We live in an era of home runs. You know that. It’s been discussed ad nauseam on your favorite team’s broadcast, on your Twitter feed, and by your favorite baseball writers. We’re going to talk about it some more now.

The cause for this spike is manifold. Players are swinging up and for the fences, as you may have heard. They’re better-conditioned and better-fed. We understand the science and kinetics of hitting better than ever. The ball is quite possibly juiced. It’s a perfect storm of dingeritis that’s led to a fascinating new world where it’s not just guys like Aaron Judge and Paul Goldschmidt who are in scoring position the very second they step into the box. Well over 100 batters have hit at least 10 home runs, and we’re not out of June yet. The list grows to more than 240 batters if you include those who have hit at least 5, which means they’ve got a fair shot of getting to double digits before the season is out.

So yeah, we’re going coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs here. Which leads to an interesting question: if this continues, if the ball really is juiced and if players are going to keep chasing fly balls when they’re in the box, if anyone can hit the ball out, doesn’t that make a home run less special? Doesn’t that make a home run less valuable? Doesn’t it alter projections for amateurs and prospects?

There’s two important lines of thought there, so we’ll tackle the inside-baseball stuff first. If you’re running a baseball team, you’re probably no longer getting worked up over a free agent with 20-homer power because of his power alone. Why dish out a two- or three-year deal for a veteran when there are kids in your minor-league system who can replicate that kind of power on the cheap? Power was one of the last remaining calling cards of free agents. Defense and speed can decrease with time, but veterans could get paid for their bats. Rookies and journeymen like Yonder Alonso are suddenly tapping into previously unrecognized reservoirs of power with wild success. Not everyone has a Cody Bellinger sitting around at Triple-A, but given the way the ball is flying around and the way hitters are structuring their swings, you may be able to scrounge up 15 bombs for a league-minimum salary.

We already saw some of this over the winter when players like Chris Carter had a hard time finding work. Power is coming even easier now. It’s becoming less of a defining tool. If everyone can hit 15-20 bombs, it then becomes a question of what else a player can do for you, and for how much. Can you field well? Can you play multiple positions? Do you walk a lot? Can you do all that for cheap?

There’s more to this than team-building and the squeezing out of veterans, too. There’s a fan’s side to this too, and it’s probably more important. We’re now witnessing home runs more often than ever. Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa aren’t running around out there anymore. The word “anabolic” isn’t in the papers all that often anymore. This is more dramatic than the steroid era. Maybe we’ll one day call this the “uppercut era,” the “juiced-ball era,” or the “three-true-outcomes era.” But this is clearly a different animal. Balls that have never really gone out before are going out. Is there a saturation point?

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Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Breiling Eusebio, LHP, Colorado (Profile)
Level: Short Season  Age: 20   Org Rank: NR   Top 100: NR
Line: 5 IP, 4 H, 0 BB, 1 R, 7 K

Notes
It’s been a strong 2017 affiliate debut for Eusebio, who looked quite good throughout extended spring training, his fastball often sitting 90-94 with some tail. His low-70s curveball improved as we inched closer to the summer and it, too, was missing bats as June arrived and is currently average, flashing above. Eusebio has trouble timing his delivery, which can negatively impact his command, but he’s deceptive, throws hard for a lefty starting-pitching prospect, and has breaking-ball feel. Very much a prospect.

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The Mets were supposed to be good. Heading into the season, we projected them for 87 wins, a bit behind the NL’s elite trio, but solidly among the top teams that were expected to contend for a playoff spot. With Yoenis Cespedes back in the fold and a strong pitching staff led by a dynamite rotation, expectations were high.

Then, everyone got hurt. Seth Lugo and Steven Matz couldn’t make it out of spring training, thinning the team’s expected rotation depth. Lucas Duda and Wilmer Flores went down at the same time in April, leaving the team without a real infield. Cespedes got hurt a week later, then Noah Syndergaard’s arm started hurting a few days after that. Travis d’Arnaud injured his wrist in the first week of May. Jeurys Familia developed a blod clot not long after. Asdrubal Cabrera hurt his thumb.

Even the guys who aren’t officially hurt might not be healthy. Matt Harvey‘s stuff has backed up to the point that he doesn’t really miss bats anymore, and now looks like a back-end starter. Robert Gsellman’s spin rates have nosedived, and his effectiveness has gone with it. Jose Reyes isn’t hurt, but given his 53 wRC+ and below-average defense at third base, the team would be better if he were.

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Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Michael Paez, INF, New York NL (Profile)
Level: Low-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: NR   Top 100: NR
Line: 4-for-5, HR

Notes
Paez was the best prospect on Coastal Carolina’s 2016 College World Series championship team. He’s 5-foot-8 but has sneaky pull power to which he’s always been able to get in games despite high strikeout totals. He’s 22 and a college hitter at Low-A so his season .306/.404/.543 line needs to be taken with a large grain of salt, but he could be a big-league bench piece as a power-before-hit infielder who can play second and third base.

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When you look up and see that the Athletics are in the midst of a two-game mid-week series against the Marlins in late May, you might suspect that the major-league baseball schedule is simply an exercise in randomness. At this point in the campaign, that’s actually sort of the case. The combination of interleague play and the random vagaries of an early-season schedule conspire to mean that your favorite team hasn’t had the same schedule as your least favorite team. Let’s try to put a number on that disparity.

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Let’s begin with something pleasing. We’re all in a good mood. Here’s Michael Conforto hitting an unnecessary home run on Tuesday:

That home run didn’t matter in part because, earlier in the game, Michael Conforto hit a home run. And it didn’t matter in part because, earlier in the game, Conforto hit a two-run single. It was a good night to be Michael Conforto. It’s been a good year to be Michael Conforto.

As things stand, Conforto ranks 11th among position players in WAR. The weird news is he’s behind Zack Cozart. The better news is he’s tied with Buster Posey. Just by hitting, Conforto’s fifth in wRC+, between Ryan Zimmerman and Bryce Harper. There was concern coming into the season that Conforto might not end up with enough playing time. Circumstances have allowed him to play plenty, and now he’s made himself impossible to sit.

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PITTSBURGH – Daniel Murphy spends much of his offseason in his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida, where he hits in the batting cages of his alma mater, Jacksonville University. He works out there alongside his brother, who is also an alumnus of the program and who is also a local high-school coach. At the university, with his brother’s high-school team, Murphy will often talk about the craft of hitting with amateur players.

Murphy is, of course, one of a number of hitters who has changed his swing, improved his launch angle, and enjoyed significant success and improvement. He was an early adopter along with the usual names mentioned like Josh Donaldson and J.D. Martinez. But as Murphy talks to players at the grassroots level about swing concepts, he notices there are often curious looks when he discusses the idea of hitting fly-balls.

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We’re a little early for Dave Cameron’s annual must-read Trade Value series, but I suspect Matt Harvey won’t be appearing in it this year. I feel quite certain about that prognostication — even if Harvey avoids exile to the minor leagues and returns instead to his vintage 2013 form over the next few weeks.

Harvey met with the media Tuesday afternoon at Citi Field and tried to begin taking some accountability for his recent actions.

More from Matt Harvey pic.twitter.com/AgoCgZLdDi

— SNY (@SNYtv) May 9, 2017

While Harvey initially claimed that an innocent headache prevented him from showing up at the ballpark on Saturday, the New York Post later reported that Harvey’s headache was perhaps a product of self-inflicted dehydration.

The “Dark Knight” was celebrating a late Cinco de Mayo at 1Oak until 4 a.m. Saturday — just hours before he failed to show up for a game at Citi Field, reportedly because of a “migraine,” sources said.

If true, it’s remarkable that folks still believe they can escape truth in an era of smart phones and social media.

A day earlier, Jon Heyman reported that Harvey and his agent Scott Boras planned to file a grievance over the suspension. It was suggested that the Harvey camp was displeased with the Mets’ decision to send team officials over to Harvey’s apartment for a check-in. Whatever the case, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of trust here.

The Mets’ 2017 season has become quite the soap opera, and it stars Harvey.

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The Mets, of course, were dealt a significant setback with the news on Noah Syndergaard earlier this week. Steven Matz is on the DL and has a long injury history. Robert Gsellman has some ominous velocity and spin-rate trends. That represents the majority of the starting-rotation arms upon which the Mets were counting this season.

Then there’s Matt Harvey.

The Mets — along with the entirety of baseball — had no idea what to expect from Harvey entering this season. There were plenty of concerns this spring, certainly, when Harvey was sitting at 92 mph with his fastball. The concerns have continued into the regular season.

Harvey struggled again on Tuesday in Atlanta. A month into the season, the right-hander now owns a 5.14 ERA and even worse 5.75 FIP. He’s striking out a paltry 13.5% of batters while walking 8.8% — not even a five-point difference. Here, the sake of context, are Harvey’s K-BB% marks over the last four seasons: 23.2% (2013), 20% (2015), 12.7% (2016) and 4.7% (2017).

The 2013 and 2015 versions of Harvey seem less and less likely to reappear.

Said Mets manager Terry Collins to reporters present:

“You’re talking about a guy that did not pitch very much last year. He’s coming back from a surgery that not a lot of guys have really come back to be 100 percent again. Especially when you’ve lost the feeling in your fingers and you’ve got to regain the feel of the seams.”

That’s not encouraging. That sounds like the description of a pitcher who has a long way back if he’s ever going to return to something near to what he was, which was a legit ace. Harvey had surgery in July for thoracic outlet syndrome. (Some PITCHf/x forensics on the issue were conducted here by Mike Sonne.)

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When Noah Syndergaard showed up to spring training having indulged in “Bowls of Doom” to gain 17 pounds with a view towards throwing even harder — this, after a season in which his fastball averaged 98 mph — alarm bells began clanging around the country. Among those waving red flags was the present author.

Here’s what I wrote on Feb. 13, 2017:

As exciting as all this [added strength] sounds, perhaps someone should pump the breaks. For a pitcher who threw harder than any other starter, who threw a variant of a fastball on 60% of his offerings, more velocity might not be such a great development. While we don’t have a full understanding of why so many pitchers are breaking down, perhaps the body is being pushed beyond its physical limits with the strength and velocity increases in the game. No one, among starter pitchers, is pushing limits like Syndergaard.

After pushing the limits in 2016, Syndergaard was attempting to push even harder against them this year. Perhaps he pushed too hard, flew too close to the sun, etc. Pitchers’ ligaments and soft tissue aren’t unlike wax wings; velocity, not unlike the sun. Record pitch speeds have wrought a record numbers of injuries. That Syndergaard is on the DL is, sadly, one of the least surprising developments early this season.

Worst Final Jeopardy ever. https://t.co/hLDik6IqT3

— Zachary Levine (@zacharylevine) May 1, 2017

Sports-injury expert Will Carroll told FanGraphs on Monday that Syndergaard’s offseason work was likely unhelpful.

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