Amid the ever-increasing dominance of pitching this season, Chris Archer has been a singular figure among the leaderboard of best pitchers during 2015: he’s not only a newcomer to the best handful of starters that populate baseball, but he’s also gotten to where he currently is in a rather unique way. In late April, I noticed that Archer was now throwing his slider almost 40% of the time and getting incredible results from it; in May, Carson noted that Archer was in a select group that blended an elite ground-ball rate with an elite strikeout rate; and, in early June, Dave wrote that Archer’s slider was now being thrown much harder, at upwards of 90 mph, making it an almost totally unfair pitch.

Archer has truly found himself as an ace this season, and last night, he turned in the best performance of his young career.

Unsurprisingly, the Rays’ right-hander pitched his complete game, one hit, one walk, 11 strikeout, 98-pitch performance in the method he has come to rely on this season: an overpowering fastball coupled almost exclusively with an unfair slider. Archer threw a Maddux, and he did so in historic fashion, compiling a Bill James game score of 95 along the way. The only other pitchers to throw a complete game with under 100 pitches and a game score of at least 95? I’ll let our friend Kazuto answer that:

Maddux with a 95+ game score: Koufax no-no vs Philly Cone perfect Bunning perfect Humber perfect (LOL) Rogers perfect Archer tonight

— Kazuto Yamazaki (@Kazuto_Yamazaki) August 21, 2015

That’s a lot of perfect games and one no-hitter on that very short list, which tells us just how good Archer was last night. He was this close, in fact, to a no-no:

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Every year, a number of starting pitchers seemingly come out of nowhere to become significant contributors at the major-league level. Sometimes, like in the case of Jacob deGrom, the sudden evolution is real and sustainable. In the case of the majority of short-term success stories, the league adjusts, the pitcher can’t respond to those adjustments, and he disappears from the major-league scene or he settles into a lesser role.

Earlier this week, we took a look at one such pitcher who got off to a fabulous start this season before crashing to earth: the Seattle Mariners’ Mike Montgomery. Today, we’ll take a look at the player dealt to the Rays by the Mariners for Montgomery at the end of the past spring training, right-hander Erasmo Ramirez. The 25-year-old was pummeled beyond recognition in his first two outings as a Ray, but has quietly fashioned a very nice season in Tampa, with a 10-4, 3.57, traditional line at present. Have the Rays uncovered a low-cost, high-performance starting pitcher, as they have so many times in the past? Or is it a matter of time until he starts being pounded on pitches in the fat part of the zone, as he did for much of his tenure in Seattle? Let’s take a look at Ramirez’ 2015 batted-ball data and make some observations.

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With a 52-54 record and a meager 10% chance of making the playoffs, there likely won’t be much reason to pay attention to the Rays over the next two months. Simply put, it’s unlikely they’ll be playing too many more meaningful games from here on out. However, the Rays just got a bit more interesting today. They called up former first round pick Richard Shaffer from Triple-A Durham, who’s been one of the best hitters in the minor leagues this season.

Shaffer’s hit the crap out of the ball this year. The 24-year-old slugger opened the year in Double-A, where he hit .262/.362/.470 in 175 trips to the plate. The Rays promoted Shaffer to Triple-A in May, and he made it immediately clear that he was one of the best hitters at that level too. His .261/.353/.592 performance yielded a 168 wRC+, which is the second highest mark of any hitter with at least 200 plate appearances in the International League this season, trailing only Jerry Sands.

Shaffer’s 2015 performance has been undeniably excellent, but he hasn’t always enjoyed that same level of success. In 2013 and 2014, he posted wRC+s of 99 and 112, respectively. Since Shaffer was a bat-first prospect, that performance pushed him to the fringes of the prospect radar. At first glance, it might appear as though Shaffer’s 2015 breakout came out of nowhere, and that it’s only a matter of time before the unfeeling hand of regression pushes him back towards mediocrity. But there’s reason to believe that Shaffer’s improvements are for real, and that he very well might be the hitter his 162 wRC+ in Triple-A suggests he is. Read the rest of this entry »

This breakdown starts with the Scott Kazmir deal on July 23, but there weren’t any trades from the 16th to the 23rd, so this covers the whole second half of the month, trade-wise, up until now. I count 25 total trades with prospects involved in that span that add together to have 58 prospects on the move. Check out the preseason Top 200 List for more details, but I’ve added the range that each Future Value (FV) group fell in last year’s Top 200 to give you an idea of where they will fall in this winter’s list. Also see the preseason team-specific lists to see where the lower-rated prospects may fall within their new organization.

40 FV is the lowest grade that shows up on these numbered team lists, with 35+ and 35 FV prospects mentioned in the “Others of Note” section, so I’ll give blurbs for the 40 FV or better prospects here. I’ve also linked to the post-trade prospect breakdown for the trades I was able to analyze individually, so click there for more information. Alternately, click on the player’s name to see his player page with all his prior articles listed if I didn’t write up his trade.

I opted to not numerically rank these players now, but I will once I’ve made the dozens and dozens of calls necessary this fall and winter to have that level of precision with this many players. Look for the individual team lists to start rolling out in the next month, with the 2016 Top 200 list coming in early 2016. Lastly, the players are not ranked within their tiers, so these aren’t clues for where they will fall on the Top 200.

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Want to be a better pitcher? Pick one of your pitches and work on it all offseason. Change the grip. Alter the release. It can change your career.

At best, you might find a new pitch that changes everything for you, like the time Clayton Kershaw picked up the ball and tried to throw a slider for the first time. Or you’ll improve an old standard that has faded, as Cole Hamels has done with his curveball this year.

While this sort of improvement happens so often in spring, or in the offseason, the most improved pitch of the first half is actually improving in front of our eyes.

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The Tampa Bay Rays are taking a relatively novel approach to divvying up innings between starters and relievers. Injuries have robbed the team of Alex Cobb for the season, Matt Moore and Drew Smyly for much of the year, and Jake Odorizzi for a time as well. Despite those problems, the team climbed to a 41-32 record a few weeks ago thanks to a splendid season from Chris Archer, good seasons from Odorizzi, Nate Karns — and even Erasmo Ramirez has pitched in to help the team form a solid rotation. The team has slid back to the pack in the difficult-to-decipher American League East, but still finds itself just two games back of the Yankees after losing nine of their past 12 games. Rays’ starters have been effective, but have not pitched deep into games, leaving the outcome of many games to a set of inexperienced relievers who have been shuffled between the big-league club and the minors all season long.

The Rays’ strategy appeared to be related to to two potential issues. First, the rotation was so depleted at the beginning of the year, they twice pitched bullpen games, letting Steve Geltz pitch a couple innings until his spot in the batting order. The other problem is that the deeper pitchers tend to pitch into games, the worse they tend to do. Getting a pitcher out of the game after two times through the lineup can limit damage to the starters and it can work so long as the team has a deep and effective bullpen. The Rays’ starters have averaged just 89 pitches per start, the fewest in MLB. Ted Berg noted a few weeks ago that the Rays were on pace for the second-lowest total of plate appearances (to the 2012 Colorado Rockies, who experimented with a four-man rotation) three times through the lineup in the last decade.

The graph below shows innings pitched by every bullpen this season.

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Carlos Carrasco’s Wednesday night ended with a smile, but few others were smiling, as Joey Butler broke up a would-be no-hitter in the ninth with two outs and two strikes. Throw in the fact that Butler’s liner just barely sailed over Jason Kipnis and you could argue Carrasco came as close as you can come to a no-hitter without pulling it off. Still, it was rather obviously the performance of a lifetime — Carrasco struck out Rays hitters 13 times, and he missed a full 30 bats. The line-drive hit came on pitch no. 124; Carrasco’s previous season high was 114.

A performance like Carrasco’s is interesting on its own. Yet in this case, it’s even more interesting in context. Carrasco dominated the Rays on July 1, just missing a no-hitter. Carrasco got knocked around by a very similar Rays lineup on June 19, getting pulled with a 10-hitter. The Rays, in other words, got to go up against Carlos Carrasco twice in two weeks, and the first time around, they got the better of him. But it turned out that didn’t give them an advantage. In the second game against the same team, Carrasco simply pitched like someone else.

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Last year’s Rays were, objectively, a disappointment. Forecast to do pretty well, the team ultimately lost more games than it won, finishing fourth in a surprising division. Beneath the surface numbers, though, there was something a little more positive — by BaseRuns, the Rays should’ve gone 83-79. Over the course of the year, the Rays underachieved what they arguably deserved, so the team was more competitive than it looked. But hey, 2014 was 2014. Those Rays traded David Price. They traded Ben Zobrist. They lost Joe Maddon. Early this year, the Rays lost Alex Cobb. They’ve been without Drew Smyly. They’ve been without Desmond Jennings. Last year, the Rays were borderline competitive, and they moved forward without the same talent.

And now they’re 41-32. They’re leading the East by a couple games, and the only bad team in that division has been the Red Sox. BaseRuns puts the Rays closer to 39-34, but that’s not a meaningful difference, the take-home message being, the Rays are fine. They’ve survived a massive talent loss, and if anything, now they’re playing better. Per usual, the Rays have had to overcome a number of obstacles in order to remain a relevant team. What, precisely, has taken place in Tampa Bay?

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Over the last calendar year, there are 139 qualified major-league hitters. Prorating their plate appearances to 600 per person, one finds that Mike Trout has the highest WAR at 7.2, followed by Russell Martin, Buster Posey, and Anthony Rizzo. None of that should come as much of a surprise, but the hitter right behind that group and just ahead of Josh Donaldson, Andrew McCutchen and Bryce Harper could provide a bit of shock. Over the last calendar year, Kevin Kiermaier has been worth six wins per 600 plate appearances.

Kiermaier, who has worked to improve his offense, is incredibly reliant on his fantastic defense for his great WAR numbers. While Kiermaier is a valuable player, it is possible that his WAR total is inflated by defensive numbers that are likely to come down over time. Kiermaier has logged roughly 1200 innings in the outfield and has a UZR/150 of 42.1, but only six active outfielders with at least 2,500 innings have a UZR/150 greater than 15, with Lorenzo Cain, Ben Zobrist, Peter Bourjos, Brett Gardner, Josh Reddick, and Jason Heyward falling between 16 and 22 — that is, roughly half Kiermaier’s current rate. Although he’s been good, Kiermaier is probably not the fifth-best player in baseball over the last year, and his defensive numbers should serve as a reminder that defensive statistics take some time before they become reliable.

Yesterday, I covered some players whose current WAR was potentially undervalued due to lower than normal defensive numbers in an article titled Heyward, Pedroia, and Your Annual Reminder About Defense. The present article renders yesterday’s title false as the articles together are now daily reminders, but this post should be the final one in this series with few, if any, more reminders coming in the near future. The caveat regarding small sample size from Mitchel Lichtman and our FanGraphs library is quoted more fully in yesterday’s piece, but to summarize: use three seasons of UZR when being conclusory about the defensive talent of any given player.

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A little over a month ago, Owen Watson wrote a piece here entitled “Chris Archer and His Elite Slider, and in the piece, he noted that Archer had ramped up the usage of his off-speed stuff this year, throwing it 40% of the time in the first month of the season. In that piece, Watson also noted that Archer was throwing his slider harder than he had in previous years. A few paragraphs from his piece:
c
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