On Opening Day, Edwin Encarnacion made his presence immediately felt with his new team. With Cleveland down a run, one out in the eighth, and Matt Bush on the mound, Encarnacion homered to tie the game in Arlington. It was his second hit — in just his fourth plate appearance — for his new team. By WPA, it was the biggest play of the game to that point (it would end the day as the second-biggest). By the time he came up for his fifth plate appearance, Cleveland had pulled ahead by three runs, and they would go away winners. Unfortunately, Encarnacion wouldn’t hit another homer for 13 games. In the 12 games between those homers, he would hit just .182/.308/.205 (48 wRC+) in a 53-PA stretch that had some Cleveland fans feeling a whole lot of buyer’s remorse.

Fortunately, Encarnacion hasn’t maintained that horrid performance all season. In fact, as the calendar has flipped to June, he’s been on fire. His 228 wRC+ for the month is tops in the majors, and his 132 wRC+ for the season is now 32nd among qualified hitters. In case you hadn’t noticed that he was heating up, he punctuated the hot streak yesterday with two homers off of Twins starter Kyle Gibson, accounting for the only three runs Cleveland would require to secure both the win and also four-game road sweep of the Twins. He then tacked on an RBI single and a sac fly just for fun, which made him responsible for driving in all five Cleveland runs on the day. Not bad. And the home runs were pretty, to boot, both landing in Target Field’s second deck.

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

Breiling Eusebio, LHP, Colorado (Profile)
Level: Short Season  Age: 20   Org Rank: NR   Top 100: NR
Line: 5 IP, 4 H, 0 BB, 1 R, 7 K

Notes
It’s been a strong 2017 affiliate debut for Eusebio, who looked quite good throughout extended spring training, his fastball often sitting 90-94 with some tail. His low-70s curveball improved as we inched closer to the summer and it, too, was missing bats as June arrived and is currently average, flashing above. Eusebio has trouble timing his delivery, which can negatively impact his command, but he’s deceptive, throws hard for a lefty starting-pitching prospect, and has breaking-ball feel. Very much a prospect.

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

Yordan Alvarez, DH/1B, Houston (Profile)
Level: Low-A   Age: 19   Org Rank: HM   Top 100: NR
Line: 2-for-5, 2 HR

Notes
Alvarez is hitting a preposterous .413/.500/.693 as a 19-year-old in full-season ball. Even once you acknowledge that better hitters at lower levels are going to have especially high BABIPs because they’re hitting balls harder than the baseline player at that level, Alvarez’s current .553 mark is unsustainable. Nevertheless, reports on the ease of his power and picturesque swing are very strong. There’s some swing-and-miss risk here but also a potential middle-of-the-order bat.

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This past Tuesday night against Oakland — just as there have been at other times this season — Trevor Bauer showed glimpses of the bat-missing strikeout artist he can be, the top-of-the rotation potential he’s possessed since departing UCLA with Tim Lincecum-like Pac-12 numbers and starter-kit stuff.

Bauer set a career high with 14 strikeouts against the A’s on Tuesday, and he has a career-high strikeout percentage (29.2%) and strikeout-walk rate differential (22.1 points) this season — nearly doubling his career rate (12.4-point K-BB%) by that measure.

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When you look up and see that the Athletics are in the midst of a two-game mid-week series against the Marlins in late May, you might suspect that the major-league baseball schedule is simply an exercise in randomness. At this point in the campaign, that’s actually sort of the case. The combination of interleague play and the random vagaries of an early-season schedule conspire to mean that your favorite team hasn’t had the same schedule as your least favorite team. Let’s try to put a number on that disparity.

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These days, we’re blessed with a number of amazing young shortstops. Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor, and Corey Seager, for example, are already among baseball’s top players. Manny Machado is a shortstop who just accidentally plays third base. All of them are younger than 25.

Second base isn’t as notable for its youth. Last year, however, second basemen recorded one of the top collective offensive lines at the position in the history of the game. Good job, second basemen.

So both positions are experiencing a bit of a renaissance at the moment. This led me to wonder which teams might be benefiting most from that renaissance. It’s rare that teams can keep a second baseman and shortstop together long enough to form a lasting and effective double-play combo. Right now, MLB has some pretty great ones. But which is the greatest — particularly, on the defensive side of thing? Let’s explore.

First, we want to know who has played together for awhile. Since the start of the 2015 season, 21 players have played at least 200 games as a shortstop, and 23 have done the same at second base. Cross-referencing them and weeding out the players who have played for multiple teams, we get the following list:

That’s a pretty good list. There are some tough omissions here. The most notable is the Angels, as Andrelton Simmons hasn’t been with them long enough to meet our bar here. Given Johnny Giavotella’s defensive contributions, however, we can guess that the combo here would be quite one-sided. Also excluded are teams with new double-play combos, like the Dodgers and Mariners. Not only are the Logan Forsythe-Corey Seager and Robinson Cano–Jean Segura combos new this season, but thanks to injuries they haven’t even played together much this season. Cano-Segura has only happened 22 times this season, and Forsythe-Seager only 10 times.

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In your mind, you might have an idea of the relative strengths of the Indians’ Jose Ramirez. He’s what many might term a “good little player” — and that’s not a comment on his 5-foot-8 stature. It’s about the fact that he can run a little, hit for a little power, make a little contact, and play a few positions. Useful, but maybe not a star.

Then you might look at his stats from last year and find yourself surprised that he was nearly a five-win player. Then you might look at his stats from this year and find yourself surprised that he’s now a power-hitter. For the player himself, it required a little recalibration of his own approach. And that’s forced a recalibration on us — and on pitchers, as well.

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Chris Gimenez is an effective communicator. It’s not the primary reason the journeyman backstop keeps finding a job, but given the importance of that trait to his position, it’s certainly a factor. Along with versatility and catch-and-throw skills, forging a relationship with a pitching staff is very much one of his strong suits.

Gimenez is wearing a Minnesota Twins uniform now, one year after playing a meaningful role on Cleveland’s AL championship club. It wasn’t his first season on a winner. Prior to joining the Indians, the 34-year-old veteran suited up for Texas Rangers and Tampa Bay Rays teams that tasted October baseball. As you might expect, he had quality role models at each of those stops.

Gimenez talked about the value of not sugar-coating communication and the importance of embracing analytics, at the tail end of spring training.

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Gimenez on being honest and not coddling: “Communication, between all parties, is something that all good teams have. It’s the same in the dugout and on the field. That open line of communication where somebody can say something freely, at any time, and not have people take it the wrong way.

“You get into some heated situations during a game. Whether it’s a catcher going out to talk to a pitcher, or a manager or coach coming to talk to somebody in the dugout, you need that open line of communication. If you’re sugar-coating something, you’re not doing anybody any favors.

“On the mound, you have to know which guys you can go out there and get on their rear ends a little bit. You also have to know which guys you have to coddle. But at the same time, you’re coddling in a way that you’re getting on their rear ends a little bit. It’s an art form.”

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I spend a lot of time thinking about who could be the next Mike Trout. There’s not a good answer yet. Nobody is the next Mike Trout. Francisco Lindor is not yet as good as Mike Trout. Do not under-appreciate Mike Trout! He’s amazing. Everybody take a moment to remember how Mike Trout is the very best that there is. Okay, good, thank you for doing that.

When I think about other potential 9-WAR players, though, my default is to consider elite defenders who might suddenly add some power. Because, of course, they’d be starting from a high baseline, and how many players have we seen add considerable pop over the past few seasons? I’ve had my eye on certain guys, and it’s Lindor who’s presently catching my attention. Lindor is an elite defender. Check. He occupies a premium defensive position. Check. We know he has a steady and disciplined approach. Check. Now we could be seeing the emergence of power. Lindor is 23 years old.

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Thomas Pannone was almost an outfielder in the Cubs system. Instead, he’s baffling batters and racking up zeroes for the Lynchburg Hillcats. The 22-year-old left-hander has made four starts for Cleveland’s High-A affiliate and has yet to be charged with an earned run. Stingy to a fault, he’s fanned 31 batters and allowed just seven hits in 20.2 innings.

His scoreless streak — save for one unearned marker on April 12 — is even more impressive when you go back to last year. Counting his final three appearances in 2016, Pannone has now gone 38 consecutive innings without blemishing his ERA.

The Indians drafted Pannone out of the College of Southern Nevada in the ninth round of the 2013 draft. A year earlier, he’d bypassed an opportunity to sign with a team which liked him more for his bat than for his arm.

“I was going to be an outfielder,” explained Pannone, who was selected by Chicago’s NL club in the 33rd round out of a Rhode Island high school. “But between how late in the draft it was, and not being sure I was fully ready to start a pro career, I went to a junior college instead. One thing led to another, and I was drafted as a pitcher the following summer.”

That wasn’t what Pannone had in mind when he went west.

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