In the age of the shift, it takes a lot for a particular defensive alignment to merit real attention.

But over the weekend, the Diamondbacks managed to do just that, utilizing what appears to be the most dramatic shift in recent history — notable even more so because the park at which they did it, Coors Field, features one of the game’s largest outfields.

We’ve seen about every variety of infield shift over the last four years, but we’ve never witnessed anything quite like what the Diamondbacks employed against DJ LeMahieu.

That gets your attention. That is bold.

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A few weeks ago, colleague Jeff Sullivan wrote that Tommy Pham is the best player on the Cardinals. It’s hard to argue. With a month to go in what has been a breakout season, the 29-year-old outfielder is slashing .311/.407/.522, and he has 19 home runs in 431 plate appearances. He attributes his success to two things.

“Vision,” said Pham. “I got my contacts squared away this year, and that’s helped me improve tremendously. I’d say we could start there. The other thing is that I’ve put myself in a position to where I’m playing every day. In previous years I played for stretches, but then I’d sit on the bench. Last year I had an .870 OPS in the middle of August, then I basically became a designated pinch hitter. In 2015, I had an .824 OPS in my rookie season. I’ve always produced. It’s just that I’m playing every day now, so you get to see more.”

His production has never been better, and seeing the ball better is clearly helping.

“Just look at the numbers, man — I was striking out 38% last year,” stated Pham, who elaborated that depth perception was the issue. “Now I’m striking out 15% less. That means I’m putting more balls in play, which means I’m going to have better results.”

He’s well-versed in more than just probability. The Las Vegas native is a big believer in using any and all data to his advantage. Pham — an affirmed FanGraphs reader — studies his stat page to see which aspects of his game need improvement. If data shows that he’s a negative in a specific area, he strives to turn it into a positive. Read the rest of this entry »

There has been a changing of the guard in the American League as we have a new run differential leader: The Cleveland Indians (+155).

The Indians, thanks to an outstanding August, have jumped the Houston Astros (+153), the AL’s top club of the first half, and have possession of the game’s No. 2 run differential, trailing only the Los Angeles Dodgers (+209). The Indians completed a 19-9 record for August with a sweep of the Yankees on Wednesday, and posted a plus-58 run differential for the month. Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe you’ve noticed that Masahiro Tanaka is a little different these days. His recent good stretch has coincided with a trend we noticed a while back: he’s not really throwing the fastball any more. He’s not alone on the Yankees — it looks like it’s a team-wide phenomenon. But is it working for every Yankee?

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As FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron wrote Wednesday, we are seeing fewer “bewildering” transactions in baseball these days. Many teams are thinking in similar ways, hiring similar people, and using similar information to make decisions. While that makes for more efficient decision making, it also makes for fewer controversial and/or head-scratching decisions.

While relatively minor in scope, we were given an unusual transaction when the Pirates — who have fallen out of contention — elected to place Juan Nicasio on irrevocable outright waivers this week, not revocable waivers, which teams usually employ this time of year to pass players through waivers but are able to pull them back if claimed. Read the rest of this entry »

Touching base to let Fangraphs readers know that this is my last piece in this space.

Just got back from recharging my batteries with my family (including Biscuit, the Wonder Dog) at Brigantine, New Jersey, just north of Atlantic City. Plenty of time for thinking, reflecting, etc., and pondering the future. For me, it has become clear that I need to turn my full focus toward getting back into baseball, with a club, where I can best use my combination of scouting and analytical experience and expertise.

That is going to take time and my much more undivided attention. It has been extremely rewarding to put my thoughts and ideas into print here at FanGraphs over the last few years, but honestly, it’s not enough baseball for me. It’s time to go back to work.

Many thanks to David Appelman for giving me the opportunity to write under the FanGraphs banner. Dave Cameron, you were the guy who encouraged me from the very beginning; deepest thanks to you, as well. Carson Cistulli has been my primary editor and contact for the past couple of years. You always had time and a witty rejoinder for me. Paul Swydan was always there to pick up the ball in a tough spot. It has been a pleasure to work alongside the entire FanGraphs staff. Wherever the road takes me, I look forward to remaining in contact with my colleagues.

Lastly, and most importantly, to the readers. Thank you, from the heart. I have connected with many of you via email to discuss my articles, to thank you for pointing out the (hopefully) rare typos that slipped through the process. We are unified by our love for this great game of ours. The game, the way it is played, the way is it covered and analyzed, continually changes. But at its core, it will always hold us close. I’ll see you all down the road, hopefully soon. Be sure to say hello.

Tony

Detroit acquired a trio of prospects from Houston last night in exchange for Justin Verlander. Two of those prospects appeared on our updated Astros top-10 list and will likely occupy a similar place in Detroit’s improving system. Before we examine the state of the Tigers’ minor-league talent, however, let’s talk about the three young men who were just traded for one of this century’s best right-handed pitchers.

The centerpiece of this package is 19-year-old Venezuelan righty Franklin Perez. Perez began the year with three dominant starts in High-A before he was shelved for a month with knee soreness. His results have been mixed but generally positive since his late-May return. Despite a few hiccups, Perez was promoted to Double-A in July and has struggled with strike-throwing at times while missing fewer bats than he did in A-ball. But ultimately, we’re talking about a 19-year-old who, despite initially training in Venezuela as a third baseman, has already pitched his way to Double-A and who, when healthy and rested, shows an ability to locate and sequence four quality big-league offerings.

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When the non-waiver trade deadline came around, the Astros were sitting in excellent position. In large part because of that, the team didn’t make a big splash, yet that didn’t sit so well with, say, Dallas Keuchel. Certain Astros would’ve liked to see a move or two made in an effort to put the club over the top, and so far in the second half, the Astros have sputtered. And so a big splash has been made. It’s a trade that was on, and then off, and then on again — it’s a trade that was made with one minute to spare. Because of that one minute, the Astros have a new weapon for the playoff roster.

Astros get

• Justin Verlander
• Some millions of salary relief ($8 million each of next two years)

Tigers get

• Franklin Perez
• Daz Cameron
• Jake Rogers

Dave is going to have a fuller post on this later on. A post that will more deeply examine all the various impacts here. Earlier this very evening, it seemed like any Verlander trade possibility was just hanging on by a thread. But there’s nothing quite like a deadline to light some fires under some butts, and both sides get to look good here. The Astros get a front-of-the-rotation starter, who’s lately settled into a groove. The Tigers get quality prospects, having included some money to offset Verlander’s cost. Of course, trading a player like Verlander isn’t a simple matter, given everything he’s meant to the Tigers organization, but something like this was inevitable. The rebuild was always coming. Nothing is ever permanent.

Perez is a 19-year-old righty starter. Cameron is a 20-year-old center fielder. Rogers is a 22-year-old catcher. Before the year, Eric had them ranked third, 10th, and 20th in the Astros’ system, respectively. Perez just missed the overall top-100. In Baseball America’s midseason update, Perez ranked 32nd overall. He ranked second in the Astros’ system. Perez is clearly the big get, but Cameron could be a long-term center fielder, and Rogers is considered a fantastic defender with a better bat than a lot of people expected. This could become a group of three big-leaguers. The Astros didn’t get Verlander cheap.

But they’re encouraged by what they’ve seen. Just looking at things overall, Verlander has taken a step back:

What was strange about the struggling Verlander was there wasn’t an obvious reason. The stuff, if anything, had improved. The results just weren’t there. Yet, consider Verlander’s most recent nine starts:

Normal Verlander again. Perhaps even something a little better. Verlander has pitched like one of the best starters around, and because of his history, it wasn’t going to take much to convince another team that he’d found his way forward. Verlander has made necessary adjustments before. It looks like he’s made them again. This might be a clue:

Maybe it has nothing to do with Verlander taking something back off of his slider. Could be something or anything else. But here’s where we are: Verlander is a former ace starter, throwing ace stuff, who’s recently generated ace results. The Astros figure he’s back, and, if he is, how many starters would you rather have leading a club into the playoffs? To say nothing of his two more years of control, during which the Astros should still be strong.

With Verlander and Justin Upton going out the door, this has been an important day for Detroit. And with Verlander landing in Houston, this has been an important day for the rest of the American League. The Astros were already very good. Now they’ve made about the biggest splash they could make.

Two things are simultaneously true about the American League wild-card race. One, none of the teams, outside of the Yankees, are particularly good. Even the Yankees have their own flaws, but the rest of the teams in the mix are even weaker. One could argue whether any of them will deserve to be playoff teams at all. Two, there will be playoff teams. There will be, probably, the Yankees and someone else. No matter what you might think about team quality, playoff positions are at stake, and a playoff spot, for any club, holds considerable value. We don’t actually know how the playoffs will ever go. The biggest thing is just making it there. Plenty of AL teams are trying to make it there.

It’s with this year’s playoff race in mind that we’ve got the following trade:

Angels get

• Justin Upton
• moderate 2017 salary relief

Tigers get

• Grayson Long
• a player to be named later

The Angels are not a good baseball team, relative to other baseball teams. However, they don’t need to be good — rather, they just need to be good enough. Upton could well make them good enough, and because this trade was made official today, Upton, of course, would be eligible for the playoff roster. Upton’s contract does have another four years, but this trade is very much about today, tomorrow, and the weeks a little after that.

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This is Ashley MacLennan’s sixth and final piece as part of her August residency at FanGraphs. Ashley is a staff writer for Bless You Boys, the SB Nation blog dedicated to the Detroit Tigers, and runs her own site at 90 Feet From Home. She can also be found on Twitter. Read the work of all our residents here.

“You gotta take care of your teammates sometimes. With me, if hitting a guy in the leg is what I have to do, then that’s what I did… I take care of my teammates and protect them.” Those were the words of Tigers relief pitcher Alex Wilson in the immediate aftermath of one of the most absurd and raucous games of baseball in recent memory.

During the August 24th day game between the Tigers and Yankees, the benches cleared three times and eight people were ejected, including players, managers, and coaches. Multiple players on both teams were – intentionally or not – hit by pitches. An array of fines and suspensions followed.

It was, for lack of a better word, a disaster.

It was also an object lesson in one of baseball’s most notoriously silly and problematic unwritten rules. The unwritten rules — a subset of conventions that dictate baseball etiquette but don’t exist in any official capacity — are intended to mandate how players act on the field and to establish repercussions if those players fail to abide by the code. Grandstanding and bat flips are a no-no, as we saw when Texas Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor sucker-punched Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista as revenge for Bautista’s famous 2015 postseason bat flip. Punishment is usually swift for someone who breaks the rules, but grudges often carry over into subsequent seasons.

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