James Paxton had a pretty bad June. His season got off to a wonderful start, but then he landed on the DL, and shortly after his return, the calendar flipped and pitching was hard again. Paxton in June ran a 7+ ERA, and opponents blasted him to the tune of a .395 wOBA. Something appeared to be seriously wrong, but Paxton blamed his mechanics, and not his health. He found that he had some straightening out to do.

For me, one of the fundamental markers of greatness is the ability to adjust on the fly. It’s one thing to play well, but it’s quite another to play well, then struggle, then get back to playing well again. We’ve recently seen this with, say, Rich Hill. And, of course, we’ve seen this with Paxton. Paxton started six games in July, and he won each of them. He issued a total of just six walks, and he trimmed that .395 June wOBA almost literally in half. Paxton has gotten himself back on track, and I don’t know what more evidence people might need. James Paxton is extremely good. He is sufficiently proven.

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Below is a ranking of the prospects traded this month, tiered by our Future Value scale. A reminder that there’s lots of room for argument as to how these players line up, especially within the same FV tier. If you need further explanation about FV, bang it here and here. Full writeups of the prospects are linked next to their names. If the player didn’t receive an entire post, I’ve got a brief scouting report included below. Enjoy.
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When you think of Adrian Beltre, the first thought that comes to mind might just be his defense. In the early parts of his career, that was his bread and butter. He does, after all, rank 19th all-time in Def, and 10th since the color barrier was broken in 1947. By the time he retires, top 15 in Def is well within his reach.

And yet, Beltre is just as prolific as a hitter! He’s been one of the best players ever on both sides of the ball. Yesterday, he became just the 31st member of the 3,000-hit club. That’s pretty amazing. It’s pretty much an automatic ticket to the Hall of Fame (don’t worry, Rafael Palmeiro will get there some day via some Veteran’s Committee). Beltre also ranks 15th in doubles, 38th in home runs, 21st in total bases and 21st in extra-base hits.

He doesn’t rank quite as high in rate statistics — his .195 ISO ranks 308th out of 3,953 qualified players, for instance. That’s still really, really good, but it doesn’t stand out quite as much. But he has been really good for a really long time. And he’s still playing well. If he’s not at the top of his game, he’s pretty close, and doing a lot better than a lot of other players at the time of their 3,000th hit. Let’s take a look:
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The Mariners are a decidedly mediocre team. They are 51-52. They have averaged 4.7 runs per game and given up an average of 4.8 runs per game. Their BaseRuns record is actually one game worse than their actual record, but that’s pretty darn close. They are projected to win half of their remaining games. When you include baserunning, their offense is 15th in the majors. Their defense ranks 18th, three runs above average. Their starters rank 23rd in WAR and their relievers 21st.

In other words, nothing about this Mariners team says go for it, yet the team has dipped its toes in that water acquiring bullpen help in the form of David Phelps and a potential bottom-of-the-rotation starter in Marco Gonzales. Despite their mediocrity, there are rumors the Mariners will dive all the way in this season, attempting to acquire Sonny Gray. And, it does make a little sense.

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Thoughtless and bad editor Carson Cistulli overlooked this post when Chris Mitchell submitted it on Friday afternoon. That’s the reason it’s appearing on Tuesday.

The Mariners and Cardinals completed one-to-one swap of outfielder Tyler O’Neill and lefty Marco Gonzales on Friday. As Dave Cameron has pointed out, this represented a case of the Mariners trading away future upside for some much-needed, immediate rotation depth. A move of that type is understandable given the state of the Mariners’ rotation and their position in the Wild Card race, but KATOH thinks the gap in value between these two prospects is quite large.

Below are the projections for the three players whom the White Sox receive. WAR figures account for the player’s first six major-league seasons. KATOH denotes the stats-only version of the projection system, while KATOH+ denotes the methodology that includes a player’s prospect rankings.

*****

Tyler O’Neill, OF (Profile)

KATOH: 7.1 WAR (34th overall)
KATOH+: 6.0 WAR (52nd overall)

O’Neill elevated his prospect stock last season, when he slashed .293/.374/.508 at the Double-A level. But he’s had a tougher time at Triple-A this season, hitting only .244/.328/.479. Part of that, however, has to do with playing in a park that’s tough on right-handed hitters. Eric Longenhagen gave him a 50 FV over the winter and listed him as an honorable mention on his top-100 list.

O’Neil is a three-true-outcomes prospect who’s homered, walked, or struck out in over 43% of his trips to the plate this year. His power is his biggest strength, as he’s belted a remarkable 75 homers since the start of the 2015 season while also kicking in 76 doubles and triples. But all that power comes with a lot of strikeouts, as evidenced by his 27% strikeout rate this year.

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Heading into the year, the Mariners plan seemed to be to acquire as many low-ceiling middling prospects as they could find and throw them all at the wall, hoping one or two would help stabilize the back end of the team’s rotation. Over the last year and change, they’ve acquired and started Ariel Miranda, Dillon Overton, Chase De Jong, Chris Heston, Christian Bergman, and Ryan Weber. Thanks to a .220 BABIP, Miranda’s been a reasonable enough starter for the team, but most of the other guys made a few low-quality appearances and were then shipped back to Triple-A.

But the Mariners are apparently undeterred, and are trying this strategy one more time.

#Mariners acquire LHP Marco Gonzales from St. Louis for minor league OF Tyler O’Neill.

— Ryan Divish (@RyanDivish) July 21, 2017

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The Marlins? They’re out of it. At some point it seemed like they might have a chance, but now they’re out of it, ever so out of it, so they’ve gone into sell mode. The Marlins are used to being in sell mode. The Mariners? They’re not out of it. They’re out of it within their own division, but they’re close to a wild-card spot, like a lot of the American League. They’re close despite dealing with a thin and injured pitching staff. The Mariners are simultaneously too good to sell, and too bad to buy hard. Not to mention the farm isn’t good enough to buy hard anyway. The Mariners haven’t appeared to have that many options.

Put it all together, and that’s how you get a trade like this:

Mariners get

• David Phelps

Marlins get

• Brayan Hernandez
• Brandon Miller
• Lukas Schiraldi
• Pablo Lopez

The Mariners could really use a starter. But also, they could really use a reliever, and Phelps remains under team control for 2018. So, he’s not just some kind of stretch-run rental. And although he’s no Kenley Jansen, he’s pretty good and awfully interesting. The price is four guys from the low minors. We shouldn’t pretend like any of us have any idea what they’re going to become. It’s another Jerry Dipoto exchange of low-level depth for high-level, shorter-term security.

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If I know you, you’ve been around long enough to have seen a number of these. There isn’t much in the way of variation. Over a large enough timescale, the worst called ball will come on a pitch thrown in the vicinity of the middle of the strike zone. There’s no alternative. Those are the clearest, most obvious strikes, so when they’re not strikes, they’re lousy called balls. They all look more or less alike in that regard. So exploration is just about filling in the details. When did this particular bad call happen? Who was the umpire who made the actual call? Which pitcher threw the pitch? Which catcher caught — or didn’t catch — the pitch? What was the situation at the time? Did the call end up mattering much?

I’ve written the same post a whole bunch of times. I’ve done the same research, to end up with the same kind of play. Just about always, the call happens because the catcher sets up somewhere, and then the pitcher badly misses. I usually make some reference to how it’s evidence that framing does matter. Catchers struggle to catch pitches headed for surprising locations. You can “earn” a ball, even when you throw a pitch down the pipe.

This is another play that wasn’t very clean. We’re going back to June 18, in the first inning of a game between the Rangers and the Mariners. Danny Valencia got ahead in the count 1-and-0 against Yu Darvish, because Darvish and catcher Robinson Chirinos failed to properly execute. But this time, there’s a twist. This isn’t the same post as always.

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

Jorge Mateo, SS/CF, New York AL (Profile)
Level: Double-A Age: 22   Org Rank:  6 Top 100: 91
Line: 4-for-10, 2 3B, HR

Notes
As the dominoes fell following Gleyber Torres‘ injury, Mateo landed in Trenton. He split time between shortstop and center field down at High-A and the Yankees have the option to continue working him at both spots at Double-A with utility prospect Thairo Estrada on the roster. He struggled to do everything on the offensive end but steal bases in Tampa, failing to do damage anywhere but to his pull side. He’s off to a terrific start in Trenton, though, tallying five walks and three triples in just six games.

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We’re still 100 games away from the end of the season, but we’re getting closer to that time when teams have to decide whether they’re in or out of contention for the playoffs. Some clubs might have to make the tough choice of moving themselves out of contention despite having a reasonable playoff shot. In the American League, nearly every team is still in the race. That might change over the course of the next month, of course, but the field certainly looks like it will still be crowded come July.

There are five playoff spots up for grabs in the AL, and while a lot can and will happen the rest of the way, there are four teams to which our playoff odds give roughly an 80% or better chance of making the playoffs: the Houston Astros, Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox, and New York Yankees. The Astros look well on their way to potentially 100 wins, while the Indians, Red Sox and Yankees appear to be moving toward close to 90 wins, a figure that generally amounts to a spot in the postseason. Those four teams total 359% of the 500% total odds available. After that, seven teams have something close to a 10%.

After the first four teams, no club has a better than a 50% chance at the playoffs. The team at the top, Toronto, is currently in last place in its division. Here are the playoff odds since the beginning of the season for the rest of the teams in the American League — with the exception, that is, of the rebuilding Chicago White Sox, who have been near zero all season long.

Does that look like an incomprehensible mess? Well, welcome to the AL Wild Card race. If it helps at all, the list of teams at the bottom of the chart is in order in terms of their current playoff odds. There are seven teams with close to a 1-in-10 shot of making the playoffs, with a couple more in Kansas City and Oakland that possess an outside chance of getting back into the mix. If you picked the top team currently by the odds, Toronto, taking the field is probably a better bet.

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