Brandon Guyer is currently baseball’s Hit-by-Pitch King. You could take that to mean this year, as Guyer leads all batters with 23 hit by pitches this season. Or you could take it to mean lately, as Guyer leads all batters over the last two years with 47 hit by pitches, and his 58 over the last three leaves him just one behind Anthony Rizzo’s league-leading total, despite Guyer having half the plate appearances over that stretch. Or, you could even take it to mean all-time, because if you set a career plate appearance minimum of 500 and search the entire history of modern baseball dating back to 1921, no one’s been hit more frequently than our recently anointed Hit-by-Pitch King.

HBP%, 1921-present, min. 500 PA

1. Brandon Guyer, 5.9%
2. Derek Dietrich, 4.7%
3. F.P. Santangelo, 4.0%
4. Ron Hunt, 3.9%
5. Carlos Quentin, 3.9%

The gap is remarkable. Throughout the entire history of modern baseball, at this particular skill, Brandon Guyer is truly a one-of-a-kind. And make no mistakes, it is a skill. Maybe “skill” isn’t the word you’d immediately think to use, but another way to think about a skill is the ability to repeatedly do something others can’t as a means to gain an advantage over the opponent. Most often, we see that manifested in a batter consistently getting hits, or stealing bases, or drawing walks. Oh, Guyer can hit, too, but where he really gains his edge is the being hit.

Eno Sarris wrote about this a bit when the Indians acquired Guyer at the deadline for low-level prospects Nathan Lukes and Jhonleider Salinas. The reason the Indians went out and got Guyer is because he can play all three outfield positions with what appears to be above-average ability, and mostly because he’s been one of baseball’s very best bats against left-handed pitching since he began receiving regular playing time in 2014. As Eno put it, Guyer improves the Indians’ ability to both hit lefties, and be hit by lefties. But plenty of batters have been able to hit lefties. Nobody in the history of the sport’s been hit like Guyer, so that’s where our focus turns.

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Tampa Bay has aggressively scouted the lowest levels of the minor leagues in Florida and Arizona looking to get in early on burgeoning young talent. In the Brandon Guyer deal, the Rays acquired soon-to-be 21-year-old RHP Jhonleider Salinas, who is of that ilk. Salinas has been up to 95 for me in the AZL, sitting 93-94 with inconsistent feel for a changeup in the 85-87 mph range as well as an upper-70s slider. Both have flashed average. Though his delivery is oddly paced, Salinas has a loose, quick arm which make his pitches projectable, though it’s unlikely he ever has a starter’s command. He has more upside than the typical return for a platoon outfielder.

The other piece in the deal is 2015 seventh-rounder Nathan Lukes, who’s had a successful statistical season, hitting .301/.375/.453 in the Midwest League before a promotion to Hi-A Lynchburg. Lukes is more about bat control than he is bat speed and I’m skeptical about his ability to keep hitting as he moves to the upper levels of the minors, though he’s an above-average runner and plays a decent center field and he might be an up-and-down fifth outfielder just based on that. He projects as an org player for me.

In the deal that sent Steve Pearce to Baltimore, the Rays acquired switch-hitting C Jonah Heim. He’s more comfortable hitting right-handed and has average power from that side already — and might grow into some more — but the carrying tool here is the defense. Heim is mobile for his size and blocks balls in the dirt well. He also has an above-average arm. If Heim can find that sweet spot of physical development that allow him to make more of an offensive impact than he’s currently capable while retaining the quickness that makes him a good defensive catcher, then he might be a regular. It’s more likely he ends up as a back-up or platoon type of catcher.

As it has been the past few years, the 2016 non-waiver trade deadline brought about a flurry of activity that was hard to keep up with even if it was the only thing you were doing. Since most of us have other things that we have to or would like to occupy our time with, we figured we would save you some hassle and create an omnibus post with all of our trade deadline content so that you have it all in one place. For clarity’s sake, I’m going to limit this to articles about trades that actually took place.

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The Indians, jilted in their effort to improve their offense behind the plate, went back to the trade trough for a smaller deal. They’ve added 30-year-old right-handed Brandon Guyer to their outfield, at the cost of two lower-level prospects in outfielder Nathan Lukes and right-hander Jhonleider Salinas, as Jordan Bastian is reporting.

Though Guyer is no Lucroy, he does fit a need on the Indians team — he can hit lefties well. So far, he’s been 42% better than league average against lefties. The Indians can skew lefty-heavy and have been 6% better than league average against righties so far this year, and 4% worse than average against lefties.

In the outfield, Tyler Naquin and Lonnie Chisenhall are lefties hitting the ball well, and though Naquin is starting against pitchers of both hands, Chisenhall has traditionally been platooned. Since right-hander Rajai Davis has been a bit better than a strict platoon player — he’s been league average against righties the last two years, at least, and provides base running and defensive value in the corner outfield — he might remain a full-time starter until Michael Brantley comes back. The team could easily platoon Chisenhall with Guyer.

Jose Ramirez is increasingly needed at third base with Juan Uribe’s poor play at the plate, so he’s not in the outfield mix post-Guyer, but there’s one more place the newcomer could help. Switch-hitting designated hitter Carlos Santana has really been struggling against lefties this year (64 wRC+) despite being fine against them for his career (128 wRC+).

Between right field and designated hitter, Guyer can at least step into the box against lefties and improve that poor team split against southpaws.

Stepping into the box is the key word here — nobody has been hit more by lefty pitchers in the last three years than Guyer. That’s how he’s turned a middling walk rate into a plus on-base percentage, and by all accounts, it’s a skill. Getting hit by pitches has the same year-to-year correlation (.641) as weighted on base average, and a better one than on-base percentage.

Guyer’s not a great defender, but he can help in most facets of the game, and will be a strong asset for the team when they’re facing a left-hander. Given that they gave up two prospects that weren’t on anyone’s top 100 lists and are far away from the majors, this trade made too much sense for the American League Central leaders to pass up.

A bevy of trades went down over the weekend, as this year’s trade deadline-season entered into full swing. Here are the prospects who changed teams the last couple of days, as evaluated by my newly updated KATOH system. KATOH denotes WAR forecast for first six years of player’s major-league career. KATOH+ uses similar methodology with consideration also for Baseball America’s rankings.

The Andrew Miller Trade

Clint Frazier, OF, New York (AL)

KATOH: 2.7 WAR
KATOH+: 4.7 WAR

Frazier had been promoted to Triple-A a week ago after slashing a strong .276/.356/.469 with 13 steals at Double-A this year. He pairs a high walk rate with decent power and speed, making him one of the most promising offensive prospects in baseball. Despite possessing average speed, Frazier plays mostly the corner-outfield spots these days, and hasn’t graded out particularly well there defensively. This suggests most of his big-league value will come from his hitting. Still, considering he’s a 21-year-old who’s already mastered Double-A, his future looks bright.

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The package netted by Brian Cashman and the Yankees in exchange for Andrew Miller is headlined by two big names in OF Clint Frazier and LHP Justus Sheffield (both of whom project as average-or-better regulars for me) and supplemented by two potential relievers in RHPs Ben Heller and J.P. Feyereisen.

Clint Frazier was the fifth-overall pick in the 2013 draft out of Loganville High School in Georgia. He was signed away from his commitment to Georgia with a $3.5 million bonus, the most lucrative bonus in Indians draft history. Frazier was a high-effort spark plug with elite bat speed, though he didn’t look like your typical high-upside prep draftee.

Before the draft, most organizations were correctly skeptical about Frazier’s long-term ability to play center field despite some of the run times he was posting (he ran a 6.6-second 60-yard dash at East Coast Pro) because of the way they anticipated his body to fill out. Frazier was listed at 5-foot-11, 185 pounds as an amateur but has grown into a listed 6-foot-1, 190, though he’s probably heavier than that. Despite his likely corner-only destiny, Frazier’s bat speed and advanced feel for hitting made him a worthy top-five selection, even if he had atypical physical projection.

Because of the superhuman circumference of his biceps and his generally muscular physique, Frazier is most often body-comped to Popeye the Sailor Man, a reference I hope doesn’t elude the youngest of our readers. Though he posts some plus run times to first base because of a natural jailbreak, he’s only about an average runner whose middling speed is masked by visible effort and good base-running instincts. Frazier’s speed and feel for center are enough that I think he’d be passable there in an emergency, but I wouldn’t advocate him playing there everyday. I think that, given his size and build just shy of age 22, Frazier is likely to slow down as he enters his prime. His arm strength should allow him to play in either outfield corner (though I think he fits best in left), where I believe he’ll be an average defender at maturity.

Frazier’s 80-grade bat speed has helped him generate a .278/.360/.452 career batting line. He’s hit despite the excessive loop his hands take back to the ball, a mechanical hiccup that I think causes his barrel to arrive late and robs him of the ability to pull the ball consistently. This could dilute his game power a bit, but Frazier is strong enough to muscle some of those balls out to right field anyway, and the new Yankee Stadium will be particularly kind to this flaw. Though his swing features a good bit of effort and Frazier has struggled some with strikeouts throughout his minor-league career, he still projects as an average Major League hitter. Again, the bat speed is the primary reason for this, but Frazier has shown that he has some barrel control and the ability to make adjustments in the middle of at-bats, as well. Reports on his makeup are glowing.

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Perhaps it’s fitting that, in a trade season without any big name stars, the biggest story that may emerge before the deadline is a deal that didn’t happen. As August noted over on InstaGraphs, the Indians and Brewers appeared to have struck a deal for Jonathan Lucroy last night, but this morning, Lucroy’s representatives informed the Brewers that he wouldn’t be waiving his no-trade clause in order to facilitate a trade, effectively killing the deal.

Whenever a player refuses to go along with an agreed-to trade, there’s always a backlash. If you’re a Brewers fan, you’re probably frustrated that a guy who has no future with the franchise prevented the team from landing a package of quality prospects, especially after making public comments the last few months about wanting to play for a contender. If you’re an Indians fan, you’re probably frustrated that maybe the best player on the market just refused to join your team, and instead of having a loaded roster headed into October, the team still has a big hole behind the plate. And if you’re August Fagerstrom, you’re frustrated that you had to throw away a nearly-finished article on the Indians decision to push all-in, and lose a nifty cooking analogy in the process.

So there’s a lot of frustration out there, since Lucroy’s decision prevented a lot of people from getting what they wanted. But this is one of those times when it’s definitely worth remembering that ballplayers are people, and when it comes to making decisions about his life, Jonathan Lucroy doesn’t really owe us anything.

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The recipe goes like this. Take an American League-best 59-42 record and sauté it in a 67-year World Series drought. Chop up a recently revamped, sneakily excellent farm system and add it to the pan, along with some league-worst catcher production and a relatively thin bullpen. Let cook for one trade deadline, pour over the long-term perils of building a team around starting pitching, and season with a touch of championship envy from your neighbors across the street. It’s the perfect recipe for pushing all-in, pulled straight out of the Cleveland Indians cookbook.

Let’s get the details out of the way now. Late last night, Ken Rosenthal broke the Jonathan Lucroy news, which has now fallen apart and is a story all of its own. This morning, Rosenthal broke some more news, as he’s wont to do, regarding Andrew Miller. The Miller news is official — no take-backs! — and the details are as follows:

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Around 11 p.m. EST last night, it looked like the Cleveland Indians had acquired catcher Jonathan Lucroy from the Milwaukee Brewers. Then, this morning, news broke that they’d gotten lefty reliever Andrew Miller from the New York Yankees, too. And then… they didn’t have Lucroy anymore. Isn’t trade deadline season fun?

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Tom Haudricourt had it first:

Jonathan Lucroy has exercised his no-trade clause and vetoed trade from #Brewers to Indians. Details to come.

— Tom (@Haudricourt) July 31, 2016

Perhaps the most important thing to understand here is that Lucroy had every right to do what he did, just as the Indians had every right to hold firm in their stance. See, Lucroy has a club option for 2017 that would pay him just $5.25 million, which is an absolute bargain. Lucroy knows this, and his agent knows this, and having the leverage to renegotiate your contract is the exact reason why players push for no-trade clauses in the first place.

Lucroy reportedly wanted the Indians to tear up that club option, effectively making him a half-season rental, so that he could hit 2017’s barren free agent market in four months and cash in. The Indians, understandably, were not willing to part with the same quartet of prospects for three months of Lucroy as they were for one year and three months of Lucroy, so they refused to negate the club option. The club option was a big reason why Lucroy was so valuable in the first place. The clubs reportedly will not renegotiate a lesser package, and talks appear to be dead.

Digging in a bit deeper from Lucroy’s standpoint, though, the choice seems a bit puzzling. Because let’s run through his alternatives. It’s possible Milwaukee is now unable to find a suitor for him before Monday’s non-waiver trade deadline, and he remains a Brewer through the end of the year, at which point the club will immediately exercise his club option and he will not be a free agent. Or, it’s possible Milwaukee deals him to an inquiring club like the Rangers, Mets, or even Red Sox, none of which are on Lucroy’s no-trade list, meaning he’d be unable to restructure his contract, meaning they’d immediately exercise his club option and would still not be a free agent. Essentially, Lucroy’s not going to become a free agent in 2017 no matter where he winds up, and now he’s declined the opportunity to play for the American League favorites, which flies in the face of his prior vocal desire to play for a winner. The only possible scenario where Lucroy gets his wish of 2017 free agency would be a trade to Detroit, under the condition that Detroit would be willing to pull from it’s already barren farm system for a rental, which has seemed doubtful all along and even moreso now, given Lucroy’s demands.

There’s some rumors floating out there that the Indians couldn’t promise Lucroy playing time in 2017 with Yan Gomes and Roberto Perez still in the fold which played a role in Lucroy’s decision, but those seem somewhat dubious, given Lucroy’s status as an unquestioned top-three catcher in the game and the recent struggles of Indians catchers. Perhaps more likely is that Cleveland was unable to promise Lucroy that they wouldn’t simply flip him in the offseason, which seemed like a strong possibility from the get-go, and Lucroy wasn’t interested in being traded again so soon.

Anyway, Dave Cameron will have more on this soon, and I’m sure more details will come out in the ensuing days. For now, we’re left with a reminder that not only can you not predict baseball, but you can’t predict baseball’s trade deadline, either.

You’ll have to forgive me if I think of Andrew Miller as the travellin man. Now in his 11th major league season, Miller is headed to his sixth major league team, all east of the Mississippi. But unlike most journeymen, for the most part the teams acquiring Miller have been quite excited about the possibility. The latest team to celebrate getting the lanky lefty are the Cleveland Indians, who are now looking quite formidable. But they’re not the only team looking formidable. The Yankees may no longer be in 2016 contention, but they’re setting up well for 2017 and beyond.
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