The National League Wild Card race is hardly a race at all. It feels as though the teams vying for the playoffs’ back door don’t actually want to claim the prize, struggling as the contenders have in recent months.

There is another team on the outside of that cohort or recent playoff squads, something of a darkhorse that sits just 2.5 games out of the Wild Card slots. A team that lost 100 games last year, the Miami Marlins. They sat in first place in the NL East as recently as June 8th, only to slip well below .500 in July. They’re a puzzle, an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a blood orange.

Are the Marlins good? Are they a legit Wild Card contender? Maybe not. One thing that isn’t up for debate is the strongest part of this Marlins team – their outfield is one of the best in baseball and could stay that way for a long while.

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Last week, Dave wrote a little ditty about how we will probably be crowning some Los Angeles players with the Most Valuable Player Awards this season. For the National League, that means Yasiel Puig or Clayton Kershaw. And, Dave is right. Dave is usually right. Right now, Kershaw is probably the best choice. But he’s a pitcher, and he missed a month, and yada yada yada people will invent reasons to not vote for him. And Puig? Well, we know he isn’t the most popular player among the voting bloc. But Giancarlo Stanton, on the other hand, is pretty popular with just about everyone. And he is having a heck of a season too. Could he sneak in and yank the award away from the boys in blue?

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The 2009 Milwaukee Brewers had a fairly potent offense. Prince Fielder was playing out of his mind. Ryan Braun was not far behind him. Mike Cameron was still providing value, Corey Hart was about league average. Jason Kendall and J.J. Hardy, while not hitting very well, were playing well enough defensively that they needed to be in the lineup. And then there was Casey McGehee. Claimed off waivers from the Cubs in late 2008, McGehee had a banner season in 2009; his 126 wRC+ was good enough for 9th amongst third baseman with 300 PA or more.

The Brewers had no pitching that year, and so were out of the playoff race, and by the time Milwaukee made their push in 2011, McGehee was nowhere near his 2009 level. He was traded to the Pirates, then to the Yankees, but could never reclaim his mojo. He signed a one-year deal with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in late 2012. He hit 28 dingers in 144 games with the Eagles. This was a good enough performance to earn him a free-agent contract with the Miami Marlins. Then, things got weird. Read the rest of this entry »

Because of  interleague play, many of this season’s All-Stars have already seen who’s on the other side. But there’s a unique opportunity to see the best of the other league on one field in Minnesota. So I asked some All-Stars if they were looking forward to a particular matchup today.

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Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

Summary
The SAL leader in wOBA also happens to be a catcher who should stick behind the plate.

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Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

Summary
Beck’s all-around profile merits consideration.

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Florida Governor Rick Scott signed a bill into law on Friday that gives local governments access to $13 million annually in funding for the construction or renovation of a professional sports facility. To be eligible, the sports facility must be owned and operated by a local government or owned by a private entity that’s located on land owned by a local government.

Under the general terms of the new law, the Tampa Bay Rays would be eligible as a beneficiary of the new funding stream, as Tropicana Field is owned by the City of St. Petersburg. Same for the Miami Marlins, which play in a ballpark built largely with Miami-Dade County bonds. Then there are the nine teams that play in spring training facilities in Florida (Phillies, Blue Jays, Astros, Rigers, Rays, Pirates, Orioles, Mets and Twins) and the 14 minor league teams in Florida that play in a ballpark owned by — or on land owned by — the local government.

But an amendment to the bill added as it made its way through the Florida legislature carves out facilities used by MLB and MiLB franchises unless and until MLB changes its rules to permit Cuban ballplayers to sign as free agents if they defect from Cuba directly to the United States. Under current rules, MLB requires players to defect and establish residency in a non-U.S. country before coming to the United States to sign as a free agent.

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Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

In this installment of the Prospect Watch, I’m checking in on three players who impressed me last year and are off to big starts this year in the short-season New York-Penn League.

Summary
Wick has two plus tools and he’s laying waste to the NYPL early on.

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Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

In this installment, I examine three interesting groundball prospects who most have probably never heard of.

Summary
Newell’s exceptional plane and solid slider have allowed him to carve up Low-A hitters.

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It’s kind of hard to imagine a man who is 6’6 and weighs 240 lbs. It’s easy to imagine the numbers, but it’s hard to fathom a person that size standing behind you in line at the bank or teaching social studies to third graders. We see numbers like this bandied about in sports, and when big men are playing on a field with other big men, the baseline is shifted. They don’t seem that much bigger than everyone else.

A few years ago, I was in the Twins clubhouse and got to talk a little with Justin Morneau. Justin Morneau is listed at 6’4″ and 220 lbs. My first out-loud question was something about how his training regimen changed since his concussion problems. My first internal question regarded how quickly he could leave me in a bloody pulp should my questions anger him. Morneau has 4 inches and 30 pounds (40 if you don’t include my spare tire) on me. Yet the difference, when standing face-to-face with him, was staggering. Giancarlo Stanton and Justin Morneau are large men, is the point. Read the rest of this entry »