Let’s play a little game. Here’s a table ranking five pitchers in a mystery stat for 2018:

One of these pitchers is not like the others. One of these pitchers didn’t get any All-Star consideration and, barring a miracle, won’t get any Cy Young votes at the end of the year. Obviously, it’s not Sale or Scherzer, who started the All-Star Game, and it’s not Bauer, who was on the AL squad.

That leaves Paxton and Maeda, and you can bet that AL manager A.J. Hinch was thinking about the former much harder, at least before his recent struggles and lower back stiffness, than NL manager Dave Roberts was about the latter — and Maeda is Roberts’ own pitcher!

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When I approached Ross Stripling at the All-Star Game media session, I knew that he was in the midst of a breakthrough season. The 28-year-old Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander went into the midsummer classic with a record of 8-2, a 2.08 ERA, and a 10.2 K-rate in 95-and-a-third innings.

I didn’t know that he was a nerd.

“Are you taking about things like spin rate and spin efficiency? I’m a believer in that for sure,” was Stripling’s response when I asked if he ever talks pitching analytics with anyone in the organization. “When I got called up in 2016, I thought that what made me good was my high arm angle leading to good downward angle on my fastball, so I should pitch down in the zone. But I tried that, and I was getting walloped.”

Then came a conversation that jumpstarted his career. Optioned to the minors in midseason to help limit his workload — “I was basically down there sitting on innings” — Stripling picked up a ringing cell phone and was soon standing at rapt attention. The voice on the other end belonged to Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dodgers have shaken off their early-season blues and climbed from 10 games below .500 to 10 above in the space of two months. They just made a huge splash with their Manny Machado acquisition — you can read about their lineup upgrade, their improved odds and the prospects they surrendered — but that doesn’t mean that president of baseball operations Andrew Freidman and general manager Farhan Zaidi can lie back in their hammocks sipping daiquiris through the July 31 nonwaiver trade deadline, as the team still has at least one other area of glaring need: the bullpen.

Before digging into their need to relieve their relievers, it’s worth considering the state of their rotation. The Dodgers have dealt with a variety of injuries thus far such that they have just one pitcher who’s made at least 18 starts — one who has spent the whole season in the rotation without interruption, basically — namely Alex Wood. Whether by accident or design, only four other teams can make that same claim: the upstart A’s (Sean Manaea), resourceful Rays (Blake Snell), and two also-rans, the Blue Jays (J.A. Happ) and Marlins (Jose Urena). The fading Angels, who have been working with a six-man rotation (more or less), have no starter who’s taken more than 17 turns.

From the Dodgers’ original starting five, Kenta Maeda (16 starts), Clayton Kershaw (13), Rich Hill (11), and Hyun-Jin Ryu (six) have all spent time on the disabled list, with Ryu still present there due to a groin strain so severe that you’d be excused for crossing your legs reflexively. Fill-ins Ross Stripling (14 starts) and Walker Buehler (10) began the year in the bullpen and the minors, respectively. Including call-ups Caleb Ferguson (three starts) and Brock Stewart as well as openers Daniel Hudson and Scott Alexander (one apiece), the team has used 11 starters, as many as the Marlins and more than all but the A’s, Angels, Mets (12 apiece), and Rays (14).

Despite the patchwork arrangement, the Dodgers have gotten very good work up front. Their starters’ 10.2 WAR is second in the NL and fourth in the majors, and by both ERA- (86) and FIP- (83), they’re first in the NL. The group has pounded the strike zone (19.8% K-BB, first in the league and second in the majors) while also keeping the ball on the ground (45.7% GB rate, tied for third in the NL and the majors) and in the ballpark (1.03 HR/9, third in the NL and fifth in the majors).

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Zach Pop isn’t the biggest name going from the Dodgers to the Orioles in the Manny Machado trade. But he does have the most electric arm, as well as an impressive track record against A-ball competition. In 35 professional games, the 21-year-old Brampton, Ontario native has allowed just 27 hits — only one of them a home run — in 48.1 innings. His ERA is a minuscule 0.93.

A seventh-round pick last year out of the University of Kentucky, Pop profiles, at least stylistically, as a right-handed version of Zach Britton. His signature pitch is a sinker that not only dips and dives but also sits in the mid-90s and ticks even higher. The worm-killer certainly proved to be an anathema to Midwest and California League hitters this season. Pitching for the Great Lakes Loons and Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, Pop boasted a 64% ground-ball rate and a .168 batting-average-against before being promoted to Double-A earlier this week (and subsequently swapped to the Dodgers, who are reportedly assigning him to the Bowie BaySox).

Pop talked about his aggressive approach on the mound and his decision to not sign with his then-favorite team out of high school, prior to the trade from Los Angeles to Baltimore.

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Pop on how he gets outs: “For me, it’s being able to throw that two-seam sinker — whatever you want to call it — to both sides of the plate, and mixing in the slider. I’ll go in with the four-seam, as well, to give a little bit of a different look, but everything starts off with the two-seamer sinker. That’s my strength. I like to stay down in the zone.

“I’m hunting outs any way I can get them. My goal is to induce weak contact, and if they want to swing at the first or second pitch and make an out before I can get a strikeout opportunity, than so be it. I haven’t really struck out that many guys this year with the Quakes, only around one per inning, maybe a little less. For the most part, I’m just trying to be efficient. I’m trying to break a barrel or just keep the ball on the ground.”

On his sinker and his delivery: “I do [have good velocity]. Yesterday, I hit 99 with my two-seamer. It used to be the case that I’d throw harder with my four-seam, but now it’s kind of equaled out. The only thing that’s really different is the movement. I get some pretty crazy numbers on my sinker. I think I have something like 20 inches of horizontal, and five inches of vertical, movement.

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Well before the rumors of a deal between the Dodgers and Orioles surfaced this week, Manny Machado was — as a legitimate star with an expiring contract on a team unlikely to contend — considered the prize of this year’s trade deadline. The 2018 season has done nothing so far to invalidate that notion, Machado bouncing back considerably from a surprisingly unimpressive 2017 season to hit .315/.387/.575, all three parts of that slash line representing career bests. The move back to shortstop hasn’t been quite as successful, but even a narcoleptic Jeff Blauser would have significant value with this kind of offensive contribution.

It took about 92 games longer than expected, but the Dodgers entered the All-Star break in first place, caressing a half-game lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West. Nor is it a two-team race: the Colorado Rockies sit just two games back and the team’s traditional rivals, the San Francisco Giants, are still hanging on four games behind despite a bevy of nasty surprises in the rotation this season. There are reasons to believe that the Dodgers are in better position than their slim divisional lead might suggest, their somewhat modest record due more to underperformance than any fatal flaw in how the roster is designed. Even before the Machado trade, the updated ZiPS projections saw the Dodgers as the strongest National League team in terms of the strength of roster and the likely depth-chart configuration.

There are areas where ZiPS produces different results than the official postseason odds calculated from the combined Steamer/ZiPS projections. ZiPS, for example, has long preferred the Braves, Brewers, and Phillies while being a bit Nationals-skeptical, but both the ZiPS and FanGraphs methodologies agree that the Dodgers had the best roster in the National League before the trade. The problem the Dodgers faced is that, while the mean projections obviously look quite favorably on their prospects, mean projections also don’t account for the uncertainty around the numbers, which can be quite significant. Even firmly believing that the Dodgers had the strongest roster in the NL West, ZiPS still called for them — after a million years of game-by-game matchups — to lose out on the division about once every three times.

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The prospect package acquired from Los Angeles in exchange for Manny Machado is deep on warm bodies who are likely to wear a big-league uniform and produce some kind of value. One or two of those new Orioles has a realistic chance of producing two wins or better annually and making enough noise to drown out the howls of a fanbase that’s losing its most talented player since Cal Ripken.

The collection of talent sent to Baltimore is headlined by 21-year-old Cuban OF Yusniel Diaz and 22-year-old righty Dean Kremer, the latter of whom had recently been promoted to Double-A. Up-and-down utility infielder Breyvic Valera, 21-year-old reliever Zach Pop, and 21-year-old breakout performer INF Rylan Bannon were also acquired in the deal.

Diaz, whom Kiley and I saw this weekend at the Futures Game, is a career .288 hitter who leaves behind a .314/.428/.477 slash line at Double-A Tulsa. Diaz homered twice on Sunday, once to right-center, once to left-center, and had one of the better batting-practice sessions on the World team.

For all that, Diaz hasn’t exhibited much over-the-fence power as a professional, even during his 165-game stay in the Cal League between 2016 and -17. He’s an all-fields line-drive hitter who keeps his hands inside the ball and peppers the right-center-field gap. He’s much more likely to display doubles power in games, which could cap his ceiling a bit, as the offensive bar in left field, where Diaz projects due to speed and arm-strength limitations, is quite high.

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Among qualified hitters, Manny Machado currently ranks eighth in baseball in wRC+. He ranks 12th in baseball in WAR, despite some ugly defensive numbers that might not reflect his actual talent. This isn’t just a flash in the pan, either; the projections the rest of the way have Machado as a top-ten value. Which is all to say, Manny Machado is all kinds of good. He’s an incredible player months away from becoming a free agent, and it’s been clear he’d be traded since shortly after the season began. It was only a question of where, and for how much. Today we have our answers.

Machado plays for the Dodgers now. The Dodgers had been thought of as a favorite from the moment they lost Corey Seager. They held off for a while — maybe the Orioles couldn’t pull the trigger, or maybe the Dodgers thought they might clever their way in another direction. We are, though, where many people assumed we would eventually be. The Dodgers have rented a new superstar, and the Orioles’ rebuild is finally underway. It will never hurt worse than it hurts at this instant.

Dodgers get:

• Manny Machado

Orioles get:

• Yusniel Diaz
• Dean Kremer
• Zach Pop
• Rylan Bannon
• Breyvic Valera

With the trade, we learn more about the price of a star-level rental. Let it not be suggested the Dodgers got Machado for cheap. You could see all five of the players going the other way reaching the majors. In rumors, Machado had been linked to teams like the Phillies, Brewers, and Diamondbacks. That’s undoubtedly part of the whole idea.

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After a few days of something more substantive than speculation, the Baltimore Orioles and Los Angeles Dodgers appear finally to have conducted official business with each other. Eduardo A. Encina and Ken Rosenthal outline the particulars of that business via social-media platform twitter dot com:

At the very center of the trade, of course, is Manny Machado, one of the best major leaguers currently authoring one of his best major-league seasons. Machado will help the Dodgers address a shortstop position that has created uncertainty for the club ever since starter Corey Seager was forced to undergo Tommy John surgery at the beginning of May. Machado is projected for slightly more than two wins over the rest of season — about a win more than Chris Taylor (who’s received most of the starts at short in Seager’s absence) and also about a win more than a combination of Cody Bellinger, Enrique Hernandez, and Joc Pederson (who’ve received most of the center-field starts with Taylor at short).

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Joe Mauer got there, but Chase Utley won’t. By there, I don’t mean the Hall of Fame, at least not directly, but the 2,000 hit plateau, which has functioned as a bright-line test for BBWAA and small-committee Hall voters for the past several decades. As I wrote back in April after Mauer collected his milestone hit, voters have effectively put an unofficial “Rule of 2,000” in place, withholding election from any position player below that level whose career crossed into the post-1960 expansion era, no matter his other merits. For anyone holding out hope that Utley would stick around long enough — while playing well, of course — to reach that marker, Friday was a rough day.

At a press conference at Dodger Stadium on Friday afternoon, the 39-year-old Utley announced that he would retire at the end of the season, forgoing the second year of a two-year, $2 million deal he signed in February. With “only” 1,881 hits over the course of his 16-year career, and less than half a season remaining, he’ll fall short of the marker.

After beginning the press conference by deadpanning that he’d signed a five-year extension, Utley said:

“I transitioned to a part-time player, something new for me, but I took it in stride… Also, a part-time strength coach, part-time pitching coach, occasionally part-time catching coach as well as a part-time general manager. The thing I’m having the most difficult time with is being a part-time dad. So that’s really the reason I’m shutting it down. I’m ready to be a full-time dad.”

While evolving from Phillies regular to Dodgers reserve/elder statesman, Utley has collected at least 100 hits just once in the past four seasons, and has just 30 this year. As injuries to Justin Turner, Corey Seager and Logan Forsythe decimated the Dodgers’ infield this spring, he appeared in 36 of the team’s first 40 games, 22 as a starter, and as of May 11 (through 38 games, selective endpoint alert!), he was hitting .271/.370/.412 with a 13.0% walk rate and a 114 wRC+ in 100 plate appearances. With Forsythe and Turner both back in the picture, however, and with Max Muncy hitting his way into regular duty, Utley went just 1-for-26 without a walk from May 12-29, after which he missed 20 games due to a sprained left thumb. Since returning, he’s made just four starts in 20 games, going 7-for-20 in that span, albeit with some big plays off the bench.

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

Andres Gimenez, SS, New York Mets (Profile)
Level: Hi-A   Age: 19   Org Rank: 3   FV: 50
Line: 3-for-5, 2B, 3B

Notes
Gimenez is a 19-year-old shortstop slashing .280/.350/.430 in the Florida State League. That’s good for a 107 wRC+ in the FSL. Big-league shortstops with similar wRC+ marks are Trea Turner (a more explosive player and rangier defender than Gimenez) and Jurickson Profar, who have both been two-win players or better this year ahead of the break. Also of note in the Mets system last night was Ronny Mauricio, who extended his career-opening hitting streak to 19 games.

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