Loudly and quietly, the Blue Jays made a series of improvements around deadline time. Very conspicuously, they added an incredible shortstop. Very conspicuously, they added an incredible starting pitcher. Somewhat conspicuously, they added a decent left fielder. It was the bullpen work that went almost unnoticed. Armed with some new personnel, and with some shifted personnel, the Jays came away from July with a stronger relief unit. Really, they came away with a stronger everything, and the team has taken off, but the bullpen, now, seems like it’s become a strength. It’s just not what drew the headlines.

The Rangers aren’t the Blue Jays, but they are in the race, and there are a few parallels here. Something in the vicinity of a .500 team around deadline time. A huge impact addition, in the form of Cole Hamels. And a very quietly strengthened bullpen, that’s given the Rangers some late-inning reliability for maybe the first time all year. Let’s face it — the second wild card isn’t going to a great team. The Rangers aren’t a great team. They’re becoming a solid team, however. A team that might as well deserve to keep playing. It was an awful big August, and it was a month made possible by improvement in a bullpen no one was paying attention to.

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In batted-ball velocity numbers, we’ve got a new toy. It’s hard to know exactly how to use it, as it goes with many new statistical toys. Without even a full year of sample size, we have no idea how accurate the data coming in is, how sticky batted-ball velocity is year to year, or how much of a skill it is. Even worse, the data is incomplete — velocity without angle is somewhat useless, and the angle that’s coming through is only for home runs.

Is there a short-term fix? Is there a way to combine batted-ball velocity with existing stats to make it useful in the short term? I think there might be, and I think the stories of Xander Bogaerts and Adrian Beltre might help us find this patch.

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Madison Bumgarner starts for the Giants today, in Atlanta. That’s good for them, for two reasons. One, it means the Giants get to have Bumgarner pitch. Two, it means the Giants get to have Bumgarner hit. Bumgarner regularly dazzles in batting practice, and that isn’t where his ability is confined — in his most recent start in an NL ballpark, he went deep. Bumgarner was outspoken in his disagreement with Max Scherzer earlier in the year, when Scherzer lobbied for the NL to adopt the designated hitter. Bumgarner, see, takes pride in his slugging, and he wouldn’t want to lose that advantage.

Not that Bumgarner was always much at the plate. As recently as 2013, he was a mess, like pretty much every other pitcher. But then he devoted more attention to the offensive side of things, and his successes have been numerous and remarkable. In honor of Bumgarner’s hitting, then, I’ve put together this poll-post, comparing Bumgarner and Josh Hamilton. Hamilton has obviously been a disappointment since signing his nine-figure contract, but he remains a threat, batting fifth or sixth in a Rangers lineup with a lot of name value. Below, there will be six polls, for six statistics. I’ll show you the high value, and ask you to pick which guy is responsible. Answers are revealed at the end. Good luck!

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On July 24, in what amounted to my FanGraphs debut, I wrote in so many words that Matt Harrison is – and I quote – “back.” Well, he’s back, all right – back on the disabled list, not only with stiffness in the surgically repaired back that kept him sidelined for the better – or, really, worse – part of two years but also with a diagnosis of hypothyroidism.

As I wrote in so many words: mercy.
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This breakdown starts with the Scott Kazmir deal on July 23, but there weren’t any trades from the 16th to the 23rd, so this covers the whole second half of the month, trade-wise, up until now. I count 25 total trades with prospects involved in that span that add together to have 58 prospects on the move. Check out the preseason Top 200 List for more details, but I’ve added the range that each Future Value (FV) group fell in last year’s Top 200 to give you an idea of where they will fall in this winter’s list. Also see the preseason team-specific lists to see where the lower-rated prospects may fall within their new organization.

40 FV is the lowest grade that shows up on these numbered team lists, with 35+ and 35 FV prospects mentioned in the “Others of Note” section, so I’ll give blurbs for the 40 FV or better prospects here. I’ve also linked to the post-trade prospect breakdown for the trades I was able to analyze individually, so click there for more information. Alternately, click on the player’s name to see his player page with all his prior articles listed if I didn’t write up his trade.

I opted to not numerically rank these players now, but I will once I’ve made the dozens and dozens of calls necessary this fall and winter to have that level of precision with this many players. Look for the individual team lists to start rolling out in the next month, with the 2016 Top 200 list coming in early 2016. Lastly, the players are not ranked within their tiers, so these aren’t clues for where they will fall on the Top 200.

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What a time to be alive. In a span of hours, Carlos Gomez was almost traded to the Mets; Wilmer Flores cried on the field; and the Dodgers, Braves and Marlins all but completed a deal that seemingly involves dozens of players. But most exciting of all, Cole Hamels is heading to the Rangers in an eight-player deal that also includes Jake Diekman, Matt Harrison, Nick Williams, Jorge Alfaro, Jake Thompson, Jerad Eickhoff and Alec Asher. Here’s what my fancy computer math has to say about the five prospects headed to Philly in the trade. Read the rest of this entry »

In case you missed it, I’ve broken down the prospects in the Tyler Clippard (A’s to Mets) deal, the Troy Tulowitzki (Rockies to Blue Jays) trade and in one post yesterday covered the prospects in the deals of Ben Zobrist (A’s to Royals), Jonathan Papelbon (Phillies to Nationals), David DeJesus (Rays to Angels), and David Murphy (Indians to Angels) trades. It sounds like there’s still a few more deals to come, but last night’s huge deal sending Cole Hamels to the Rangers has plenty of interesting young players to cover.

In short, scouts were surprised that the Phillies sent Hamels to Texas without getting 3B Joey Gallo, RHP Alex Gonzalez or RF Nomar Mazara, but by paying down Hamels and taking Matt Harrison’s contract, Philly got three prospects from Texas’ top tier, which makes it a nice trade for both teams at this point. You can see Eno’s take on the deal from a big-league perspective and also see my preseason reports on the Rangers deep system and my preseason Top 200 for more notes/context on these players.

Jorge Alfaro, C, Philadelphia Phillies, FV: 55

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A lot of pitchers are flashier than Cole Hamels, and every year, a few new guys pop up and post better seasons, only to disappear again into the night not long after. Hamels doesn’t throw 100 and his out-pitch is a change-up instead of a highlight-friendly breaking ball, but with his command of a full repertoire and remarkable consistency, Hamels has established himself as one of the game’s best pitchers.

After a decade in Philadelphia, Hamels now heads to Texas to try and help turn another team into a winner. After a long time on the trade block, Hamels will reportedly be shipped to the Rangers — along with lefty reliever Jake Diekman — for outfielder Nick Williams, catcher Jorge Alfaro, and pitchers Jake Thompson, Jerad Eickhoff, Alec Asher, and Matt Harrison, though the latter is in the deal for contract reasons rather than as a future asset.

The focus will likely be on the the package coming to Philadelphia, given all the words that have been written estimating what Hamels would command as a trade chip, but while the Phillies didn’t get Joey Gallo, Nomar Mazara, or Alex Gonzalez, the Rangers depth of prospects means that the Phillies still got real talent back even without demanding a team’s best young players. The three primary prospects in the deal were all ranked in the team’s top 10 by Kiley McDaniel this spring, with Alfaro and Thompson both grading out as 55 FV guys, and Williams at 50. Kiley has provided a thorough examination of the players going to Philadelphia. The bottom line, though: these are good prospects that the Rangers surrendered.

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When Rangers lefty Matt Harrison hobbled off the mound in the second inning of a game against the Astros in May of 2014, you, like any rational observer (such as the esteemed yours truly), probably experienced the lumbar equivalent of a sympathetic pregnancy. You probably winced — and just in case the initial wince didn’t register with the awww-jeeeez registry, winced again — and then reached for your lower back, wiggled it around while listening to the unmistakable sounds of Pachinko and fell to the floor in unmitigated agony after reaching for the business card of a chiropractor.

Or something like that.

Mercy.

It was painful to watch, and more painful, surely, for poor Matt Harrison to bear. Having already undergone a pair of 2013 surgeries to repair a herniated disc, Harrison, with his head bowed and back slightly but tellingly bent, walked gingerly to the dugout that day with four earned runs (in 1.2 innings) in his wake and, worse, one lumbar spinal disc fusion surgery in his future.

Couched in the careful language of objective reports were subtle eulogies to his once ascendant career, little nods to the possibility — the probability — that the 6-foot-4 former All-Star had thrown his last big league pitch, or, really, his last pitch, period. After all, nobody else in the history of baseball — a sport, mind you, in which unfettered actions of the spinal column are pretty key to performance — had ever undergone the same surgical procedure, let alone returned from it. In a season that saw so many Rangers sojourn in long disability, Harrison seemed bound for a permanent stay.

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Yovani Gallardo was supposed to slot into the Texas Rangers rotation as the number-three starter behind ace Yu Darvish and Derek Holland. Those plans quickly disintegrated after Darvish underwent Tommy John surgery and Holland pitched just one inning before suffering shoulder problems that will keep him out until at least August. Gallardo, once an ace for the Milwaukee Brewers, was traded in the offseason for a package of prospects that contained more quantity than quality. Gallardo has provided a solid return for the Rangers, just finishing a 33.1-inning scoreless streak and serving as the team’s best pitcher as the Rangers hover around .500 with perhaps an outside shot at a playoff spot. A more realistic look at the team suggests Gallardo’s value is as high as it will be and the Rangers should begin shopping him as the trade deadline approaches.

With Darvish and Holland, the Rangers might have had a playoff-caliber team, one deserving to be buyers instead of sellers. Given the replacement-level pitching at the end of the rotation an extra three wins up to this point and another three wins going forward would put Texas in the mid-80s in terms of wins and a major trade for a player like Cole Hamels might make them the favorite to catch Houston in the American League West. The Rangers have not had their best pitchers healthy and missed time for Adrian Beltre has left them below .500 and quickly falling out of the playoff race. With Gallardo under contract only through the rest of the season, he is an ideal candidate to be moved, and while Gallardo might like it in Texas, he also might welcome a trade that would put him in a pennant race and prevent a qualifying offer at the end of the season making him more valuable on the free-agent market.

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