The best part of being a lawyer, aside from winning cases, is using long and cool words like fiduciary and promissory estoppel and collateral attack and forcible entry and detainer. The worst part of being a lawyer is when you have to give people bad news, to play the role of the “fun police.” This piece falls squarely into the latter category.

Enter Nationals southpaw Sean Doolittle, who, as our very own Carson Cistulli explained last week, has issued a challenge. Specifically, this challenge:

Awesome! Bat flips are awesome. Like this one.

Shortly after his comments were published, Doolittle later said he was joking.

That is, as they say, unfortunate. Really unfortunate, in fact, because I agree with Dan Gartland and Scott Allen: this challenge is awesome. Or, more precisely, it would be awesome if the rules allowed it. Alas, today I’m forced — in my capacity as an officer of the fun police — to inform you, Dear Reader, that Doolittle’s idea is probably prohibited.

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This year’s National League Cy Young race invites multiple interesting questions about how best to evaluate pitching performance. Jacob deGrom, for example, is the league’s leader in ERA by a healthy amount; however, he’s also recorded only as many wins as reliever Jeremy Jeffress. Max Scherzer is having another great season, but his .255 BABIP compels one to consider whether his 2.31 ERA is the product of luck or defense (although the Nationals have recorded below-average defensive numbers both by UZR and DRS). Aaron Nola, meanwhile, has recorded a similarly low BABIP even as Philadelphia has produced NL-worst figures both by UZR and DRS. Finally, while the race has been viewed as a three-person contest for some time, it’s also possible Patrick Corbin has inserted himself into the conversation with a fantastic second half.

Sorting through the candidates is difficult. Ultimately, one’s choice for Cy Young will depend on how one weighs what a pitcher can and cannot control — and how best to quantify those effects. To start, here are some general metrics that should be familiar to FanGraphs readers.

Based on these numbers, Jacob deGrom is the pretty clear favorite for Cy honors, with Max Scherzer an equally clear runner-up. What’s less clear, however, is that the results of a vote would produce a similar outcome, as both pitcher wins and other versions of WAR are likely to influence writers — and arrive at different conclusions than the figures here. Below, I’ve included some different versions of WAR, each of which paint the field in a different light.

Here we see a version of reality that suggests greater parity in the race. Averaging the numbers above, we’d still put deGrom first, Scherzer second, and Nola third, but Scherzer actually places ahead of deGrom in two of the four metrics, while Nola and Scherzer are more closely situated. Examining how each of WAR metrics arrives at its destination can help inform how to use them. Last week, Eno Sarris took a look at some of these same issues in a discussion of how large a role luck ought to play in Cy Young voting. There is also the question of what defines “luck” in the context of pitching, what sort of control a pitcher exerts over certain outcomes, and what role a a pitcher’s park ought to play in our evaluations of him.

The metrics above all feature different inputs which, naturally, lead to different results. In the version of WAR used at FanGraphs, those inputs are innings, strikeouts, infield flies, walks, and home runs — along with factors for league and park. DeGrom leads by this particular measure because his strikeout, walk, and homer numbers are all great. Scherzer has good walk and strikeout numbers but a closer-to-average home-run rate. Nola features slightly inferior (although still excellent) strikeout and walk numbers — plus a good home-run rate — but he falls behind Corbin, who has good numbers in all three.

The next metric, RA9, is another version of WAR carried at FanGraphs — one which, in this case, simply considers the number of runs a pitcher allows while also factoring for league and park. That’s how Nola, with the very good ERA, jumps up near Scherzer, though still short of deGrom. RA9 includes runs that were scored or not scored due to defense and sequencing, but does not try to make any adjustments for those factors.

Baseball-Reference begins with something like FanGraphs’ RA9 calculation but makes further adjustments for opponent and team defense, which is a significant factor in this year’s race. Nola tops the Baseball-Reference WAR leaderboard because of how well he’s prevented runs despite Philadelphia’s poor defense. Generally the effects of these defensive adjustments are muted, but because Nola appears to be headed for one of the 10 best bWAR seasons of the last 50 years, this case invites some scrutiny. Patrick Corbin suffers from the opposite scenario: Arizona has recorded strong defensive numbers, meaning he receives a “penalty” of sorts for his contribution to run-prevention.

Here are the overall team defense numbers by DRS, which Baseball-Reference uses, and UZR, which is included in WAR for position players but not pitchers here at FanGraphs.

There is obviously a much larger spread with the DRS figures, as defensive adjustments alone mean a difference of 24 runs between Nola and Corbin, which is about four times as much as the difference by UZR.

Over at Baseball Prospectus, their Deserved Run Average (DRA) metric accounts for as many aspects of a pitcher’s game as possible and attempts to factor for everything including park, opponent, catcher, umpire, and pitch effectiveness to determine how many runs a pitcher should have allowed with all those variables rendered neutral. By their methods, Scherzer leads over deGrom, with Nola and Corbin a ways behind.

There’s certainly an argument to be made for considering the strength of a defense behind a pitcher, and reason dictates that a defense can help or hurt a pitcher’s run-prevention numbers. Defense alone, however, isn’t going to fully explain the difference between a pitcher’s FIP and ERA. Luck is involved, as well. We can use Statcast information to determine just how much defense and luck might be involved, though it won’t do a good job separating those two factors. For starters, here are the xwOBA and wOBA figures for each of the pitchers above.

In terms of what a pitcher has deserved to concede based on quality of contact, strikeouts, and walks, Scherzer has gotten just about what we might expect, while deGrom and Nola aren’t far off expectations. Corbin is the outlier here, and there is a case to be made that Arizona’s defense is partially responsible for his good fortune. What’s interesting, though, is that Corbin’s ERA is actually much higher than his FIP. This could mean that Corbin has been rather fortunate this year on home runs or that the contact he’s conceded on balls in play has been of higher quality than the sort conceded by other pitchers.

We can remove the most skill-based aspects from above by taking out strikeouts and walks and looking at xwOBA on just batted balls.

Here we see almost no effect on Scherzer’s outcomes, with a slight benefit for deGrom and Nola, and then a big help for Corbin. You’ll note that the league-wide numbers are off by 15 points from each other, likely due to a potentially dead baseball, as the estimates on launch angle and exit velocity are based on previous seasons, when the ball was perhaps a bit more lively. As we are looking at numbers between pitchers in this season alone, the comparisons still provide value. What happens when we remove home runs and look solely at batted balls? See below.

In theory, these numbers factor in both defense and luck on batted balls this season. As we can see, it appears that, whatever poor defense has victimized Nola has likely been evened out by good fortune. The same is true for deGrom. Scherzer, meanwhile, appears to have received a slight benefit, with Corbin being the recipient of some good defense in Arizona. This probably doesn’t leave the reader with any definite conclusions. We have a better idea about the quality of contact and how defense might have affected run totals — which is to say not much — but the extent to which a pitcher exerts control over that contact is also a matter of debate.

If you believe that a pitcher controls very little of opponent contact — or, alternatively, are unsure of the level of control — the version of WAR hosted here at FanGraphs is your main resource. If you believe that a pitcher is wholly responsible for the quality of contact he concedes and also that defensive quality doesn’t move the needle much in one direction or another, RA9/WAR makes some sense for you. If you believe further adjustment needs to be made for defense, bWAR can provide some help. If you want a more granular look at individual pitches, DRA provides guidance. If you just want something based entirely on xwOBA, a crude attempt is made below.

While the question of value is somewhat objective, there is some subjectivity involved, but if making a decision on the Cy Young, it’s important to have as much information as possible to determine why one pitcher might be better than the other. It isn’t enough to simply prefer one stat over another and blindly rely on it because you generally agree with the methodology. Look at how the results are reached to make the best possible decision.

*****

As promised in the final paragraph above, here’s a rough approximation of WAR based on xwOBA:

Reynaldo Lopez remains a work in progress. The 24-year-old right-hander has been brilliant in his past two outings — allowing just a pair of runs over 14 innings — but his overall performance this season has been a mixed bag. In 28 starts for Chicago’s South Side club, Lopez has a 4.37 ERA, and he’s fanned just 6.8 batters per nine innings.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t making strides, nor does it mean that he can’t miss bats when he needs to. Acquired by the White Sox along with Lucas Giolito and Dane Dunning in the December 2016 deal that sent Adam Eaton to the Washington Nationals, Lopez has been removing the word “raw” from his reputation. Tutelage from a pair of baseball’s best pitching minds is a big reason why.

“I’ve matured a lot,” Lopez told me this summer via translator Billy Russo. “Four or five years ago my mindset was to throw hard and overpower the hitters. Now it’s more about location and pitch selection, and managing the game. You have to be smart in order to succeed at this level.”

The native of San Pedro de Macoris began learning that lesson upon his arrival in the nation’s capital midway through the 2016 season. His initial outings were rocky, and teammates were in his ear. Their messages were straightforward. He couldn’t just throw hard. He needed to have a plan.

His first tutorial came from one of the game’s best, and most cerebral, pitchers.

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A brief examination of basically any human encounter ever reveals that people frequently do not agree with each other. This one human over here has an opinion; this other one, meanwhile, has a different opinion. It would be fine, perhaps, if those individuals never interacted, but that is also part of being human: there’s a lot of interaction. At stores, for example. Or on streets. And the one human says to the other, “Hey, your opinion is different than mine!” And the second one says to the first, “I am mad about that!”

Sometimes the interaction in question occurs at home plate during baseball’s postseason and Sam Dyson, for reasons known primarily to Sam Dyson, has decided that the proper course of action for someone like him is just to slap Troy Tulowitzki directly on the buttocks. Tulowitzki, whom one will identify immediately as a different person than Sam Dyson, regards this as not the proper course of action and proceeds to lodge some complaints verbally. Other humans get involved and all manner of other complaints are lodged, some verbally and some even physically. Complaints abound, is what one finds. Then everyone retreats back to their respective holes in the ground (known, in the sport of baseball, as a “dugout”) and awaits the next event worthy of their indignation.

One small thing over which humans frequently disagree is how much joy is acceptable to display publicly. One camp, whom we might characterize broadly as The Sons and Daughters of John Calvin, believe the amount is very close to zero. Another camp, whom we might call Basically Everyone Else, contends that — so long as no one is getting hurt — it’s probably okay to just do whatever.

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The National League Wild Card race is nuts. Here’s the currently field of clubs competing for it, through Thursday’s games, with our playoff odds.

That’s just nuts! In the American League, the next closest Wild Card team, the Seattle Mariners, is 4.5 games out of a playoff spot. The next closest team behind them is the eight-games-out Rays. The next closest NL team, as you might notice, is significantly closer than that. The NL has eight teams whose odds of making the playoffs are over 25%; the AL, meanwhile, has just five such teams.

And so, with the NL’s relative nuttiness in mind, the Brewers traded this afternoon for left-handed pitcher Gio Gonzalez to bolster a rotation that is still in search of reinforcements after losing Jimmy Nelson to a shoulder injury before the season started and Brent Suter to Tommy John surgery in July. In return, the Nationals will reportedly receive two minor leaguers, though at the time of publication, those players’ identities are still unknown. As such, we’ll evaluate this trade in terms of Gonazalez’s merits for the Brewers and what the trade signals for the Nationals’ late-season tear-down. We should also note that the trade, famously a disruptive event, was remarkably convenient for Gonzalez, who — as a result of the two teams playing one another today — simply had to walk across the field to the Brewers’ dugout.

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

Note from Eric: Hey you, this is the last one of these for the year, as the minor-league regular season comes to a close. Thanks for reading. I’ll be taking some time off next week, charging the batteries for the offseason duties that lie ahead for Kiley and me.

D.J. Peters, CF, Los Angeles Dodgers
Level: Double-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 7   FV: 45+
Line: 4-for-7, 2 HR, 2B (double header)

Notes
A comparison of DJ Peters‘ 2017 season in the Cal League and his 2018 season at Double-A gives us a good idea of what happens to on-paper production when a hitter is facing better pitching and defenses in a more stable offensive environment.

Reports of Peters’ physical abilities haven’t changed, nor is his batted-ball profile different in such a way that one would expect a downtick in production. The 2018 line is, I think, a more accurate distillation of Peters’ abilities. He belongs in a talent bucket with swing-and-miss outfielders like Franchy Cordero, Randal Grichuk, Michael A. Taylor, Bradley Zimmer, etc. These are slugging center fielders whose contact skills aren’t particularly great. Players like this are historically volatile from one season to the next but dominant if/when things click. They’re often ~1.5 WAR players who have some years in the three-win range. Sometimes they also turn into George Springer.

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Unable to escape the gravitational pull of .500, the Nationals finally waved the white flag on Tuesday. They let Matt Adams return to the Cardinals via a waiver claim. They traded Daniel Murphy to the Cubs for “an exciting Class-A prospect,” according to general manager Mike Rizzo. They put Bryce Harper through waivers as well — all three of these players actually hit the wire on Friday — but while he was reportedly claimed by the Dodgers, his waiver period expired without a deal transpiring, meaning that he’s staying put. Alas, the novelty of seeing the 25-year-old slugger in a new uniform, and the buzz such a transaction would create, will have to wait.

Despite his 30 home runs (tied for second in the NL) and 91 walks (first), Harper’s age-25 season has been something of a disappointment. He’s hitting .246/.380/.511 for a 133 wRC+, the last figure significantly below both last year’s 156 and his career-best 197, set in his NL MVP-winning 2015 season. His fall-off, however, isn’t the reason the Nationals’ 2018 is down the tubes. From injuries to several key players (Murphy, Sean Doolittle, Adam Eaton, Anthony Rendon, Stephen Strasburg, Ryan Zimmerman) to replacement-level-ish production from their catchers (-0.1 WAR) and bullpen (0.8 WAR), to questionable management by rookie skipper Dave Martinez, there are no shortage of reasons why the Nationals reached this stage and no shortage of fingers to point. It’s true that had Harper been more productive before July 31, perhaps by a couple of wins, Rizzo could have taken a more aggressive approach at the deadline, shoring up a weakness or two on a 54-51 team that was 3.5 games out of both a Wild Card spot and the NL East lead instead of shrugging his shoulders at a 52-53 squad. We’ll never know.

The Nationals are doomed, but Harper has been one of the hottest hitters in baseball in recent weeks, in stark contrast to the first few months of the season. Here’s a breakdown, using the All-Star break as the divider:

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With the Nationals under .500 and their playoff hopes growing slimmer, the club decided to put a few pending free agents on waivers. One of the more prominent names is that of Daniel Murphy, who is headed to the Cubs. The deal was first reported as close by Craig Mish and then confirmed shortly thereafter by multiple sources.  Jon Heyman came through with the return, so here’s the deal:

Cubs receive:

• Daniel Murphy

Nationals receive:

• Andruw Monasterio
• Cash or PTBNL

The trade is an interesting one for several reasons. First, because the Cubs were the team to claim him and trade for him, that means that every other team in the National League passed on Murphy. The 33-year-old lefty was in the final year of his three-year, $36 million contract that pays him $17.5 million this season with $5 million deferred to the following two years. That means Murphy is owed about $4 million for the rest of the season. The money, plus a lack of need at Murphy’s position of second base, likely caused other contenders to pass and land in the lap of the team with the best record in the National League.

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

Johan Quezada, RHP, Minnesota Twins
Level: Low-A   Age: Turns 24 on Saturday   Org Rank: 46   FV: 35+
Line: 3.1 IP, 0 H, 0 BB, 0 R, 6 K

Notes
This was Johan Quezada’s first career appearance in full-season ball. An imposing mound presence at a towering 6-foot-6, he has recovered from the shoulder surgery that cost him all of 2017, and his velocity has returned. He sits 94-97 with extreme downhill plane created by his height, and he’ll show you an average slider every once in a while. Quezada’s breaking-ball quality and command need to develop as they’re understandably behind due to his limited pro workload. He’s a older-than-usual arm-strength/size lottery ticket. On the surface, he seems like a candidate for extra reps in the Arizona Fall League.

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The St. Louis Cardinals brought 1B/“OF” Matt Adams back to his old stomping grounds, picking him up from the Washington Nationals after claiming him on revocable waivers.

Bryce Harper hasn’t been traded yet — and that would be a big one if it actually happens — but the departure of Daniel Murphy (about whom Craig Edwards will soon publish a post) and Adams is a likely indicator of how Washington feels about their rapidly deteriorating playoff odds. It’s a bit of speculation here, but from talking with people around baseball, I’m of the belief that ownership was less inclined to throw in the towel than team general manager Mike Rizzo.

Adams is a role player but a useful one for a team that’s starting to think about playoff bullpens. The 340-point OPS split between his career numbers against lefties (.595) and righties (.835) always made Adams a tough call as a full-time starting first baseman. Nevertheless, it gives him situational value. The Cardinals are 17th in baseball against right-handers by wRC+ versus sixth against lefties, and Greg Garcia is the only other left-handed bat available on the bench. Nor can the team dig in and grab someone from Triple-A: the only lefty Redbird hitters are Justin Williams, recently picked up in the Tommy Pham trade, and Max Schrock, who only has a .666 OPS and I think was the secondary bad guy in Batman Returns. Williams may have a future on the team, but if you just need a lefty bat off the bench, Adams is more valuable at this point.

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