April didn’t go very well for the Texas Rangers. Their closer imploded, their offense sputtered, Adrian Beltre couldn’t get healthy, and the Astros started off red hot, opening a sizable early lead in the AL West race. Well, today, things got even worse, as Cole Hamels was found to have a strained oblique that is going to put him on the shelf until at least July.

Cole Hamels has been placed on 10 day DL with right oblique strain that will sideline him about 8 weeks.

— Evan Grant (@Evan_P_Grant) May 3, 2017

Before this news came down, our forecasts already weren’t that optimistic about Texas’ chances this year. Their 11-16 start meant we had them finishing 78-84, so they’d need to win roughly 10 more games than projected over the rest of the season to put themselves in legitimate Wild Card contention. Our playoff odds calculation put the chances of that happening at about 10%, with another 3% chance they’d get hot enough to catch the Astros and win the division. Their 13% playoff odds put them ahead of only the A’s, Twins, Royals, and White Sox in the AL.

Take Hamels out of the picture for a couple of months, with the team already lacking rotation depth, and those odds probably sink under 10%. It’s not definitively time to throw in the towel, but this certainly hurts the Rangers chances of turning things around before they’ll have to make a decision on Yu Darvish in July. An impending free agent, if the Rangers aren’t sure they can re-sign him, they’d probably have to trade him, given the return he’d command. To avoid having to make a decision on Darvish, Texas was going to have to get hot in May and June, but now they’ll have to do that without their other good starting pitcher.

One of the main stories of 2017 is how many expected contenders might end up as sellers this summer. The Royals, Blue Jays, and Giants are all staring at significant hills to overcome to get back in the race, and now they might be joined by the Rangers in putting some impact talent in play at the trade deadline.

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

Andres Gimenez, SS, New York NL (Profile)
Level: Low-A   Age: 18   Org Rank: 5   Top 100: HM
Line: 1-for-4, 2B

Notes
It wasn’t an especially notable night for Gimenez, but his promotion to full-season ball is significant. Gimenez was a high-dollar Venezuelan signee and was lauded by international scouts for his polish; he’s also a teenager who spent last year in the Dominican Summer League. After passing a few weeks in extended spring training, he effectively skipped three levels (the Mets’ GCL, New York-Penn League, and Appalachian League affiliates) and has been sent to full-season ball. My full report from the Mets’ prospect list is here, he garnered overall top-100 consideration from me despite modest physical tools because he’s so likely to stay at short, make a lot of contact and, as he seems poised to do, move quickly through the system. Below are all the swings Gimenez took last night as well as some of what he did on the defensive side.

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Manny Machado went off on the Red Sox after tonight’s game. Frankly, it’s hard to blame him. For the second time in little more than a week, the Orioles superstar had a pitch thrown behind him by a Boston pitcher. This time it was Chris Sale, who sent Machado a message in the first inning of a game the Red Sox went on to win 5-2. Machado took Sale deep in the seventh inning, and his response to being headhunted was even more powerful than the bomb he hit over the Green Monster.

Here is snapshot of what an angry Machado had to say following the game:

“If you want to (bleep) hit me, hit me. Go ahead. (Bleep) hit me. Don’t let this (bleep) keep lingering (bleep) around, and keep trying to (bleep) hit people. It’s (bleep) bullshit. It’s (bleep) bullshit. MLB should do something about it. (Bleep) pitchers out there with (bleep) balls in their hand, throwing 100 MPH, trying to hit people. I have a (bleep) bat, too. I could go out there and crush somebody if I wanted to. But do you know what? I’ll get suspended for the year, and the pitcher will only get suspended for two games. That’s not cool.”

Machado is right. Throwing behind a hitter isn’t cool. Yes, the bad blood began when his late, hard slide injured Dustin Pedroia, but it appeared as the episode was behind both teams, and that cooler heads would prevail. Chris Sale thought otherwise, and Machado didn’t like that too much.

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

Jared Oliva, CF, University of Arizona (Profile)
Level: NCAA (Pac-12)   Age: 21   
Line: 5-for-7, 2 2B, 2 R

Notes
Oliva is a redshirt junior who went undrafted last year, as scouts considered him to be quite raw and inconsistent despite impressive physical tools. But Oliva didn’t play much on a loaded high-school team that included Rays 2016 seventh rounder J.D. Busfield and this student profile of Oliva alludes to a sub-optimal relationship with his high-school coach.

He’s broken out a bit this spring, still suffering the occasional instinctive lapse but less often than last year while hitting a healthy .351/.411/.557. Oliva runs well enough to have a chance to stay in center field and has above-average raw power, although scouts are mixed about how much he’s going to hit. As a redshirt junior slated to graduate soon, he’s an easier sign than most prospects with this kind of power/speed combination and represents an interesting underslot opportunity in a draft class severely lacking college bats.

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First, there is the fact of this Monday home run:

That is a very good home run, hit against a very bad pitch. Every hitter deserves credit for every home run, but some home runs come easier than others do. Anyway.

Using Baseball Savant, I’ve created the following plot, showing Manny Machado’s rolling 50-batted-ball averages since 2015. As usual, you can see average exit velocities, and average launch angles.

Machado is at an exit velocity career high. The last time he was particularly close to this, he was hitting the ball with less loft. Home runs come from power and loft.

Machado ranks third in all of baseball in 2017 in average exit velocity. He’s behind only Miguel Sano and Khris Davis. If you prefer, he’s fifth in hard-hit rate, north of 50%. He’s in the upper sixth of all players in average launch angle. If you prefer, he has a very low ground-ball rate, about tied with Chris Davis.

Machado, in April, had the highest walk rate he’s ever had in a single month. He had just two more strikeouts than walks. Compared to last year, his swing rate is down seven points, and his out-of-zone swing rate is down nine points. His plate-discipline numbers look similar to where they were in 2015, except now Machado is swinging through a few more pitches, but giving his batted balls more loft. Machado is trying to kill everything, 118 wRC+ be damned. It’s a 118 wRC+, but it comes with the appearance of upside.

Interpret everything how you will. There’s nothing for us to know for certain yet — there are only some promising signs.

We spend so much of our time talking about players making changes. One could argue, too much of our time. I get it! The stories can blend together. But the analysis we’re capable of now is so much better than it used to be. The public tools and information have opened doors we never could’ve dreamed of. So all the different insights have shaped the way people on the outside cover the game on the field. One thing we understand better than ever is how players might forever evolve.

Changes everywhere. Which hitters have made changes? Taylor Motter has made changes. Miguel Sano? He’s made changes. Travis Shaw, Elvis Andrus, Xander Bogaerts — they’re all making changes. I wanted to take a step away from focusing on any given individual in particular. Which hitters seem the most changed, compared to 2017? I assembled a spreadsheet. There’s a table below, with 10 names. Let me explain this real quick.

I decided to focus on four traits that I think reflect a hitter’s profile. Those four traits: swing rate and contact rate (from FanGraphs), and average exit velocity and launch angle (from Baseball Savant). A hitter is mostly, if not entirely, how often he swings, and what happens after he swings. I gathered all four data points for hitters who played in both 2016 and 2017. So I guess that makes it eight data points. For each data point for each year for each hitter, I figured out the standard deviations above or below the league average. Then I calculated the absolute value of the change in standard deviations between 2016 and 2017. I wound up with four absolute values, for every hitter. I added them up to yield what I’ll call the “Change Index.” The larger the number, the more changed the hitter.

That was an unpleasant paragraph. Here’s the fun part! Behold, the changed hitters! I set arbitrary minimums of 75 plate appearances in each season. Don’t complain about that, please, because I don’t care.

Compared to last year, the most-changed hitter in baseball is Mike Moustakas. In fact, it’s Moustakas by a healthy margin. Now, Moustakas had his own 2016 season cut short by injury, but as we see him now, he’s swinging a lot more, and he’s making a lot less contact. While his exit velocity is down, his launch angle is up, and Moustakas has focused on pulling the ball for power. Maybe he’s felt some pressure, getting so little support from the rest of the lineup around him.

Moustakas will be a name to watch. Unsurprisingly, Aaron Judge makes it in here, thanks in large part to his dramatic contact-rate improvement. He’s also cut down on his launch angle, and although we normally associate launch-angle increases with power, Judge has more of that flat Giancarlo Stanton attack path. Don’t complain while it’s working.

There are a couple A’s on here — one who’s always hit for power, and one who’s learning. What I think I love about Trevor Story here is that he already had an extreme launch angle, and now he’s practically Schimpf-ing. Not that Story should want to keep this up; 2017 has not been a success. You can turn it up to 11, but don’t turn it up to 12. Things get broken at 12.

That’s where I’ll leave it for now. Remember that most-changed doesn’t automatically mean most-changed for the better. Consider, say, Story, or Alex Gordon. Changes are changes. Just because we often focus on the successful adjustments doesn’t mean there aren’t always bad things happening, too.

The Washington Nationals are the best team in the NL East. The second best team in the NL East might be the Mets Disabled List. Already consisting of Yoenis Cespedes, Steven Matz, Lucas Duda, David Wright, Wilmer Flores, Seth Lugo, and Brandon Nimmo, the injured Mets are now going to add Noah Syndergaard to the list, as the Mets announced his MRI this morning revealed a torn lat muscle.

Update on Noah Syndergaard. #Mets pic.twitter.com/n8JVxIBBid

— New York Mets (@Mets) May 1, 2017

While there’s no official timetable, this isn’t going to be a short DL stint. Matz missed two months with a similar injury back in 2015, and that was diagnosed as the lowest grade lat tear. At this point, it’s probably unlikely that Syndergaard is back before the All-Star break.

While the Mets theoretically had a lot of pitching depth before the season started, no team can really sustain the loss of three starting pitchers that easily, and there’s no replacing Syndergaard. This probably costs the Mets a win or two even if Syndergaard gets back in July, and if this lingers beyond that, it could be closer to three or four wins. This is a huge blow, on par with the Giants loss of Madison Bumgarner, and puts the Mets 2017 season in some legitimate jeopardy.

The NL Wild Card race might really end up being first-to-87-wins-gets-it. This doesn’t end the Mets chances of making the postseason, but they’re going to need some things to turn around in short order. They can only dig so big a hole before it becomes overwhelming.

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

Sean Newcomb, LHP, Atlanta (Profile)
Level: Triple-A   Age: 20   Org Rank: 11  Top 100: HM
Line: 7 IP, 11 K, 1 H, 2 BB

Notes
Walks have again been an issue for Newcomb so far this year, but he was dominant on Sunday, missing bats in and above the zone with his fastball and then working his curveball and changeup (the latter more frequently later in the game) down for either more whiffs or weak contact. He lulled Brock Holt to sleep in an early plate appearance by tripling up on his curveball, then sneaked a fastball past him for a called third strike. Newcomb finished the day with the sequence below.

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Yes, ThamesGraphs is still in full force. I’ll write about someone else eventually.

You know the Thames story by now. You probably also know that a lot of it has been written against the Cincinnati Reds. The Brewers have played seven games against the Reds already, and in those seven games, Thames has launched 8 of his 11 home runs. He’s slugging 1.400 against them, and it’s easy to dismiss his early success as just mashing bad pitching. After all, the Reds just set the all-time record for home runs allowed last year, and their current staff is missing Anthony Desclafani, their best starting pitcher. We have the Reds projected as the worst rotation in baseball.

So since this comes up so often, I figure we might as well show what he’s doing against everyone else. Here’s Eric Thames‘ 2017 batting line if you eliminate the seven games against Cincinnati.

If Thames had been benched for all of the games against the Reds, he’d still rank 9th in MLB in wRC+. And, of course, that’s without taking away any results from anyone else because we deemed part of their competition too weak to include in the calculations.

Yes, Thames destroyed the Reds. He also destroyed the Cubs, Rockies, Cardinals, and Blue Jays. The 8 of 11 home runs is a nice headline stat, but the reality is that Thames has hit against good and bad pitching this year, and his numbers haven’t been that heavily inflated by facing weak pitching early. Facing the Reds a bunch has helped, but he’s doing work against everyone.

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

Marcus Wilson, CF, Arizona (Profile)
Level: Low-A   Age: 20   Org Rank: HM  Top 100: NR
Line: 2-for-4, 2B, 2 BB

Notes
The latest iteration of Wilson’s swing includes a slow, dangling, leg kick (2016 version here, new version below), and it seems to be working. He’s hitting .362/.470/.696 so far. Wilson is a patient hitter with plus speed and he projects in center field, but his first three pro seasons were marred with swing-and-miss issues. He has a career 24% strikeout rate but is at 16% so far this year. This is Wilson’s first spring in full-season ball but, even after three years in rookie/short-season leagues, he’s still just 20. He’s hit some balls 400-plus feet this spring and still has some and has some physical projection remaining. The Midwest League will have a chance to solve him, and I don’t expect him to keep up this pace (Wilson already has more home runs this year than ’14-’16 combined), but the mechanical change suggests that not all of this is a small-sample mirage.

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