I’m sorry to have to tell you that you’re never going to hit in the major leagues. As far as how well you’d do if you got the opportunity — it’s fun to think about the lowest possible limits, but random fans never get the chance. It’s an experiment that will never be run, but the closest we can get to an understanding is by examining American League pitchers. Every last one of them is a professional athlete worth millions of dollars, but they’re not supposed to have to hit. The fact that they do hit sometimes is more or less an accident of scheduling. They practice hitting just about never, and that’s reflected in their results. In this table, there are two lines. One shows how American League pitchers have hit so far in 2017. The other shows how all the regular players have hit so far against Craig Kimbrel.

I kept it a mystery because it’s a popular writer technique. Look, they’re almost indistinguishably bad! Point made! But just for the hell of it, I’ll tell you now, the AL pitcher line is the first one. The Kimbrel line is the second one. The second one is the worse one.

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These days, we’re blessed with a number of amazing young shortstops. Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor, and Corey Seager, for example, are already among baseball’s top players. Manny Machado is a shortstop who just accidentally plays third base. All of them are younger than 25.

Second base isn’t as notable for its youth. Last year, however, second basemen recorded one of the top collective offensive lines at the position in the history of the game. Good job, second basemen.

So both positions are experiencing a bit of a renaissance at the moment. This led me to wonder which teams might be benefiting most from that renaissance. It’s rare that teams can keep a second baseman and shortstop together long enough to form a lasting and effective double-play combo. Right now, MLB has some pretty great ones. But which is the greatest — particularly, on the defensive side of thing? Let’s explore.

First, we want to know who has played together for awhile. Since the start of the 2015 season, 21 players have played at least 200 games as a shortstop, and 23 have done the same at second base. Cross-referencing them and weeding out the players who have played for multiple teams, we get the following list:

That’s a pretty good list. There are some tough omissions here. The most notable is the Angels, as Andrelton Simmons hasn’t been with them long enough to meet our bar here. Given Johnny Giavotella’s defensive contributions, however, we can guess that the combo here would be quite one-sided. Also excluded are teams with new double-play combos, like the Dodgers and Mariners. Not only are the Logan Forsythe-Corey Seager and Robinson Cano–Jean Segura combos new this season, but thanks to injuries they haven’t even played together much this season. Cano-Segura has only happened 22 times this season, and Forsythe-Seager only 10 times.

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Yesterday, Nick Stellini noted that there might be an AL East bidding war for third basemen this summer. The Red Sox’ current third basemen are a collection of misfits, while the Orioles could choose to shift Manny Machado back to shortstop to replace J.J. Hardy if they find there aren’t that many appealing options in the shortstop trade market. Both teams are playing well enough to expect to be buyers, and in some form, the left side of the infield looks like a place both teams could make real improvements.

But if I’m Dave Dombrowski, I’m probably not planning on trading for a third baseman this summer. I think there’s a pretty decent chance that the Red Sox’ stretch-run third baseman is already in the organization.

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The Orioles and Red Sox have provided some of the season’s juiciest narrative thus far. Everyone (well, almost everyone) loves a good bit of drama, even when it’s remarkably dumb drama. And even though our postseason odds favor Boston by a considerable margin in the AL East, Baltimore has made a habit in recent years of outperforming their projections. The two teams are going to be going for the jugular against each other for the rest of the season, and it’s going to make for some great baseball.

They may find themselves directly competing off the field, as well. Both teams have dire needs on the left side of the infield. The Red Sox haven’t had a strong third-base presence in some time, and the Orioles are hurting badly at shortstop with J.J. Hardy firmly in his decline phase and contributing just a 38 wRC+ thus far. Boston’s third-base woes are particularly bad this year, given that the cast of characters who have taken the position this year have combined for -0.5 WAR. These two problems don’t initially seem to be all that related. The teams will theoretically be scouring two different trade markets, no?

Maybe, maybe not. The simplest solution for Baltimore would be to just go get a shortstop like Zack Cozart, who’s hitting well and playing for a Reds team that probably isn’t as talented as they’ve looked thus far. However, Cozart is currently the only truly attractive shortstop option on a still-evolving trade market and there are other teams who will likely prefer Cozart over someone like Freddy Galvis. The Orioles also don’t have very much prospect capital with which to work, and could easily be outbid. Therefore a more elegant solution presents itself: moving Manny Machado to short and pursuing someone to play third. Machado is one of the best all-around defenders in the game, and is a natural shortstop. He could do it in a heartbeat.

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Let’s say you’re in an argument with one of your colleagues. If you work in an office, maybe that comes in the form of a heated disagreement during a meeting. Maybe you work construction and you’re unhappy with the way the foreman is running things at your site. Maybe you just think the head chef at your restaurant is an ass. Regardless of what the circumstances are, your workplace disagreements — whatever form they take — likely don’t include flinging projectiles at each other at speeds in excess of 90 mph.

Baseball is far from a typical workplace, of course. For most people, work generally doesn’t require one to compete against another “team” for the amusement of the masses. Most job descriptions don’t mandate that the applicant possess elite athleticism, expertise with balls of cork and twine, or extensive experience with wooden clubs. There are rarely endorsement deals for a particularly capable account manager. Statistically speaking, you’re unlikely to be making in excess of a million dollars. Professional sports are a strange realm, and baseball may be the strangest of them all.

The politics of the beanball are as intricate as they are confusing. To hear some people discuss it, there’s a right way and a wrong way to heave a projectile at another human being. There’s a time and place for that sort of behavior. You’ve got to protect your guys.

Yet, in a vacuum, this all makes very little sense. When Matt Barnes threw a fastball at Manny Machado’s head, he got a four-game suspension. If Barnes had done the same thing anywhere but on a baseball field, the justice system would have likely gotten involved. Construction workers can’t hurl wrenches at each other without facing some form of repercussion.

Ever since Machado slid too hard into Dustin Pedroia, though — an act that players on both sides acknowledge was unintentional — the Orioles and Red Sox have been throwing at each other. As you may have seen last night, Manny’s had about enough of it. He launched into a profanity-filled tirade against the Red Sox after yesterday’s game, in the first inning of which Chris Sale threw behind him. It’s worth a listen. (Although, if you’re at work, I advise using headphones.)

Sale’s decision to throw at Machado came after Dylan Bundy hit Mookie Betts on Monday night, and was therefore likely retaliation for that. The Red Sox (or at least Sale) felt that Betts being hit was actually in retaliation for Machado being thrown at in Baltimore, and so on and so forth. It’s like a Taylor Swift song come to life. There’s nothing but bad blood here.

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I got asked the question in my chat this week. Dave also got asked it in his. What do you do to solve Byron Buxton’s problems at the plate? This is essentially the question. People want to know. The answer, to me, is you let him play. It seems that we get these questions each April about a phenom struggling in his first taste of a full major league season. So while I’m writing this piece with Buxton in mind and as the lead example, it is also sort of universal.
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From results to stuff, Drew Pomeranz became Rich Hill’s doppelgänger last season. He even took an unorthodox route, like Hill, to the front of a rotation. The former fifth-overall pick in the draft was traded to the Rockies early in his career, struggled as most young arms do in Colorado, had some moments in Oakland in a mixed relief-and-starting role, and arrived at Padres’ camp last spring competing for a rotation spot.

Hill and Pomeranz share many traits. They’re both left-handed. Both also feature some of the highest average spin-rates on their four-seam fastballs, allowing them to pitch up in the zone due to the perception of rise. Last season, Hill’s fastball averaged 2,456 rpm; Pomeranz’ averaged 2,471 rmp. (The MLB average is about 2,220.) They also have curveballs of dramatic shape and arc as their signature pitches, and they each trust the bending pitch.

Among pitchers who logged at least 100 innings last season, Hill led all major-league pitchers by throwing his curveball at a 42.4% rate. Pomeranz was second with a 39.2% usage rate.

Both received advice on curveball usage. Hill was convinced by Brian Bannister to depart from conventional pitch usage as a member of the Red Sox; Pomeranz, by the Padres’ coaching staff, according to MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell.

The Padres made a point of asking Pomeranz to throw his hook more than he did in three seasons as a starter with Colorado — when he used the pitch less than 17 percent of the time.

Pomeranz increased his curveball usage from 17% in Colorado to 26.8% and 30.6% in Oakland in 2014 and 2015, respectively, while working primarily out of the bullpen. From his 2015 level at Oakland, Pomeranz then increased the pitch’s usage by nearly a third last season at the heeding of the Padres staff.

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Chris Sale is great! The Red Sox traded for Chris Sale because he is great. He was great when he was coming off his 2016 season, because that season was pretty great. When it came to Chris Sale, there weren’t any real reasons for worry, aside from his simply being a pitcher, and a team can’t not have pitchers.

That all being said, who’s to say Chris Sale was the best he could be? Who’s to say he couldn’t change some things up from what he did in his last year with Chicago? The White Sox and Sale agreed to a tweak: Sale would try to pitch more efficiently. It’s a fine idea, because if it were to work out, the White Sox would get Sale throwing more innings. That’s better than innings going to anyone else. Sale threw more fastballs, and he threw more strikes, and he was great. Lost some strikeouts, but that was the idea.

When the Red Sox got their hands on Sale, they turned back the clock. That’s what the early evidence shows, anyway. The fastballs? They’re there, but in lesser numbers. Chris Sale is back to being almost impossible to predict.

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Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen.

Mike Soroka, RHP, Atlanta (Profile)
Level: Double-A   Age: 19   Org Rank: 9  Top 100: 93
Line: 5 IP, 2 H, 0 BB, 2 H, 7 K

Notes
Soroka is the most polished strike-thrower of Atlanta’s young arms and has mature competitive poise. Much was made of his aggressive assignment to Double-A, but this was a promising start.

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There have always been those who have doubted the merits of the shift in Pittsburgh.

Back in the summer of 2013, after a Pirates’ shift was beat by a well-placed ground ball that resulted in a Texas run, A.J. Burnett exchanged words with shortstop Clint Barmes on the field and later in the dugout. Later approached by a television reporter in the clubhouse, Burnett explained, with emphasis, his frustration.

“Listen, I did not have a problem with Clint! I do not have a problem with Clint! I had a problem with the fucking shift! We play people in the wrong spot!”

Of course, that was also the season the Pirates increased their shift usage by 400%, their staff produced an MLB-record ground-ball rate, opponents hit an anemic .207 against the shift, and the club dramatically improved its defensive efficiency en route to its first winning season and playoff berth since 1992.

Despite the general success of the shift for the Pirates, there were those once again bemoaning it in Pittsburgh (where I still keep a primary residence) — in the media and the public forums — after Sandy Leon beat the shift with a well-placed bunt on Monday.

As one can see, Leon’s bunt is followed by what appears to be a rather unpleasant gaze from Gerrit Cole into the visiting dugout, ostensibly in response to the club’s positioning.

And one batter later, Andrew Benintendi was able to cover an elevated-and-in 98 mph fastball.

Said Cole to reporters afterward: “They just hit them where we weren’t.”

Indeed.

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