Last year’s Royals caused us to fall in love with stolen bases all over again. The AL Wild Card Game put their utility on display, and it was around that game the whole nation turned its attention to Jon Lester’s refusal to attempt any pickoffs. I probably don’t need to review this for you, so I’ll skip ahead. When Lester began this year with the Cubs, plenty of people were wondering whether he’d attempt more pickoffs than the zero he tried in 2014. He seemed like a pitcher who could be taken advantage of.

Flash back to the first month of the season. Lester threw over, all right. Twice. Sort of.

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Heading into the season, Kris Bryant enjoyed favored status when it came to predicting a National League Rookie of the Year. When FanGraphs writers were polled before the season, 20 of 36 votes went to the Chicago Cubs’ third baseman; seven went Joc Pederson; six were cast for Jorge Soler; Noah Syndergaard, Jung Ho Kang and Raisel Iglesias each got one. A couple months into the season, Pederson inserted himself into the race with 13 home runs by the end of May. As the year has moved on, Bryant and Pederson have come back to the pack a bit while Matt Duffy, Kang and Syndergaard have moved into the conversation for the NL’s top rookie. The award is no longer a two-horse battle, and all the players who have risen up are sure to see plenty of exposure since each of them is in the middle of a pennant race.

As Owen Watson wrote, this season has been a historic one for rookies, particularly position players. With Bryant and Pederson leading the way, the rookie class is producing at a greater level than any in the past decade. It’s likely the best class in nearly 30 years, back when Barry Bonds and Jose Canseco were rookies. In the past month, Bryant and Pederson have allowed a few other players to enter the race. Pederson — a three-true-outcomes player to begin the season — has removed the two positive outcomes over the past month, walking just 3% of the time and hitting only one home run. Bryant hasn’t fallen quite as far. He’s still drawing walks, but he is striking out nearly one-third of the time and has a wRC+ of 58 over the past 30 days. Read the rest of this entry »

This breakdown starts with the Scott Kazmir deal on July 23, but there weren’t any trades from the 16th to the 23rd, so this covers the whole second half of the month, trade-wise, up until now. I count 25 total trades with prospects involved in that span that add together to have 58 prospects on the move. Check out the preseason Top 200 List for more details, but I’ve added the range that each Future Value (FV) group fell in last year’s Top 200 to give you an idea of where they will fall in this winter’s list. Also see the preseason team-specific lists to see where the lower-rated prospects may fall within their new organization.

40 FV is the lowest grade that shows up on these numbered team lists, with 35+ and 35 FV prospects mentioned in the “Others of Note” section, so I’ll give blurbs for the 40 FV or better prospects here. I’ve also linked to the post-trade prospect breakdown for the trades I was able to analyze individually, so click there for more information. Alternately, click on the player’s name to see his player page with all his prior articles listed if I didn’t write up his trade.

I opted to not numerically rank these players now, but I will once I’ve made the dozens and dozens of calls necessary this fall and winter to have that level of precision with this many players. Look for the individual team lists to start rolling out in the next month, with the 2016 Top 200 list coming in early 2016. Lastly, the players are not ranked within their tiers, so these aren’t clues for where they will fall on the Top 200.

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During the winter meetings this past December, we heard about Dan Haren’s fierce desire to stay in Los Angeles as a member of the Dodgers, with the right-hander even going so far as to say he would retire if he were traded. Dodgers’ GM Andrew Friedman called Haren’s bluff, shipping him to Miami with Dee Gordon in what turned out to be a chain of events resulting in the Dodgers nabbing Howie Kendrick from the Angels. With this trade deadline, there was no such threat of retirement from Haren: he’s now moving to Chicago to add depth to the Cubs’ rotation.

Though the Cubs kicked the tires on some of the better pitching help on the trading block, there was never really the sense that they needed to pull that particular trigger, as their rotation currently sits in the top five in baseball for ERA, FIP, and xFIP. With a starting four of Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester, Jason Hammel, and Kyle Hendricks — each of whom have made at least 20 starts this season while contributing at least 2.0 WAR — the Haren deal represents a depth move to fill innings in that fifth starting slot down the stretch. Given Haren’s impending free agency this winter, the move is also purely about 2015.

Haren should be an upgrade 0ver the Cubs’ current weak options for their fifth starting spot. Even though he’s dealt with a continued velocity decline (his average fastball velocity has fallen 4 MPH since 2011, down to 86 MPH this season), he’s found a way to make it work, relying on his curveball and cutter more to post numbers that, on the surface, look good (namely a 3.42 ERA in 2015).

The ominous news comes when we dig a little deeper: he currently owns the highest strand rate of his career (82.5%), the lowest BABIP (.248) and is showing extreme fly ball tendencies this season (he’s second-highest among qualified starters in fly ball rate, at 49.1%). That final issue could become a problem with the move to Wrigley, as he’s going from a very pitcher-friendly home park in terms of home runs to a more neutral home run setting. Giving up home runs has always been an issue for Haren, and they could pose a serious problem should that high fly ball rate mix poorly with a less forgiving environment.

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Kris Bryant has a lot going for him: he’s second in rookie WAR this season*, he’s part of a long-term Cubs future that looks increasingly rosy, and he’s part of a positional rookie class that has produced the third-most first-half WAR (prorated to 600 PA) in the past 40 years. In short, he’s been everything the Cubs could’ve asked for, showcasing the power, patience, and stolen bases that were expected out of him once he hit the majors.

*All stats current as of Thursday.

That last tool — speed — might be translating to steals somewhat on the back of manager Joe Maddon’s coaching style, but Bryant’s stolen-base skills have never really been in question. He stole eight bases in just 68 games at Double-A and seven in 70 in Triple-A during 2014; this season, he’s produced right about on that level, with eight in 83 games, and that’s obviously a great return for a player with the potential to hit 30 home runs. No one seems to confuse Bryant with a speed demon, however, as he’s not a player whose skill set is based solely around his ability to run.

That final point is precisely why we’re here, because Bryant is currently leading a category you might not expect him to, and one usually reserved for those speedier players we just mentioned. The category he’s leading isn’t home runs, or ISO, or even K% (though he is close to leading that one). Instead, take a look at the top 15 this season for highest infield-hit percentage:

Bryant doesn’t hit a lot of ground balls. Only about 34% of his batted balls are on the ground (relative to a league average of about 45%.) Bryant’s lack of propensity to hit grounder is just as much a driving factor here as his speed is, because infield-hit rate is simply infield hits/ground balls. However, when Bryant does hit a ground ball, it has resulted in an infield hit almost one in five times, which is something that warrants some attention.

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Just because of the sheer number of taken pitches in a season, hitters will frequently disagree on a call with the judge standing behind them. A certain number of disagreements are to be expected, but from the sounds of things, Dexter Fowler feels like he’s been disagreeing more than usual. Fowler doesn’t think his approach is worse, but his numbers are worse, so he identifies some iffy calls as a factor. This is what Fowler looks like after an iffy strike call:

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Let’s go ahead and get this out of our systems: Wednesday night, some Cardinals got ejected for complaining in a game the team won. Some people might call that the very most Cardinals thing. Those same people are just people who don’t like the Cardinals, but, whatever, everyone’s entitled to his or her own feelings, and we should get this out of the way before proceeding. All right, it’s out of the way! So let’s unpack a picture:

What you see is a play in progress. It’s a bases-clearing double, that put the Cubs ahead. As the Cubs were in the process of rounding the bases, and as the Cardinals were in the process of retrieving the baseball from the outfield, Yadier Molina argued with home-plate umpire Pat Hoberg. We see Molina with his back turned to the plate, even though there might soon be a play right there. (There wasn’t.) Arguments are common; arguments during plays are less common. Molina was shortly ejected. The same went for his manager. The game had been leading up to this moment.

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A little over a month ago, I asked which player would get a major-league hit first: Jon Lester, or Kyle Schwarber. Lester had just set an all-time record for the longest hitless streak to begin a career. But, it’s not like the Cubs were about to remove Lester from their rotation. Schwarber, meanwhile, was a hell of a hitting prospect, but he was in the minors, so that was a hurdle. By nearly a 3-to-1 margin, the audience voted for Lester. By nearly a 3-to-1 margin, the audience was wrong. Schwarber was briefly promoted, and he registered a hit. Then he registered another seven. Lester continued making outs.

Until Monday! Monday, Lester recorded his first-ever knock, off John Lackey in the second inning of a game in which Lester, for a time, had more hits than his opponent. For Lester, it was career at-bat number 72, and career plate appearance number 79. The hitless-streak record still belongs to Lester, and there’s nothing about that to be done, but now he’s officially no longer an o’fer. And while Lester himself would’ve preferred a win to a single, just because he won’t dwell on it doesn’t mean we can’t. Here’s to dwelling.

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Episode 576
Len Kasper is currently in his 11th year as the play-by-play announcer for Chicago Cubs telecasts. He’s also the very patient guest on this edition of the program.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 15 min play time.)

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It seems like a simple question to ask. Which recent home run was the least likely?

You could flippantly answer — the one Erick Aybar hit this year, or the one Melky Cabrera hit this year — and because they’ve got the lowest isolated slugging percentages with at least one homer hit, you would be right. But that doesn’t control for the quality of the pitcher. Aybar hit his off of Rick Porcello, who is having some issues with the home run right now.

A slightly more sophisticated approach might have you scan down the list of the worst isolated powers in the game right now, and then cross-reference those names with the pitchers that allowed those home runs. If you do that, you’ll eventually settle on Alexei Ramirez, who hit his first homer of the year off of Johnny Cueto earlier this year.

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