The Shohei Ohtani show has unofficially begun. After missing over a month with a thigh issue, Ohtani returned to the mound two weeks ago, with scouts from half of the Major League teams reportedly in attendance. For his start on Tuesday night, both Andrew Friedman and Jerry Dipoto were known to be in the stands to watch in person, a start in which Ohtani was clocked at 101 mph and allowed just one hit over 5.2 innings. And after that start, reports from Japan have begun to suggest that there’s an agreement in place for Nippon to post Ohtani this winter, clearing him to come to the Majors for the 2018 season.

Yahoo’s Jeff Passan has a good breakdown of the situation.

It isn’t about the money. Athletes reflexively say this, and sports fans roll their eyes, because of course it’s about the money. It’s always about the money. Then along comes Shohei Ohtani, 23 years old, the finest baseball player Japan has produced in years, maybe decades, a once-in-a-generation sort who can throw 102 mph and hit tape-measure home runs, a player whose free-market value would start at $200 million if Major League Baseball didn’t restrict the signings of international players under 25 to barely $10 million.

Only Ohtani, it seems, does not mind the prospect of giving up literally hundreds of millions of dollars to play in the greatest league in the world. Multiple reports out of Japan on Wednesday morning there said the same thing: Ohtani, who has been called the Japanese Babe Ruth, will enter the posting system this winter and play for a major league team in 2018. This came as no surprise to the general managers and scouts who have flocked in recent weeks to watch him pitch for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. It also didn’t lessen their excitement any.

“It’s really happening,” one GM said, half-mocking, half-giddy at the prospect of the 23-year-old spicing up the free agent market this winter. And fascinating as his courtship would be in normal circumstances, the prospect of the best player available signing one of the most piddling contracts makes it unlike any free agency sports has seen: One where it literally isn’t about the money.

Because last year’s CBA raised the age of international prospects covered by the bonus-pool system to 25, Ohtani isn’t eligible for true unrestricted free agency for two more years. Rather than wait that long — and as a pitcher, two more years of good health is no guarantee — Ohtani will reportedly be posted this winter and then sign under the same rules by which 16-year-olds are bound. He’ll receive a signing bonus of some size (up to about $10 million) depending on which club he ultimately joins and then sign a standard uniform player contract that binds him to the arbitration system until he accrues six years of service time.

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Doug Fister has only made more and more sense. He was most surprising in the early days, the successful days, the days when Fister was a command-first No. 2. He was never considered much of a prospect, because prospect evaluators love them some velocity, but Fister made it work through his pinpoint location. He was, in a sense, in the same mold as Dallas Keuchel and Kyle Hendricks. And then, gradually, Fister got worse, as his repertoire eroded. He lost what speed he had, and he lost his results, having exceeded his own narrow margin of error. Fister joined the Astros in 2016 as a roll of the dice. He wasn’t very good, and then he was a free agent. He didn’t get a job until the desperate Angels signed him in May. He was dropped a month later. Fister became what he was going to become, having gotten to the end of the line.

Yet one last opportunity beckoned, one with the Red Sox. Dave Dombrowski had seen Fister’s best self, and he needed a pitcher. Over Fister’s first month, he allowed nearly a run per inning. A shift to the bullpen ended on July 31 anyway, and Fister has taken off. He’s thrown seven games, and he’s looked like…classic Doug Fister. I mean that. Seemingly out of nowhere, Doug Fister has turned back the clock.

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Miguel Cabrera and Joey Votto — they’re both cinch future Hall of Famers, as close approximations as any among current major leaguers to the ideal all-around hitter. They have consistently made hard contact to all fields, hit for average and power, and not conceded many free outs to opposing pitchers. And obviously, they’ve done it without any contribution from their legs; it’s been all bat.

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Last week in this space, we took a look at some shortstops predominantly known for their gloves who’ve taken some real (and not so real) steps forward with the bat. (Zack Cozart was not included; he deserves his own article soon.) This time, let’s flip the script and assess the light offensive production of some shortstops known for their bats not all that long ago.

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The most improbable home run I’ve ever watched in real time was hit last November. You know the one — it was the one hit by Rajai Davis, against Aroldis Chapman, with Davis choked halfway up the barrel. I’m sure that, mathematically, there have been home runs of a lesser likelihood, but that Davis blast just felt impossible. It didn’t feel real until the ball cleared the fence. I still can’t believe it happened, and the Indians still lost the game a couple innings later. I don’t care. I recall the Davis home run more clearly than anything else.

In truth, in my book, any home run against Chapman counts as improbable. I don’t know how he ever gets touched. And yet, Davis, at least, was batting right-handed. He had the platoon advantage. And the pitch he lined out to left field clocked in at a hair over 97 miles per hour. Fast, but not *outrageously* so. There are plenty of pitchers out there who can throw 97. Sometimes they give up dingers. The Davis home run, realistically, never should’ve happened, but I can bring myself to get it. I can understand the mechanism.

When Davis took his hopeful swing, Rafael Devers was, I don’t know, somewhere. Probably, he was watching. But no matter what he was doing, he was doing it having recently turned 20 years old. He was a good baseball prospect, but he was one who hadn’t yet encountered Double-A competition. I’m not sure how close Devers felt like he was. Yet Sunday night, you could say that Devers arrived.

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Aaron Judge’s monster first half made him an obvious MVP candidate, even as he’s slowed down in the second half of the year. Jose Altuve leads qualified hitters in wRC+, as a second baseman who also happens to steal a bunch of bases, so he’s an obvious MVP candidate. Mike Trout is within +1 WAR of both of them despite spending two months on the disabled list, and on a per-game impact, is again obviously making the biggest impact of anyone on the planet, so he’s a less-obvious MVP candidate, but he should be in the mix by season’s end.

But if the voting were held today, there would be a pretty clear choice for the American League’s Most Valuable Player, and it would be Chris Sale.

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Below are the updated summer top-10 prospect lists for the orgs in the American League East. 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.

Baltimore Orioles (Preseason List)

1. Chance Sisco, C
2. D.L. Hall, LHP
3. Ryan Mountcastle, OF
4. Austin Hays
5. Cedric Mullins, OF
6. Cody Sedlock, RHP
7. Keegan Akin, LHP
8. Hunter Harvey, RHP
9. Jomar Reyes, 3B
10. Anthony Santander, OF/1B

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Last night, Rafael Devers played his eighth game in the Major Leagues since being called up to fix Boston’s third base problem. In that eighth game, he recorded his 13th hit. It looked like this.

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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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Deadline day kicked off with the Red Sox prying Addison Reed away from the Mets. Below is analysis of the prospects sent to New York in the trade.

Red Sox get

• Addison Reed

Mets get

• RHP Gerson Bautista
• RHP Jamie Callahan
• RHP Stephen Nogosek

All three of the prospects acquired by New York project as relievers. The 22-year-old Callahan and his deceptive, over-the-top arm action had a dominant, walk-less month at Double-A to start the year before a promotion to Triple-A Pawtucket. Since arriving in Rhode Island, he has since struggled a bit with command. He has struck out 36 hitters in 29 innings at Triple-A, but has walked 13. He sits 94-97 and has a short, fringey slider in the 87-90 mph range, and a below-average change-up. Both secondaries project to average and Callahan projects in a middle relief role.

Bautista, a 22-year-old Dominican, is the most explosive of the three, sitting 95-99 mph and touching 100 with his fastball. He was signed back in April of 2013 at age 18 and then missed time that year due to a positive PED test. The following year, Bautista’s career began at age 19 in the Dominican Summer League and he has, more or less, been behind the developmental eight-ball since then. He owns a 5.16 ERA at High-A, largely because of wildness and ineffective secondary offerings — his slider flashes above average, but is mostly fringey, and the change-up is below average. But his arm strength is enticing.

Nogosek was a 2016 sixth rounder out of Oregon. He began his first full pro season as Low-A Greenville’s closer and dominated there until late June, when he was promoted to High-A Salem. Nogosek’s pitching regimen started to include multi-inning outings shortly before the trade. He struck out 18 hitters in 17.2 innings with Salem, walking 10. The righty sits 90-95 mph and will flash a plus slider. He pitches aggressively and projects to have average command.

Of the three, Bautista has the highest upside because he has the best arm. If he ever tightens up his slider he could be a set-up man. Callahan is, obviously, the closest to yielding major league value. Nogosek has the best secondary pitch of the group and the best command projection, too, and is probably the most stable long-term bet of the three, though his lower arm slot might cause platoon issues at upper levels and limit his role.