On a hot afternoon in St. Louis on August 8, in a game that felt meaningless at the time, the Cardinals rallied for three runs in the eighth inning to tie their game with the Royals at 5–5. In the next half inning, a Paul Goldschmidt throwing error and a go-ahead single by Nicky Lopez dropped St. Louis to 55–56, mired in third place in the National League Central. The team was 10.5 games behind Milwaukee for the division lead, 8.5 games behind the Padres for the second wild card spot, and, per our Playoff Odds, had a 1.4% chance of reaching the postseason.

But following that ugly loss, back-to-back sweeps of road series in Pittsburgh and Kansas City put the Cardinals back over the .500 mark for good, and a 10-game winning streak entering Wednesday’s game in Milwaukee has them with a commanding lead for that second Wild Card spot, and the overwhelming favorites to stay that way. Since that loss to the Royals, St. Louis has gone 26–13, but those hot streaks show just how, well, streaky the team has been; those 16 wins wrap around a 10–13 run.

Still, whether the wins come in bunches or not, the Cardinals have been one of the stories of September, and that story feels largely ignored, mostly due to the five-team dogfight that is the AL Wild Card and the back-and-forth NL West battle between the Dodgers and Giants. On last week’s episode of Chin Music, Joe Sheehan and I wondered why everyone was talking about the Blue Jays and not the Cardinals in the battle of surging birds. Our take: the team is boring. The Blue Jays have swag, infectious energy and cool jackets for when somebody hits home runs. The Cardinals, meanwhile, are relative automatons, getting overshadowed by a Toronto club that is just more fun to watch.

That’s not to take anything away from St. Louis. Entertainment value be damned, this is suddenly looking like a postseason team planning to line up a surprising ace for the coin-flip game. Here are five key factors as to how the Cardinals went from under .500 six weeks ago to being in the driver’s seat for that final playoff slot.

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The Cardinals’ 10-game winning streak has given them control of the race for the second NL Wild Card spot, as they’ve built a four-game lead over the Reds, reduced their magic number to clinch a spot to eight, and threatened to cut my Team Entropy workload way down. Monday’s victory over the Brewers, their ninth win in that streak, marked the 200th career win for Jon Lester, thereby increasing the count of active hurlers who have achieved that milestone from two to three, as the 37-year-old southpaw — who was acquired from the Nationals at the July 30 deadline — joined Justin Verlander (226) and Zack Greinke (219).

Before you ask: no, I don’t think this does much for Lester’s Hall of Fame case, not with a 39.5 JAWS, which ranks 156th among starting pitchers, below the likes of Cliff Lee, Jamie Moyer, Carlos Zambrano, Brad Radke, Bartolo Colon and current teammate Adam Wainwright — and more than 20 points behind Verlander, Greinke, and Clayton Kershaw, all of whom are around the Hall of Fame standard (61.7). Two-hundred wins, five All-Star appearances, three World Series rings, and three top-five Cy Young award finishes is a nice set of credentials, but let’s not go overboard.

Anyway, Lester pitched badly with the Nationals, and he wasn’t so hot over his final two-plus seasons with the Cubs, either, as his diminished strikeout rate caught up with him. His tenure with the Cardinals — who were just 51-51 with 2.1% Playoff Odds when they traded outfielder Lane Thomas to the Nationals in exchange for him — began in similarly dismal fashion. Yet over his last six turns, he’s delivered a 2.27 ERA in 35.2 innings, allowing no more than two earned runs in any of those outings, which have come against the Tigers, Reds (twice), Brewers (twice), and Mets. Then again, a peek at Lester’s FIP during that six-start stretch (5.68) — driven by a gaudy 2.02 homers per nine — suggests that not all that much has changed for him, so the question is, what’s underlying those better results? Read the rest of this entry »

If you want to figure out who the most fearsome power hitters in the majors are, you can consider any number of criteria. The longest home runs? The hardest-hit batted balls? Those both make some sense. The raw number of home runs? Sure, why not? Personally, I like to look at barrels per swing — how frequently a given batter converts a swing into loud contact.

That’s often what we’re asking when we think about sluggers. If you hit 30 bombs but do it by swinging frequently and putting the ball in the air with average raw, that’s not really what I’d consider a slugger. Similarly, if you almost never make contact, I don’t care too much what happens when you do. Turning swings into smashed baseballs? That’s pretty much what I want to see.

The statistic has the added bonus of mostly passing the sniff test. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Shohei Ohtani are in the top 10. So are Ronald Acuña Jr., Fernando Tatis Jr., Yordan Alvarez, and Max Muncy. Some of this year’s fun surprises — Byron Buxton and Joey Votto — are on there, too. Aaron Judge is 11th. Who tops the list? I’m glad you asked:

That’s right: Mike Zunino is, by this metric at least, the best pure power hitter in baseball. He’s having a whale of a season, too, hitting .209/.296/.553, good for a strange-looking 131 wRC+. Though he’s barely above the Mendoza line, he’s clubbing enough homers (and it’s really just homers — he only has 10 doubles) and taking enough walks (9.4%) to make up for his ghastly 35.6% strikeout rate. Read the rest of this entry »

San Diego’s 2021 season has become a campaign of devolving questions. From the preseason’s burning query of whether or not the Padres could best the Dodgers, we’ve gone from wondering whether they could top the Giants to whether they would make the playoffs at all. Now, as we head into the final week of the regular season, it’s unclear if San Diego can even beat the .500 mark.

Even if you’re hopeful about the team — and you probably don’t feel very optimistic after watching this weekend’s games or reading Jay’s piece on second-half collapses — finishing with a winning record is an open question. All of the Padres’ remaining games are against teams that would make the playoffs if the season ended today, and none of them can set cruise control; the Dodgers and Giants are fighting for the division, and the Braves still haven’t put away the Phillies.

The unraveling of the Padres became even more pronounced over the weekend. A three-game sweep at the hands of the Cardinals pushed San Diego 3.5 games out of a playoff spot, and in dramatic fashion. A clearly frustrated Manny Machado got in a public shouting match with Fernando Tatis Jr. after the latter became visibly angry about umpire Phil Cuzzi’s strike zone; fortunately for the team, manager Jayce Tingler took over the argument and was the one ejected instead of Tatis. Just as ugly was Tatis’ dropped pop-up in the first inning of Sunday’s game, compounded by a throw home instead of to second base for the force.

Coming into the season, the ZiPS projections pegged San Diego as a 98-win team, the second-best in baseball — the first time ZiPS had ever projected the franchise to win 90 games, the previous bests being 86 wins in 2007 and ’20 (before the season was pared down to a 60-game schedule). To finish 98–64 at this point, the Padres would have to go 23 and -9, which quite obviously will not happen unless MLB invents some new, bizarre rule.

Technically, there’s a path to the Padres ending 2021 on a satisfying note, but the odds are quickly becoming less “roll a double to get out of Monopoly jail” and more Dumb and Dumber-esque “so you’re saying there’s a chance.”

Coming into the season, ZiPS had the Padres with a one-in-eight chance of winning the World Series; now, it’s one-in-1,607. Perhaps if the season were 200 games, they would have time to right the ship somewhat and make the playoffs, but given how this year has gone, maybe an extended season would have them falling behind the Rockies, too.

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Given his rise from dark horse to odds-on NL MVP favorite, it’s not a huge surprise that Bryce Harper has been the best hitter in baseball since August 1. Through Sunday’s action, he slashed.346/.464/.795 in 198 plate appearances, good for a 216 wRC+. That performance has catapulted him to the very top of the race, moving ahead of Fernando Tatis Jr. in betting markets as of Monday. A lot thus has been said about Harper, but much less has been written about the second-best hitter over this stretch (among the 251 players to amass at least 100 plate appearances). That hitter, as you could probably guess from this piece’s title, is Red Sox infielder Bobby Dalbec, whose .316/.409/.737 line nearly matches Harper’s, though it has come without the associated fanfare.

That’s understandable given Dalbec’s start to the season. Unlike Harper, who posted very good numbers before his recent stretch of sheer fire, Dalbec nearly found himself without a spot on Boston’s roster following the team’s trade for Kyle Schwarber. Through July 31, Dalbec was slashing just .216/.260/.399, with a 4.4% walk rate, a 37.5% strikeout rate, and 11 homers in 296 trips to the dish. That, coupled with less-than-stellar defense (it’s still rated as a negative), gave the Red Sox every reason to option him to Triple-A. Indeed, as Peter Abraham at The Boston Globe wrote on September 12, “That Schwarber was on the injured list at the time may have been what kept Dalbec on the roster.”

The hot start to Dalbec’s career last season — a 152 wRC+ and eight homers in just 92 plate appearances — seemed unsustainable given the small sample size, 42% strikeout rate, and .394 BABIP. As a result, ZiPS projected him for a 91 wRC+ this season, though Steamer was more bullish at 103. The poor start and the hot stretch since have resulted in season stats — a .245/.306/.497 slashline and 111 wRC+ — roughly in line with what I’d peg as his true talent level. Read the rest of this entry »

Tanner Houck’s signature pitch is a sweeping slider. The 25-year-old Boston Red Sox right-hander has gone to it 35.5% of the time this season, and with good results. There is little question that the offering is the most lethal weapon in his arsenal. That said, it’s arguably not his most important pitch going forward — particularly if his future is in the starting rotation, and not out of the bullpen.

Bedeviled by an inability to master a conventional changeup, Houck began learning a split-finger fastball last year. The pitch remains something of a work-in-progress, yet he’s begun throwing it more frequently. Houck’s splitter usage is up to 7.5% on the season, a percentage that promises to rise if he can fine-tune it further. Four years after he was drafted 24th overall out of the University of Missouri, Houck is hoping that his newest pitch will take him to the next level.

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Tanner Houck: “I had trouble throwing a changeup. I would constantly baby it — I would get on the side of it and just push it — so it was really inconsistent. They came to me and said, ‘Hey, we want you to throw a splitter.’ This was in spring training 2020, four days before we got canceled. It was a heck of a time to start learning a new pitch.

“They wanted me to keep working on the change, but also attempt to throw the splitter, and I was like, ‘OK, fine; I’ll give it a shot.’ I threw a bullpen the next day, and for every five, maybe one of them wasn’t too bad. At that time it was still 90-93 [mph]; it was essentially just a little bit worse of a two-seam. But I didn’t think anything of it. I was like, ‘This is literally day one of throwing this pitch, so it’s not a big deal.’ Then COVID happens, so I go home. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.

Noah Campbell, UTIL, Milwaukee Brewers
Level & Affiliate: Low-A Carolina Age: 22 Org Rank: NR FV: 30
Line: 0-for-4, BB, 1 IP, SV, played all nine positions

Notes
Campbell has played mostly 1B/3B/LF this year but also has had a handful of games at either middle infield spot; yesterday was the fourth time this season he has pitched but his first action in center field. A likely org guy more than a prospect, Campbell is wrapping up a nice first pro season, slashing .270/.388/.387 with 20 steals and one big, rare feather in his cap because of yesterday’s game.

JP Sears, LHP, New York Yankees
Level & Affiliate: Double-A Somerset Age: 25 Org Rank: NR FV: 35
Line: 6 IP, 3 H, 0 BB, 1 R, 7 K

Notes
Sears was drafted by Seattle in 2017 and traded to New York later that year as part of the package (with Juan Then) for Nick Rumbelow. He began the year as a swingman, pitching multiple innings out of the Double-A bullpen and making an occasional spot start. By July, Sears grabbed hold of a rotation spot and held it amid a promotion to Triple-A, where he has a 3.05 ERA and a 51-to-9 K-to-BB ratio in 41 innings. Sears is throwing a little harder this season, averaging just a shade over 93 mph on his fastball after sitting 90-92 and topping out at 93 in 2019. He works with flat fastball angle at the top of the zone, his slider has utility as a backfoot offering to righties, and Sears’ changeup is passable. He’s a perfectly fine spot starter candidate, the sort the Yankees rarely rely on but often find a trade outlet for. Read the rest of this entry »

The White Sox have been so consistently the class of their division this year that it’s easy to lump their individual performances together. The offense? Scintillating. The starters? Carlos Rodón and Dylan Cease have been pleasant surprises that turned the rotation from good to one of the best in baseball. The bullpen? It’s been great, and almost forgettable in its greatness, with a top-10 ERA, a top-five FIP, and piles of strikeouts, grounders, and pop-ups.

You probably know that Liam Hendriks is the ringleader. He was a key offseason addition, coming off of a superb 2020 for Oakland. But you might not have noticed how good his three-year run has been. He has been one of the best handful of relievers in the game — again. He’s done it while throwing a ton of innings — again. Put it all together, and this recent run of excellence gives him a strong claim as one of the best relievers of the 21st century.

One way you could try to contextualize Hendriks’ string of excellence is by looking at three-season stretches by relievers. The king of this metric is, naturally enough, Eric Gagne. From 2002 to ’04, he was a machine, throwing 82.1 innings each year and delivering an aggregate 1.79 ERA, 1.57 FIP, and a whopping 11.7 WAR. That number hardly sounds like a reliever, but most relievers don’t deliver seasons like Gagne’s. He’s head and shoulders above the rest of the list:

Hendriks places a solid 23rd in all three-season totals this century. It’s hard to crack this list, though. For one thing, plenty of relievers double up by having two excellent seasons sandwiched by two okay seasons. Gagne isn’t the only name on there more than once; there are plenty of Kimbrels, Riveras, Chapmans, and the like in the top 25.
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The Orioles are a very bad baseball team. In fact, by the available evidence, they’re the majors’ worst, owners of the lowest winning percentage by a narrow margin and the lowest run differential by a country mile. Yet when the book is finally closed on the 2021 season, they will have left a sizable footprint on the American League playoff picture. For as dreadful as they’ve been, they’ve played quite the spoilers — and could continue to do so.

The O’s have already lost more than 100 games for the third time in the past four seasons; obviously, they couldn’t pull that off during last year’s pandemic-shortened campaign, though had it been played to completion, they might have given the century mark a run for its money, as their their record prorated to 68-94. At 47-102 (.315) this year, they’re one game worse than the Diamondbacks (48-101, .322), and on pace to lose 111 games, second only to their 2018 team’s 115 losses in terms of the franchise’s run in Baltimore. Because they’ve surrendered a ghastly 6.00 runs per game, they’ve been outscored by 276 runs, and could become the fifth team of the post-1960 expansion era to be outscored by at least 300 runs.

The Orioles have been even worse within their division (18-52, .257) than outside it (29-50, .367), but while they lost 18 out of 19 games to the Rays — becoming the third team of the division play era to do that, after the 2019 Tigers (1-18 versus Cleveland) and Mariners (1-18 versus the Astros) — they went 8-11 versus the Yankees. Without that difference, the AL East race would be a four-team pileup:

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Louie Varland has been one of the best pitchers in the Minnesota Twins system this season. In 20 appearances — 10 with Low-A Fort Myers and 10 with High-A Cedar Rapids — the 23-year-old right-hander is 10-4 with a 2.10 ERA and a 2.81 FIP. Moreover, he has 142 strikeouts to go with just 30 walks in 103 innings.

In some respects, Varland has come out of nowhere. A 15th-round pick in 2019 who took the mound at a Division II school, he entered the current campaign well under the radar. His name was nowhere to be found on top-prospect rankings.

The relative obscurity doesn’t include the Twin Cities’ baseball community. The St. Paul native played close to home at Concordia University, as did his older brother, Gus Varland, who was drafted by the Oakland A’s in 2018.

The emerging Twins prospect has upped both his velocity and his pitching acumen since he toed the slab with the Golden Bears. Low-90s as a collegian, he’s now sitting 94 and topping out at 98. Varland shared that his four-seam fastball spins between 2,300 and 2,500 RPM and gets 17 inches of rise. Calling the pitch his “greatest gift right now,” he added that its effectiveness is due in part to “vertical approach angle, the riding illusion that hitters see.” Read the rest of this entry »