Houston, you have a problem. Less than two weeks ago, I suggested that the battle between the A’s and Mariners for the second AL Wild Card spot was “practically the last race standing in the Junior Circuit.” At the time, the A’s — who had won 33 out of their last 44 games — were still 5.5 games behind the Astros, who themselves had rebounded from a five-game losing streak (July 25-30) to win six out of seven against the Mariners, Dodgers, and Giants. A change in the pecking order atop the AL West appeared unlikely; at the time, our playoff odds gave Oakland just a 1.0% chance of winning the division.

Since then, the Astros have lost seven out of nine to the Mariners, Rockies, and A’s, with Saturday’s 7-1 loss to Oakland knocking the two teams into a tie and marking the first time June 13 that the Astros didn’t have sole possession of first. Though they regained it with Sunday’s 9-4 win (Justin Verlander’s 200th, a topic I’ll address in an upcoming post), Houston now owns a 7-8 record in August, an 11-14 since the All-Star break, and 20-19 since July 1. Over all of those stretches, they’ve outscored their opponents (177-148 for the longest one), and they still own the AL’s second-best run differential (+200), but the defending world champions have nonetheless frittered away their advantage. They’re still the overwhelming favorites in the division, but even after Sunday’s loss, the A’s odds are up to 9.6%; in the season-to-date version, based upon this year’s stats instead of our depth-chart projections, they’re up to 25.6%.

Perhaps most disconcertingly, the Astros are 10-15 against teams .500 or better since the start of July. They’ve fattened up by going a combined 8-1 against the White Sox, Tigers, and Giants, but lost three of five to the Rangers. Of their eight other series in that span, they’ve won just three (over the Angels, Dodgers and Mariners), lost three (two to the A’s, one to the Mariners), and split two (both against the Rockies). Overall, they’re just 37-36 against teams with records .500 or better, which is better than the A’s (31-39) but worse than the Mariners (38-35), and miles behind the Red Sox (37-22) and Yankees (36-24). Against those four teams, they’re a combined 19-20 this year; throw in the Indians (4-3) and they’ve played just .500 ball against the collection of teams they’ll have to beat in order to return to the World Series.

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Fringe Five Scoreboards: 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013.

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion among the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickels, and (most importantly) FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel* and also who (b) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing within Longenhagen and McDaniel’s most recent update — and the updates published by Jeffrey Paternostro of Baseball Prospectus and John Sickels at Minor League Ball — have also been excluded from consideration.

*Note: I’ve excluded Baseball America’s list this year not due to any complaints with their coverage, but simply because said list is now behind a paywall.

For those interested in learning how Fringe Five players have fared at the major-league level, this somewhat recent post offers that kind of information. The short answer: better than a reasonable person would have have expected. In the final analysis, though, the basic idea here is to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.

Brock Burke, LHP, Tampa Bay (Profile)
A third-round selection out of a Colorado high school in 2014, Burke has had the capacity to hit 95 mph for much of his professional career but has struggled to consistently hold his velocity from start to start. “I’d be down to 87-90 at times,” he told FanGraphs’ David Laurila in a post from June. “Now I’m more consistent with ranges, and my velo isn’t dropping at the end of games.”

Burke attributes at least part of his development to a Driveline Baseball program in which he participated with other Rays pitchers. “It was definitely beneficial,” said Burke. “It got me in better body shape, which has helped my accuracy and my velo.”

Whatever the cause, Burke has been excellent of late. Following an early-July promotion to Double-A Montgomery, Burke has recorded strikeout and walk rates of 33.6% and 6.2%, respectively, in 36.2 innings. The differential of 27.4 points between those two figures would represent the highest such mark among qualified Double-A pitchers. Burke was characteristically strong in his most recent start, recording an 8:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio against 28 batters over 7.0 innings (box).

Burke seemed to have the most success with his fastball in that start earlier this week. Here, though, is footage of the one his better curveballs:

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

Tanner Houck, RHP, Boston Red Sox
Level: Hi-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 4   FV: 45
Line: 7 IP, 4 H, 0 BB, 1 R, 7 K

Notes
The Red Sox have been tinkering with Tanner Houck’s arm slot and pitch grips throughout the year in effort to find the best combination of pitch types for him. Earlier in the year that involved raising his arm slot and incorporating more four seamers into his mix, but now Houck’s fastball and arm slot look more like they did in college. His results have been better of late as he’s walked six and allowed nine runs combined over his last six starts. His low slot makes it easier for lefties to see the ball out of his hand and Houck will still need to find a way to counteract this issues to profile as a starter.

Mickey Moniak, OF, Philadelphia Phillies
Level: Hi-A   Age: 20   Org Rank: 14   FV: 40+
Line: 2-for-4, 2B, 3B

Notes
While his overall line is still disappointing, Mickey Moniak is slashing .298/.341/.465 since May 22. He’s made a subtle swing change that has him taking a using bigger leg kick with his knee driving back toward his rear hip (similar to the one Adam Haseley adopted while in Clearwater this year) and he’s also striding closed which has helped Moniak deal with stuff on the outer half, which had been a problem for him as a pro. I’ve asked teams for updated reports on Moniak and the pro side of the industry think he has tweener outfielder tools but acknowledges it appears he’s been playing a level ahead of his ability so far. The industry considers him a big leaguer but thinks it’s going to take some time.

Bryan Abreu, RHP, Houston Astros
Level: Low-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 28   FV: 35+
Line: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 0 R, 10 K

Notes
Bryan Abreu has generated varying reports throughout the year, at times 92-94 with a 50 breaking ball and 40 control (which is barely a prospect) and others when he’s been up to 97, sitting 94-95 with big vertical action on one of two his breaking balls. He’s accrued double-digit strikeouts in two of his last three starts and has a 69:13 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 42.4 innings this season. The Astros are great at installing coherent pitching approaches into their prospects, most of whom are high-spin fastball/breaking ball guys who work up in the zone with their heaters, an approach which leads to more strikeouts. This, combined with Houston’s piggyback approach (where hitters don’t often see the same pitcher three or more times), leads to lots of strikeouts. I think the fastball (which is pretty straight) plays better out of the bullpen and I’m skeptical of Abreu’s short-term walk rate improvement because I’ve still got scouts questioning his command and it’s been an issue for Abreu in the past. I have him projected in relief and have added him to Houston’s team page on The Board.

Meandering Thoughts

Kiley wrote today about how he thinks the Rays have identified pitching subtypes that have skills to fit somewhere on the value spectrum between the perhaps unnecessary extremes of typical six or seven-inning starters and single-inning relievers. I’d like to talk about a few other oddball skillsets that might have a place on a 25-man roster as they help perform traditional and necessary on-field tasks but come in atypical packages. I’ve given them names that that the Cespedes Family BBQ kids will improve upon.

Waxahachie
This role, in which a player acts as relief specialist who can also play the outfield, has actually been utilized in the recent past and has been explored by other clubs in the minors even more recently. Outfielders with superlative arm strength or pitchers with plus athleticism could put an extra late-inning hitter or two at platoon disadvantage. The Astros have done this with Tony Sipp, bringing him in to face a lefty before sending him to the outfield while someone else gets righties out, and then returning Sipp to the mound to face another lefty. It seemed Houston might have hoped Rule 5 selection Anthony Gose would have been able to do something similar, but he didn’t make the team out of spring training and was returned to Texas.

Texas also has several candidates for this type of role in Gose (who is also a 70 runner and good defensive center fielder), James Jones (plus runner, plus outfield defense, low-90s with loopy breaking ball on the mound) and Jairo Beras (right-handed, mid-90s fastball, plus-plus raw power) who have all converted to the mound but have one or two other useful skills that could enable them to be deployed in the right situation.

James Jones, LHP, Texas Rangers from Eric Longenhagen on Vimeo.

Former big league OF Jordan Schafer would seem to have fit this archetype as well and he was used in various ways by different clubs (Atlanta played him in the outfield, the Dodgers tried to make him a base-stealing specialist for the 2016 stretch run and St. Louis tried him on the mound) but never in several different roles at once.

Rick Ankiel, who is attempting a big league comeback, is perfect for this kind of role, too. He could shuttle back and forth from the outfield to the mound a few times, while also pinch hitting when it makes sense to have a power-before-hit bat at the plate and pinch-running on occasion.

If someone like this already exists in the Rays system it’s RHP/OF Tanner Dodson, who the Rays wanted announced as a two-way player when he was drafted out of Cal in June. Dodson sits in the mid-90s on the mound and is also a plus runner who hit near the top of Cal’s lineup last year. He’s not polished in center and has a slap/slash approach at the plate, but there’s premium arm strength and speed here.

Pull-Side Infielder
There are certain hitters who don’t pull the ball enough to merit a shift but still pull the ball on the ground more often than hit it the other way and, perhaps, that means your rangiest infield defender should just play on the hitter’s pull side, even if that means swapping your 2B and SS, hitter-by-hitter. I think this idea is half-baked but I’d argue the Brewers are candidates for something like this right now as they’re playing Travis Shaw out of position at second base to shoehorn better hitters into their lineup. In my opinion, they should be swapping Jonathan Schoop and Shaw, hitter by hitter, something to maximize Schoop’s defensive touches and minimize Shaw’s. Perhaps my name for this type of thing is too narrow but the concept interests me. Tampa Bay has a slew of bat-first 2B-types who are either athletically viable all over the field in a dynamic defensive equation like this (Vidal Brujan, Nick Solak, Lucius Fox) or benefit from being hidden by it (Brandon Lowe, Taylor Walls, Jake Cronenworth)

Fringe Five Scoreboards: 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013.

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion among the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickels, and (most importantly) FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel* and also who (b) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing within Longenhagen and McDaniel’s most recent update — and the updates published by Jeffrey Paternostro of Baseball Prospectus and John Sickels at Minor League Ball — have also been excluded from consideration.

*Note: I’ve excluded Baseball America’s list this year not due to any complaints with their coverage, but simply because said list is now behind a paywall.

For those interested in learning how Fringe Five players have fared at the major-league level, this somewhat recent post offers that kind of information. The short answer: better than a reasonable person would have have expected. In the final analysis, though, the basic idea here is to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.

Tyler Ivey, RHP, Houston (Profile)
Josh James, RHP, Houston (Profile)
Framber Valdez, LHP, Houston (Profile)
Ivey and James and Valdez all appear here together both because they (a) have been basically the minor leagues’ best pitchers over the past month and (b) are all members of the same organization — namely, the Houston Astros. This seems important for a couple reasons.

First, let’s just consider some data. Here are the top-10 minor-league pitchers (High-A or above) by strikeout rate since July 10th:

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By just about any measure that counts, Alex Bregman has been one of the best players in baseball. In fairness, Alex Bregman was expected to be one of the best players in baseball, but not quite to this degree. I can explain, using our old standards — projections and WAR! Coming into the year, among both hitters and pitchers, Bregman was tied for the 45th-highest projected WAR. He was sixth in projected WAR among Astros, behind Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve, Justin Verlander, Dallas Keuchel, and George Springer.

Right now, Bregman and Verlander are tied atop the Astros’ WAR leaderboard. And Bregman is tied for 10th in all of baseball, around names like Matt Carpenter and Nolan Arenado. It’s not that no one ever saw Bregman coming — he was already a good everyday player, and the Astros did, after all, select him second overall in the 2015 draft. But Bregman has steadily continued to improve, to the point where he’s nearly maxing out his skills. Because of how loaded the Astros’ roster has been, it’s been more difficult for Bregman to stand out. It’s funny to refer to someone as having played in Altuve’s shadow, but Bregman’s completing his star turn, and he should be recognized as such.

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Houston Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow is a very smart man. There’s not much dispute about that – he has an MBA (from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management) and degrees in economics and engineering. He’s developed a reputation for being well-prepared.

So after the club acquired Roberto Osuna for Ken Giles at the deadline, columnist Lance Zierlein was well justified when he wrote that “[t]here is no way the Astros haven’t done their homework on Osuna.” And while the organization’s public-relations department appears to have confused the word willfully with willingly (otherwise, this statement regarding Osuna would have a markedly different meaning), even Luhnow himself noted that his own office’s due diligence on Osuna was “unprecedented.” There’s no reason to doubt him.

That said, there are certain outcomes for which no amount of preparation can ultimately account — and that’s relevant to Osuna’s future with the Astros, because, while the right-hander has been punished by Major League Baseball, his criminal case in Canada remains pending. And the outcome of that case could have real consequences on Osuna’s career.

Osuna, for his part, doesn’t want to talk about it, “declin[ing] to provide specifics about the incident” according to ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez. There are multiple reasons why Osuna would refuse to address the charge. To avoid conflicts with an ongoing case, for example. Or to avoid revisiting an episode about which he’s ashamed.

Finally, it could be part of a legal strategy. As Gonzalez notes in his piece, Osuna’s attorney, Domenic Basile, “has entered a not guilty plea on Osuna’s behalf and is reportedly seeking a peace bond that would essentially drop the charges in exchange for good behavior.”

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Roberto Osuna made his major-league debut in 2015. Since then, among all relievers with at least 100 innings, he ranks in the 88th percentile in park-adjusted ERA. Even better, he ranks in the 95th percentile in park-adjusted FIP, and he ranks in the 95th percentile in strikeout-minus-walk rate. For the most part, when Osuna has been able to pitch, he’s been very, very good, and he’s blossomed into one of the game’s better closers. It’s just that he hasn’t pitched in the majors since May 6. Not because of an injury — Osuna’s arm, presumably, is just fine. Rather, he’s currently serving out a 75-game suspension for domestic violence. He’s eligible to return this coming weekend.

The Astros want for Osuna to return wearing their uniform. And so Monday has brought news of a trade.

Astros get:

• Roberto Osuna

Blue Jays get:

• Ken Giles
• David Paulino
• Hector Perez

The Astros are trying to repeat as World Series champions, and they identified an opportunity to land a cost-controlled, elite young reliever. Osuna’s controlled another two years after this one. The Blue Jays, meanwhile, identified an opportunity to buy low on a cost-controlled, potentially elite reliever. Giles is also controlled another two years after this one. Paulino and Perez, as well, are intriguing power-armed prospects. As a baseball trade, there’s enough here to be fascinating. But this isn’t just a baseball trade.

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The Angels traded 31-year-old glove-first catcher Martin Maldonado to Houston yesterday in exchange for Astros 21-year-old LHP Patrick Sandoval. The Astros signed Sandoval away from a USC commitment with a $900,000 signing bonus in 2015. He was their 11th-round pick. He has tracked through the minors at an even pace, amassing 97 strikeouts in 88 innings split between Low- and High-A this season while also reducing his walk rate to half (4.3%) of what it was last year (8.5%).

Sandoval’s fastball sits 88-92 and will top out around 94. He can really spin a 12-6 curveball, one that’s above average when Sandoval is getting on top of it. Effectively, Sandoval has an almost perfectly vertical arm slot, but the way he gets there is somewhat odd and there’s some skepticism among scouts as to the sustainability of this year’s uptick in strike-throwing. There’s enough of a changeup here for continued development in a rotation and, if everything clicks, Sandoval will be a No. 4 or 5 starter. If not, he’s a lefty with a good breaking ball and a fine bullpen candidate. It’s a fair return for a backup catching rental.

Had Sandoval gone to USC, he’d have been draft eligible this year. Comparable college lefties in this year’s draft would have been Nationals second-rounder Tim Cate from UConn, and White Sox third-rounder, Mississippi State lefty Konnor Pilkington. Cate is a better athlete than Sandoval and the breaking ball is a little better. He signed for slot a 65th overall, $986,200. Pilkington’s stuff is closer to average across the board. I’d have him behind Sandoval just on stuff. He signed for $650,000, slightly below slot at pick No. 81. I think Sandoval would have fit somewhere in that range on draft day, which means the Astros properly valued him three years ago and used an 11th-round pick to acquire a future second- or third-round talent for second- or third-round money. It also means Sandoval probably got an equal or better bonus than he would have this year, and he’s further along the developmental path than most his age-appropriate peers from the 2018 collegiate draft class.

Fringe Five Scoreboards: 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013.

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion among the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickels, and (most importantly) FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel* and also who (b) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing within Longenhagen and McDaniel’s most recent update — and the updates published by Jeffrey Paternostro of Baseball Prospectus and John Sickels at Minor League Ball — have also been excluded from consideration.

*Note: I’ve excluded Baseball America’s list this year not due to any complaints with their coverage, but simply because said list is now behind a paywall.

For those interested in learning how Fringe Five players have fared at the major-league level, this somewhat recent post offers that kind of information. The short answer: better than a reasonable person would have have expected. In the final analysis, though, the basic idea here is to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.

Tony Gonsolin, RHP, Los Angeles NL (Profile)
This represents Gonsolin’s third consecutive appearance in this weekly exercise, and it’s possibly his most deserving. Since last Friday’s edition of the Five, the right-hander has made two starts. In 13.0 innings between them, Gonsolin recorded a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 18:3 against 50 batters.

Gonsolin’s profile isn’t the most common sort for a future major-league starter. He was a two-way player in college, not drafted till the ninth round, and features some traits on the mound (pronounced over-the-top delivery, effort) that are atypical for starters. He’s made it work thus far, however. He’s also continued to exhibit a strategies for contending with left-handed hitters, six of whom he faced in his second-to-last start (box).

Here’s a 92 mph slider to a lefty from that game for a called third strike:

And a curveball at the back foot for a swinging strike:

And a change with splitter-type action, also for a swinging strike:

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They can’t all be Mike Trout, and this year, with the Millville Meteor posting a career-best 191 wRC+, the rest of the center-field pack has been as unproductive as any time in recent history. The collective 95 wRC+ recorded by all center fielders (including Trout) is the lowest it’s been since 2006, back when Trout was a high-school freshman.

Even with that fairly modest production, only a small handful of contenders — which for this series I’ve defined as teams with playoff odds of at least 15.0% (a definition that currently covers 15 teams) — are receiving less than 1.0 WAR from their center fielders, which makes them eligible for a spot among the Replacement-Level Killers.

By the way, since I don’t have anywhere else to put it — this is the last article in the series, since the RLK concept doesn’t work so neatly for pitchers and just one AL team has a DH who could be classified a Killer. Sorry if that was awkward; continue as you were…

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