall pitchers are as different from each other as they are from the general population.

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We’d all like to think that we’d act as MLB umpire John Tumpane did this past Wednesday at around 3 p.m. while crossing the Roberto Clemente Bridge in Pittsburgh.

Tumpane was returning from an atypically late lunch and jog across the gold-painted steel suspension bridge. If you don’t know the bridge by name, you’re probably familiar with it anyway: it serves as the iconic backdrop beyond PNC Park. One of three sister bridges, it connects downtown with the North Shore of the city. At its apex, it sits 79 feet above the Allegheny River, which it spans. As the 34-year-old Tumpane crossed the structure on Wednesday afternoon, the Chicago native watched as a woman climbed over one of its railings, preparing to jump.

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Pace. The word occupying the most of Rob Manfred’s mind is pace. Or maybe it’s action. They could be tied. Manfred wants more action; he wants a quicker pace. In short, he wants more things to happen. Games continue to grow longer and longer, and that means dead time. Strikeouts continue to rise, and that means fewer balls in play. Home runs continue to rise, and that means…I don’t know, reducing the thrill of the average home run. If I had to distill everything down, I’d say that baseball is most concerned with staying interesting. It doesn’t want to be the boring sport, and it doesn’t want to become the more boring sport.

Personally, I’m not bored by baseball. I know you’re not, either, because this place is selective for superfans. Even if you wouldn’t ordinarily think of yourself as being a baseball superfan, you almost certainly qualify. Think about the website you’re reading right now. We all still find pleasure in the game, and I’m not finding any less than I ever have. If anything, my own level of interest deepens by the day.

But, wouldn’t you know it, but you could say baseball really is more boring than it’s been in a while. Not so much in a way that you’d notice. It’s subtle, as many trends are. But I have numbers to make a case. While I don’t know what to make of them, I’d still like to share them, while I have your attention.

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On Tuesday, the Yankees called up infielder Tyler Wade in the wake of Starlin Castro’s injury. They dipped into their farm system again on Wednesday, calling up Miguel Andujar (3.6 KATOH, 2.6 KATOH+) to replace the injured Matt Holliday. And wouldn’t you know it, they did it again today. This time it’s Dustin Fowler getting the in place of Tyler Austin.

Fowler is easily the best prospect who was called up this week. He’s demonstrated a rare combination of power and speed in the minors, mashing 12 homers this year to go along with 13 steals. He’s also kicked in eight triples after lacing 15 last season. Fowler doesn’t strike out all that often, either. He’s whiffed 20% of the time this season, which puts him right around league average.

On defense, Fowler has primarily played center field, though he’s gotten regular reps at both outfield corners. He possesses plus speed, which is typically more than enough to man center field, but the metrics aren’t fond of him out there. Clay Davenport’s numbers have him as a -14 defender over roughly a full season of games in center between this year and last. Regardless, he should be more than fine in an outfield corner, which is where New York will likely use him for the time being.

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I started blogging about the Mariners almost the instant they stopped being good. I went forward with that for some reason on a daily basis for something like a decade, and there was a whole lot of losing involved. As such, there are a lot of low points to pick from, and I don’t know when I experienced rock bottom, but I know when I felt particularly low. I can vividly recall a moment when something seemed to snap. The whole 2010 season was unfathomably bad, and it was a race to the finish line. September might as well have not existed, but it did exist, and toward the end of it, the Mariners played the Rangers, and the Rangers scored the winning run on a strikeout.

Fans of bad teams often say it’s as if their team finds new ways to lose. For me, that actually *was* a new way to lose. I’d never seen it. Many people had never seen anything like it. See, it’s extremely uncommon. And why wouldn’t it be? A strikeout is an out. A walk-off strikeout shouldn’t exist. But there’s room there for an opportunity; the door is cracked ever so slightly open. The Rangers won on a walk-off strikeout. And last night, the Angels did the same thing.

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The Marlins are sellers this year. Adeiny Hechavarria is already gone. Kyle Barraclough, David Phelps, and A.J. Ramos are among the bullpen pieces that might be appealing. Marcell Ozuna is having a great year and has two more years of control after this one, so he would be a desirable piece. If the team opted to, they could get a haul for Christian Yelich, too. And if the team is truly selling for the future and wants to reduce future salaries either for a future owner or because that’s just what the Marlins do, then trading Giancarlo Stanton has to be an option, as well.

It’s not entirely clear how much value Stanton has in trade. He’s obviously been a very good player to this point in his career and has recorded a 130 wRC+ so far this year. The projections see him doing roughly that the rest of the way, as well, coming close to a four-win season. He’s also only making $14.5 million in 2017, which makes him quite valuable in the near term. Detracting from that value in the longer term is the $295 million owed to Stanton over the next 10 years, part of a deal that will pay him through his age-37 season. He also has a no-trade clause. Adding to the complexity is an opt-out clause Stanton possesses in his contract after the 2020 campaign. He’ll be finishing his age-30 season at that point and will be owed $219 million over the next seven seasons.

Given the size of his deal, the return for Stanton might not be great. For that reason and because he’s a good player now and because he’s likely to remain a good player for the next few years, it’s fair to question why the Marlins would bother moving him. It’s probably too easy just to say “Because that’s what the Marlins do.” But, well, that is what the Marlins do. That opt-out might end up being difficult to turn down, and the current owner, Jeffrey Loria, likely has no interest in paying a 30-plus-year-old slugger $30 million a year. There are also rumors that the Marlins will be sold at some point soon. Before teams are sold, we often see large contracts moved in order to make the team more attractive in terms of future commitments.

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