The Yankees’ biggest splash at the trade deadline last season was the acquisition of Sonny Gray. The Bronx Bombers thought they had acquired a frontline starting pitcher to pair with homegrown ace Luis Severino and Splitter Aficionado Masahiro Tanaka.

But Sonny Gray, after the trade in 2017, posted a 101 xFIP- and 107 FIP- — this after having produced a 75 xFIP- and also 75 FIP- with Oakland before the deal.

Sonny Gray, since the beginning of 2018, has a 132 xFIP- and 115 FIP-. Sonny Gray, on Wednesday night, gave up three earned runs, a home run, and walked five in 4.2 innings, recording a 6.67 xFIP in the process. Sonny Gray, the Yankees version, has been bad.

One, of course, is curious as to why he’s been bad. What happened to the guy who, at the time of the deal, could boast a 3.25 FIP, 8.7 K/9, 1.175 WHIP, and 3.13 K/BB ratio, numbers that were much more in line with his 2013-15 run with the A’s? On the surface, it appears Gray joined the Yankees and reverted to his troubled 2016 self. After all, after the trade, Gray’s home-runs allowed spiked, from 0.7 per nine to 1.5 per nine. Perhaps as a result of wariness, his walks spiked from 2.8 per nine to 3.7 per nine, as well.

It’s a plausible theory, but it’s also insufficient.

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Among the early-season strikeout leaders, one finds many of the usual names, pitchers like Chris Sale, Max Scherzer, and Noah Syndergaard. But sandwiched between Syndergaard and Justin Verlander, at seventh overall, is a bit of surprise: J.A. Happ. The veteran lefty has struck out 33.6% of batters faced so far this year.

Because strikeout rate begins to stabilize before almost any other metric, this is a possible first sign that something about Happ is fundamentally different. His swinging-strike rate — another predictive figure — has also jumped, up to 14.1%. He’s never reached double-digits by that measure over the course of a full season.

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Among the comments Kiley McDaniel and I received from people in baseball regarding the updated draft board we published last week is that Oklahoma quarterback and center fielder Kyler Murray should have probably been on it. Evaluators see him as a crude but gifted speedster with good pop for his size who possesses more projection than most because of his athleticism. Murray is performing this year (.290/.390/.520 at publication) on the baseball field despite little prior in-game experience.

While I’ll consider his merits as an athlete more fully in a moment, it seems important to briefly recount Murray’s somewhat circuitous path to the present. A superstar high-school quarterback, Murray was expected to replace Johnny Manziel at Texas A&M as soon as he reached campus. At the same time, though, he was also a first-round shortstop prospect. He removed himself from MLB draft consideration by refusing to do some of the mandatory paperwork and testing for eligibility. He went to A&M, split QB reps there with Kyle Allen as a freshman, then transferred to Oklahoma, where sat out a year due to NCAA transfer rules. In 2017, he held a clipboard behind Heisman winner Baker Mayfield.

All the while, Murray barely played baseball (although he did spend last summer on the Cape). Now, he’s Oklahoma’s starting center fielder and also locked in another quarterback competition as a redshirt sophomore, juggling both sports at the same time.

Discussions about Murray invariably lead to which of those sport he should play professionally — and, as part of that, which path might be more lucrative for him. Because Murray is available for the MLB draft this June but not for the NFL’s own draft until next year, baseball has the opportunity to present its case first.

The size of his signing bonus obviously isn’t the only factor Murray is likely to consider. The prospect of a full year as a starter at a big football school — with the possibility of making a run at a Heisman — is probably appealing to him. The reality of football’s health risks — which, for a 5-foot-11 quarterback, might be even riskier — are also likely present.

That said, we can at least try to see if a clearly superior financial path lies ahead for Murray as he comes to a fork in the road this June. To do this, we have to know some things about each sport’s draft and then get some idea of where Murray might be drafted and how he would be compensated in each case.

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Some kind of cliff is almost certainly coming, but the Giants figure they could still have another run. For 2018 — and, right now, all that matters is 2018 — the Giants ought to be competitive. Far more competitive than they were last summer. You know the criticisms, though. The Giants are old. They might not have enough youth. And they also might not have enough power. That’s something they’ve worked to address, and their actual power is somewhat depressed by their own home ballpark, but recent Giants lineups haven’t instilled much fear. The club has been done no favors by Hunter Pence’s apparent decline.

Just the other day, 27-year-old righty Mac Williamson hit this home run.

On its own, that’s impressive. Righties don’t hit home runs to that area in San Francisco, particularly at night. But if you know anything about Williamson, you know he’s always had power. Every so often, Williamson would run into a ball and obliterate it. The issue, as it frequently is, was consistency. Williamson didn’t do that often enough. How many hitters do that often enough?

So let’s no longer look at this on its own. Since being recalled from the minors, Williamson has started five games. He homered in the first one. He homered in the fourth one. And he homered in the fifth one. Something might be brewing, here. Because Williamson isn’t just a player doing well. He’s a player doing well after overhauling the very core of his game.

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For most of his professional career, now in its 10th season, Christian Villanueva has been largely irrelevant.

He appeared on Baseball America’s top-100 list in 2012 — but as the last player on that list.

He was the “other guy” in the deal the that sent Kyle Hendricks — and Villanueva — from the Rangers to the Cubs for Ryan Dempster on July 31st, 2012.

While putting together a solid 2013 season in Double-A, he observed as the Cubs selected University of San Diego third baseman Kris Bryant with the second overall pick in the June draft. While Bryant was a level or two behind Villanueva in 2013 and 2014, the former soon passed the latter en route to the majors.

As Bryant was fashioning a Rookie of the Year campaign in 2015, Villanueva slashed .259/.313/.437 in Iowa with 18 home runs over 508 plate appearance as a 24-year-old in Triple-A. Not only was he blocked, but he wasn’t performing like someone who appeared to be a future regular. In 2016, he suffered a broken leg and missed the entire season.

At the end of the 2016 season, with seemingly no place for him in the Cubs’ infield or on their 40-man roster, Villanueva was granted free agency. He signed a minor-league deal 10 days later with the San Diego Padres.

At that point in time, Villanueva wasn’t particularly relevant in baseball circles. He wasn’t particularly relevant last season, either, when he slashed .296/.369/.528 with 20 homers in Triple-A, a trying year personally after his brother died in the spring.

He was a relative unknown for the first nine years of his professional career. That’s changed early this season.

A player with whom few were acquainted a month ago now leads baseball in wRC+ (236) among hitters with 70 or more plate appearances and is eighth in WAR (1.4) as the season approaches May.

He got our attention early with a three-homer game on April 3rd.

As seen here:

https://gfycat.com/MiserablePhysicalAdouri

And here:

https://gfycat.com/UniformWellgroomedDairycow

And here:

https://gfycat.com/VapidRewardingEuropeanpolecat

Villanueva doesn’t have exceptional exit velocity like his teammate Franchy Cordero, the latter perhaps representing the greatest curiosity in the majors. He ranks 193rd in exit velocity on fly balls and line drives early this season, according to Baseball Savant.

But he is doing several things unusually well.

For starters, he’s been air-balling since before air-balling was a thing. The only time Villanueva hit more ground balls than fly balls at a professional stop was in Rookie ball in 2009. Villanueva has the 23rd-lowest ground-ball rate (29.3%) in the sport.

His average launch angle of 19.4 degrees ranks ranks 30th and his 11 launches between 20 to 30 degrees ranks 30th, as well.

And it’s not just that he’s putting balls in the air, it’s where he’s directing them: to his pull side and in an extreme way.

As you’ll notice in the above clips, he’s even been able to hook breaking balls on the outside part of the plate over the left-field wall in a Gary Sheffield sort of way. He’s covering the whole plate and with power.

Villanueva leads the majors in pull percentage on fly balls and line drives (62.1%) and that’s in large part why he ranks first in the majors with a 36.8% HR/FB rate.

Can he continue to pull fly balls and line drives at such a rate? It’s rare. Since 2007, only 37 batters have accomplished it, including the aforementioned Sheffield twice.

If he can, he’s interesting. This isn’t just a bat-only corner bat, it’s one that plays third and one with which the Padres have even considered experimenting at shortstop.

Might this be for real?

It’s a unique batted-ball profile, one that should lend itself to constant home-run power so long as he can make contact and pull air balls. Another key is that Padres manager Andy Green said Villanueva has tightened up his strike zone.

“It’s been great to see Villa make the adjustments he’s made,” Green said. “When he got to the point where he was swinging at everything, you know that’s not going to play well in the long run. Seeing him make that adjustment, be a bit more patient, means more to me than seeing him hit three homers in a game.”

Maybe Green is seeing something from dugout level, but Villanueva doesn’t seem patient by the numbers: he’s swinging at out-of-zone pitches at 40% rate. While he never had major contact issues in the minors, he’s striking out on 30% of his plate appearances thus far in the majors. He has a swinging strike rate of 17.4%.

While he’s crushing fastballs and changeups, he’s swinging through an awful lot of curveballs and sliders. He’s not going to continue to see fastballs at a 56% rate.

If there isn’t yet a book on Villanueva, one is being written by opponents as we speak. He’ll have to make some adjustments now that he’s no longer a secret, now that he’s no longer irrelevant.

Many people had probably heard of Sean Manaea before Saturday. He was a consensus top-100 prospect before the 2015 and 2016 seasons. He was involved in a trade-deadline deal for Ben Zobrist as the Royals went on to win the World Series back in 2015. That sort of stuff is going to make him well known among those who follow baseball closely; however, even relatively committed fans might not have been paying attention to Manaea’s last two seasons in Oakland. A lot more people are likely to have heard of Manaea now that he’s pitched a no-hitter, the first one by an American League pitcher in nearly three seasons.

Manaea has made good on his pedigree — and Oakland’s decision to trade for him — with two successful seasons. He’s one of just 40 pitchers with at least 300 innings and an above average ERA and FIP across 2016 and 2017. The only pitchers as young or younger than Manaea on that list are and Zach Davies, Michael Fulmer, Carlos Martinez, and Robbie Ray. Manaea isn’t yet anybody’s version of an ace, but his 4.3 WAR from 2016 to 2017 represents the most of any Athletics pitcher. The A’s have averaged 90 losses over the past two seasons, and a roughly average pitcher on a bad team isn’t going to garner a lot off attention. There have been some signs, though — even before the no-hitter against the Red Sox this past weekend — that Manaea had taken a step forward this season.

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I guess you could say that the Angels are sputtering. After sprinting out to an astonishing 13-3 record, the club has lost five out of six, getting swept by the Red Sox and then losing two of three to the Giants. It was a fairly unremarkable weekend for the most interesting player in baseball. Shohei Ohtani was in the lineup twice, and he even batted cleanup. Though he recorded three singles, he didn’t drive in any runs, nor did he score any himself. He struck out two times on Sunday.

Meanwhile, context be damned, it was a tremendous weekend for the best player in baseball. In the eighth inning on Friday, Mike Trout homered. In the third inning on Saturday, Mike Trout homered. And in the eighth inning on Sunday, Mike Trout homered. Trout leads baseball with nine home runs. Over the weekend, he homered to left field, to center, and to right.

There exists a recurring joke(?) that baseball statistics start to matter the day that Trout assumes the lead in WAR. Barring a DL stint, it always feels like an inevitability. As of this Monday morning, Trout leads all players in WAR according to FanGraphs. And Trout also leads all players in WAR according to Baseball Reference. Here we are, and, you know, we haven’t checked in with Trout in a while. He seems to…be…better?

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PITTSBURGH — For as long a there have been coded messages designed to secretly pass information before prying eyes, there has been someone trying to break the encryption, from the Babington Plot to the Zimmerman Letter. For as long as there have been signals in baseball, there has been an opponent trying to identify a pattern and steal the signs. And with every game televised, with cameras everywhere, teams have never before been more paranoid about protecting their messages.

Complicating matters is the commissioner’s concern about pace of play, which has manifested itself this season in the form of a limit on mound visits. Now a pitching coach’s capacity to deliver a message directly is even more constrained. Pitching clocks might be on the horizon. The need for signals is even greater.

In the face of all this, at least one club appears has responded with their own innovation.

Last Sunday, the Washington Nationals broadcast noticed an unusual card sheathed in clear plastic on a wristband that was adorning the left arm of Rockies catcher Chris Iannetta. The MASN cameras zoomed in for a close-up in an attempt to satisfy the curiosity of color man F.P. Santangelo and to discern the contents of the card.

This author went into investigative mode, paused the television, pulled up the game on my laptop via MLB.TV, and took a screenshot of the image.

Attempts to unlock the code via crowdsourcing on social media were unsuccessful.

Is the cipher unbreakable? The Rockies think so.

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The player by whom I’m most fascinated in the major leagues is Javier Baez. It might be because, the first time I saw him, what popped into my head was “Alfonso Soriano.” It might be because Baez, despite being able to do this, and this, and this, has yet to post even a 2.5-win season. I admit to thinking, after Baez’s 2013 season, that he was going to be a superstar. It hasn’t happened yet. But the tools are so loud that I’ve never stopped looking for signs that a breakout might be coming.

If Baez were to break out, it would probably resemble his effort over the first three-plus weeks of the 2018 season. Including Sunday’s game, Baez has produced a 187 wRC+ and 1.2 WAR in 80 plate appearances. Both figures place him among the top 10 qualifiers in the majors. His .444 isolated-power mark is first among that same group.

Of course, it’s always best to view March and April statistics with three shakers of salt and a heavy dose of skepticism. Accordingly, when looking further into how Baez has succeeded this season, I expected to find a good bit of luck. Turns out, there might very well be something here.

Last week, Travis Sawchik posted an update on the fly-ball revolution which heavily featured Baez. But Baez’s numbers, so far this season, are very different beyond just an increased propensity for hitting fly balls. Consider the following:

It’s hard not to notice that one of these years is not like the others, small sample size notwithstanding. So far, Baez has walked more often than ever before and also struck out less often. To put it a different way, consider: Baez has drawn six walks so far this season. He drew 15 walks in all of 2016. Baez has struck out 17 times in 19 games this month. He struck out 21 times last April in 17 games.

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Each week, we publish in the neighborhood of 75 articles across our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
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