The trade deadline rush has not disappointed so far, and the latest big news is that Brewers General Manager Doug Melvin delivered on his promise to move Zack Greinke. Greinke is now an Angel. Marc Hulet already covered the prospects that the Angels sent to Milwaukee.

Was it a “good” trade? Well, the Brewers are not going anywhere, and Greinke is going to be a free agent who will be expecting a big payday, especially with Cole Hamels now off of the market. The Angels gave up some decent prospects (even if none of them looks likely to be a future superstar), but they are obviously built to win right now. If the standings remain the same (which is a big “if,” even for a good team like the Angels), Los Angeles will be in the playoffs. Greinke gives them even more gas in the rotation. What all this means for the “fairness” of the trade is something for others to sort out. I want to briefly take a look at how Greinke might fit in in the Anaheim and how imposing the Angels’ rotation looks for the playoffs.

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The Milwaukee Brewers finally pulled the trigger on the trade that everyone was expecting: The team traded starting pitcher Zack Greinke. In return, the Los Angeles Angels sent a three-prospect package, which middle infielder Jean Segura headlined.

Segura, 22, was recently promoted to the majors for the first time in his pro career and was one of the Angels’ top prospects — if not their best, with the graduation of MVP candidate Mike Trout — but the system is also among the bottom 10 in baseball (and now possibly is one of the five worst). Milwaukee — another bottom-feeder, in terms of their minor league system — moves up a couple of slots with this deal that also included Double-A pitchers John Hellweg and Ariel Pena.

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I’ve written quite a bit this year on trends in pitcher aging, specifically velocity loss and gain. In the last iteration I focused on the odds of pitchers gaining velocity back after a season where their fastball dropped by at least 1 mph.

In that piece I listed a few pitchers to keep your eye on given that their velocity was down from 2011. In June, I wrote about CC Sabathia for ESPN and noted that the big lefty is likely beginning to “age”, as the odds are quite a bit higher that pitchers over the age of 30 do not gain their velocity back once they’ve lost it.

After thinking about it a while it occurred to me that there is of course the chance that these pitchers will gain their velocity back by the end of the year (as I noted in both pieces). We know that, generally speaking, pitchers gain velocity as the season goes on. Temperatures rise, and so too do fastball velocities. If this is the case I wondered at what point in the season we can say with greater certainty that a pitcher is throwing as hard as he is going to throw. Is there a particular month where a velocity decline is more likely to translate to or predict a full season velocity decline?
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Yesterday we talked about the questions facing the National League contenders. Today, we turn our attention to the American League. Every team but the Twins, Royals and Mariners are within four-two-and-a-half games of a spot in the postseason, if you count the wild card play-in game part of the postseason. That leaves us with eleven teams still playing for something in 2012. Or does it?

In the American League East, the Yankees have a comfortable seven-game lead, and seem poised to pull away with the division title. Yes, with injuries to CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte, the Yankees could improve by adding a dependable starting pitcher, but so far they haven’t been linked with the starters most likely to hit the trade market. Overall, though, the Yankees are in the best shape of any team heading into the second half.

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With yet another day to go before actual baseball returns to the field, I thought I would take a quick look at some of the potential MVP candidates in both leagues based on the first half of the season.

Identifying MVP candidates is certainly not a straightforward process, nor is the criteria universally agreed upon. Knowing this I will not begin or end this article with any claim to have identified the “proper” candidates. These are my candidates based on my way of looking at the term “valuable”.

So what is my criteria? Well, I like to think of MVPs as players that provide an exceptional amount of production in both an absolute and relative sense. This means identifying players that lead or are close to leading the league in production, but where there is also a sizable gap between their production and that of the second best player on their own team. This means that I do tend to discount great performances by players that happen to share the same uniform as equally great players. Is it their fault? Absolutely not. In fact, those players could likely be the best all around players in the entire league. But when it comes to value I think there is a relative component that should be considered. This isn’t to necessarily give credit to the player (i.e. they don’t “step it up” to make up for the gap in talent on the team), but rather to the performance itself.

Like I said, this is my criteria and I don’t claim that it should trump all others, nor would I say it is complete on it’s own. Rather, I think it’ a useful starting place.

Okay, enough with the preamble. Let’s get to the data.

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Mark Trumbo was the least recognizable player in the Home Run Derby. Sure, Trumbo finished second in the AL Rookie of the Year Award voting last season, but he lacked the star power of a true superstar like Prince Fielder or Matt Kemp. But Trumbo impressed in the Derby, nearly making the finals while hitting some of the longest home runs of the night. And while the Home Run Derby doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, it’s an opportunity for players to display their talents in front of a national audience. Casual fans may not realize how good Trumbo has been this season. After last night, fans will start to take notice of his breakout.

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Last season, Angels starting pitchers combined for a 3.78 FIP, eighth-best in baseball. Then the team added C.J. Wilson to replace Joel Pineiro, giving them — on paper — a front three that would be one of the best in the game. Add in more Jerome Williams and Garrett Richards and less Tyler Chatwood, and it seemed that on paper, Los Angeles of Anaheim would easily have a top-five rotation this season. So far, however, it hasn’t worked out that way.

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We’ve seen Dan Haren‘s results this season, and we’ve been wondering what’s going on. His walks are up. He’s giving up more hits. And his FIP is the highest of his career. Granted, his poor first half hasn’t been as alarming as, say, Tim Lincecum’s, but Haren’s been off his game for the first three months of the season.

After Tuesday’s latest disappointing outing, in which he lasted only 4.1 innings, giving up nine hits and six earned runs, Haren revealed that he’s been dealing with a lingering back issue. According to the Orange County Register, “Haren said this year’s problem began when he ‘tweaked’ his back during his final spring training start and has never really gone away.”  [Haren’s last spring training start was on April 2 against the Dodgers. It was a relief to learn that Haren’s back injury arose after the FanGraphs staff saw him at the In-N-Out in Tempe, Arizona on March 11. We were starting to feel a bit responsible.]

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On April 30, the Los Angeles Angels had a record of 8-15 and sat 9.5 games behind the first-place Texas Rangers. Today, the Angels are 40-33. They are now only 4.5 games behind the Rangers, and tied for the second wild card with the Tampa Bay Rays. Much of the focus for the Angels success in May and June has been on rookie sensation Mike Trout, Albert Pujols‘ re-found stroke, and the overall play of Mark Trumbo.

But don’t overlook the Angels’ bullpen. After a poor start, Angels relievers have been hugely important to the team’s revived play. And it wasn’t just the addition of Ernesto Frieri in early May that turned things around for the Angels’ relief corps.

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Last night against the Angels, Hector Noesi served up another home run on an 0-2 count. As a fan, having a pitcher of my team give up one of those is up there with one of the more disheartening occurances in an individual baseball game. The count is as lopsided as it can be in favor of the pitcher. To go from that to the single most hitter-friendly outcome is a jarring, unexpected and sometimes crushing whiplash.

And since I watch* Mariner games and almost only Mariner games, I have a disproportionate sense that every 0-2 home run in the history of baseball have been given up by Mariner pitchers**. Perhaps you feel that way about your team too. But personal observation is a crude and misleading way to go about forming beliefs unless you want to look like a big stupidhead the second you run into a person*** with actual data.

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