As I noted earlier today, Orioles slugger Chris Davis, who through the Orioles’ first 67 games has already dug himself a -1.9 WAR hole, is on pace for the worst season ever by that measure, -4.6 WAR. At the other end of the spectrum, Mike Trout is having not just the best season of his already amazing career, but one for the pantheon. His 5.7 WAR through the Angels’ first 69 games prorates to 13.4 over a full season, which would rank third all-time, behind the 1923 and 1921 seasons of Babe Ruth (15.0 and 13.9 WAR, respectively), making Trout’s season “only” the best in the past 95 years. What a slacker.

Even if that’s the case, Trout and Davis could combine for the largest WAR differential between two position players in one season, a chasm wider than the Grand Canyon. Below are the 20 largest single-season gaps, with some player-seasons, such as Ruth’s 1920, included more than once. I’ve also included two hypothetical end-of-season figures for Trout and Davis: their WAR differential based both on current pace and also our Depth Chart projections.

Seven separate Ruth seasons are represented here, along with three apiece from Hornsby and Bonds. Aside from the projection of Trout, only one other post-World War II player besides Bonds is represented above on the good side of things, namely A-Rod in 2002. That’s just one small set of data points related to the fact that the spread of talent between the best and worst players is much less now than it was 75 or 100 years ago and that leagues today are stronger than the ones of decades past.

Ruth hit “only” 41 homers during his 15.0-WAR 1923 season, but via his .393/.545/.764 (231 wRC+) line, he set career highs in the first two categories even while somehow failing to win a batting title. (The Tigers’ Harry Heilmann hit .403.) His dance partner from the 1923 season was Collins, a light-hitting outfielder who batted .231/.265/.289 for a lousy 43 wRC+ that year and was six runs below average on defense. To the extent that Collins has any other claim to fame, it’s apparently that he was the only player in the White Sox’ starting lineup for Game One of the World Series who didn’t wind up either banned for life as part of the Black Sox scandal or elected to the Hall of Fame (as Eddie Collins and Ray Schalk were). Ruth’s 1931 season (.373/.495/.700, 46 HR) is paired with Levey, the Browns shortstop who actually had an even worse season (1933, -4.0 WAR) that represents the record Davis is trying to avoid.

As for Trout, to date, the largest WAR gap of his career is 13.9 WAR, from 2013, when he set a career best with 10.1 WAR and Yuniesky Betancourt turned in a -1.8 WAR clunker. Even if Davis didn’t play another game this year, Trout would only need to add another 4.5 WAR over the Angels’ 93 remaining games to surpass that previous high. While he and Davis don’t have much margin for error in surpassing Ruth and Collins, it still boggles the mind that we could be seeing such extremes in the same season.

Fringe Five Scoreboards: 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013.

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion among the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickels, and (most importantly) FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel* and also who (b) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing Longenhagen and McDaniel’s most recent update have also been excluded from consideration.

*Note: I’ve excluded Baseball America’s list this year not due to any complaints with their coverage, but simply because said list is now behind a paywall.

For those interested in learning how Fringe Five players have fared at the major-league level, this somewhat recent post offers that kind of information. The short answer: better than a reasonable person would have have expected. In the final analysis, though, the basic idea here is to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.

Josh James, RHP, Houston (Profile)
Every time James produces a strong start — an event that has occurred with considerable frequency this season — FanGraphs contributor and traveler within the world of ideas Travis Sawchik sends a note to the present author that reads, “His name is JOSH JAMES.” While I can’t argue with the literal sense of Sawchik’s message — namely, that this right-hander’s given name literally is Josh James — I suspect that my colleague is attempting to communicate something more profound than a single datum from James’s biography. Have I pursued the topic? No. Not because I’m afraid to, either — but rather because I am infested by indifference.

James made one start this week, recording an 11:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio against 23 batters while facing Houston’s affiliate in Fresno (box).

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The Orioles’ season as a whole has been a bleak one. They’ve got the majors’ lowest-scoring offense at 3.49 runs per game, and the third-worst run prevention at 5.22 runs per game — yes, they’re being outscored by nearly two runs every time they take the field. Halfway through June, they’re already 27 games out of first place, and on a 46-116 pace.

If you think that’s bad, pour yourself a stiff drink and then barrel headlong into the heart of darkness by considering the performance of Chris Davis.

In the annals of baguiseball history, you can find bad seasons by garden-variety players who weren’t making much money. You can find terrible seasons by highly paid players who quite reasonably could have been expected to perform better; Albert Pujols finishing with -1.9 WAR last year at a price of $26 million is just the most recent example. And then there is whatever is going on with Davis. The 32-year-old Orioles slugger, who’s in the third year of a seven-year, $161 million deal, is threatening to produce the least valuable season of all time in terms of WAR. Through the Orioles’ 67 games (of which he’s played just 57), he’s at -1.9 WAR, which projects to somewhere between -4.6 and -4.7 over a 162-game season. (Depending on the rounding: his WAR actually rose overnight while the Orioles were inactive.)

As Dan Szymborski put it the other day:

Here is the leaderboard of the damned:

That list includes some familiar names of relatively recent vintage, glove men (by reputation, if not metrics) with woefully inadequate bats such as Perez and Guzman, a big lug who could no longer even fake defensive responsibilities (Dunn), a former MVP on his last legs (McGee), a future legend in the scouting and player-development realm (Thompson), some commons from my first couple sets of Topps baseball cards (Royster, Rockett, Meyer, and just outside the frame at -2.5 WAR, 1977-model Doug Flynn), a guy who played like he was the 148-year-old former shortstop of the pioneering Boston Red Stockings (Wright), the shortstop on the team with the most runs allowed in a single season since 1901 (Thevenow, whose Phillies yielded 7.79 runs per game; the aforementioned Thompson was his double-play partner), and a woefully overmatched shortstop for some particularly crummy Browns teams who also played in the NFL (Levey). Davis could top — or out-bottom — them all.

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Darick Hall was leading the Florida State League with 11 home runs when he was promoted to Double-A Reading on the first of June. That should come as no surprise. One year ago, the 22-year-old first baseman led the South Atlantic League with 27 bombs in first full professional season. In 2016, he went deep 20 times at Dallas Baptist University prior to being drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 14th round.

Hall, who was slashing .277/.367/.538 at the time of his promotion, began thriving after he adopted a high-launch-angle swing in his final collegiate season. And he’s certainly not turning back. While the 6-foot-4, 240-pound left-handed hitter is off to a slow start in the Eastern League — a .497 OPS and a pair of home runs in 12 games — he profiles as one of the best young power hitters in the Phillies system.

Hall talked about his game, including his power stroke and improved plate discipline, shortly before moving up to Double-A.

———

Hall on becoming a more complete hitter: “Any time you’re labelled a power hitter, your power tool is kind of what shines. But you always want to be a complete hitter. You don’t want to sacrifice at-bats just to hit home runs. Your goal is to hit the ball square as many times as you can, and you definitely want to walk. Power hitters sometimes have a high strikeout rate, a low walk rate, and a low average. That’s not something you aspire to. You obviously want the home runs, but you also want to get on base.

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Leading off the bottom of the first inning on Wednesday, Harrison Bader worked a full count against Eric Lauer and hit a single up the middle. In a matchup between two promising National League rookies, Bader appeared to have the upper hand. Tommy Pham stepped in and saw a first-pitch strike, and then the Cardinals TV broadcast said the following:

One thing to keep in mind — Lauer has a tremendous pickoff move. He has picked off four in four consecutive games.
[pause]
Now five.

That quickly, Bader was erased. Eric Lauer has picked off a runner five games in a row. This is just the fifth time that’s known to have happened in major-league history, and this active streak is a Padres franchise record. The major-league leader in pickoffs in 2016 had six. The major-league leader in pickoffs in 2017 had seven. Lauer already has seven in 2018. He’s two ahead of anyone else, even though he’s thrown just 45 innings. Sure, if you wanted to be critical, you could say that Lauer has given himself plenty of pickoff opportunities. But he’s been a baserunner-erasing machine. When Lauer is on the mound, every runner has to be careful.

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Juan Soto is 19 years old and has hit 19 home runs this season. Of those 19 dingers, 14 happened before Soto reached the majors, but two of the MLB homers were hit last night. Through 76 plate appearances, Soto is putting up a Mike Trout-like .344/.447/.641 slash line good for a 192 wRC+ and an intriguing nickname. Hitting so well for a month is great, but it isn’t out of this world. So far this season, there have been 12 players who have put up a monthly split worth a 190 wRC+ or higher. That list includes names like Trout, Mookie Betts, Jose Ramirez, Francisco Lindor, and Manny Machado, but it also includes names like Daniel Robertson, Christian Villanueva, Brandon Crawford, and Scooter Gennett. What that hot start has done is changed Soto’s outlook both for this season and his career.

Soto has already drastically changed his projections for the year. Here are the top 30 hitters in baseball going forward according to our Depth Chart projections.

The projections say that at 19 years old, Juan Soto is one of the top 15 hitters in the game. The list above is an impressive one. Look at some of the names after Soto: Jose Ramirez, Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve. These are the very best hitters in baseball, and Soto looks to be their peer. Soto rose so quickly in part because of how little time he spent in the minors. As Eric Longenhagen wrote when Soto was called up, in recent history, only Alex Rodriguez had less experience in the minors than Soto. An injury last season kept his game log to a minimum, and that meant he was a bit underrated as a prospect entering the season. He was ranked No. 45 here at FanGraphs, and no major service put him among the top-20 prospects in baseball.

The recent update to the top prospects list here put Soto at No. 9, but he seems unlikely to make the list next season as he exhausts his rookie eligibility in the coming months. It’s difficult to understate how rare Soto’s performance is thus far, as his presence alone in the majors makes him a historical oddity. When Ronald Acuña was called up at just 20 years old earlier this season, Jay Jaffe conducted an analysis on debuts and the Hall of Fame. He found that of the 238 retired players to take a single plate appearance in the majors at 19 years old, 25 made the Hall of Fame, a roughly one-in-ten shot. Jaffe went a bit further and found that only 59 players in history took 100 plate appearances at Soto’s age, and of the 54 retired players, 13 went on to become Hall of Famers.

To try and put Soto’s season in context, I went back to 1905 and looked for players with at least 50 plate appearances at 19 years old or below. Soto already appears on the first page of the WAR leaderboards.

Of the 12 retired players above Soto, six are Hall of Famers. Three of the five players directly behind him are Hall of Famers, and the sixth player is Mike Trout. Also of interest, seven players have put up six-win seasons at age 20, and the only one not in the list above is Ted Williams. That list features nine of the best 13 age-20 seasons in history. Soto only has 76 plate appearances so far, but he’s also not done yet. For fun, let’s add two potential Sotos to the list above. One hypothetical Soto is completely unrealistic, but it shows what he would do with another 300 or so plate appearances if he kept up his torrid pace. The other version is more realistic, showing Soto’s rest-of-season projections combined with what he’s done so far.

Juan Soto is currently projected to have the sixth-best season by a 19-year-old since 1905 (and yes, I cherry-picked the year to get Ty Cobb in there). Of the six players to hit two wins in a season at Soto’s age, four are already in the Hall of Fame, a fifth is his teammate Bryce Harper, and the sixth, Edgar Renteria, put up 35 WAR in an underrated career. Refining the list a bit, here are the seasons of at least 300 plate appearances and a wRC+ of 100, a list Soto will crack after a couple-hundred plate appearances and a wRC+ above 70 the rest of the way.

Juan Soto’s season is special just because he made it to the major leagues. His season is spectacular due to his performance so far, and if history is any indication, he’s about to have a monstrous career.3

Jordan Hicks once deserved our attention because he was the hardest-throwing pitcher in baseball. He later commanded more of our time because he couldn’t get any strikeouts despite that incredible velocity. Hicks is once again being highlighted at FanGraphs because he has appeared to resolve his previous issues. Over the last three weeks, in fact, he’s been the best reliever in baseball.

Hicks is still fascinating because he throws the ball really hard. His 99.7-mph average on his fastball still tops MLB with a healthy lead over Aroldis Chapman, per Baseball Savant. He’s thrown 180 pitches of at least 100 mph with Chapman’s 103 the only pitcher within 125 of him. He’s thrown more fastballs above 102 mph than below 97 mph this season as the graph below shows.

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Entering play today, four American League teams have better than a 94% chance of making the playoffs. You are probably aware that those teams are the Yankees, Red Sox, Indians, and Astros. The Yankees (99.9%), Red Sox (99.6%), and Astros (99.8%) are projected as locks for the postseason barring a series of catastrophes. The Astros (+138), Red Sox (+103), and Yankees (+91) also rank Nos. 1-2-3 in the majors in run differential. In 2016, only five clubs in baseball produced 100-plus run differentials. In 2015 and 2014? Only four.

The only postseason races that appear likely to provide compelling theatre later this summer are the battle for the AL East crown (the Yankees and Red Sox ought to be aggressive buyers) and the second Wild Card. But with Shohei Ohtani’s right UCL apparently hanging on by a thread, and Andrelton Simmons also on the DL, the Mariners are in a seemingly strong position to capture the second Wild Card — though their modest run differential (+27) casts some doubt over their staying power, leaving open the door open for the Twins and Angels. The Mariners, with what remains of the farm system, also ought to try and strengthen their grasp of a playoff position.

Still, the Mariners (73.5%) are the only other AL team with better than coin-flip odds of making the postseason. In fact, the Mariners and Angels are the only other two teams with double-digit odds of making the playoffs.

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The Rangers’ two-game visit to Chavez Ravine wasn’t just a chance for Dodgers fans to watch a relatively unfamiliar team, it was an opportunity to see a future Hall of Famer (and former Dodger) claim one more slice of history. With two hits on Tuesday night and then three more on Wednesday, Adrian Beltre tied and then surpassed the recently retired (?) Ichiro Suzuki for the most hits by a player born outside the United States. Back on April 5, Beltre surpassed Rod Carew (3.054) for the most hits by a Latin America-born player. With Wednesday’s binge, he’s up to 3,092.

Here’s the go-ahead hit, a fourth-inning double to right-center field off Kenta Maeda:

https://gfycat.com/gifs/detail/UnfoldedGregariousBighornedsheep

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Recently, I wrote an article about the very surprising Max Muncy. That was published on June 4, which is only about a week and a half ago. The way this tends to work, we write articles about players when we can’t ignore their hot streaks anymore, and then, invariably, regression sets in. Not so, in this case. At least, not yet. Since June 4, Muncy has batted 31 times. He has eight walks and ten hits, four of which have left the yard. Muncy has actually gone deep four games in a row.

Muncy didn’t even figure into our preseason Dodgers depth chart. I doubt the Dodgers were thinking too much about him, either. Muncy was projected by both Steamer and ZiPS as a below-replacement player. Well, he’s come to the plate 157 times, and out of everyone with 150 plate appearances, Muncy ranks third in baseball in wRC+, behind only Mookie Betts and Mike Trout. The picture, according to expected wOBA, is only a little bit different — within the same player pool, Muncy ranks fifth, between Freddie Freeman and Joey Votto. The numbers are spectacular, and the size of the sample is only growing.

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