Just after sunrise on August 6, 1974, Philippe Petit began his walk across a 200-foot stretch of wire spanning New York’s Twin Towers. He and his assistants had prepared the wire overnight, using a crossbow to connect the one-inch-wide walk way from rooftop to rooftop, 1,350 feet above Lower Manhattan. Petit completed eight walks that morning before being ordered down, and arrested, by New York City police. The Telegraph (U.K.) recounted the daring feat.

[Petit] felt so confident that he took to showboating… The Frenchman is shown [via photograph] lying down on the wire while balancing his bar across his chest with his arms well away. At one point the 24-year-old hung by his heels….

He later said: “To me, it’s really so simple: life should be lived on the edge. You have to exercise rebellion, to refuse to tape yourself to the rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge. Then you will live your life on the tightrope.”

Petit’s chosen line of work is not for everyone. That said, there might be some wisdom in his view on how to live regardless of your profession.

Nearer ground level this year — in fact, on a pitching mound for the Astros — Dallas Keuchel is conducting his own tightrope walk. A former seventh-round draft pick with just an 89-mph fastball, Keuchel has always been compelled to find ways to adapt and push boundaries. Last month, FanGraphs’ Jeff Sullivan noted Keuchel’s latest makeover — namely, that the left-hander is going “Full Ziegler” on us.

Wrote Sullivan:

Nearly everything has been at the knees or below, just like how Ziegler works, and at least to this point, it’s been working. As usual, I’ve made some use of Baseball Savant. Using the filter options, I selected the five lowest pitch-zone areas. There are 220 pitchers who’ve thrown at least 100 pitches in both 2016 and 2017. Among them, last year, Keuchel had the No. 31 low-pitch rate. This year, he has the No. 2 low-pitch rate, slightly behind only teammate Luke Gregerson. Keuchel’s low-pitch-rate increase of 17 percentage points is the fourth-greatest, and he already worked mostly down. Now it’s like he doesn’t even pay attention to the other spots.

Keuchel is off to an excellent start this season with the Ziegler approach, producing a 5-0 record and 1.21 ERA. But I wonder how much longer this success can last.

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CLEVELAND – Like so many others, Chris Devenski watched in fascination last October. He observed, on the flat-screen television of his offseason home in San Diego, as Cleveland continuously elected not to save their best arm, Andrew Miller, for the ninth inning, but rather to utilize him in high-leverage situations earlier in the game.

Unlike the many other major-league pitchers watching, however, Devenski recognized the part Miller was playing: he himself had already assumed a similar new-age bullpen role in the second half of the season with Houston. He had, in fact, become accustomed to entering games at unlikely spots much earlier than that, from his experience as a piggy-back tandem starter in the Astros’ farm system. As Cleveland advanced through the playoffs, Devenski watched as the movement to rethink bullpen usage and role — a movement of which he’s a part — advanced. The revolution was televised.

“I saw my role, man,” Devenski told FanGraphs last week. “I saw what they were doing with Miller here [in Cleveland] and [Aroldis] Chapman with the Cubs, it seems like that is what is coming about now in the game. It’s changing a little bit. I saw [in Miller] what I do. It was pretty cool. It’s big-time situations there. It’s important.”

But Devenski is arguably more of a revolutionary, more of disruptive figure than Miller. Since joining the Indians, Miller has pitched in high-leverage situations often, but he’s only recorded two or more innings in an outing three times in the regular season. He’s never recorded more than six outs in an appearance. Devenski had 18 such outings last season alone, including nine in August and September when the then-rookie was thrust into more high-leverage situations.

Devenski has recorded six or more outs in seven of his nine appearances this season and has an absurd 49.2-point strikeout- and walk-rate differential (K-BB%) and 22% swinging-strike rate. He has become a unique weapon in an unusual role.

Devenski said his wide range of experiences — from starting to relieving to tandem-starting — made the job a natural fit. While most pitchers would rather start or rack up saves, Devenski seems to have embraced his work in a hybrid capacity.

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CLEVELAND — We know the Astros are one of the most forward-thinking, analytically minded organizations in baseball. They’ve led baseball in infield shift usage in recent seasons. They’ve experimented with piggy-back rotations in the minor leagues, they’ve been creative in maximizing draft pools, and have given us a revolutionary bullpen figure, the gift that is Chris Devenski.

They’ve also been as aggressive as any team I’ve observed with regard to outfield alignment.

Outfield alignment doesn’t receive as much attention as infield shifts. There are few, if any, outfield alignment measures publicly available, and we don’t often see outfield alignments in full scope on television broadcasts prior to a batted ball. Average depth is recorded by Statcast, but we’re still working on understanding optimum outfield positioning.

But the Astros are up to something — something which I first noticed last season at PNC Park.

Since air balls are more evenly distributed than ground balls, there are typically fewer radical defensive alignments in the outfield. Since there are only three fielders tasked with covering a much larger area of ground than in the infield, outfielders are generally kept in equidistant positions, spreading risk. But the above alignment against the left-handed-hitting Gregory Polanco represented an extreme swing to the left. It appeared counterintuitive, too, with the Astros playing Polanco as if he were an extreme right-handed pull hitter. In this case, the left fielder was near the left-field line, the center fielder shading toward left center, and the right fielder nearly in right center.

But the approach appears to be rooted in logic, too. While most ground balls are pulled, air balls are more evenly distributed, with batters often slightly favoring the opposite field.

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To start, we might as well revisit the difference between command and control, or at least the accepted version of that difference: control is the ability to throw the ball into the strike zone, while command is the ability to throw the ball to a particular location. While we can easily measure the first by looking at strike-zone percentage, it’s also immediately apparent that the second skill is more interesting. A pitcher often wants to throw the ball outside of the zone, after all.

We’ve tried to put a number on command many different ways. I’m not sure we’ve succeeded, despite significant and interesting advances.

You could consider strikeout minus walk rate (K-BB%) an attempt, but it also captures way too much “stuff” to be a reliable command metric — a dominant pitch, thrown into the strike zone with no command, could still earn a lot of strikeouts and limit walks.

COMMANDf/x represented a valiant attempt towards solving this problem by tracking how far the catcher’s glove moved from the original target to the actual location at which it acquired the ball. But there were problems with that method of analysis. For one, the stat was never made public. Even if it were, however, catchers don’t all show the target the same way. Chris Iannetta, for example, told me once that his relaxation moment, between showing a target and then trying to frame the ball, was something he had to monitor to become a better framer. Watch him receive this low pitch: does it seem like we could reliably affix the word “target” to one of these moments, and then judge the pitch by how far the glove traveled after that moment?

How about all those times when the catcher is basically just indicating inside vs. outside, and it’s up to the pitcher to determine degree? What happens when the catcher pats the ground to tell him to throw it low, or exaggerates his high target? There are more than a few questions about an approach affixed to a piece of equipment, sometimes haphazardly used.

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The Houston rotation is more than one man, but no one man is more important for the rotation than Dallas Keuchel. Peripherals aside, Keuchel didn’t have the year he wanted to have in 2016, having to fight most of the way through shoulder discomfort. Related to that, Keuchel saw his ERA jump from 2.48 to 4.55. There were downs, and there were ups, but Keuchel and the Astros came in this season looking for a far greater performance. Give the Astros a 2015 version of Keuchel and the rotation would feel plenty more stable.

Three starts in, Keuchel’s allowed a total of two runs. He’s gotten some of his grounders back, and he’s seeing positive results again off of his sinker. It’s fair to wonder, then, whether Keuchel has re-discovered his old form. The reality of it? Not exactly. There’s a similar-looking pitcher here, sure, but Keuchel hasn’t succeeded through the 2015 approach. Rather, he’s gone the full Brad Ziegler.

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When we think about how parks affect players, we generally think of it in the context of hitting and pitching. Bring the fences in and batters will hit more homers. Build a taller wall or a whole new park with bigger dimensions, and pitchers are going to have an easier time preventing the long ball.

For the Houston Astros and George Springer, however, the removal of Tal’s Hill has added significance. While it might add a homer or two to Springer’s home-run ledger, the greater impact is likely to be a defensive one. This represents Springer’s first season as Houston’s starting center fielder. With four homers already to his name this year, Springer is making a big impact with the bat. His ability to play the more demanding outfield position — one now free of deadly obstacles — also deepens the Astros’ excellent lineup.

In the minors, Springer primarily played center field, getting 244 of his 267 starts at the position as he ascended through Houston’s minor-league system. Once he got to the majors, though, he was moved to a corner while a combination of Dexter Fowler, Carlos Gomez, Jake Marisnick, Colby Rasmus, and even Alex Presley all got time there. Of those players, the only real plus defender — accounting for Gomez’s hip problems — was Marisnick. Fowler, meanwhile, provided the only decent bat Houston has featured in center field, and that was back in 2014. Springer ended up starting just 16 games in center field from 2014 to 2016 — and 10 of those were on the road. The removal of Tal’s Hill helps to facilitate Springer’s transition to a full-time role in center field. The team sacrifices a little on defense in favor of Springer’s offensive ability over Jake Marisnick’s.

Springer has been a positive out in right field for the Astros since joining the team three years ago, posting positive numbers in both UZR (+2.5) and DRS(+10) over nearly 3,000 innings. While certainly solid, such numbers don’t cry out for a great defensive challenge for Springer. Prior to this season, they likely discouraged time in center field, especially in Houston. With a center-field fence extending out to 440 feet and a gigantic hill to make everything more difficult, Springer’s range likely would have been exposed. For one of the team’s best hitters, it might have put him at increased injury risk given his penchant for running into walls.

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For most of the winter and a good chunk of spring training, the Astros have been speculated as a potential landing spot for Jose Quintana. Reports are that they’ve made offers to the White Sox to add the left-hander to their rotation, and now that Collin McHugh has been shut down for six weeks during his rehab stint, the fit seems even better than it did over the off-season.

But while Jose Quintana would help any team, I still look at Houston’s rotation and see a pretty decent group there. Dallas Keuchel and a healthy (for now, at least) Lance McCullers are a quality pair at the front of the rotation, and while a back-end of Charlie Morton, Joe Musgrove, and Mike Fiers isn’t the strongest group #3-#5 in the game, all three project as roughly league average hurlers, and McHugh is better than that if he gets healthy. Toss in the possibility of stretching out Chris Devenski — who has looked amazing in his two long relief stints this year — or promoting one of their promising arms from the minors, and there’s depth here beyond a strong top two.

So instead of talking about their starting pitching, perhaps the Astros should start thinking about using their surplus of quality prospects to land a first baseman. Because while it’s still early, the evidence is mounting that they may have a real problem there.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Houston Astros farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from my own observations. The KATOH statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of my prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this. -Eric Longenhagen

The KATOH projection system uses minor-league data and Baseball America prospect rankings to forecast future performance in the major leagues. For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, so take these projections with a grain of salt. Due to their purely objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated. Due to sample-size concerns, only players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced last season have received projections. -Chris Mitchell

Other Lists
NL West (ARI, COL, LAD, SD, SF)
AL Central (CHW, CLE, DET, KC, MIN)
NL Central (CHC, CIN, PIT, MIL, StL)
NL East (ATL, MIA, NYM, PHI, WAS)
AL East (BAL, BOS, NYY, TB, TOR)
NL West (LAA)

60 FV Prospects

Relevant/Interesting Metrics
Recorded strikeout and walk rates of 25% and 9%, respectively, at Double-A.

Scouting Report
The story of Martes’s acquisition is well told. The effects of the deal are obviously still resonating atop Houston’s prospect list, but perhaps more significant is the way that deal changed the way complex-level ball is scouted. Since Martes was unearthed in the GCL, more and more scouts are being assigned to rookie ball in Florida and Arizona. Some clubs have scout(s) here every year, others tailor their coverage based on where they are on the competitive spectrum, with rebuilding clubs more likely to have scouts here than ones who, if they make a trade, are hunting big leaguers instead of teenage lottery tickets. So while Martes has a chance to make a significant impact on an Astros club poised to compete for their division and, maybe, a World Series, the ripples through the industry created by his acquisition are arguably more significant. Okay, on to Martes as a prospect…

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It’s not a question of whether the Astros are good. There’s near-unanimous agreement that the Astros are good, and the only people who disagree haven’t been paying attention. It’s more a question of how good the Astros really are. Are they as good as a wild-card contender? Are they as good as a runaway division favorite? I don’t know! Nobody does. But like any team, the Astros could be improved. And over the past several months, rumors circled around a similar theme: The Astros could use an ace.

Reports linked them to Chris Archer. Reports linked them — and continue to link them! — to Jose Quintana. Reports linked them to Chris Sale. And so on, and so on. A great starting pitcher could improve any team, but the idea implied has been that the Astros pitching staff could be some kind of vulnerability. The offensive depth is there. The group of pitchers? More question marks.

The Astros haven’t pulled the trigger on a pitching trade. They still could, and any number of things could go wrong. But the team has steadfastly believed its pitching is just fine. In the early going, there have been four positive signs in particular. Or, if not that, four positive reminders. Let’s run through some big reasons why the Astros probably count as one of the best teams around.

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After winning the Cy Young award in 2015, Dallas Keuchel had a follow-up campaign that really can only be described as disappointing. His ERA ballooned from 2.48 – good for second in the AL that year – to 4.55, 32nd in the AL out of 39 qualified pitchers.

A glance at Keuchel’s peripherals indicates that his fall may not have been as dramatic as it seemed, as his xFIP was a solid 3.53 — the second-best mark of his career, actually, after adjusting for league and park. But a pitcher who sees his ERA rise by over two runs certainly isn’t content to rely on things to right themselves. So Keuchel took matters into his own hands.

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