Most Major League Baseball fans are familiar with Addison Russell. The Oakland A’s selected Russell in the first round of the 2012 draft, and he became one of the best prospects in all of baseball before his trade to the Chicago Cubs for Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel at the trade deadline last season. His call-up in April was a bit of a surprise, and despite his prospect record, his mediocre batting line, higher profile teammates, and a pair of rookie shortstops in the American League have left Russell in relative anonymity. Russell’s play has not forced anyone to take notice, but playing a full season at his age is an accomplishment in and of itself.

While most people know Russell, it would be fair if they weren’t keeping up with his progress this season. A 21-year-old top prospect would normally receive a lot of attention, but recording his own debut within days of teammate, uber-prospect and likely Rookie-of-the-Year in Kris Bryant rendered Russell’s arrival less newsworthy. Russell has also been overshadowed by a pair of 21-year-old shortstops from the American League, as Carlos Correa and Francisco Lindor have both exceeded a 130 wRC+ in over 400 plate appearances. Russell, on the other hand, has yet to distinguish himself at the plate: he’s hitting just .237/.301/.384 with an 87 wRC+ this year, and has struck out in more than 28% of his plate appearances.

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The way Jake Arrieta has thrown the ball this year — especially in the second half — has ended any discussion about who the Cubs #1 starter is. Arrieta has propelled himself into the discussion of true aces, and he’ll be the guy the Cubs put on the hill with their season on the line next Wednesday. With Jon Lester slotting in to the #2 spot, the Cubs top two starters should be able to hold their own against any other staff in baseball.

After that, though, things get a little more interesting. When asked who his third starter in the postseason might be, Joe Maddon stated simply “I don’t know.” Jason Hammel began the year as the team’s third starter, and his overall numbers are quite good for a middle-of-the-rotation guy, but those numbers are based on an excellent first half and a pretty lousy second half. Prior to the All-Star break, opposing hitters posted just a .261 wOBA against Hammel, but since the break, they’ve put up a .371 mark against him. The problems may be tied to a hamstring injury that landed him on the DL in July, and unless he really shows them something in the last week of the season, it’s not clear that the Cubs can trust that he’s healthy enough to be effective in high-leverage postseason innings.

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Sunday night, Jake Arrieta came within sniffing distance of doing the almost unthinkable. By which I mean, Arrieta made a serious bid to hit two home runs. He also, at the same time, flirted with a perfect game against the Pirates, but that part is very thinkable. I don’t know how many times this year Arrieta has grabbed attention for taking a no-hitter or a perfect game deep, but it numbers somewhere in the “a lot”s, with Arrieta more or less existing on the verge of history. It doesn’t take a no-hitter bid to put him in that position — the bid is practically a foregone conclusion.

Eventually, Arrieta gave up a hit and put multiple people on base, but none of those people happened to score, Arrieta spinning another seven shutout innings. Two batters of a total of 22 reached, and one of them only did so because Arrieta did him the privilege of hitting him with a pitch. The outing was timed well, what with the Pirates being a rival of the Cubs. The outing was timed well, what with Arrieta in the running for the Cy Young award. And the outing furthered Arrieta’s case for maybe having the best season half that ever there was. However arbitrary season halves are, we’ve been splitting seasons at the All-Star break forever, and what Arrieta has done since the break legitimately defies belief.

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Injuries are an unfortunate part of most physical activities, and Major League Baseball is no exception. Players tear hamstrings running, their ACLs changing directions, and hurt their shoulders and elbows throwing. To the extent possible, those involved in the game do their very best to prevent injuries. Trainers and teams go to great lengths to strengthen and stretch out players so as many injuries as possible can be prevented. Innings and pitches are monitored to try to keep pitchers healthy.

Often, we might feel like throwing our arms up in the air and declare that prevention is impossible, but teams generally try to keep their players healthy. Whether the incentive is to achieve a greater moral good or keep valuable employees productive is debatable, but whenever an injury occurs that might be prevented, it draws attention. The attention does not focus entirely on the actual injury suffered, but whether it is possible to prevent similar future injuries. Chris Coghlan’s slide on a double play — a slide which resulted in a season-ending injury to Jung-ho Kang — is an example of the type of play and injury that spurs debate.

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It would be easy to argue Anthony Rizzo hasn’t gotten better. It wouldn’t even be an insult — last year’s version of Rizzo was super good. Not many people could improve on that. The wRC+? Down, from 155 to 147. The defense remains above-average. Rizzo seems like the same player. And he is, as a matter of fact, still quite similar.

But it’s also pretty easy to argue Rizzo’s taken a bit of a step forward. He’s given back nothing in terms of power. He’s given back nothing in terms of walks. He’s trimmed his strikeouts by 20%. The only reason his numbers aren’t up is BABIP, and, you know how that goes. Additionally, there’s this — there are 226 players who have batted at least 250 times in each of the last two years. Here are this year’s biggest increases in average fastball velocity seen:

• Anthony Rizzo, +1.5 miles per hour
• Justin Smoak, +1.2
• Chris Coghlan, +1.1
• Yoenis Cespedes, +1.1
• Cody Asche, +1.0

There’s not a perfect relationship between fastball velocity and pitcher quality, but overall, velocity correlates well with effectiveness. So what this suggests is that, this year, compared to last year, Rizzo has faced stronger opponents. Stronger opponents, with similar overall numbers and a reduced strikeout rate? That sure seems like a better player.

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It’s almost that time of year again, when individual hardware is bestowed on the best players in each league, complete with the requisite hue and cry from constituencies exhorting the merits of their respective choices. In general, I tend to not get too worked up about such things, but will dip my toe into such discussions when my interest is piqued. Last year, I thought that Felix Hernandez deserved to win a close decision over Corey Kluber in the AL Cy Young race. This year, the NL Cy race is a particularly interesting one, a three-way dogfight among Dodgers Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw and Cub Jake Arrieta. Today, let’s utilize the batted-ball data at our disposal and try to make a call on this exciting race.

For the two Dodger aces, this is not their first Cy Young rodeo: Kershaw has won the award in three of the last four seasons, and Greinke won one with the Royals back in 2009. As for Arrieta, well, this is the first time he has even pitched enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. Kershaw, 27, and Greinke, 32, were slam-dunk, top-half-of-the-first-round high school blue chippers. Though Greinke has had some unique roadblocks along the way to perennial excellence, there likely aren’t many scouts who’ve watched either him or Kershaw from the beginning who are very surprised by what either has accomplished in the game.

Arrieta, 30, on the other hand, was a humble fifth-round Oriole draft pick out of TCU in 2007 who had previously been drafted out of high school and junior college. His progress through the minors was glacial compared to his Dodger peers, and he was eventually, famously dealt from the O’s to the Cubs along with Pedro Strop in exchange for Steve Clevenger and Scott Feldman in the summer of 2013. Now Clevenger has done a nice job for the Orioles of late, but I’d still surmise that they would like to have a do-over on this deal.

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It’s mostly a matter of aesthetics. A little bit of pride, but, for the most part, an out is an out, if you did nothing wrong. Batters make outs most of the time, especially if the batter’s name is Trevor Cahill. The Cubs, presumably, aren’t bothered that Cahill made an out in the fifth inning on Tuesday. They would’ve expected as much, and if anything, they’d be happy about his hitting a line drive. But ultimately, Cahill was thrown out by Gregory Polanco, and he was thrown out at first base, despite his quality contact. Maybe even in part because of his quality contact. Cahill found himself the victim of a 9-3 putout, and though Cahill didn’t make any mistakes, it’s naturally the sort of play that generates attention. It can’t not be dwelt on.

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The introduction of the second wild-card playoff team in each league in 2012 ignited the latest in a never-ending round of debates between baseball purists and modernists. Purists argued that the expansion of the playoff field cheapened the regular season, bringing it closer in line with the other major sports in terms of percentage of teams qualifying for the postseason. Major League Baseball, on the other hand, argued that it would keep a larger number of clubs in the pennant race, hopefully jacking up attendance and TV ratings in the process. From a competitive standpoint, the change really didn’t seem to be that big of a deal. It basically pitted teams ranked somewhere between fifth and 12th in MLB’s overall pecking order in a one-game showdown, with the side benefit of no longer subjecting a division winner to a “one game and out” end after a successful regular season.

It’s a little bit different scenario this time around in the National League. If today’s standings hold up over the next three weeks, we will be treated to a baseball rarity, as the clubs with the second- and fifth-best records in all of baseball, the Pirates and Cubs, divisional rivals, face a one-game showdown for their postseason lives. For my money, this ranks right up there with any non Super Bowl one-off sporting event on the calendar; it’s a Game 7, Djokovic-Federer, and Spieth-McElroy all rolled into one. When you get down to it, it’s a matchup that would be historically rare even if the two-wild-card system had been in place since the dawn of the divisional era.

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While working on something Erasmo Ramirez said — that his slider was always in the zone anyway, so he should probably use it to steal strikes rather than for swinging strikes — it became obvious that breaking pitches are much less effective in the zone than out when it comes to swinging strikes. Curves, in particular, are much better outside the zone. You get about one third of the whiffs on a curve in the zone as you do outside of the zone.

Separately, I’m working on a piece for The Hardball Times Annual about command. In it, a few pitchers talk about the difficulty of commanding breaking pitches. “Nobody throws anything that’s truly straight,” is how Trevor Bauer put it.

While sorting the in and out of zone whiff rates, and thinking about command, it came to me that the two are related. Maybe that’s a duh, but a big part of quantifying command is the problem of breaking balls and changeups and their movement. A breaking ball in the zone may often be a hung breaking ball, which contributes to the lower whiff rates.

Let’s take a look at the pitchers that have the most disparate results on their non fastballs inside and outside the zone first, and then try to find a way to spot these pitchers by movement.

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Taking full advantage of the September roster expansion, the Chicago Cubs called up 22-year-old infielder Javier Baez to help fortify the team’s middle-infield situation. This isn’t Baez’s first taste of the big leagues. In fact, he doesn’t even qualify as a rookie anymore. As you probably recall, he spent the final two months of 2014 season in the majors, where he turned in a historically bad performance as the team’s second baseman.

Just how bad was it? Baez hit a pitcher-esque .169/.227/.324 in 52 games with the Cubs last year. His on-base percentage was the lowest of any hitter who recorded at least 200 plate appearances. Most alarming of all was his 42% strikeout rate, which made him the only player in the game’s history to have a strikeout rate above 40% in more than 200 plate appearances.

After his strikeout woes continued into this year’s spring training, the Cubs had Baez open the year in Triple-A, and kept him there until last week. Baez hit pretty well following his demotion. In 70 games, he hit .324/.385/.527 — which was good enough for a 144 wRC+. That’s markedly better than his 108 wRC+ at the same level last year. Read the rest of this entry »