You can expect that Sonny Gray will be traded. Something could happen to get in the way, but it’s likely that Gray will shortly be on the move. Although the A’s are just as close to a playoff spot as the Braves, who have been talked about as a buyer, the A’s just yesterday dealt away from their bullpen, and so it’s clear to see what they’re doing. They saw what the White Sox got for Jose Quintana. They know that Gray is the next in line, as a cost-controlled quality starting pitcher.

Now, Gray is not Quintana. Gray’s had more recent arm trouble, and while Quintana has club options through 2020, Gray’s controlled through 2019. The A’s can’t expect the same kind of package, because the contract matters, and because just last season, Gray was not very good. Still, his value has rebounded, now that he again has his health. Gray could well be in the middle of the next blockbuster. He’s back, but as a different pitcher from before.

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The Nationals finally addressed their struggling bullpen yesterday by acquiring relievers Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson from the Oakland Athletics. In return, Oakland received veteran reliever Blake Treinen and prospects Sheldon Neuse and Jesus Luzardo. Luzardo was a third rounder out of high school last year who has just 14 professional innings to his name. As such, I don’t have a KATOH projection for him, but Eric Longenhagen gave him a 40 FV in the offseason in his offseason writeup of the Nationals system.

Neuse was Washington’s 2016 second-round draft choice out of the University of Oklahoma. He was an excellent hitter in his last season of college, slashing .369/.465/.646 with 12 steals over 55 games. He has carried his hot hitting over to pro ball, slashing .291/.349/.469 at the Low-A level this year while playing shortstop.

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No trade-deadline need has ever been clearer, has ever been more obvious, than the Nationals’ need to acquire some help in the bullpen. It’s been an annual concern, which means you could call the Nationals front office experienced, but the bullpen this year has been a disaster. They still have a massive lead in their division! A playoff entry is all but guaranteed. Yet the Nationals want to someday get beyond just making the playoffs. They’d like to win a damn series, and these last few months, they haven’t had good relievers.

Do you consider yourself a fan of our in-house statistics? The Nationals bullpen ranks last in baseball in WAR. Do you prefer to give more credit for events that have actually happened? The Nationals bullpen ranks last in baseball in RA9-WAR. If you’re bigger on storytelling statistics, the Nationals bullpen ranks 26th in baseball in WPA. To address the area, the Nats have swapped with the bullpen that ranks 27th in baseball in WPA. Here are the players:

Nationals get

• Sean Doolittle
• Ryan Madson

Athletics get

• Blake Treinen
• Jesus Luzardo
• Sheldon Neuse

On paper, this is a big double-get for the Nats. On paper, these were some of the better relievers available. Certainly, moving forward, Dusty Baker can feel better about his bullpen than he did yesterday or the day before. The risk is that things aren’t always as promising as they look on paper. The Nationals know that better than most teams.

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

Durin O’Linger, RHP, Boston
Level: Short Season Age: 23   Org Rank: NR   Top 100: NR
Line: 4 IP, 3 H, 2 BB, 1 R, 6 K

Notes
O’Linger isn’t exactly a prospect — his fastball sits in the 86-88 range and he’ll flash an average changeup — but of note due to his recent, historic postseason run at Davidson during which the senior threw 502 pitches over six appearances in a 16-day span. Rest was not a priority for O’Linger, who was so sure he had no future in pro baseball that he was set to attend the University of Florida’s pharmacy school in the fall. The 23-year-old is pitching with house money in the New York-Penn League right now.

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There’s a youth movement taking place in Oakland. The A’s jettisoned both Trevor Plouffe and Stephen Vogt in the last couple of weeks, replacing them with Matt Chapman and Bruce Maxwell. Another big splash came this weekend, when Oakland summoned prospect Franklin Barreto to play second base.

Barreto continued to hit for an encouraging amount of power as a minor leaguer this year, especially considering he played in a park that massively suppresses homers (by PCL standards). However, his strikeout rate spiked from 18% to 30% as he transitioned from Double-A and Triple-A and his stolen-base numbers plummeted. As a result, his KATOH forecast has taken a hit. I have him projected for 4.8 WAR over his first six seasons by stats-only KATOH and 5.4 WAR by KATOH+, which incorporates his prospect ranking. Those marks place him 90th and 55th, respectively, among prospects, down from 18th and 20th in the preseason.

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No team’s batters have ever seen fewer four-seam fastballs than the Houston Astros this year. Few teams’ pitchers, meanwhile, have thrown fewer four-seam fastballs than the Houston Astros this year. This all has something to do with changes in baseball, yes, and also with the personnel on this current team. But there’s also a wrinkle to the thing that tells us a little more about why these trends are happening, and why the Astros are at the forefront in both cases.

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After the worst year of his career, including spending time on the DL with shoulder issues, Sonny Gray looks healthy again, posting his best fielding-independent numbers since his rookie year. And with the A’s looking like sellers, Gray is expected to get moved in the next month or so. And according to Susan Slusser, it might be sooner than that, with the Astros reportedly the most aggressive buyer at the moment.

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The last time Athletics infielder Jed Lowrie was playing this well, I had a good talk with him about his injury history. He said part of his good play was due to the fact that he was finally healthy for a good stretch after a string of freak injuries due to collisions. After a three forgettable seasons since, Lowrie is back to where he was back then. And though the story this time is similar — he had two offseason surgeries that are contributing to his good run right now — the differences tell us a lot about what it’s like to be a major leaguer.

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“Grips are meaningless,” Oakland A’s starting pitcher Sonny Gray once told me. Maybe that’s why we haven’t yet had a good talk, despite calling the same clubhouse home half the time. He didn’t quite mean “meaningless,” it occurred to me, when we finally discussed his repertoire. But there’s another reason he’s found it difficult to talk the way pitchers often talk to me: He’s changing things from pitch to pitch, according to what he sees. That includes grips, finger pressure and pitching mix. It’s hard to say he’s been doing something different when he’s always doing something different.

It’s difficult to figure out the righty. His breaking balls, for example: One classifying system says he’s currently throwing more sliders than ever. One says he’s in a three-year high for curveballs. A third says he’s right about where he’s always been, but that his recent good stretch may have coincided with an increased use of his slider.

Is he throwing more sliders now that he’s healthy? Gray shrugs. “Even before I got hurt, I was throwing sliders, and I was throwing them at 88, 89 mph,” he says. No system has him throwing a breaking ball that hard. “Whatever people call the pitch is what they are going to call it. It’s a hard curveball, I guess. The grip is a little bit different, but it does have a curveball action.”

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This year’s A’s have been something of a mystery to me. No matter how you break them down, they don’t ever look very good, but they’ve felt like a statistical underachiever. Let me explain. You know our BaseRuns standings? The A’s have an actual run differential of -59, which is one of the worst in the game. However, they have an estimated BaseRuns run differential of -2, which is perfectly ordinary. That means the A’s have a difference of 57 runs, where no other team has a difference greater than 35. And while the lineup is a part of it, the run prevention has been worse than the estimate by 0.79 runs per game. No other team has been worse by more than 0.36.

Something has caused the A’s to allow more runs than they arguably should have. Now, in reality, a variety of things have contributed. There’s seldom ever one explanation. Yet the major factor here is the one described in the headline, and it should come as no surprise to anyone who’s watched the A’s on a regular basis. We’re a third of the way into the season, and the Oakland defense has sucked.

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