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

Luis Ortiz, RHP, Milwaukee (Profile)
Level: Double-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 3   Top 100: 57
Line: 7 IP, 4 H, 0 BB, 1 R, 7 K

Notes
After walking five hitters on July 13, Ortiz hasn’t issues a free pass in two starts since then. He has good glove-side command of his fastball and has kept his body, which drew Rich Garces comparisons when Ortiz was 19, in check. Reports of his slider’s effectiveness, especially within the strike zone, have become mixed but Ortiz is purposefully working with his changeup more often, even against righties, and not getting as many reps with the slider. His curveball remains about average. Ortiz has had hamstring issues this season and various ailments throughout his career, but he’s still just 21, pitching pretty well at Double-A and projects as an above-average big-league starter.

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Monday’s non-waiver trade deadline is a mere five days away. As it nears, we’ll be treated to all the rumors and hypothetical proposals the internet is capable of providing. Many of them will be nonsensical. Some won’t. In every case, though, we’re likely to evaluate the likelihood of a prospective deal based on the same sort of variables considered by Dave Cameron in his annual Trade Value series — variables like projected WAR, salary, team control, etc.

But those aren’t the only factors at play when real people from real front offices attempt to work out a trade. There are other questions to ask. Which teams link up often and which teams avoid each other? What’s the role of familiarity in trade deals? Does it matter if the teams belong to the same division?

With the help of crack data and visualizations man Sean Dolinar, I went to work trying to answer some of these questions. Below are five statements supported by the historical data.

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White Sox general manger Rich Hahn isn’t messing around.

And the Brewers are asserting themselves as buyers, at least modest ones.

Chicago is reportedly sending reliever Anthony Swarzak to Milwaukee for Triple-A outfielder Ryan Cordell.

Hahn began an inspired rebuild of the White Sox this winter and was widely applauded for the return he received for stars like Chris Sale and Adam Eaton.

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PITTSBURGH — The Brewers are probably the greatest surprise among the league’s 30 teams this season. The club remains atop the NL Central for a number of reasons — the triumphant return of Eric Thames to the States, a breakout year from Travis Shaw. Among Milwaukee’s 25-man roster, however, the player most directly responsible for the team’s success is probably Jimmy Nelson, who ranks 10th among all pitchers with 3.1 WAR. Nelson entered the season with four career wins above replacement covering 440 innings.

Earlier this year FanGraphs’ Jeff Sullivan said the Brewers might have serendipitously found an ace in Nelson. Sullivan noted Nelson was among the game’s biggest improvers by strikeout- and walk-rate differential (K-BB%), particularly against left-handed hitters.

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PITTSBURGH — Travis Shaw isn’t caught up in trends.

In a season when so many hitters are investigating their launch angles and trying to lift balls up into the mysterious jet stream that has settled over major-league playing surfaces, Shaw is engaged in the exact opposite endeavor. He is trying to put the ball on the ground, and he’s in the midst of a breakout season.

The Red Sox would love to have a mulligan on the December multi-player deal that sent Shaw and two prospects to Milwaukee for Tyler Thornburg, who is out for the season after surgery to treat thoracic outlet syndrome. Entering play Tuesday, Shaw was slashing .293/.361/.564 with 20 homers, acceptable defense at third base, and a 2.7 WAR. He was tied as the 22nd most valuable position player in the game to start the day.

Of course, this is a different hitter than the one whom the Red Sox traded away.

“Philosophy, honestly,” said Shaw of the reason behind his breakout with the Brewers. “Everyone talks about launch angle, launch angle, launch angle. This year, I’ve tried to hit the ball on the ground more. Everyone is trying to hit it in the air. For me, when I try to hit the ball on the ground, I hit more home runs. I am more consistent with my swing.”

This seems counterintuitive, bizarre. But it’s working. For the first time in his brief major-league career, Shaw is hitting more ground balls (44.5%) than fly balls (36.0%). Throughout most of his minor-league career, he was a fly-ball hitter. And yet the quality of his contact has improved as he has tried to hit balls into the infield turf.

“The air-out/ground-out thing is completely opposite of what it’s been for my career,” Shaw noted.

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Jon Roegele is the leading authority on strike-zone changes, and I recommend you read his midseason update of the strike zone that was published at The Hardball Times yesterday.

There are a number of interesting findings and developments in the piece, but the headline is that the strike zone is contracting for a second consecutive season after it shrunk for the first time in the PITCHf/x era last season.

In 2015, the strike zone measured 475 square inches, according to Roegele, and 50 square inches in the area 21 inches above the ground and down (i.e. the bottom of the zone and below). It declined to 474 and 45 inches, respectively, last season, and to 464 and 43 square inches to date this season.

A smaller strike zone likely has played some role in the run-scoring surge of the last 48 months, and a smaller strike zone figures to have all sorts of consequences.

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It’s that time of year again. Time to gather around adult beverages (drink specials to be determined) and small plates (free thanks to FanGraphs, October, and The Athletic!) and talk baseball with some of your favorite writers. Thursday, July 13th, at 7pm at Local Option in Chicago, we have invited the writers, analysts, and brewers below (and a few more off list) to come and be merry with you in the back of the bar.

This is a 21-and-over event. No tickets required.

See you soon.

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I’ve noticed a recurring question in most of my chats. For the past several weeks, a similar query has shown up time and again, and that query is, to paraphrase: “where do the Brewers actually have to be in order to be a deadline buyer?” And I’ve mostly ignored the query, or brushed it aside, because while in one sense it was a worthwhile question, I didn’t think it was going to matter. I assumed the Brewers would fade away. I imagine nearly all of us assumed the Brewers would fade away. No reason for them to change the course of their rebuild.

I can tell you this: there’s still time. Still time for the Brewers to collapse, or regress, or do whatever might be your preferred word for the action. Still time for the Brewers to stop being good. But on Thursday, the Brewers went into Chicago and they throttled the Cubs so badly that Jon Jay was asked to handle the ninth. Importantly, the Brewers added to their lead in the division. No less importantly, the Brewers closed in on the second wild-card slot. The Brewers have played more than half of their games, and they’ve won more than half of the games that they’ve played. The Brewers have indeed positioned themselves to buy.

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Give this to the Brewers — as much as everyone still expects them to fade, they haven’t faded yet. They’ve played at least .500 baseball in April, May, and June, and they’ve held at least a share of first place in the National League Central for more than a month. Sure, the Cubs remain the favorites. Sure, the Cubs are the more talented ballclub. But the Brewers have effectively cut the season in half, which does wonders for both the odds and morale. The first-half Brewers have been a great story.

A team doesn’t overachieve without players doing the same, and we’ve dedicated posts to several of Milwaukee’s pleasant surprises. We spent the whole first month writing about Eric Thames, and we’ve also addressed Jimmy Nelson, Corey Knebel, and so on. There’s another player I’ve been intending to write about, too. The Brewers rank eighth in baseball in starting-rotation WAR, and Nelson’s the leader of the group. And yet he is only barely holding off Chase Anderson.

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Last Monday, I wrote this:

If you went to bed on the eve of the season and woke up today, you’d think everything was in order in the American League Central.

At that time, the Cleveland Baseball Club had compiled a 2.5-game lead on the Minnesota Twins. Cleveland had won six in a row and seven of their last 10, while Minnesota had lost four straight, and lost seven of their past 10. The preseason narrative looked to be crystallizing. Unfortunately, Minnesota wasn’t much interested in that narrative. The Twins proceeded to run off five wins in six ballgames, including three on the road in Cleveland, to take back control of the division.

Down south, the Brewers salvaged their week with a 7-0 win in their series finale with the Atlanta Baseball Club. Zach Davies pitched a very odd game, in which he tossed seven shutout innings, allowing just five baserunners (four hits and a walk) and didn’t strike anyone out. It was just the fifth time such a game had been pitched in the 2000s, the sixth time in the Wild Card Era, and the 129th time in baseball history.

The Brewers have been pretty disruptive to the main narrative, as well. When the Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series, Dave wrote a piece entitled “This Is How Dynasties Begin.” I nodded along, as it seemed, on that night, that the Cubs would be a force with which to reckon for some time to come. Today, I still believe that, but there have been cracks in the facade, certainly. Since May 17, the Brewers have been in sole possession of first place for every day save four — they spent two days 0.5 games back and two days tied for first place. They’ve had a tenuous grasp on the lead, as they haven’t pulled more than 2.5 games ahead, but they’ve been in first place nonetheless.

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