Heading into this season, not unlike most seasons over the past few years, not much was expected out of the Baltimore Orioles from the statistics-based community at FanGraphs. Despite winning at least 85 games in each of the past three seasons with two playoff berths and the division title in 2014, just seven of the 38 FanGraphs writers surveyed before the season expected the Orioles to make the playoffs. The projections pegged the Orioles for 79 wins and gave them just a 16% chance of making the playoffs. The offense figured to be led by Adam Jones, Chris Davis, and emerging star Manny Machado providing great production at the plate and in the field, but the pitching had some question marks with no starter projected to record an ERA or FIP below four. While Jones, Davis, and Machado pacing the offense, there are still questions about the pitching staff, but Ubaldo Jimenez has returned from a terrible 2014 to provide stability for an Orioles team once again in first place in the American League East.

Jimenez was once one of the best pitchers in major-league baseball. From 2008 to 2010 with the Colorado Rockies, Jimenez accumulated 15.3 WAR, ninth in MLB just behind Felix Hernandez and right ahead of Jon Lester, Adam Wainwright, and Jered Weaver. Inconsistency plagued Jimenez over the next three seasons with the Cleveland Indians, but a great second half in 2013 — when he posted a 1.82 ERA, 2.17 FIP and 3.0 WAR — earned him a four-year deal with the Orioles worth $50 million.

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The year of the prospect debut continues. Now that the Super Two deadline has come and gone, prospects are getting called up left and right. This past Sunday, we were treated to two debut events simultaneously, when both Byron Buxton and Francisco Lindor joined their respective major league clubs. I covered Buxton yesterday, so today, I’ll take a look at Lindor, who ranked 14th on Kiley McDaniel’s preseason top-200 list. In case you were wondering, a Kyle Schwarber piece is also in the works.

Unlike Buxton’s call up, which came sooner than many had anticipated, Lindor’s wasn’t much of a surprise. The 21-year-old was hitting .281/.348/.399 in Triple-A this year, after spending the final third of last season at the same level. Throw in that he’s a plus defensive shortstop by all accounts, and it’s probably safe to say that Lindor was the best player left in the minors before his promotion — a distinction that seems to change hands on a weekly basis.

Offensively, Lindor’s calling card is his ability to make contact. The switch-hitter struck out in just 15% of his minor-league plate appearances this year, which matches up with his 14% clip from his prior three-and-a-half years as a pro. Lindor made contact on 89% of his swings in the strike zone in Triple-A — the 29th-highest rate of 126 qualified Triple-A hitters. This bodes well for Lindor’s immediate future, as players with this skill set tend to have relatively smooth transitions to the majors.

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There’s a lot going on with the Cleveland Indians right now. They’re not playing to expectations, but the expectations remain. The team has the highest projected rest-of-season win percentage, and our playoff odds have them just a hair underneath the Kansas City Royals, who have played far better than Cleveland this year.

The Indians haven’t really played that poorly, though. On a component level, they’re doing a lot of things correctly. Their offense and baserunning are top notch, as is their starting rotation. For all the fits Cody Allen gave the team at the season’s start, their reliever FIP- is middle of the pack. Their defense has been a problem, though. By Def, they rank 28th; they are 26th by UZR/150 and 25th by DRS. As it is pondered how to fix the Indians’ defense, attention obviously turns to the farm system, where top prospect Francisco Lindor currently resides. As one with flashy leather tools on his tool belt, it would seem natural that Lindor would be summoned to help the cause — especially when the incumbent shortstop Jose Ramirez isn’t hitting all that well. Is that fair? Are the Indians being too conservative with Lindor?

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We love to discuss and analyze hitting and we love to discuss and analyze pitching, but when it comes to fielding, we often just lump it in with pitching and move on to cleaning the kitchen or preventing the kids from setting the TV on fire. Well put down that sponge and don that flame-retardant suit because we’re going to talk about fielding!

A quick perusal of the AL Central standings reveals a few things. The Royals still think they are in the 2014 playoffs. The Twins don’t know they’re not very good. The Tigers don’t know they’re too old. The White Sox can apparently sign whomever they want and they’ll still be the White Sox. And at the bottom, Cleveland fields the ball like their gloves are made of actual gold. Contrary to anything awards-related you might have heard, this is not good. It is a problem for more reasons than irony and it is a primary reason the Indians are where they are in the standings.

But I’m presupposing here. Cleveland is allowing 4.6 runs per game. Only Boston (4.8) is giving up more among American League teams. The problem doesn’t sound like fielding; it sounds like pitching! Let’s see.

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Eight Major League Baseball teams won an initial victory on Wednesday in two federal lawsuits contesting MLB’s minor league pay practices under the minimum wage and overtime laws. At the same time, however, the judge denied the league a potentially more sweeping victory in the cases.

The two lawsuits were filed in California last year by former minor league players who allege that they received as little as $3,300 per year, without overtime, despite routinely being required to work 50 or more hours per week during the playing season (in addition to mandatory off-season training). MLB and its thirty teams responded to the suit by challenging the plaintiffs’ claims on a variety of grounds. Wednesday’s decision considered two of these defenses in particular.

First, 11 of the MLB franchises argued that they were not subject to the California court’s jurisdiction and therefore must be dismissed from the lawsuit. Second, all 30 MLB teams argued that the case should be transferred from California to a federal court in Florida, which they argued would be a more convenient location for the trial.  In its decision on Wednesday, the court granted MLB a partial victory, agreeing to dismiss eight of the MLB defendant franchises from the suit due to a lack of personal jurisdiction, but refusing to transfer the case to Florida. Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday afternoon, the Indians lost another close game, which is the sort of thing I have to presume they find awful maddening. Among the few bright spots was Michael Brantley, who batted four times and wound up with a homer and a walk. Said homer was all of the Indians’ offense, and it did come close to holding up. Brantley’s been outstanding on a team that’s underachieved.

Let’s stick with the same baseball game for a moment. In the game, Matt Adams struck out swinging three times. Nick Swisher struck out swinging two times, and so did Roberto Perez. I don’t bring this up to say anything about Adams, Swisher, or Perez. Rather, it just seems like an appropriate lead-in to this astonishing fact: Brantley has struck out swinging two times all season.

What’s taking place for Brantley isn’t a breakthrough. Brantley’s breakthrough happened last year, following seasons of gradual development. He wound up a participant in the All-Star Game, and he finished third in the voting for the American League MVP. What’s taking place is a continuation, a demonstration that Brantley doesn’t intend to return to what he was before as an almost impossibly average ballplayer. Brantley doesn’t have a single flashy skill. His team is threatening to drop out of the race before the season’s half over. The ingredients are there for Brantley to become a forgotten star. Consider yourself urged to not forget him.

So far this season, Brantley has been a top-15 hitter, a hair behind Mike Trout and Joc Pederson. If you expand the window to the start of last season, Brantley’s been the fifth-best hitter in the game, between Jose Abreu and Andrew McCutchen. There’s nothing about his results that seems particularly unsustainable. His improved power is almost all to the same area, but in that way, Brantley is sort of an outfield equivalent of Kyle Seager. More than anything else, Brantley’s been able to combine a quick and smooth swing with a smart approach. He hasn’t meaningfully altered his swing. It just seems like he’s always getting smarter.

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Corey Kluber just regressed very quickly. After a high-profile winless start to his post-Cy Young-winning campaign that had many wondering what was wrong with him, the Cleveland right-hander struck out 18 Cardinals yesterday over eight innings, allowing only one hit and no walks along the way. In reality, there was nothing wrong with Kluber; his 5.04 ERA was mostly a mirage overlaying a 3.20 FIP, and given the fact that his peripherals were almost in line with last year’s stellar figures, better times were always ahead.

The better times came all at once, however, and they came in a package that almost made (and did make) history: Kluber finished the eighth inning just three strikeouts shy of the single game record for most in a game, 21. He didn’t get the chance to go out for the ninth, something that is being hotly debated, but the facts speak for themselves: Kluber had the most strikeouts in a game since 2004, he was only the second pitcher ever to have 18 Ks in eight innings (Randy Johnson, 1992), and his game score of 98 was the highest in an eight inning outing since 1914.

I won’t list all of the records because there are a lot of them, but the bottom line is that he had an almost impossibly great day. August summed up the impact on Kluber’s season stats well in this tweet:

Corey Kluber today: ERA from 5.04 to 4.27 FIP from 3.20 to 2.57 K% from 23.8 to 29.2 BB% from 5.7 to 5.0 Record from 0-5 to 1-5

— August Fagerstrom (@AugustF_MLB) May 14, 2015

That’s quite a turnaround, as you might expect, so let’s dive a little deeper into the start. We’re going to kick this off with a GIF. It’s a good GIF, and it illustrates a few points we’re going to talk about. The camera angle changes slightly as the innings progress, but it still gives us a pretty good idea of where Kluber was operating yesterday. Green circles are swinging strikeouts, red circles are looking strikeouts:

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A little over a year ago, the Cleveland Indians locked up much of their future core, signing Jason Kipnis, Michael Brantley, and Yan Gomes to contract extensions. Kipnis received double the guarantees of his teammates after a great, five-win 2013 season, but last year the fortunes reversed, as Brantley and Gomes both had breakout years and Kipnis struggled. Kipnis got out of the gate slowly in 2015, as the hits were not falling, but a solid approach taking the ball the other way has the new Cleveland leadoff hitter’s production on the rise.

Last April, Kipnis performed well in the first month after signing his $52 million extension, posting a .234/.354/.394 line with a 120 wRC+ that could have been much higher if not for a .250 BABIP. At the end of that same month, though, Kipnis strained his oblique on a swing, forcing him to miss a month. He never got going in his return, hitting just .241/.299/.315 with a 77 wRC+ in 442 plate appearances over the rest of the season despite an acceptable .297 BABIP. Kipnis finished his lost season having produced roughly a win.

Determining the effect of Kipnis’s oblique injury on his production the rest of the season is a tricky proposition. The injury does not require surgery, varies in severity and does not have a set recovery time. Chris Davis and Ryan Braun suffered oblique injuries last season and neither player had a good season, but Joe Mauer played well, albeit without power, after hitting the disabled list for the same injury. Jason Kipnis played through his struggles last year, but he did admit in the spring that the injury gave him trouble.
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Breaking out for three consecutive years certainly has some positive elements to it, but it also means that the first two breakouts did not completely take. After failing to make the rotation out of Spring Training, Danny Salazar might have moved himself from potential breakout star to post-hype sleeper. After his hot start, the sleeper tag has been removed, and only a potential star remains. Salazar has had periods of dominance in each of the last last three seasons, but those dominant stretches have been followed by problem periods. This is now the fourth time Salazar has been called upon to for an extended role in Cleveland’s rotation, and Salazar, helped by his previous experiences, is now pitching as well as anyone in Major League Baseball. Consider his first roughly-30 innings each time.
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We have a Madison Bumgarner, right now. He just put a whole team on his shoulders and blew our minds last October, even. And with that Paul Bunyanesque workmanlike yet fiery demeanor, he seems a snowflake. Unique and alone. But maybe we have we seen pitchers like him before?

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