The Diamondbacks are officially going for it. Despite being 10 1/2 games behind the Dodgers in the NL West, they are right in the thick of the Wild Card race, and with just three teams fighting for two spots, have a pretty good at reaching the play-in game. And today, their line-up just got a lot better.

Source confirms: #DBacks acquiring J.D. Martinez from #Tigers. First: @JonMorosi.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 18, 2017

J.D. Martinez was the best hitter available, as he’s now on year four of being an elite hitter. Since the start of the 2014 season, Martinez is ninth in MLB in wRC+, right between Anthony Rizzo and Justin Turner. He’s a beast.

With Yasmany Tomas on the shelf, the Diamondbacks had been using Gregor Blanco, Daniel Descalso, and Chris Herrmann in left field, so swapping those guys for one of the game’s best hitters is going to be a huge upgrade. The projections — which still don’t totally buy Martinez’s bat, thanks to his weak pre-2014 numbers — have him worth a little over a win over the remainder of the season, but you can probably bump that up to +1.5 WAR if you think ZIPS and Steamer are too conservative on his offensive production.

Given how competitive the Wild Card race looks to be, that win or two could be the difference between making it or sitting at home. And now sticking Martinez behind Paul Goldschmidt gives the Diamondbacks a pretty fearsome pair of hitters if they advance deep in October. Given how well the team is pitching, this makes Arizona a potentially tough postseason opponent, should they get there.

To land Martinez, the D’Backs are giving up three prospects. Nick Piecoro had the details.

Dbacks are sending prospects Dawel Lugo, Sergio Alcantara and Jose King to the Tigers in exchange for J.D. Martinez.

— Nick Piecoro (@nickpiecoro) July 18, 2017

Obviously things can change during a season, but these are three kind of shocking names to be traded for an elite hitter, even a rental one. Eric had Lugo as the best prospect of the trio last winter, giving him a 40 FV and ranking him as the team’s 10th best prospect. Alcantara was in the others of note section. King wasn’t mentioned.

Lugo’s been fine in Double-A this year, but hasn’t done anything that would dramatically change his stock that I can see. Alcantara is running a 96 wRC+ in high-A ball, which lines up with Eric’s pre-season report of a future utility infielder or a lower-tier starter. King is an 18 year old in rookie ball.

These guys might turn out well for the Tigers. Perhaps Lugo is closer to being big league ready than we think. Maybe the market for rentals really has crashed.

But hard not to like this for Arizona. They get an elite hitter for the stretch run for three prospects that, to be honest, don’t look all that special. You never like giving up any potential, but for the present upgrade, this looks like Arizona did quite well.

Last Friday, the best player in the American League West returned after a nearly two month absence due to a broken left thumb. Today, the Astros announced that maybe the second best player in the AL West is going to miss the next two months due to a broken left thumb.

Astros have placed Carlos Correa on the 10-day disabled list with a torn ligament in his left thumb. He is expected to miss 6 to 8 weeks.

— Houston Astros (@astros) July 18, 2017

Trout had the UCL in his thumb repaired, going on the DL on May 29th, and then he returned on July 14th. Assuming Correa’s injury is of similar nature and requires a similar amount of time away, Correa would be looking at a return in early-to-mid September. That would give him a few weeks to get back up to speed before the postseason begins.

While this is a blow to the Astros, the enormous early lead they’ve built allows them to absorb this better than most contenders. With a 15 1/2 game lead over the second place Mariners, their chances of winning the division, even without Correa, are still quite high. The real concern here is whether this is something that might linger and affect him in October.

In Correa’s absence, we’d expect either Alex Bregman or Marwin Gonzalez to take over as the everyday shortstop, with the other manning third base. Both have played the position previously, so it will depend on whether the team prefers to move Bregman back to the position he played in college and the minors, or whether they prefer to keep him at third base, since that’s where he’ll play when Correa returns. Gonzalez’s offensive explosion this year means the team has a reasonable fill-in, regardless of how they line up the defense.

I do wonder if this will nudge the Astros towards adding a corner outfielder at the deadline, however. Gonzalez had drawn 23 starts in left field, his most at any position, and if he’s an everyday infielder now, the team will have to lean more heavily on Nori Aoki or Jake Marisnick. You probably don’t want either of those guys as an everyday player in October, so adding an LF upgrade could provide some insurance for the team’s offense in case Correa’s return doesn’t go as well as hoped, or if the injury saps him of any power after he returns.

The Astros have the benefit of not needing to overreact to this news, but this does add some uncertainty to the mix. Depending on what is available, it’s probably not a bad idea for the Astros to look around for some corner outfielders now, especially if they can find a solid bat who swings from the left side.

Josh Harrison leads the majors in times getting hit by a pitch. He led the majors in April, and after a down month in May, he’s led the majors since the start of June. In June itself, Harrison was hit 10 times, which is tied for the second-most for any player in any month in baseball history. Back in April, Harrison got hit four times in a row. Harrison has nearly as many hit-by-pitches as walks, which is both good and bad, I suppose. Harrison is sitting on a career-best OBP.

Usually, when we’ve talked about hit-by-pitches, we’ve been talking about Brandon Guyer. It is, technically, a skill that some hitters can possess, typically because of their stances. The twist for Harrison is that he hasn’t been a pitch magnet in the past. He’s been drilled 20 times this season. He was drilled 26 times before this season. Shown in graphical form:

That’s a leap forward this season, depending on what your definition of “forward” is. Here now is a plot of Harrison’s career hit-by-pitches, separated by year:

The evidence suggests that Harrison has moved a little closer to the plate. Which, yeah; I can’t come up with any reasonable alternative explanation. He’s standing a little closer, and he closes himself off with his front leg. By which I mean, Harrison raises his leg with a standard kick, and then he steps forward in the box. He’s standing closer to the plate, and then he steps closer to the plate. This is where hit-by-pitches come from, since it’s not like there is just a sudden rash of opposing pitchers who are holding a Josh Harrison-specific grudge.

Here’s the kicker. Harrison, a year ago, was hit in about 1% of his plate appearances. Harrison, this year, has been hit in about 5% of his plate appearances. That seems like a big increase, but how much of an increase is it, really? I went all the way back to 1900. I looked at every player who’s ever batted at least 250 times in consecutive seasons. Here are the biggest year-to-year jumps in HBP%:

Okay then. For now, No. 1, and by a full percentage point over F.P. Santangelo. There’s more season to play, so Harrison isn’t totally locked in here, but as he plays in more games, he’s likely to get hit by more pitches. I’m sorry, Josh Harrison. I’m sorry for the painful, helpful free bases. Although I guess it’s as much Harrison’s fault as anyone else’s. To this point, he’s refused to back off.

Originally, this was going to be a little post about Jonathan Schoop. I wasn’t super jazzed to write about Jonathan Schoop, and you weren’t super jazzed to read about Jonathan Schoop, but, in case you weren’t already aware, Schoop is swinging a lot less than he used to. One of the very most aggressive hitters around has dropped his swing rate by right around 10 percentage points, and that’s big. That’s a significant change, for a player who had been in need of more polish. It seems like a step forward. It’s interesting.

But, at least as this post goes, the hell with Schoop, because I need to point you toward Mike Moustakas. Has it been a while since you checked in on him? I guess that depends on whether you’re a Royals fan. But let me summarize where Moustakas has been real quick. You remember he used to be a top prospect. Then he was a disappointing major-leaguer. Then the big story became that his approach matured, and he learned to take balls to the opposite field. Moustakas stopped trying to pull everything, and, at last, he found success. The game was coming together for him, and he had a strong start to 2016. Then he got hurt. Badly hurt — hurt enough to miss the rest of the year. For everyone involved, it was a tremendous disappointment.

Moustakas is back on the field. He’s played almost every game, and he’s already set a new career high for home runs. That opposite-field focus is gone; Moustakas has been killing the ball to right. In that sense, he’s reverted, although now it’s working. But that’s not what I want to draw your attention to. Before having surgery, Moustakas was more patient than ever. On the other side of surgery, he’s been more aggressive than ever. He’s jumped from one end of the spectrum to the other, as you can see in the following plot:

More swings in the zone. More swings out of the zone! More swings in and out of the zone. Moustakas has been trying to hit everything he can, and his numbers are fine, if not massively improved. To try to put this in some context, I consulted the extent of our historical plate-discipline data, which goes back to 2002. I looked at every player with at least 100 plate appearances in consecutive seasons, which gave me a sample of 5,205 individual player season-pairs. Here is a plot of their swing rates. Moustakas is highlighted in yellow.

Compared to last year, Moustakas’ swing rate is up 15 percentage points, which is the largest increase in the sample. Looking at absolute values, it’s also just the largest change in the sample, up or down. This season isn’t over yet, so, there’s that, but for now, in the past decade and a half, we haven’t seen a player so suddenly change like this. Moustakas went under the knife as a more disciplined bat. He’s come away as a hacker, and he’s really gotten no better or worse. He’s the same, but different, and to this point in 2017, Moustakas has yet to take a single called third strike.

Usually people want more from something like this. They want the author to determine whether a change is good or bad. I can’t do that. All I know is there’s been a change. It’s worked about as well as the previous changes. Mike Moustakas has already had one weird big-league career.

The Nationals finally addressed their struggling bullpen yesterday by acquiring relievers Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson from the Oakland Athletics. In return, Oakland received veteran reliever Blake Treinen and prospects Sheldon Neuse and Jesus Luzardo. Luzardo was a third rounder out of high school last year who has just 14 professional innings to his name. As such, I don’t have a KATOH projection for him, but Eric Longenhagen gave him a 40 FV in the offseason in his offseason writeup of the Nationals system.

Neuse was Washington’s 2016 second-round draft choice out of the University of Oklahoma. He was an excellent hitter in his last season of college, slashing .369/.465/.646 with 12 steals over 55 games. He has carried his hot hitting over to pro ball, slashing .291/.349/.469 at the Low-A level this year while playing shortstop.

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It’s pretty rare these days when MLB teams get to announce a big transaction on their own, as most things leak out ahead of time, and we get a few days of speculation before a deal is finally complete. But this morning, the White Sox just threw out a shocker.

#WhiteSox have acquired OF Eloy Jiménez, RHP Dylan Cease, 1B Matt Rose & INF Bryant Flete from the Cubs in exchange for LHP José Quintana.

— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) July 13, 2017

We were pretty sure the White Sox were going to trade Quintana, and it seemed pretty clear the Cubs needed another starting pitcher, but the presumption was that the Chicago teams wouldn’t strike a deal, given their history of not really making trades together. They hadn’t completed a trade between teams since 2006, when Neal Cotts was traded for David Aardsma, and before that, it was 1998’s Matt Karchner for Jon Garland deal.

But this time, apparently, the fit was too perfect to pass up just because they share a city. The White Sox wanted to continue to load up on future upside, and there are few prospects in the game with more long-term value than Jimenez, who Baseball America just ranked #5 overall in their midseason update. Eric Longenhagen put a 60 FV on him before the season began, and he’s gone on to hit .271/.351/.490 as a 20-year-old in high-A ball. He’s still several years from the big leagues, but he’s got some of the biggest power upside in the minors, and the White Sox have time to be patient.

Cease is a pretty nifty second piece himself, as a 21-year-old who can get his fastball into the high-90s and was destroying the Midwest League this year. Like Jimenez, he’s got a ways to go before he’s a big leaguer, but there’s plenty of potential here.

Rose and Flete are your typical add-ons in trades like this. Neither one even made the honorable mentions section of Eric’s Cubs list this spring, and it would take some unexpected development for either to become a contributor in the big leagues. This deal is about Jimenez and Cease.

As expected, Quintana didn’t bring back quite the return that Chris Sale did, but this looks like a very nice return for the White Sox. They continue to pick upside and long-term value over proximity to the Majors, and when you collect prospects like this, your success rate will naturally be lower. But if they hit on a few of the guys they’ve acquired over the last year, they’re going to find a franchise player or two to build around. With Moncada, Jimenez, Kopech, Cease, Giolito, and Lopez, the White Sox have six pretty interesting upside plays to hope on now.

Jeff will be around in a bit with a longer write-up on this deal, and will focus more on how this helps the Cubs. But they needed another good pitcher, and now they have one they can keep around for a few more years. The Dodgers and Nationals shouldn’t forget about the Cubs just yet.

Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Wes Rogers, OF, Colorado (Profile)
Level: Hi-A   Age: 23   Org Rank: HM   Top 100: NR
Line: 2-for-4, HR, BB

Notes
Rogers’ draft stock spiked during the 2014 JUCO World Series, during which he hit .538. He went straight from Grand Junction — where the JUCO World Series is held and where the Rockies’ Pioneer League affiliate plays their home games — to Scottsdale to workout with Colorado. He ran a plus-plus 60-yard dash there and the Rockies drafted him in the fourth round. He’s having a bit of a breakout year, albeit as an old-for-level prospect repeating the Cal League. But Rogers runs very well, has above-average bat speed, and exhibits terrific command of the strike zone. He’s also been an efficient and prolific base-stealer, lifting 159 career bases in 324 games at an 88% success rate. He’s also a long-limbed, small-school prospect, both late-blooming traits. Some of his power is probably fueled by Lancaster’s hitting environment, but there are big-leagues tools here, too.

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Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Alex Jackson, C, Atlanta (Profile)
Level: Hi-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 24   Top 100: NR
Line: 4-for-5, 2B, 2 HR

Notes
Jackson missed a month with a left wrist contusion and has struggled since his return in mid-June, stroking just two extra-base hits (before last night) in 16 games since coming off the disabled list. With hand/wrist injuries, though, a downturn in power is not only acceptable but almost expected for at least a little while after returning. Jackson’s plus raw power, which manifests almost exclusively to his pull side in games, is his best tool and it’s good to see a some indication that it might be returning.

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I don’t see any reason to turn this into a full-length post, when something very short should suffice. You know that not every team in baseball has an identically-difficult schedule. I mean, even most simply, the Padres have to play against the Dodgers, but the Dodgers never have to play against the Dodgers, which gives them an advantage. There are other advantages and disadvantages, for other reasons. Things are unbalanced. You know how it works.

Differences between schedules are frequently tough to notice, and it’s easy to downplay the significance. A team’s schedule will never be the major factor behind said team making or missing the playoffs. That doesn’t make it irrelevant, though, especially now, with higher-leverage baseball games left to be played. Who’s looking at the toughest schedules the rest of the way? Who’s looking at the easiest? I can give you some very simple estimates. I’m following the same method as always.

This is our projected standings page. That includes a projected winning percentage, that does not factor in opponents. This is our playoff odds page. That includes a projected winning percentage, that does factor in opponents. In other words, the latter projection is schedule adjusted, so to get an idea about schedule strength, you can just subtract the former winning percentage from the latter, and see what you have.

That’s what I’ve done below, splitting apart the American and National Leagues. These are expressed as differences in winning percentage, where a positive number implies an easier schedule, and a negative number implies a more difficult one. Note that this is based entirely on the team projections, so if you have a particular disagreement with certain projections, that’ll make a difference here. Like, the Brewers are projected to play a lot worse than the Cubs from here on out. If you think that’s not how it’s going to go, then, well, take these with a grain of salt. I just want to show you what our numbers say, at this moment in time. Don’t flame the messenger.

Here’s the AL picture:

Good news for the Indians! Worse news for the White Sox. But the White Sox probably don’t care, so, let’s just move one over, and say, worse news for the Orioles. And for the Yankees, and for the Red Sox, and for the…the AL East is a tough division. Here’s the NL picture:

I don’t think the Marlins are going to play themselves into the race, but at least they have one thing working for them. The Diamondbacks apparently don’t, so it’s good for them they have such a massive lead. I’m not going to write anything else. Anything left, I leave to you.

Mike Trout was injured on May 28. Through to that point, he’d been worth a league-leading 3.4 WAR, and he was sitting on a career-best 208 wRC+. Partial seasons are never the same as complete seasons, because complete seasons give every player equal opportunity to get hot or get cold, but Trout, at least then, was on course for the best big-league season of his life. The best big-league season of his life! For Mike Trout!

The injury was devastating, for everyone. Everyone, I suppose, but the Angels’ rivals. The Angels suddenly had to deal with the freak long-term absence of the best player in the world. Fans had to deal with the same. Personally, I’ve had fewer things to write about. It’s been about a month and a half of not writing about Mike Trout, and I don’t like that. Nobody likes that. We all need more Trout in our lives.

We’re going to get it again. On Sunday, Trout played his final minor-league rehab game, walking three times while also knocking a triple. Trout says he feels ready, and the medical team is supportive, and so Trout will return to the bigs on the other side of the All-Star break. We made it, everybody. We made it several weeks without Mike Trout, and we’re all right, and even the Angels are all right, too. There’s light at the end of this tunnel, and we are all so nearly there.

As such, to mark the imminent occasion, I want to show you a table and ask you a question. This table includes Angels team stats. Everything’s split into two groups, corresponding to two periods of time. One of the periods of time shows the Angels through May 28. The other shows the Angels since May 29. I want you to examine this table for however long you need, and then respond to the following poll. Thank you!

That’s run differential per game, by the way. And, later, stolen bases per game. Feeling good? Here you go. Have a great afternoon and evening.