Below are the updated summer top-10 prospect lists for the orgs in the National League Central. I have notes beneath the top 10s explaining why some of these prospects have moved up or down. For detailed scouting information on individual players, check out the player’s profile page which may include tool grades and/or links to Daily Prospect Notes posts in which they’ve appeared this season. For detailed info on players drafted or signed this year, check out our sortable boards.

Chicago Cubs (Preseason List)

1. Adbert Alzolay, RHP
2. Victor Caratini, C/1B
3. Oscar de la Cruz, RHP
4. Jose Albertos, RHP
5. Thomas Hatch, RHP
6. Aramis Ademan, SS
7. Alex Lange, RHP
8. Brendon Little, LHP
9. Mark Zagunis, 3B
10. D.J. Wilson, CF

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To make sense of things, to organize, to help create narratives, we, as humans, like to put labels on things. We like to place people and items in specific bins. And at trade deadline time, we typically categorize teams as either buyers or sellers. I am guilty of this and it does serve a practical purpose. Generally by the end of July, teams have a pretty good idea if they are contenders or looking ahead to next season.

But things are more complicated than they once were as the two wild cards — in addition to five-team divisions — have muddied the waters of the deadline market. Read the rest of this entry »

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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Evaluating relievers is difficult given their small sample of work in any given year and their volatility from year to year. But, given the fact that the most active sector of the trade deadline ended up being relievers, it makes sense to put them all in one place and wonder who got the best one. Might there be a surprising answer since the Padres ended up holding Brad Hand’s production on their roster?

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Interviews are often meandering things that you have to corral in order to make sense of anything. Every once in a while, though, you get a player with a cadence that should remain unbroken and a subject that provides them with a runway — why stand in the way? I once did this with J.D. Martinez, who has taken to this game in a mechanical manner and told us how he came to his realizations about how he should best play baseball. Now let’s let Andrew McCutchen talk about how he got his mojo back, in only the way he can. It’s a very different approach, but there’s a beauty in that I’d rather not sully with my own words.

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Josh Harrison leads the majors in times getting hit by a pitch. He led the majors in April, and after a down month in May, he’s led the majors since the start of June. In June itself, Harrison was hit 10 times, which is tied for the second-most for any player in any month in baseball history. Back in April, Harrison got hit four times in a row. Harrison has nearly as many hit-by-pitches as walks, which is both good and bad, I suppose. Harrison is sitting on a career-best OBP.

Usually, when we’ve talked about hit-by-pitches, we’ve been talking about Brandon Guyer. It is, technically, a skill that some hitters can possess, typically because of their stances. The twist for Harrison is that he hasn’t been a pitch magnet in the past. He’s been drilled 20 times this season. He was drilled 26 times before this season. Shown in graphical form:

That’s a leap forward this season, depending on what your definition of “forward” is. Here now is a plot of Harrison’s career hit-by-pitches, separated by year:

The evidence suggests that Harrison has moved a little closer to the plate. Which, yeah; I can’t come up with any reasonable alternative explanation. He’s standing a little closer, and he closes himself off with his front leg. By which I mean, Harrison raises his leg with a standard kick, and then he steps forward in the box. He’s standing closer to the plate, and then he steps closer to the plate. This is where hit-by-pitches come from, since it’s not like there is just a sudden rash of opposing pitchers who are holding a Josh Harrison-specific grudge.

Here’s the kicker. Harrison, a year ago, was hit in about 1% of his plate appearances. Harrison, this year, has been hit in about 5% of his plate appearances. That seems like a big increase, but how much of an increase is it, really? I went all the way back to 1900. I looked at every player who’s ever batted at least 250 times in consecutive seasons. Here are the biggest year-to-year jumps in HBP%:

Okay then. For now, No. 1, and by a full percentage point over F.P. Santangelo. There’s more season to play, so Harrison isn’t totally locked in here, but as he plays in more games, he’s likely to get hit by more pitches. I’m sorry, Josh Harrison. I’m sorry for the painful, helpful free bases. Although I guess it’s as much Harrison’s fault as anyone else’s. To this point, he’s refused to back off.

During the most recent Sunday Night Baseball telecast, ESPN’s cameras captured a kiss Felipe Rivero planted on the cheek of Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage.

Hey, Searage deserves it.

When one considers all the successful reclamation projects completed under Searage in Pittsburgh -— A.J. Burnett, J.A. Happ, Francisco Liriano, Mark Melancon, Ivan Nova, and Rivero himself, to name a few — Searage has earned the admiration and respect of the pitchers in his care.

Pirates GM Neal Huntington joked two winters ago that reclamation-type pitchers should pay the Pirates to pitch in Pittsburgh.

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In the coming days and weeks, you will read quite a bit about which teams should buy and which should sell, at FanGraphs and elsewhere. As the midpoint of the season approaches, the Pirates once again reside on the bubble. They’re a team once again with a slim but mathematically possible path to the postseason — a 2.9% chance, according to FanGraphs projections — a team that most expect to sell prior to the deadline.

Dave placed the Pirates in his sellers bucket earlier this week in his examination of the forming market, also noting that Andrew McCutchen had rebuilt some trade value due to his recent improvement — possibly a result, that improvement, of McCutchen having finally identified a swing flaw. After a lengthy down period, which included his baffling age-29 decline last season and an even worse start to the 2017 season, McCutchen more resembles his former self. The Pirates tried to move him last winter without success. If teams believe his current run is a result of tangible change, that could make him more appealing.

Jon Morosi of FoxSports reports that the Pirates will listen on Gerrit Cole

Executives from other Major League teams said this week they expect the Pirates will listen to offers for Cole ahead of the July 31 non-waiver Trade Deadline, and that the A’s will do the same with Sonny Gray. …. For both the Pirates and A’s, a crucial part of the Trade Deadline calculus must be the opportunity to capitalize on an apparent shortage of No. 1 — and even No. 2 — starters available on this year’s trade market.

So what should the Pirates do?

They should sell, probably, but in a particular sort of way. In fact, they might have created a model to follow last deadline.

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After a five-year run as one of the best players in baseball, Andrew McCutchen put up the worst year of his career in 2016. His strikeouts went up, his power and BABIP went down, and his defense was bad enough to finally precipitate a move out of center field. All told, McCutchen produced just +0.7 WAR last year, and when the team hung a superstar asking price on him in trades over the winter, they didn’t find anyone willing to meet their demands.

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The Pirates’ trade of Proven Closer Mark Melancon prior to last season’s trade deadline was met with much hostility at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers. The trade was seen in the public, and some corners of the clubhouse, as a white flag being raised, the Jolly Roger lowered at PNC Park. The Pirates remained on the fringe of the postseason picture at the time of the deal. Melancon had been a fixture of the 2013-15 playoff teams.

But those who aren’t focused solely on the Stanley Cup finals are no longer complaining in Pittsburgh. In return for Melancon, the Pirates acquired pitching prospect Taylor Hearn and a headline piece in Felipe Rivero, who is becoming one of the game’s elite left-handed relief pitchers.

We know all about the talents of Zach Britton, Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, the sport’s most dominant left-handed relievers. But Rivero is on the brink of joining their company. And if you’re interested in who’s occupying the ninth inning for major-league clubs — say, fantasy baseball purposes — Rivero might soon be closing games for the Pirates due to Tony Watson’s struggles.

Oh, how the Washington Nationals would like to have Rivero and his four-plus seasons of control back. As we inch closer to the trade deadline, the Rivero deal serves both as a model and warning in how to operate at the trade deadline, where overpaying is almost always a mistake and heeding the lessons of the Stanford marshmallow experiment is typically wise.

To be fair, the Nationals didn’t think they were trading this kind of arm away for 60-plus days of control over Melancon. Like many pitchers before him — A.J. Burnett, Jason Grilli, Francisco Liriano, Ivan Nova, Edinson Volquez, and, yes, Melancon himself — Rivero has made significant improvements since being traded to Pittsburgh.

Let me offer a quick a synopsis on the Rivero story: the lefty has refined his command since arriving in Pittsburgh, he’s added velocity — hitting 102 mph this season — and, in addition to a quality slider, he now boasts an elite changeup.

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