Following Sunday’s conclusion of the World Series, there began the relatively brief Quiet Period — a period of time during which teams have exclusive negotiation rights with pending free agents. After the Quiet Period, anybody can reach out to anybody. Any player can sign with any team that he wants. The Los Angeles Dodgers had a pending free agent in Brandon League, and they didn’t want to risk exposing him to the open market, so Tuesday night, word got out that the Dodgers had signed League to a three-year contract.

With a fourth-year vesting option, based on games finished. As is, the three guaranteed years are worth $22.5 million. That is, the Dodgers signed League to a three-year, $22.5 million contract. The contract could end up being bigger than that, when it’s all said and done. We can all agree that paying this sort of money for a non-elite setup man would be ridiculous. And that isn’t what the Dodgers have done, as Ned Colletti says that League will be the team’s closer going forward. Closers make more money. It’s in the very definition of “closing”.

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The presentation of Joe Saunders as a joke has escalated ever since the Orioles had the gall to name him starter for Friday’s American League Wild Card game. Nobody is accusing Joe Saunders of greatness, but he has made a living on competency. He has a 98 career ERA- — just slightly better than average. Aggressively competent, even.

Still, it’s understandable why Saunders is treated as the kind of pitcher who should be hit hard. In both browsing his statistics and watching his pitches, he has no discernible strengths. He lives in the high 80s with his fastball. He doesn’t throw a curveball with exceptional break. He has a changeup, but he isn’t a changeup artist of the Shaun Marcum or Johan Santana variety.

But in one way, Joe Saunders has been one of the major league’s best pitchers since 2008:

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Lost in all the hoopla created by Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera’s run at the Triple Crown, and the various pennant races is the fact that Joe Mauer is having another amazing season. He currently leads all of baseball with a .414 OBP and has what feels like the quietest 141 wRC+ in baseball history. He is seeing more and more time at first base and DH these days (only 70 starts behind the plate this year), but that’s an amazing offensive effort regardless of position. It’s part of the reason why his performance on Wednesday afternoon is so noteworthy.

The 29-year-old Mauer has now played 1,059 games in his big league career, and on only six occasions has he struck out three (or more) times in a single game. Two of those six games came back in 2005, which was essentially his rookie season after the knee injury in 2004. Another came in 2007, another in 2009 (his only career four-strikeout game), and two this year. Ryan Dempster got him three times during interleague play back in July, and yesterday CC Sabathia struck him out in each of his first three at-bats. That’s not all: those three strikeouts came on nine total pitches.

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The current talk of the National League is a reliever turned starter with a small body type dominating the league with three solid pitches and, specifically, a killer changeup. Kris Medlen’s season has been one of the more interesting storylines this year, which has to do with both his impressive performance as a starter and the fact that he has done so for a contending team. In the American League, there is a pitcher that I find to be strikingly similar to Medlen. They both have a similar body type, they both have changeups that make hitters look absolutely silly, and they both have displayed top notch command. While he will need a bigger sample size to be evaluated more in depth, Erasmo Ramirez looks like he has the tools to be a rather successful starting pitcher.
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One of the bigger pre-season storylines this year was the numerous relievers who were being used in their respective rotations. A number of them struggled, but a few have exceeded expectations. Jeff Samardzija has relied heavily on his split-fingered fastball and has had a solid season; Lance Lynn was an all-star; and then there’s Chris Sale — the player who made the most seamless transition.

Sale relies on his slider more than all but five qualified American League starters, and while his fastball and changeup combination has been big reasons for his success, the slider without a doubt is his out pitch. As a reliever, Sale got away with being close to a two-pitch pitcher, despite having a solid changeup in college. He used his changeup about 12% of the time against righties, but Sale and the White Sox staff understood the pitch needed to become a more heavily used offering if he was going to be successful in the rotation. Sale now throws the pitch 25% of the time against righties, though he doesn’t use it at all against lefties. The pitch’s success has been a large reason why righties have just a .289 wOBA against Sale — an impressive number for a first-year starter. But even with the success of his changeup, only 21 of the 162 batters he has struck out fell victim to the changeup. The slider, on the other hand, has been the pitch. It’s been used on 95 of his 162 strikeouts and accounts for 59% of his Ks.

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As I was flipping channels last night I managed to stumble on the Padres – Dodgers game. Andrew Werner, a 25 year-old rookie making only his third career start, was on the hill for the Padres. It only took me a few pitches to determine I should stick with the game for a little while.

Although the Dodgers would eventually win the game in extra-innings, Werner pitched a great game as his final line can attest to (6 IP, 8Ks, 1BB). And although he posted an equally dominant performance in his previous game against the Atlanta Braves (6 IP, 7Ks, 0BBs), the way he went about shutting down the Dodgers was quite different.

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While Craig Kimbrel has been absolutely lights out all season, it is possible that the most important member of the Braves’ pitching staff all season has been Kris Medlen. Between 38 appearances as a reliever and six starts, Medlen has thrown 95 innings and recorded an incredible 1.71 ERA.

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Source: FanGraphs

Baseball statistics can be very quirky, especially the ones we carry here at FanGraphs. Players can be worth half-a-win, a hit can produce fractions of the run, stuff like that can be difficult to accept at first. Things happen in wholes in the real world — a team gets credited either with one full win or no win in any single game, that hit either drives in a run or it doesn’t — and understanding that these bits and pieces contribute to the whole isn’t exactly something that gets explains clearly or often enough.

Last night, Red Sox closer Alfredo Aceves lost more than one game. The Sox and Angels played a wild back-and-forth affair with seven total lead changes, including five after the seventh inning. The 29-year-old Aceves was on the mound for three of those lead changes despite only being credited with one full inning of work. He allowed three runs in the top of the ninth to blow a two-run lead, was let off the hook when Cody Ross hit a solo homer to knot things up in the bottom half, then went back out to the mound in a tie game in the tenth only to surrender two more runs.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates have built up a pretty good farm system under Neal Huntington’s watch. Our own Marc Hulet ranked them ninth before the season, and over at ESPN, Keith Law ranked them eighth. They have also simulteanously been upgrading their Major League core, and have morphed into a contender this season. To do this at the same time, you have to get a little bit lucky, and you have to be a little bit creative and you can’t be squeamish about taking risks. They showed the latter two elements in trades both yesterday — when they acquired Travis Snider — and today by making two deals that essentially swap out Casey McGehee for Gaby Sanchez.

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The Braves are taking a long-term risk for a short-term gain in trading Arodys Vizcaino and Jaye Chapman for Reed Johnson and Paul Maholm. The most talented player in the deal is obviously Arodys Vizcaino, but he also comes with a ton of question marks.

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