The market has moved forward as we approach the trading deadline, but its shape is still difficult to make out, especially in terms of hitters. We have seen the mega-deal, with franchise cornerstone Troy Tulowitzki moving from the Colorado Rockies to the Toronto Blue Jays. We have seen the rental, with Ben Zobrist helping the already strong Kansas City Royals. There appear to be solid outfielders remaining on the market, including Justin Upton, Yoenis Cespedes, and Gerardo Parra all available as rentals. Even so, it still looks to be a sellers’ market on the hitting side. The Cincinnati Reds and Colorado Rockies are in a decent position to move two hitters, neither of whom are rentals nor franchise cornerstones. Jay Bruce and Carlos Gonzalez are remarkably similar players and both could provide a jolt of offense for a team needing help this season and in the future.

Both Bruce and Gonzalez were called up to majors in 2008, and while Gonzalez has played some center field, both are good-hitting corner outfielders. Both are left-handed hitters with platoon splits that make them just good enough to hit everyday. Both have contracts lasting potentially through 2017, with Bruce carrying a reasonable $13 million team option in 2017 after a $12.5 million salary in 2016 and Gonzalez owed $37 million over the next two years. In addition to being cheaper, Bruce is also slightly younger, at 28, compared to the 29-year-old Gonzalez. In Gonzalez’s favor is slightly better production over the course of their respective careers. Their career lines are below.

Even factoring in Coors Field, Gonzalez has been the better hitter than Bruce, who plays in a decent hitters’ park himself. The pair have both been adequate on defense while losing some overall value due to the negative positional adjustment produced by a corner-outfield spot. Gonzalez has been the better runner, as well, but Bruce has closed the gap in overall value by staying healthy and recording nearly 1,000 more plate appearances than Gonzalez. They have accumulated their WAR in a very similar manner, though, both breaking out in 2010 and having very good years in 2013 before experiencing major struggles last season. Their cumulative WAR chart below is remarkable for the singular progression between the two players.

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Trade season is now in full swing. The biggest trade of the summer (so far) came down the pike on Sunday, as the Royals acquired Johnny Cueto from the Reds in exchange for young, lefty hurlers Brandon Finnegan, John Lamb and Cody Reed.

As he often does, Jeff Sullivan produced a prompt and excellent write up of the deal and what it means for both sides. This morning, Kiley McDaniel provided the scouting breakdowns of the guys going back to Cincinnati, and now, I’m here with a data driven analysis of the players the Reds acquired for their ace.

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If you’re reading this, you already know that the Reds dealt ace Johnny Cueto to the Royals yesterday for three lefties: Brandon Finnegan, Cody Reed and John Lamb. For an idea of where these Future Value (FV) grades would fall, check out the top-200 prospect list and the Royals prospect list from just before the season. For the big-league perspective on the deal, see Jeff Sullivan’s take, and for a more statistical look at these three prospects, Chris Mitchell has also published a piece at the site.

Brandon Finnegan, LHP, Cincinnati Reds, FV: 55

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Here’s all the proof you need that the Royals didn’t need Johnny Cueto: up until this point, the Royals didn’t have Johnny Cueto. The Royals didn’t really have much of anyone in the rotation, and yet they have the best record in the American League, by a surprisingly comfortable margin. If Cueto were necessary, maybe the Royals would’ve had more problems. Just last year, the Royals came a swing away from winning the World Series, and though they got there in part by leaning on supposed ace James Shields, Shields allowed 17 runs in 25 postseason innings. The Royals haven’t done what they’ve done because of an ace. Moving forward, they’ll be more than their ace.

That’s looking at it from just one perspective, though. You have to consider the other perspective, the one where the Royals’ most valuable starting pitcher so far has been literally Edinson Volquez. Not long ago, Yordano Ventura was officially optioned to Triple-A. Jason Vargas sustained a bad elbow injury, and the state of the Royals’ rotation has been such that that was major news. And, well, just last year, the Royals came a swing away from winning the World Series. James Shields finished 0-and-2. What difference might a real ace have made? An ace like Madison Bumgarner, or Johnny Cueto?

Of course there’s no such thing as a guaranteed championship. Of course most moves are just about moving the needle the smallest little bit. Yet, when you’re talking about adding one single player, it doesn’t get much more significant than going from whatever the other option would’ve been to Cueto. This is a big upgrade, and though the Royals had to pay for it, they feel like they know what they’re paying for. And they feel like they know what this season could be.

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Nobody wants to have to rebuild. This is an important point. Rebuilding isn’t fun. Maybe it’s more fun from a fan perspective, especially when you’re frustrated by an underwhelming on-field product, but among front offices and ownerships, “rebuilding” is almost a bad word. They try not to use it. Teams are in the business of selling themselves, and when you rebuild, you lose. And it’s hard to sell a loser. Even when there’s a longer-term plan in place, losing is bad for those involved, and it’s bad for revenue. Teams want to be in the mix, and having two wild cards makes that more achievable.

The Reds don’t want to rebuild. In that way they’re like everyone else. They knew coming into this season they were in a difficult spot, with some pending free agents. And the team has lost more than it’s won, so it certainly looks like the Reds are about to sell. The important question, then: How far do they take it? Ought the Reds sell, or ought the Reds Sell?

The other day, I put together a trade proposal linking the Reds and the Blue Jays. The idea was partially built around the premise that the Reds don’t yet want to give up on 2016. Following that course of action, the Reds would look to move just rentals, like Johnny Cueto, obviously, and Mike Leake. There’s going to be value coming back. Cueto might be the best piece on the market. There aren’t even that many pieces on the market. It would be easy for the Reds to justify trying again. The safe decision would be to try to compete next time, because, who knows? It would be tempting. Even with Cueto gone, the Reds wouldn’t be dreadful.

But there’s the safe decision, and there’s the daring decision. It’s the decision no front office wants to make, but I think there’s a convincing argument for just blowing up the Reds. For selling Cueto, but not stopping there. For just taking over the upcoming trade deadline.

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Johnny Cueto has been invoked frequently of late as a likely trade target for contending teams. The combination of his pending free agency and the Reds’ own disappointments makes the probability quite high that he’ll change clubs before the end of the month. Whichever team trades for the Cincinnati Reds’ ace is going to get a pitcher on his way to having the best year of an already very good career. What factors, specifically, have led to his performance?

After above-average seasons from 2009 to 2011, Cueto broke out in 2012 with a 2.78 ERA, 3.27 FIP and 4.7 WAR in 217.0 innings. Injuries cut short his 2013 season, but Cueto came back last season and paced the National League with 243.1 innings pitched. He finished the season with a 2.33 ERA and 3.30 FIP, and he has continued to pitch well this season, producing a 2.73 ERA and 3.06 FIP which would be the lowest of his career.

Cueto has been aggressive in the strike zone, leading to a career-low 4.7% walk rate, but this approach has not cost him strikeouts: he’s produced a 24.3% strikeout rate, representing nearly the best figure of his career by that measure. Cueto is one of ten qualified pitchers this season with a strikeout rate exceeding 20% and a walk rate lower than 5%. Only Max Scherzer, Michael Pineda, and Jason Hammel better Cueto in both categories. Cueto’s percentage of pitches thrown in the strike zone is above 50% for the first time in his career. The charts below of the strike-zone maps for 2012-2014 and 2015 show Cueto’s evolution as a strike-thrower.

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The Blue Jays are a pretty good team. Sometimes they look like a very good team, and with an upgrade or two, they might get to that level consistently. There’s a decent shot this is the team that busts the extended franchise playoff slump, and with the trade deadline around the corner, you know the front office is active. They’ve been open about the activity, and you can see where upgrades would be wanted. Because of the Blue Jays’ situation, I’ve long been fascinated by the idea of a Johnny Cueto/Aroldis Chapman addition for a package built around Jeff Hoffman and Daniel Norris. And then more, presumably. Extreme seller’s market and everything.

From an outsider’s perspective, it would be a blockbuster. It would change the landscape of the American League now, and it could shift the Reds’ future fortunes. That said, there are a few hurdles. For the Jays, Norris could conceivably help in 2015. It’s also not impossible to imagine Hoffman making a difference in the bullpen down the stretch. And for the Reds, if you deal Chapman, that subtracts from 2016, and then that takes you to a slippery slope. The Reds might not want to go that far. If they had their druthers, they’d move rentals and try to get back at it a year from now.

So maybe that’s not so realistic. Maybe the Reds don’t want to tear down. And maybe the Jays don’t want to take anything at all away from 2015. The idea could use some restructuring. Which brings us to something I’m going to hate: I absolutely love the guy, but, imagine if the Jays were to dangle Marcus Stroman.

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Monday, against the Twins, Billy Hamilton stole four bases. In so doing, he reached 40 steals on the year before anyone else reached 30. Probably even more impressive: Hamilton now has more steals than exactly half the teams in baseball. He has more than the White Sox and Dodgers combined. Over the course of the past month, Hamilton has stolen 20 bases, and second and third place on the leaderboard combined have stolen 19 bases. Over that same month, Hamilton has more stolen bases than he has hits.

It’s funny now to reflect on some of the things I wrote in 2014. Early on, when Hamilton started to hit, I decided he wasn’t a caricature. When it all ended, I asked why Hamilton hadn’t been a base-stealing dynamo. Now Hamilton is a base-stealing dynamo. And he’s a terrible hitter. He can’t hit, but he does run, and when he’s on the other side of things, he can play a mean center field. Which means, in a way, Billy Hamilton now is something of a caricature. He’s an exaggeration of a player type, which is exactly how he was advertised.

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Joey Votto is a passive hitter. Over the last five seasons, he’s swung at around 40% of the pitches that have been thrown in his general direction. During that same span, the average hitter swung at 45-46% of pitches he faced. Over 2,500 pitches, that’s a difference of about 125 swings, or something like 0.77 swings per game. Despite the fact that Votto is one of the most conservative swingers in the league, one fewer swing than an average hitter per game makes the difference appear small.

Commentators and fans have frequently criticized Votto’s approach. He’s paid more than $22 million per year and many people equate that kind of money with power hitters who collect RBI. The criticism of Votto is that if he were less concerned about his own statistics (read: walks) and was more willing to put the ball in play, his team would score more runs. Votto’s an on-base machine because he has an excellent eye and derives a good portion of his value from reaching via the walk. This isn’t new information and the criticism has been ongoing for at least a few seasons.

The advanced stat community has defended Votto because he’s an excellent offensive player and there isn’t a lot of evidence that his club would be better off if he were more aggressive — and Votto himself has voiced similar opinions. Votto argues that if he was more aggressive, his overall value to the team would decline even if his home run or RBI totals went up. Based on the evidence we’ve compiled over the last couple of decades, it seems like he’s right. The funny thing is, in 2015, Votto is actually walking less and his results have been terrific. Did Votto listen to the critics?

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It seems like a simple question to ask. Which recent home run was the least likely?

You could flippantly answer — the one Erick Aybar hit this year, or the one Melky Cabrera hit this year — and because they’ve got the lowest isolated slugging percentages with at least one homer hit, you would be right. But that doesn’t control for the quality of the pitcher. Aybar hit his off of Rick Porcello, who is having some issues with the home run right now.

A slightly more sophisticated approach might have you scan down the list of the worst isolated powers in the game right now, and then cross-reference those names with the pitchers that allowed those home runs. If you do that, you’ll eventually settle on Alexei Ramirez, who hit his first homer of the year off of Johnny Cueto earlier this year.

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