The season’s worst home run was a major-league home run. It was hit clean over a major-league fence, against a major-league pitcher, and it didn’t have to bounce off of the head of a major-league outfielder. The season’s worst home run was, objectively, more physically impressive than anything I’ve ever accomplished. I’ve climbed some tall mountains. It’s like walking up really cold and slippery stairs. Nobody would be amazed by anything I’ve done. I’m sitting here amazed that anyone can hit any major-league pitches.

So the point here isn’t to criticize. Everything in baseball is remarkable. But, very simply, there are better home runs, and there are worse home runs. Not all home runs are equally impressive, correct? It follows, therefore, that there would be a worst home run. A least-impressive impressive thing, if you will. Below, you get to see the worst home run of 2016. It was allowed by Chris Sale, and it was hit by Troy Tulowitzki.

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Should pitchers throw their “best pitch” a higher percentage of the time? I asked that question a number of times this past season, but with a qualifier. Fastballs — most everyone’s primary offering — weren’t the focal point. Secondary pitches were. Think Lance McCullers’ curveball (which he threw roughly 50% of the time this year). Andrew Miller’s slider (61%). Deolis Guerra’s changeup (45%). Zach Putnam’s splitter (68%). Would it behoove more hurlers to up their usage in a similar fashion?

White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper is one of the people with whom I broached the subject. Our conversation came in mid-summer, at Fenway Park, one day after Putnam threw 15 splitters in a 20-pitch relief outing.

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Cooper on Zach Putnam: “He’s coming in for one, maybe two innings. We want him to command his fastball. But his fastball is not the reason he’s in the big leagues. His split is. If we’re going to win or lose a game, it’s going to be on the split more often than not. He uses the fastball to locate, and get them off splits. He uses it to protect the split.

“He’s on the DL right now, because he’s had some difficulty recovering, but listen, we’re not bringing him in to throw fastballs. If that’s what we wanted, we’d leave the starter in, because I guarantee you that whatever starter we have in has a better fastball. We’re bringing him in because his best pitch is the split. He’s been striking out a guy an inning, and he hasn’t been doing it with fastballs.

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The people who say that history repeats itself usually aren’t referring to baseball trade rumors, but here we are, with an offseason that’s already feeling a lot like last July. Around the most recent trade deadline, teams were in the hunt for starting pitching, and at the top of the market were some potentially available, cost-controlled aces. Now teams have resumed the same hunt, with rumors around many of the same targets, and maybe foremost among them are Chris Sale and Chris Archer. Sale’s an ace on a team that might elect to rebuild. Archer’s an ace on a team that can’t afford loyalty.

Just so we’re all on the same page, odds are Sale and Archer don’t both get traded. For all I know, could be that odds are neither gets traded. But let’s explore the situation anyway. Sale’s been a great starter since 2012. He’ll turn 28 in March. Archer became a quality starter in 2013, and he turned 28 in September. Sale’s long been considered perhaps the best starting pitcher in the American League. Archer this season very narrowly avoided 20 losses. If I polled you, almost all of you would rather have Sale than Archer for a must-win game tomorrow. Yet as trade negotiations go, I bet Archer has the higher price tag.

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The offseason is upon us. Free agency officially begins tomorrow, as the five day exclusive window ends, and teams and agents are free to begin officially negotiating with anyone they choose. But as we’ve seen in past years, the start of the free agent period doesn’t really set off a signing frenzy; the baseball free agent market moves pretty slowly for most players.

And that’s because teams generally want to kick a bunch of tires before committing to one path, and that tire-kicking includes exploring the trade market, figuring out who is buying and who is selling. The last few years, the league has seen a drastic shortage of sellers, as teams within spitting distance of .500 decided to fancy themselves as contenders thanks to the addition of the second Wild Card and the financial incentives related to making a deep postseason run. The reality of 22 or 23 teams trying to add talent while only six or seven teams were looking to unload veterans made for a challenging trade environment, and resulted in a bunch of teams deciding that free agency was the way to go last year.

This year, though, the free agent market stinks. There just isn’t the kind of impact talent out there that teams are used to being able to throw money at, so the trade market is likely to be even more active than usual. And yet, we might be in a similar position in regards to the ratio of buyers and sellers.

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Over in the National League, differing philosophical differences could shape the voting for the Cy Young award. Unless voters choose to embrace a closer like Zach Britton or look at only wins, however, we don’t have the same type of arguments over which to rage in the American League. In the AL, for example, there’s no pitcher with a massive, Kyle Hendricks-like difference in ERA and FIP. There’s no Clayton Kershaw-size innings gap between most of the contenders. Rather, the AL offers a large group of deserving candidates. To decipher which candidate is the most deserving, we’re going to have to split hairs. Let’s start splitting by discussing weak contact and its role in the candidates success.

To determine potential candidates for the Cy Young, just as I did for the National League, I looked at those in the top 10 of both RA/9-WAR as well as the WAR used on this site. If the pitcher appears among both groups, he’s included below. I also included J.A. Happ because he has a lot of pitching wins, and whether you agree or disagree with the value of a pitching win (I honestly had no idea Happ had 20 wins before beginning to write this, if you want to know the value this author places on them), some voters will consider them, so he’s on the list. A few relevant stats, sorted by WAR:

Those top four candidates seem to have the most compelling cases. Of those candidates, only Sale doesn’t appear among the top five of both ERA and FIP, but he also leads the AL in innings pitched this season. Rick Porcello has presented a strong argument for his candidacy in recent weeks, Tanaka leads the league in ERA, and Kluber looks to have best combination between FIP and ERA. There probably isn’t one right way to separate these candidates, but one aspect of the season at which we can choose to take a look is the impact that weak and strong contact has made in turning batted balls into outs.

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Just in case you’ve missed it — Jose Abreu, earlier, was a massive disappointment. For as long as the White Sox were worth paying attention to this year, Abreu was underachieving. It was one of the critical things holding them back, as Abreu generated a first-half line that was a little worse than average. In the second half, as the White Sox have faded, Abreu’s been fantastic. That’s not to suggest there’s some sort of weird-ass inverse relationship between Abreu’s hitting and Chicago’s winning. Abreu has just found his footing again. He’s playing like an All-Star again. That should make the White Sox feel better as they turn their attention to the offseason ahead.

So, Abreu’s improved. The power is up, and he’s cut down on the whiffs. But, about some of those whiffs. It’s probably too late in the year for Abreu to pull off the full Strikeout Bingo. He’d have to really make an effort. Nevertheless, he’s gotten halfway there. It’s a notable accomplishment, if not one Abreu would want to talk about.

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A friend was asking a question about matchups in the coming month, and was talking about lefties and how Houston has done against lefties and maybe he should start A.J. Griffin against them and so on. I was playing along, pointing out that maybe it wasn’t a great matchup because Houston has a good lineup and they’re in a park that’s good for offense and all that. I didn’t even blink.

Of course, Griffin is a righty. No idea why we both thought he was a lefty, but we’re not alone. A quick Twitter poll — results below! — revealed Griffin as a top contender for “righty we most think is a lefty.”

Unfortunately, none of us know why we mentally mistake hands on some players. Or at least, we don’t have a quick answer to that question, other than vague references to arsenal (“crafty”), temperament (“different personalities”), or television time (“I don’t see them much”). Most responses to the poll included an “I don’t know why” of some sort.

Still, it’s something we do. And it’s sort of fascinating, because lefty starters do actually do things a little differently than righty starters — things we can actually define objectively. Which means we can apply the statistical definition of a lefty starter to the righty-starter population. And we can answer this question with stats!

So… which righty really acts the most like a lefty? Which righty is the most lefty-like? Turns out, it’s not Griffin, but the wisdom of the crowd was not far off, really.

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Carlos Rodon didn’t have the time to make his initial pro-ball adjustments in the minor leagues. Less than a year after being drafted third overall by the Chicago White Sox in the 2014 amateur draft, he was summoned the majors. When Rodon got the call, he’d made all of eight minor-league starts and had thrown just 34.2 innings. So it’s not a surprise to see him find things along the way, like that moving toward the third-base side of the rubber halfway through his rookie year would help with his fleeting fastball command. That’s the sort of early-career adjustment that might typically happen out of the public eye, under the watch of a Double-A manager. Rodon’s not going to have the typical career. We’ll see nearly every adjustment he makes. We’re seeing one right now.

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Here is one of my favorite clips of the season:

That’s Ronald Torreyes, attempting a delayed and perfunctory swing at a pitch-out to try to protect the running Aaron Hicks, who ends up in a heap on the ground after getting jarred in the marbles. Torreyes swings for no reason other than he’s always been told to swing in these situations, so the decision was entirely out of his hands. You can see that he’s temporarily overruled by his own brain, which properly identified that a swing would come with no upside. But then the training kicked in, and Torreyes whispered the bat in a vaguely forward direction while Hicks sprinted like the dickens, unaware the situation would end with teammates discussing his sterility.

Pretty obviously, no swing has been attempted this season at a more-outside pitch. Yet I don’t know if that should really “count,” since Torreyes didn’t swing because he wanted to. The swing was mandated by the hit-and-run play. So let’s take that off the table. Now the most-outside swing attempt of the season belongs to Jose Abreu, as of Thursday night. Abreu should probably be ashamed of himself.

Though I looked at everyone, the swings at the very most-outside pitches have been attempted by righties. Allow me to read off to you the top three:

1. Ronald Torreyes, June 30, swinging pitch-out
2. Jose Abreu, August 25, swinging strike
3. Jose Iglesias, May 24, swinging pitch-out

The only worse swing was at a pitch-out. The next-worst swing was at a pitch-out. The next-worst swing at a non-pitch-out was at a pitch more than five inches closer to the plate. That swing was also with two strikes, attempted by Javier Baez. Baez will do that sometimes. So, evidently, will Abreu.

Exclaimed Mariners announcer Dave Sims, after Abreu’s strikeout with runners in scoring position:

Swing and a miss, he got him! What a big pitch.

It’s easy to get fooled on the fly. Strikeouts are strikeouts, and when the batter swings, that implies a pitch could have been only so bad. Abreu chased this slider from Steve Cishek; therefore, it must have been a good slider from Steve Cishek. Yet it’s not hard to see how that could have been a disastrous slider from Steve Cishek. You don’t want a pitch in that situation to get away. And Abreu had never before swung like this. I went to Baseball Savant. I plotted all of Abreu’s career swings. The swing above is highlighted below.

I mean-

Eleven inches. The difference between that pitch and the next-most-outside pitch Abreu had chased is 11 inches. Nearly a whole damn foot. There’s really no excuse for that kind of swing. The easy explanation is “Abreu was trying to do too much,” but trying to do anything with that pitch is trying to do too much. It’s a brain fart. It has to be a brain fart. I don’t know what else it would be unless, as of Thursday night, in the seventh inning, Jose Abreu suddenly became, on camera, the single worst hitter in Major League Baseball.

By the way, the Baez swing? The one that’s the next-worst of the season?

That swing was also against a Steve Cishek slider. It’s probably just a coincidence. But, maybe I’m the one who doesn’t get it.

I think everyone agrees the White Sox haven’t had the year they wanted. So, at present, they’re probably not too keen on celebrating individual accomplishments, but I don’t care, because I’m not them, and because I need material to write about. Therefore! Take a look at Adam Eaton’s player page. There’s something kind of weird that might jump out to you. Eaton as a regular last year was worth 3.6 WAR. Eaton as a regular this year is looking to push 5 WAR. That on its own isn’t real crazy for a 27-year-old, but look over at some other columns. Compared to last year, Eaton has hit worse. Compared to last year, Eaton has run the bases worse. Still, his value has gone up.

That’s because of his defense. What’s funny there, too, is that Eaton moved over to right field from center. So he’s handled a less-important position, but he’s been absolutely fantastic in the corner. Part of what’s happened is that Eaton has shown exceptional range. Yet that doesn’t come close to being a full explanation. You probably know that we have UZR on the site, and we also display many of its components. One of those components is ARM rating, and we have that information going back to 2002. Here are the top 10 player-seasons in ARM per 1,000 innings, for outfielders with at least 750 innings played on the grass. (As you understand, this season isn’t yet over.) (Just, be cool.)

That should go to show you how good Eaton has been. And now, I want to show you another table. I looked at every outfielder who played at least 750 defensive innings in the outfield for two years in a row. Here are the biggest year-to-year ARM-rating improvements:

If the season ended now, Eaton would officially rank first in the table. The season actually has a whole lot left — perhaps to the White Sox’ collective chagrin — but Eaton is still positioned well. He’s never had strong ARM numbers before. Now he’s having one of the best ARM seasons on record.

You don’t have to get too complicated with things. How can you explain these numbers? According to stats at Baseball-Reference, Eaton has been one of the best right fielders in terms of holding baserunners. He’s also held a lot of runners when he’s shifted over to center for occasional spells. And the thing you most closely associate with ARM rating is the outfield assist. Eaton leads all outfielders with 16 assists. Nobody else has more than 12. That kind of gap gets you a big positive number.

In the past, according to the Fan Scouting Report, Eaton wasn’t perceived to have a real strong arm. However, Eaton’s arm did eclipse 100 miles per hour on a throw in 2015. The strength was there, and it stands to reason Eaton this year has gotten more accurate. He might’ve also gotten better about his anticipation and his attack angles. This throw right here is a thing of beauty:

Of course, ARM success can also be tied to bad baserunning decisions:

…so it’s a noisy stat. Runners learn, and assists can come down to fractions of a second. There’s plenty of luck involved, to fold in with the skill. Adam Eaton might not actually have one of the most valuable arms in recent baseball history, but that arm has had a strong season. Most strong seasons are about both skill and luck.

Adam Eaton used to be a center fielder of questionable defensive adequacy. Now he’s a right fielder who looks more comfortable than perhaps any other right fielder. He’s done well to improve his angles, but even more importantly, Eaton’s arm has been playing incredibly well. It’s not close to enough to salvage the White Sox’ disappointing season, but Eaton, overall, has been among the least of their problems.