Last April, I interviewed Baltimore Orioles slugger Mark Trumbo about his hitting approach. As he explained, it’s unapologetically aggressive — and geared toward power. The numbers bear that out. Trumbo hit 47 bombs last year — the most in either league — and he walked just 51 times in 667 plate appearances. For better or for worse, that’s who he is.

Belying Trumbo’s free-swinging ways is the fact that he is studious. He’s put a lot of thought into what works for him, and once the offseason rolls around, he’ll tinker with technology-driven tools. Terms like “exit velocity” and “launch angle” aren’t part of his everyday vernacular, but he knows exactly what they mean. Trumbo’s job is to bash baseballs, which necessitates his need to understand how baseballs are best-bashed.

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Trumbo on launch angles: “I’m not, by any means, hyper-obsessed with some of these pop terms that are being thrown around. Especially launch angle. In practice, my goal is usually timing more than anything. When I am trying to drive the ball, I’m more or less trying to knock the fence down. It’s not to hit the ball as high and far as possible. If that happens in a game, great, but there’s a happy medium between a ground ball and a high fly ball. What’s most productive for me are those line drives that just continue to carry.

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This is Joe Sheehan’s’s second piece as part of his April residency at FanGraphs. A founding member of Baseball Prospectus, Joe currently publishes an eponymous Baseball Newsletter. You can find him on Twitter, as well. Read all our residency posts here.

Two pieces ran at FanGraphs earlier this week that addressed critical issues facing Major League Baseball. Dave Cameron pointed out that, with walk rates ticking back up in the season’s early days, that the Three True Outcomes (walks, strikeouts, home runs) accounted for over a third of all plate appearances. Jeff Sullivan then wrote that early-season games were averaging a snappy 3:11, with lag time between pitches jumping by more than a second.

Scores of smart people have taken aim at both issues raised by the Wonder Twins of FanGraphs. Pace of play has replaced PEDs as Baseball’s Big Issue. What I’m not sure we’ve discussed sufficiently is how those two things — TTO baseball and lag time between pitches — are correlated, and how the style of baseball being played in 2017 directly affects the pace at which baseball is being played in 2017.

Let’s back up. Baseball, as evolved from various stick-and-ball games in the 19th century, was originally a contest in which the pitcher’s role was similar to that of a slow-pitch softball hurler. His job was to kick things off by offering up a ball that the batter could whack into the field of play, where the real business of playing baseball happened: running and throwing and fielding and even throwing the ball at a baserunner to record an out. The pitcher was the least important player on the field in the game’s early days. There were, in fact, no mechanisms to force the pitcher to give the batter hittable pitches; it was just considered his job to do so. Batters were even able to request high or low pitches, the better to fit their swing.

As the game became professionalized and more competitive at the highest levels, pitchers started trying to exercise more control over their deliveries so as to keep the batter from making solid, or even any, contact. This led to the creation of the strike zone and, subsequently, walks. Pitchers pushed the rules that mandated underhand deliveries, so as to generate more speed on the ball, and pushed them some more, until the game gave up and let pitchers throw overhand in 1884. This was a key moment in the evolution of baseball, the moment the game stopped being a battle between the batter and the defense, and became a battle between the pitcher and the batter. It also gave us this graph:

It’s not a perfectly clean line, as the deadball era saw a jump in whiffs that disappeared during World War I, but the long-term trend is clear: strikeout rates have risen throughout baseball history, and you can trace it all back to 1884, when baseball turned pitchers into the most important players in the game. So now, 133 years later, in a 7-1 game in the ninth, you have to watch some 27-year-old failed starter huff and puff for 23 seconds, catching his breath while deciding between his fastball and his fastball, all because Pud Galvin and his ilk cheated so effectively that the game gave up trying to stop them.

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Mets fans know the dilemma well. Despite already possessing probably the club’s second-best bat after Yoenis Cespedes, Michael Conforto might have a tenuous grasp on a roster spot.

Conforto isn’t a natural center fielder. Juan Lagares is a natural center fielder and is also nearing a return from a rehab stint to serve as the club’s fourth outfielder, a role which Conforto is currently filling.

Conforto is a more natural fit at a corner-outfield spot, but Cespedes has a solid grasp of left field and the Mets owe Curtis Granderson and Jay Bruce $15 million and $13 million, respectively, this year. Granderson and Bruce are atop the depth chart at center and right field.

Conforto is well aware of his situation. He’s well aware he has minor-league options remaining and a relatively paltry salary. Said the 24-year-old to Newsday earlier this week: “My situation is a day-to-day thing.”

Despite doing this on Wednesday night…

Regardless of the quality of contact he’s produced, his pedigree as a first-round pick, and the intriguing track record, Conforto isn’t a lock to stick in the lineup regularly or on the 25-man roster at all.

There’s the old adage that if you can hit they will find a place for you in the field. Will the Mets?

This is a player who posted a 133 wRC+ of as a rookie in 2015 over 194 plate appearances, when Conforto’s average exit velocity on fly balls and line drives was 96.1 mph, ranking him 22nd among hitters with at least 100 batted-ball events (just behind Cespedes). After an excellent start to 2016, a wrist issue and inconsistent playing time contributed to a lackluster sophomore campaign.

Still, despite 2016, Conforto was projected by ZiPS to be the Mets’ second-best position player in 2017. From our ZiPS post back in February:

Only four Mets field players recorded a WAR figure of 2.0 or greater in 2016. According to Dan Szymborski’s computer, six different Mets might be expected to reach that mark in 2017. Yoenis Cespedes (596 PA, 4.1 zWAR) receives the club’s top projection by a full win — and three of the club’s top-four forecasts overall belong to outfielders. One of those additional outfielders is Curtis Granderson (538, 2.3). The other isn’t presumptive right-field starter Jay Bruce (583, 1.2) but rather Michael Conforto (558, 3.0). Conforto, in other words, appears to be a markedly superior option.

And all Conforto has done this spring is hit like Kyle Schwarber Lite. He’s making life difficult on Mets officials tasked with setting the roster and lineup card.

Last year, Eno Sarris wrote about the development of power and how Conforto’s best contact hadn’t been ideal. Well, Conforto is making strides there early this spring. His home run on Sunday left his bat at 108 mph and landed 430 feet away in right-center field.

Conforto can hit. He might be the Mets’ second-best hitter and yet the Mets continue to struggle to find a place for his bat, giving him only two starts so far this season.

The Mets might have initially regretted picking up Bruce’s option, insurance in case Cespedes signed elsewhere this offseason. But Bruce has been productive to date this year, and might be benefiting from an attempt to launch more balls in the air. Bruce has hit four home runs in the season’s first week and is slashing .273/.385/.667 — in part, fueled by a 0.40 GB/FB ratio.

So what to do with Conforto?

A modest proposal: platoon Conforto with Lagares in center (which is how the Mets began last season), hope for the best defensively, and let him hit.

For starters, outfield defense is a bit less important behind the Mets, whose pitching staff finished ninth in strikeouts in baseball a season ago and ninth in ground-ball rate (46.5%). The Mets’ power rotation is again expected to miss many a bat and produce a better-than-average ground-ball rate.

But Conforto might actually be a superior defensive option to Granderson in center right now. In limited defensive work in center field, covering 48 innings, Conforto has been worth 1 defensive run save (DRS). In 952 innings in left, he’s been posted 9 DRS, exceeding expectations of his defense. Granderson, meanwhile, has declined as a defender and is already rated as being worth -2 DRS this season in center. In his last full season in center, in New York in 2012, Granderson was worth -7 DRS.

Conforto is the better offensive option going forward.

As for Lagares, he’s an excellent defensive center fielder, having tallied 62 DRS from 2013 to -16, but he’s posted well below-average offensive seasons in back-to-back years, including a 79 wRC+ mark in 2015 and an 84 wRC+ last season. However, for his career, Lagares has a wRC+ of 105 versus lefties versus a 76 mark against righties. Given what we know about platoon splits, that might actually be a fair representation of his true talent. There’s a place for Lagares’ glove as a defensive replacement, or perhaps with a fly-ball pitcher on the mound. And Lagares’ right-handed bat could serve as a platoon partner for Conforto who has struggled to hit lefties (.129 average in 62 at-bats) early in his big-league career.

Every win matters for the Mets in what figures to be a competitive NL East. While their lineup is off to a productive start, it would be more productive, more often, with their second-most-capable hitter in the lineup.

We’ve always heard that if you can hit a team will find a place for you. For much of this spring it seemed the Mets were thinking that place was Triple-A for Conforto, but perhaps Conforto’s strong spring and torrid start to open the season in limited chances could force some more creative thinking.

The sooner they find a way to make a consistent lineup home for Conforto, the better off they will be.

How could you know that Aaron Judge is strong? If you have access to Baseball Savant, you could see he’s one of just four players in Statcast’s limited history to hit at least three batted balls in the air at 115+ miles per hour. You could see he ranks tied for fifth in average exit velocity on non-grounders. If you have access to Aaron Judge himself, you could ask him to help you move furniture. The simplest thing is to probably just look at him. Look at him in person. Look at him on TV or on the Internet. He’s strong. Not surprisingly strong, like some world-class little rock climber. Obviously strong, like a man who spends his free time mindlessly juggling crates.

Because of what he is, Judge is capable of extraordinary feats of strength. In that way, he’s similar to Giancarlo Stanton, who once used a home run to destroy part of a scoreboard. When Judge makes perfect contact, with a perfect swing, he can send a baseball farther than almost anyone else. Judge achieved a more subtle feat of strength on Wednesday afternoon. Look at this stupid impossible dinger.

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The Texas Rangers are 2-5, which is not good. Consolation comes in two flavors. One, so early! Who cares! Two, the Mariners are 2-7. The Blue Jays are 1-6. The Cardinals are 2-6, and the Giants are 3-6. Baseball will find its level, and its level will have the Rangers winning at a clip higher than 29%. So, yeah. Still, it’s a fan’s place to overreact to the season’s beginning, and it’s perfectly reasonable to wonder why the Rangers have been so bad. Let’s just take a look at something:

Yeah, that’ll do it. By WPA, Sam Dyson has already been a win worse than the next-worst pitcher. As a matter of fact, according to the best research I could do, Dyson has the lowest WPA on record through a team’s first seven games. It’s a weird stat, but a telling one, and in case you don’t love WPA, let’s go old-fashioned. Dyson’s tied for first (last?) in baseball in runs allowed, while being tied for 138th in batters faced. Bad. Dyson has been a drag, and he was a drag again Tuesday night.

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How does one define stardom in baseball? How does one identify a star? Well, firstly, it probably doesn’t require knowing a guy’s WAR. It’s more intuitive than that. You can feel your lips curling into a grin when a certain player does something exceptional. When that happens again and again, that’s when you know: there’s something special about that one guy. He can do it all, and he does it more often than everyone else. What’s a star? A star is someone capable of evoking an almost childlike sense of joy and wonder.

Yoenis Cespedes has sentimental value for Mets fans beyond his capacity to do just that. It was Cespedes who strode in and muscled the Mets to the World Series a couple years ago. He may not serve as a daily one-man wrecking crew with the sort of frequency that he did during the 2015 stretch drive, but he’s still pretty damn good, and pretty damn watchable to boot. He’s a near-ideal mixture of talent and swagger, a man with monstrous power and a magnetic presence off the field. It was that monstrous power, and the Phillies, which helped him launch three home runs last night.

Homer #1

Look, I don’t know whether we’ll ever be able to say for sure if Clay Buchholz is (was?) good. His career has been a roller coaster without safety harnesses. There have been years where he’s looked brilliant, and there have been years where he’s looked disastrous. Both varieties of seasons are prone to being curtailed by injuries. And, speaking of which, Buchholz did wind up leaving last night’s game with the dreaded “right forearm tightness,” so he may not have been at his best when Cespedes did this to him.

Now, yes, the Phillies do indeed play in a bandbox. But hitting a ball out to dead center is impressive no matter where you’re playing, and Cespedes cleared the wall with room to spare. It’s easy to do that when you’re built like Cespedes and you’ve just been thrown a big-league meatball, but you’ve still got to actually hit the thing. Cespedes, true to form, did in fact hit the thing. Thus began a game that would see the Mets score 14 runs and hit seven bombs in total. It seems Mets hitters really do trust the process.

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The Angels have an interesting situation at the back end of their bullpen. It’s not unique in that it’s a timeshare — in their own division, the Athletics are adamant that Sean Doolittle and Santiago Casilla are both closers, depending on the handedness of the opposing ninth-inning lineup — but it’s still a little different. Andrew Bailey and Cam Bedrosian, the two heads of that monster, have two unique pitches that power their success.

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Brad Brach broke out after reaching Baltimore. Fueled by a velocity spike and a healthy dose of confidence, the 31-year-old right-hander has excelled since being acquired by the Orioles from San Diego prior to the 2014 season. In 183 relief outings, Brach has a 2.56 ERA and has allowed just 163 hits over 224.2 innings. Working primarily as a setup man, he’s been credited with 22 wins and three saves.

Brach — an All-Star for the first time last season — was treading water before coming east. A pedestrian fastball was a big reason. The Monmouth University product was barely topping 90 mph when the Padres lost faith and shipped him out in exchange for a low-level prospect. Then came spring training in a new uniform, and sage tutelage from a pair of since-departed pitching gurus.

Brach detailed his career-altering velo jump, and the I’m-coming-after-you mindset that followed, prior to yesterday’s game at Fenway Park.

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Brach on how he turned a corner in 2014: “I made a mechanical adjustment that helped me gain some velocity. I straightened out on the rubber. I kind of throw across my body and, before, I was tilting way too much. I was throwing so far across my body that I was basically having to get over myself to throw to home.

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Often it seems that anything written in April, any attempt at analysis, any assessment of a player, must be accompanied by a disclaimer that it’s small-sample-size season. That same sense of caution applies to this report, certainly. It’s generally dangerous to read into any limited sample of work — especially at the beginning of a season, when we’re most starved for actual baseball, when we’re most apt to rush to a judgement or make an extrapolation.

Still, some things occur at this time of year that do matter.

Sometimes, of course, the adjustment and changes made in the offseason and during spring do lead to results.

And a good start for Jason Heyward was important — if for no other reason than to quell lineup controversy and ensure playing time.

Last October, the last time most of us saw Heyward, his swing was broken. There were times, as a neutral observer, that it was difficult to watch him struggle with his awkward swing, sapped both of power and confidence. Last season, Heyward’s average exit velocity of 87.4 mph ranked 282nd among hitters 379 hitters with at least 100 batted-ball events, a figure sandwiched between those produced by Delino DeShields and Kolten Wong.

While Heyward has always had a mechanical-looking swing, the production and velocity was well down from his 2015 levels, when he slashed .293/.359/.439 and produced an average exit velocity of 90.7 mph. That season, combined with his longer track record of defensive excellence and above-average offense, earned him an eight-year, $184 million contract.

That contract looked like one of the few errors made to date during the Theo Epstein Era in Chicago. Heyward was going to become a very expensive defensive specialist if he posted another 72 wRC+, if he suffered an unusual loss of offensive abilities in the midst of his prime, like Melvin Upton Jr.

So this offseason, with no monetary incentive, with pride and professionalism serving as primary motivators, Heyward went to work.

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You could be forgiven, heading into last season, for thinking that Daniel Murphy would fail to carry over the magic of his 2015 playoff performance into the 2016 campaign. Many teams seem to have had similar suspicions: a free agent, Murphy received just $37.5 million over three years to sign with Washington. The Nationals were immediately rewarded: Murphy recorded nearly six wins for the club, basically providing a full return on Washington’s investment in just the first year of the contract.

Despite the wild success of Murphy’s 2016 campaign, it’s possible you had your doubts going into the current season, as well. Murphy was entering his age-32 season. His success last season was built in part on a very high BABIP. He doesn’t walk a ton. The projections were pegging him for just short of three wins this year. There was plenty of reason to expect some regression.

Early in the 2017 season, however, Daniel Murphy’s play is dispelling whatever doubts remained about the legitimacy of last year’s breakout.

After just eight games, Murphy already has 17 hits, seven for extra bases. He’s gotten at least one hit in every game, gotten at least two hits in six of eight games — including a three-hit game and last night’s four-hit game. With two doubles and a homer yesterday, Murphy is hitting .472/.486/.778 with a wRC+ of 230. It’s easy to say that it’s only eight games, but if Murphy gets another 550 plate appearances on the season and hits “only” his projected 118 wRC+ over the course of it, he’ll still record a 125 wRC+ overall. Over his last 200 games dating back to August 1, 2015, Murphy has a 153 wRC+ and that doesn’t even include another 86 postseason plate appearances where that number was close to 200. Murphy has been a really good hitter for quite some time, and it doesn’t look like he’s slowing down.

If you recall, Murphy did this exact same thing at the beginning of last season, hitting .480/.581/.880 with a 277 wRC+ after eight games. There were still skeptics at that point, and there were still skeptics a month later when Dave Cameron asked everyone to buy into Daniel Murphy. Over the winter, Jeff Sullivan looked at Murphy’s unique skillset, which includes a whole lot of power and a whole lot of contact. Sullivan noted that, in recent history, only Victor Martinez and Nomar Garciaparra have had seasons like Murphy’s 2016. Going further back into the past we find Hall of Famers like George Brett and Tris Speaker.

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