To think, there used to be real conversations about whether the Cubs should start Jon Lester or Jake Arrieta in a potential Wild Card Game. I don’t want to shortchange Lester, who’s a terrific pitcher in his own right — one of the better pitchers in the National League. But Arrieta is just on one of those runs. If you want to play along and say something stupid like “Arrieta’s on a run that he’s earned,” then that would be exactly three fewer earned runs than Arrieta has allowed since the beginning of August. Roll your eyes all you want, but don’t pretend like that sentence wasn’t effective.

There’s a certain detectable sense of dread. The Pirates and Cubs are guaranteed a one-game playoff to determine who advances to the NLDS. The only question is where it’ll be played, but the odds-on favorite at the moment is Pittsburgh. People have complaints about the one-game-playoff format. Some of them are legitimate, even given that playoff series don’t do much better to crown the deserving ballclub. But this is what we have, and it’s exciting, and it just means the Pirates get the misfortune of facing Arrieta with everything on the line. He’s an opponent who feels unbeatable. I don’t want to take anything away from Gerrit Cole, but it feels like it’s lopsided. There’s no one in the game pitching better than Arrieta has.

Arrieta just faced the Pirates, in Chicago. He got himself pretty deep into a perfect game. A week and a half earlier against the Pirates, Arrieta gave up two runs (one earned) in eight innings. In early August, he blanked the Pirates over seven frames. In the middle of May, he gave up one run in seven innings. Toward the end of April, another one-run, seven-inning outing. It’s not like the Pirates haven’t had chances. Arrieta has just been that dominant. The Cubs have lost just one of his past 17 starts; in that game, they got no-hit. Arrieta is officially an adversary you worry about.

The attention is on the Pirates. It’s on how they intend to win this seemingly unwinnable game. Buster Olney just talked to some people in the industry about what the Pirates are supposed to do. The general message is that the Pirates are up against it. There’s nothing as psychologically daunting as an ace, and Pirates fans can just think back to last October’s one-game playoff, against Madison Bumgarner. He never seemed to even give them an opportunity to advance. It’s true: Arrieta could well take over the game. He could literally win it on his own, like he did the other day, with seven shutout innings and a homer. But history, at least, isn’t quite so pessimistic. The Pirates’ odds aren’t as long as they seem.

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Gerrit Cole might not be the best player on the Pittsburgh Pirates — Andrew McCutchen probably still holds that distinction — but over the course of the next 10 days, perhaps no pitcher in the National League, or perhaps in Major League Baseball, will have a greater impact on his team’s season. Cole has slid under the radar of the Cy Young race as Clayton Kershaw, Jake Arrieta, and Zack Greinke are all having historically good seasons. While Cole is a bit behind that NL pitching triumvirate, his 2.60 FIP is third in MLB behind only Kershaw and Arrieta. His nearly identical 2.61 ERA is sixth, behind the above three, as well as Dallas Keuchel and David Price. Cole has already pitched some important games down the stretch this season, but how he pitches in the near future could frame how many people view the Pirates’ season as they head to the playoffs for the third straight year.

Cole has pitched very well as the regular season comes to a close. Over his last four starts, he has faced only playoff teams in the Chicago Cubs (twice), the St. Louis Cardinals and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Pirates have won all four of Cole’s starts, during which time he’s recorded a 32:5 strikeout-to-walk ratio and allowed just one home run over 27.1 innings, good for a 2.30 ERA and 1.94 FIP. The starts against division rival were of particular importance. One September 6, the Pirates trailed the Cardinals by 6.5 games. A loss at that time would have put the team 7.5 games back, making their shot at a divisional comeback almost impossible. The win also kept the Pirates three games ahead of the Cubs. His next start, against those same Cubs, lengthened the lead for home-field advantage to five games and briefly put them within two games of the Cardinals.

Cole just recently turned 25 years old, and in his age-24 season, he has been one of the best in recent history at his age. Among qualified pitchers 24 and under, Cole’s 5.5 WAR is the best such figure, a full two wins better than Carlos Martinez’s mark. Since 2010, the only pitchers 24 and under with a season exceeding Cole’s current 5.5 fWAR are Clayton Kershaw (twice), Matt Harvey and Felix Hernandez.

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Toward the end of April, things weren’t looking so hot for Pirates relief ace Mark Melancon. His velocity was down — way down — and Pirates manager Clint Hurdle was beginning to field questions about Melancon’s job security. Fast forward to September, and it seems like ages ago that we were even discussing this in a serious matter, because Melancon is on the verge of a historic season.

It would have been hard to claim that Melancon would go on to have such a great season back in April. Hurdle’s proclamation that Melancon would remain the closer was met with derision. The Bullpen Report guys moved Melancon and the Pirates closer situation into the red for the first time on April 22. The velocity on his cutter, which in the past had averaged 92 mph or faster, was averaging 88 mph. In the days immediately after April 22, his velocity would dip into the 87 mph range. Hardly big league worthy. At the same time, Arquimedes Caminero was making a name for himself, and it seemed like only a matter of time before the guy who might just be the right-handed Aroldis Chapman would take over as the Pirates closer. Or if not him, then perhaps the dependable Tony Watson. Or maybe Jared Hughes. Either way, it looked like Melancon’s days were numbered.
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Injuries are an unfortunate part of most physical activities, and Major League Baseball is no exception. Players tear hamstrings running, their ACLs changing directions, and hurt their shoulders and elbows throwing. To the extent possible, those involved in the game do their very best to prevent injuries. Trainers and teams go to great lengths to strengthen and stretch out players so as many injuries as possible can be prevented. Innings and pitches are monitored to try to keep pitchers healthy.

Often, we might feel like throwing our arms up in the air and declare that prevention is impossible, but teams generally try to keep their players healthy. Whether the incentive is to achieve a greater moral good or keep valuable employees productive is debatable, but whenever an injury occurs that might be prevented, it draws attention. The attention does not focus entirely on the actual injury suffered, but whether it is possible to prevent similar future injuries. Chris Coghlan’s slide on a double play — a slide which resulted in a season-ending injury to Jung-ho Kang — is an example of the type of play and injury that spurs debate.

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It’s mostly a matter of aesthetics. A little bit of pride, but, for the most part, an out is an out, if you did nothing wrong. Batters make outs most of the time, especially if the batter’s name is Trevor Cahill. The Cubs, presumably, aren’t bothered that Cahill made an out in the fifth inning on Tuesday. They would’ve expected as much, and if anything, they’d be happy about his hitting a line drive. But ultimately, Cahill was thrown out by Gregory Polanco, and he was thrown out at first base, despite his quality contact. Maybe even in part because of his quality contact. Cahill found himself the victim of a 9-3 putout, and though Cahill didn’t make any mistakes, it’s naturally the sort of play that generates attention. It can’t not be dwelt on.

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The introduction of the second wild-card playoff team in each league in 2012 ignited the latest in a never-ending round of debates between baseball purists and modernists. Purists argued that the expansion of the playoff field cheapened the regular season, bringing it closer in line with the other major sports in terms of percentage of teams qualifying for the postseason. Major League Baseball, on the other hand, argued that it would keep a larger number of clubs in the pennant race, hopefully jacking up attendance and TV ratings in the process. From a competitive standpoint, the change really didn’t seem to be that big of a deal. It basically pitted teams ranked somewhere between fifth and 12th in MLB’s overall pecking order in a one-game showdown, with the side benefit of no longer subjecting a division winner to a “one game and out” end after a successful regular season.

It’s a little bit different scenario this time around in the National League. If today’s standings hold up over the next three weeks, we will be treated to a baseball rarity, as the clubs with the second- and fifth-best records in all of baseball, the Pirates and Cubs, divisional rivals, face a one-game showdown for their postseason lives. For my money, this ranks right up there with any non Super Bowl one-off sporting event on the calendar; it’s a Game 7, Djokovic-Federer, and Spieth-McElroy all rolled into one. When you get down to it, it’s a matchup that would be historically rare even if the two-wild-card system had been in place since the dawn of the divisional era.

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One of my favorite parts of the trade deadline happened right at the deadline itself. As the deadline passed, a Mariners writer or two tweeted out that no trades had been made. Then, a few minutes later, it was announced that J.A. Happ had been traded to the Pirates. It happened suddenly, and it arguably only happened because A.J. Burnett had gotten injured. There were never any Happ rumors to speak of; the MLB Trade Rumors archive doesn’t show anything. Happ was essentially unwanted and mediocre. I forgot who he was traded for, so I looked it up, and I’ve forgotten again. Deadline additions don’t get much less sexy than this.

But sometimes the present doesn’t give a crap about the past. Since getting traded to the Blue Jays, David Price has been worth 1.8 WAR. Makes sense; he’s an ace. Since getting traded to the Pirates, J.A. Happ has been worth 1.4 WAR. Makes less sense. All the other traded starters have done worse. Johnny Cueto’s done worse. Cole Hamels has done worse. Scott Kazmir has done worse. They’ve all done worse. I just came across an article a few minutes ago suggesting that maybe Happ should start the Pirates’ wild-card game. That’s insane, but it still speaks to how shocking this has been. Happ has pitched like a valuable pitcher, after the Pirates got him for basically nothing. Baseball’ll get ya.

So you know what the next section is. The next section is: what? What is this? What do the Pirates have J.A. Happ doing? I’ll do my best to try to explain.

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From 1990 to 1992, the Pittsburgh Pirates averaged just over 96 wins per season. They were led by Jim Leyland and what we thought at the time were the peak seasons of Barry Bonds. The early ’90s Pirates were great, but they lost in the NLCS three times and then became the Pirates. From 1993 to 2012, their best finish was 79-83 and there were a lot of finishes worse than that.

So when the Pirates became good in 2013 and continued it into 2014, people began piecing together the puzzle that was the Steel City Renaissance. Maybe you’ve even read Travis Sawchik’s Big Data Baseball. The book is very much a spiritual successor to Moneyball in that it tells the story of a smaller market team trying to find ways to succeed in an environment in which they can’t spend on par with their rivals. In the modern game, data is everywhere. The story of the Pirates’ success was their ability to interpret the data and to get the field staff and players to believe in it.

One of the focuses of the book was the Pirates’ acquisition of Russell Martin. As a FanGraphs reader, you’re likely familiar with Martin’s excellent framing and defensive numbers. A league-average-hitting catcher with elite defensive ability is an extremely valuable piece, and the Pirates were the team that had the vision to sign him. The BABIP Gods rewarded them in spades in 2014 when he posted a BABIP roughly 50 points above his career average and produced a 141 wRC+. Martin was a valuable asset and wound up having an incredible offensive season in his walk year with the Pirates. His success proved the Pirates right, but it also put Martin out of their price range for 2015. He signed a five year, $82 million deal with the Blue Jays this offseason.

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The funny thing is, Andrew McCutchen and Starling Marte are so good the Pirates would be in the conversation for baseball’s best outfield no matter who the third guy was. But more often than not, the third guy has been Gregory Polanco, and Polanco came with enormous hype. He’s had his good days and bad days, his good moods and bad moods, but these days Polanco’s on a tear. A few weeks shy of his 24th birthday, Polanco looks like he might be realizing his potential, with power, a quick swing, and a diminishing rate of groundballs. The more Polanco hits, the better off the Pirates are, and the better are the chances that Polanco really is establishing himself as a quality regular.

An interesting thing about Polanco is that, even when his numbers weren’t great, they were well and good against right-handed pitchers. It was lefties who were giving him fits, and while that’s not too uncommon for a young lefty bat, it was clearly a hurdle for Polanco to overcome. As much as the Pirates believe in and practice positional versatility, they still would’ve loved to not have to keep Polanco platooned. This leads to something that’s really encouraging. Polanco’s numbers, lately, are up. So is something else.

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Last week, I wrote a post asking whether Carlos Correa might already be the best shortstop in baseball. There is no consensus opinion on that one — a big group of people think he just might be, and another big group of people don’t think he’s proven enough. That’s all totally fine; it wouldn’t be an interesting question if we absolutely knew the answer. The main point is there’s a chance; Correa has been that outstanding. Since the All-Star break, for example, he’s tied for sixth among all position players in WAR. The guy he’s tied with is sometimes-shortstop Jung-ho Kang.

I don’t think anyone’s going to argue that Kang might be the best shortstop in baseball. He hasn’t performed at the level for long enough, nor does he quite have the defensive profile. Increasingly, however, it’s becoming clear that Kang was a hell of a find. His second-half offense has been about on par with Josh Donaldson and Chris Davis. Kang, in his rookie season, has shown several signs of promising development. The easiest possible explanation for each? It’s noise. Total randomness, devoid of any meaning. But I’m going to offer an easy alternate explanation. Kang seemingly keeps getting better. Maybe it’s obvious why.

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