This is not just about the Cardinals’ shortstop Paul DeJong. He’s the subject of the sarcastic tweet below, but the point is that this sort of sentiment — surprise at a walk from a player with poor plate discipline — is increasingly more common in today’s game.

PAUL DEJONG WALK

— Gif Weaver (@SimulacruMusial) July 28, 2017

It’s true, he walked! It’s also true he hasn’t walked much this year, and that he strikes out a lot. For the season, he has coupled a 2.6% BB% with a 31.3% K%. Yikes! But, with today’s power environment, this sort of plate discipline is more…allowable. Used to be, if you struck out four times for every walk, you just didn’t have a spot in baseball. That’s not true any more.

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The Padres have already made one trade of consequence, having sent Trevor Cahill, Ryan Buchter, and Brandon Maurer to Kansas City. Though the Padres aren’t exactly poised to do much of anything else, there’s one valuable asset they still possess that many expect to see moved. The deadline is a time when available relievers are prized more highly than ever, and I’m not sure there’s a reliever being more intensely pursued than Brad Hand.

The Padres have reportedly set a high price. Ownership says trade offers haven’t been adequate. You didn’t need links to know either of these things. We already know a trade hasn’t been agreed to yet, and that’s because the Padres have asked for more than has been offered to them. That’s always the case. I wouldn’t buy the idea that Hand will ultimately stick around. Though he is under team control through 2019, relievers can be too much of a risk for a rebuilding club to hang onto. Hand’s value could disappear in an instant. They might as well trade him, and if and when they do, the return should be substantial.

Because Hand could be this year’s Andrew Miller. He’s not actually Andrew Miller, of course. And even Andrew Miller in 2017 might not mean as much as Andrew Miller meant in 2016. But teams are all looking for that kind of weapon, and in Hand, there are more than enough parallels.

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Monday’s six-player swap between San Diego and Kansas City only saw one prospect moved, AZL infielder Esteury Ruiz, but left-hander Matt Strahm had only just exhausted his rookie eligibility before succumbing to a knee injury and is divisive enough in the scouting community to merit some discussion here. A reminder of the players involved:

Padres get

• LHP Travis Wood
• LHP Matt Strahm
• 2B Esteury Ruiz

Royals get

• RHP Travor Cahill
• RHP Brandon Maurer
• RHP Ryan Buchter

Let’s first touch on Strahm, who ranked 72nd overall on my top-100 list entering the season. A misdiagnosis of an injury that ultimately required Tommy John caused Strahm, who was drafted out of a junior college and wielding relatively newfound velocity at the time, to miss two years of pitching. That background caused some (including me) to forgive some of Strahm’s issues — chiefly his inconsistent command — in anticipation of late-coming progress due to a previous lack of reps. Strahm turns 26 in November and has continued to have issues throwing strikes, largely because his mechanics are very inconsistent. Additionally, Strahm’s stuff hasn’t always been crisp this year. At times he’ll touch 96 with his fastball and sit 93-94; he’s been 89-92, touching 94 at others, though. He works with multiple breaking balls — a mid-80s slider and a more vertically oriented curveball that sits 77-81 — generating in excess of 3000 rpms at times, and they’re both lethal when Strahm is locating them.

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

Enyel De Los Santos, RHP, San Diego (Profile)
Level: Double-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 24   Top 100: NR
Line: 7 IP, 3 H, 0 BB, 0 R, 8 K

Notes
The good-bodied De Los Santos, acquired from Seattle for Joaquin Benoit in November of 2015, missed bats with all three of his pitches last night, garnering swings and misses on his 92-95 mph fastball both within the strike zone and above it and with his fading changeup. De Los Santos also has a solid-average curveball that he can bend into the zone for cheap, early-count strikes the third time through the lineup, but he’s becoming more adept at burying it in the dirt when he’s ahead. He generally lives in the strike zone and is a good bet to start; the only knock I’ve heard from scouts is that the stuff plays down due to poor extension, which might explain the modest strikeout rate despite good reports on the stuff.

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The Royals are overachieving. They’d probably consider that an insult — I imagine they’d say they’re properly achieving — but the Royals have a winning record to go with a negative run differential, and right now they cling ever so barely to a would-be playoff spot. It’s a crowded race, to be sure, and the Royals could fall out of position any day, but they are very much in it. In what’s assumed to be the final ride with the current core, the Royals are again gunning for the playoffs, and they’re even within easy distance of the inarguably underachieving first-place Indians.

The Royals don’t have major young pieces to subtract. Nor do they have the budget flexibility to take on someone expensive. Yet, like any other team, the Royals have been looking to improve. Monday, they’ve done that. They just had to go to the Padres, and they’ve come away with a pretty fascinating stretch-run asset.

Royals get:

• Trevor Cahill
• Ryan Buchter
• Brandon Maurer

Padres get:

• Matt Strahm
• Travis Wood
• Esteury Ruiz

This is a package that includes several semi-familiar names, and Esteury Ruiz. Every single player is individually interesting, but it’s Cahill who most captures my attention. He’s a risk and a rental, but he could provide a jolt for the Kansas City starting staff.

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Can the home-run spike be enjoyed equally across the game?

Some hitters are in better position to take advantage of what might be a juiced ball. Some environments, like Yankee Stadium II and Chase Field, are more favorable to fly balls from the hitter’s perspective. With home-run rates rising per fly ball (HR/FB) across the game, however, it seems at times as though no park is immune to the invasion of the long ball. It seems like we’re running out of pitching-friendly environments.

So that brings me to the curious case of the Padres.

The Padres lead the National League in percentage of runs scored via the home run (46.2%). They Padres would have not been my first guess, but I asked FanGraphs’ own Joe Douglas to research teams’ share of runs off home runs and this is what he found:

Now, the Padres are also last in runs scored (305) — in large part because of their league-worst .295 on-base percentage — so it’s not as though this penchant for the long ball has translated directly to offensive proficiency. But the club ranks second in fly-ball percentage (37%), trailing only the outlier Mets (43%), and is tied for third in GB/FB ratio (1.20). The Padres, despite their home, are hunting fly balls and homers and are having some success.

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If you don’t follow the Padres, this might be the first time you’ve heard of Phil Maton. For that reason, we’ll start with the pronunciation of his name — it’s “May-tawn” — and the fact that he’s a 24-year-old right-hander whom San Diego drafted 597th overall in 2015 out of Louisiana Tech. Since being called up from Triple-A last month, he’s made 12 relief appearances, 11 of which have been scoreless.

And then there’s his calling card. Over 10.1 big-league innings, Maton’s four-seam spin rate has been 2,446 rpm, which is well above the MLB average of 2,222 rpm. For him, it’s actually lower than usual. According to Padres beat writer Dennis Lin, Maton’s spin rate was 2,572 in the minors last year, which would have ranked second to Matt Bush among big-league pitchers who threw at least 500 four-seam fastballs.

I saw the pitch in action, in Cleveland, on July 5. Facing the Indians, Maton threw 22 fastballs and three sliders while retiring five of the six batters he faced. He fanned three, with all of the strikeouts coming on his four-seam. Per usual, the pitch sat around 93 mph.

I talked to Maton prior to the game. Later, I spoke both with his pitching coach, Darren Balsley, and San Diego’s primary catcher, Austin Hedges. Those conversations centered around Maton’s explosive fastball and his work-in-progress slider. I also touched base with three of the Cleveland batters he faced — Jason Kipnis, Francisco Lindor, and Bradley Zimmer — to get their first impressions of the up-and-coming right-hander.

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Phil Maton: “I didn’t find out about [the spin rate] until I got drafted. When I was in short-season ball, the video guys told me that my spin rate was one of the highest they’d ever seen. At the time, I didn’t really think much of it. I was like, ‘Alright, cool, but I don’t really know how that helps me out.’ As I’ve progressed, I’ve realized that is what allows me to pitch up in the zone. My four-seam carries a little better, carries longer, than the average person’s four-seam.

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

Jacob Nix, RHP, San Diego (Profile)
Level: Hi-A Age: 21   Org Rank: 7   Top 100: HM
Line: 9 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 11 K

Notes
A groin strain sidelined Nix until late May. Since returning, his fastball has been in the mid-90s, touching 97, and his curveball flashes plus. He has an inning-eater’s build (I have a Jon Lieber comp on the body) and throws lots of strikes. He’s rather firmly an overall top-100 prospect.

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

Thomas Szapucki, LHP, New York NL (Profile)
Level: Low-A  Age: 21   Org Rank: 7   Top 100: NR
Line: 6 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 0 R, 10 K

Notes
Szapucki missed all of April and May with a shoulder injury. Sunday was his fourth start of the year and he worked more efficiently and missed more bats than he had in his previous three appearances. Szapucki already boasts a plus fastball/curveball combination and he’s a potential No. 3 starter if he can develop a changeup and/or plus command of his breaking ball. Should he fail to, then there’s some concern that Szapucki’s low-3/4 arm slot might be an issue against upper-level right-handed hitters and limit his effectiveness and role. He’s had a back and shoulder issue during his pro career and made many starts on extended rest. Sunday’s came with a full week between starts.

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It’s now been six years since Buster Posey lost most of the season due to a broken leg bone suffered in a home plate collision. Two years later, Major League Baseball adopted Rule 7.13 to deal with collisions at home plate, meaning we are now in the fourth year of the rule designed to prevent serious injuries like the one Posey suffered as well as limit the damaging effects of concussions. There are two parts to the rule, one for catchers and one for runners, and together, collisions at the plate have become pretty non-existent. That’s what makes Monday night’s collision–when Anthony Rizzo barreled down the line into Austin Hedges–notable. It’s now a rarity, but Rizzo’s play was in clear violation of the rule.

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