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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[Image by Justin Bopp]

After one of the lamest comeback attempts in recent memory (Manny Ramirez probably takes that trophy home), Jason Kendall has retired. While Kendall’s last few seasons were pretty miserable performances (although that did not stop the Royals and Brewers from marching him out there as much as they possibly could — indeed, Kendall insisted on it), he was quite good for a long time before bottoming out. Kendall is no Hall of Famer, but his career holds up pretty well against some of his more celebrated contemporaries. He had some bad times at the end, a testimony to the elusive-but-ever-present charms of “veteran catcher.” However, without delving into the salacious details of his personal life or discussing his tremendous way of handling tough questions from the press, it is worth recalling how much Kendall managed to accomplish in his distinguished career.

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And SHAZAM! Now’s there’s parity in the MLB!

The MLB is a funny organization. One would think that in a sport producing most of the world’s largest guaranteed contracts, the production being paid for on the free agent market would guarantee on-field success. But that is not the case. Large payrolls have been large busts, such is life.

We know that a larger payroll leads to more wins, if not necessarily a playoff appearance, but also that teams need a strong input from their farm system, too. Teams have to strike a balance with these two inputs. For some teams — like the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics — the vast majority of their talent input must come from the draft. They can afford only the January Free Agents — the unwanted scraps of the big market teams. Because of a matter of geography and history, newer teams in smaller markets like the Diamondbacks, Marlins and Rays will probably never again draw the kind of income the Mets and Yankees do.

So, an outsider might look at Wednesday’s Competitive Balance Lottery (CBL) and say, “Hey, well it’s good the MLB is trying to even things out a little bit, help out the little man.” But in truth, the CBL is a weak offering to a ever-crippled lower class. And if the MLB wants to keep small-market teams like the Rays capable of winning, they must undo their recent changes.
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John Axford is struggling. After blowing another save last night, the Brewers’ closer is now tied for the league-lead with six blown saves. Over the last two seasons, Axford had emerged as one of the best relievers in baseball. Among qualified relievers, Axford rated fourth overall with 3.9 WAR. While relief pitchers are rarely able to sustain their greatness for multiple seasons, there were few signs that Axford was headed for regression. While the Brewers are losing ground this season, Axford is under team control until 2017. If the Brewers hope that Axford will continue to be a shutdown closer in the future, they are going to have to figure out what’s wrong with him.

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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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A couple days ago in these pages, I looked at what sort of trade package, in terms of prospects, might be necessary for a team trying to acquire either Zack Greinke or Cole Hamels before the July 31st deadline. Specifically, I looked at what other front-line starters had yielded for their respective teams in recent years — using John Sickels’ prospect grades as a rough guide as to the “quality” of the minor leaguers in question.

Here, I’d like to engage in a practice that is both (a) endlessly amusing for the baseball fan and also (b) probably totally irresponsible — which is to say, using that earlier post as a foundation, I’d like to consider the hypothetical trade package a specific team might have to assemble in order to acquire Zack Greinke.

The hypothetical team in question? In this case, the Los Angeles Angels.

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The All-Star Game is over and it’s time to turn our attention to the second half of the season. All of the teams still in contention face questions as games get underway on Friday. We will take a look at those questions in two posts. Today, we’ll discuss what to look for in the National League when play resumes. On Thursday, we’ll address the American League.

The NL East is a four-team race. The Nationals are the leader in the clubhouse at the break, with a four-game lead over the Braves (five in the loss column) and a four-and-a-half-game lead over the Mets (six in the loss column). The Marlins are nine back with the Phillies in last place fourteen games behind the Nats. For the Marlins, that is a lot of ground to make up, but the NL East teams will play a lot of games against each other just after the All-Star Break. That could solidify the Nationals’ lead or tighten the race even further.

The Braves and Mets are essentially tied with the Giants and the Cardinals for the two wild card spots, just behind the Reds, who trail the Pirates by a game in the Central. The Diamondbacks, Marlins and Brewers sit three-and-a-half, four-and-a-half, and five-and-a-half back, respectively.

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Fare thee well, father, mother. I’m off
to de-luck the f*** out of this s***.

With this All-Star break forcing to watch so little baseball, we now have a moment to drink up the frothy milkshake of statistics from the first half. So, you and I, we shall dissect the stats and find out who has been lucky, unlucky and a little of both.

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The Brewers and Diamondbacks played an afternoon game on Sunday at Miller Park. The scored was tied 1-to-1 heading to the bottom of the ninth. Milwaukee’s Aramis Ramirez walked to lead off the inning. He was replaced by pinch runner Carlos Gomez. Corey Hart flew out, bringing Rickie Weeks to the plate. Arizona’s Patrick Corbin never threw a one pitch to Weeks. Gomez scored the winning run. It looked like this:

A double-error, game-winning play. A rarity in baseball.

How rare?

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Each year, about 15 minutes after the excitement of seeing who was named to the All-Star Game has worn off, the next step we take is to start carping about who didn’t make it. It’s a summer rite of passage as old as the game itself. Here at FanGraphs, we’re no different, so let’s take a look at the snubbiest snubs that were snubbed.

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