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.

Although the Red Sox have been stuck in a slump, they’re still hanging onto a playoff position, and they’re barely behind the Yankees for first. The Sox have a bullpen that ranks third in baseball in WAR, and, even better than that, they have a bullpen that ranks first in baseball in Win Probability Added. The bullpen, you could say, has been the least of Boston’s problems, and yet, we say it every deadline — every good team could use another reliever. And in Boston’s case, their success has been primarily driven by the almost literally unhittable Craig Kimbrel. What the Red Sox haven’t had so much of is reliever depth, being without both Tyler Thornburg and Carson Smith. And so, Monday has brought the following move:

Red Sox get:

• Addison Reed

Mets get:

• Jamie Callahan
• Gerson Bautista
• Stephen Nogosek

(Note: pending medicals!)

The Mets recently picked up A.J. Ramos, signaling that they intend to try to contend again next season. Moving Reed is hardly surprising, then — he’s a 28-year-old stretch-run rental. What the Mets have received is a trio of right-handed minor-league relievers measuring at 6-foot-2. As usual, any one of these young players could suddenly emerge to become a relevant big-leaguer. Yet the Sox haven’t subtracted from the top of the farm, and now they’ve grabbed one of the more extreme relievers around.

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