In the second inning of today’s game at Fenway Park, Minnesota’s Max Kepler hit a one-hop rocket that Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts couldn’t handle. After deliberation — he looked at multiple replays —- official scorer Chaz Scoggins ruled the play an E-6.

A few minutes later, MLB.com Twins beat writer Rhett Bollinger noted that StatCast had Kepler’s smash at 109 mph. That begs a question: Should exit velocity factor into official scoring decisions?

According to Scoggins, the subject has been discussed informally by scorers throughout the two leagues. Based on those conversations, the majority feel “the numbers” shouldn’t matter — an experienced official scorer is able to make an informed decision on a hard-hit ball.

While a good argument can be made for exit velocity mattering, Scoggins brought up a valid point in defending its non-use. A ball may have been hit X mph, but was the infielder playing back, or was he in on the grass with less reaction time? More goes into a scoring decision than a number can measure.

Does this mean exit velocity will never become a tool for official scorers? In my opinion, the answer is no. Eyeball judgement will remain the primary determiner, but data will influence decisions.

We all knew Dan Vogelbach’s days in the Cubs’ organization were numbered. His lackluster range limit to first base, and if we’re being serious, even that’s a stretch. He didn’t have a future with the Cubs. Not only do they lack a DH, but they also have more quality hitters than they have lineup spots. A trade was imminent, and the Cubs finally pulled the trigger on Wednesday night, dealing the 23-year-old slugger for unheralded — yet effective — reliever Mike Montgomery and Double-A hurler Paul Blackburn. Triple-A pitcher Jordan Pries also heads to Chicago in the deal.

Dan Vogelbach, 1B, Seattle (Profile)

KATOH Forecast for first six seasons: 2.8 WAR

Vogelbach offers zero defensive value, which means he’ll need to hit a lot to get by in the big leagues. To his credit, however, his exploits in the minors this year suggest he might hit enough to make for a productive DH. He’s slashed a gaudy .318/.425/.548 in Triple-A, and has little left to prove in the minor leagues. KATOH isn’t crazy about Vogelbach on account of his defensive limitations, lack of speed and iffy contact numbers. Vogelbach’s power is excellent, but the other facets of his game threaten to chip away at his value.

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Earlier today, FanGraphs contributor and dealer in vulgarities Paul Sporer submitted footage of the pitch featured here, annotated by a brief comment of his own to the effect that it (i.e. the footage) cultivated within him pleasures analogous to the sort derived from coitus.

The pitch appears courtesy not only MLB Advanced Media but also, more immediately, Yankees right-hander Masahiro Tanaka — and seems to possess arm-side movement which one might reasonably describe either as unconscionable or totally unconscionable.

The data, however — as is often the case — cause the scales to fall from the eyes and all hopes concerning the existence of miracles to fall with them. Because, in reality, it actually seems as though the movement depicted here is very conscionable — to the point, in fact, that Tanaka threw 14 pitches against the Red Sox on Sunday that possessed more arm-side run.

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Earlier today I wrote about how the Braves should feel motivated to trade Julio Teheran, given all of the circumstances of the market. I believe what I said in that post, and I do think that, from a rational perspective, the time now is right to sell Teheran while he’s cruising. That all being said, this is sports, and at the core of this whole endeavor, there are fans, fans driven mostly by emotions. You know who likes Julio Teheran? Braves fans. You know who likes young, home-grown, up-and-coming players? Fans of teams like the Braves. Sure, it makes sense to sell high on Teheran. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. Losing sucks, and it makes a team do sucky things.

One way to feel better about this stuff, though, is to shift focus. Teheran has been a good young pitcher on a team that hasn’t had enough good young players. That’s part of why trading him would be painful. He’s not alone, however. There’s been a little bit of concern over who would start the game to open the new park next year, if Teheran goes away. Looks like there could be a fine internal option. If you want to think about the next No. 1 of the Braves, might I interest you in Mike Foltynewicz?

Foltynewicz has been a prospect for a long time because of his big and powerful fastball. Like many pitchers known mostly for big and powerful fastballs, Foltynewicz has a history of throwing an insufficient number of strikes. He was a part of the Astros’ trade for Evan Gattis, and back then, it was unclear whether Foltynewicz would be a starter or a reliever. He’s been with the Braves now for a year and a half.

To get to the point fast, two tables. One metric I like to play around with is a pitcher’s rate of pitches thrown while ahead in the count. Sure, strike rate works fine enough, but I like thinking in these terms. Let’s look at Foltynewicz’s last few seasons.

Foltynewicz was traded in January 2015. Before that, in the upper levels with the Astros, Foltynewicz threw a below-average rate of pitches while ahead in the count. As a Brave, Foltynewicz has moved forward, and he’s done so this year in a big way. How big? Well:

This is just a snapshot in time, and between now and the end of the year, some numbers will shift around, but here you see Foltynewicz in the big-league lead. He’s thrown a greater rate of pitches while ahead in the count than anybody else, given the same role, and when you do that you give yourself a hell of an advantage. Foltynewicz keeps hitters on the defensive, and he’s doing this as a starter, a starter who the other day lasted 107 pitches. This isn’t the guy the Astros traded. This is a guy that guy could’ve become, but usually, pitchers stop short of developing this successfully.

It’s not like he’s an ace now. There’s polishing yet to be done, as Foltynewicz looks to get hitters to more often expand their zones. As has been the case for a while, he could stand to improve the secondary stuff. And! Bone chips. Foltynewicz is pitching with bone chips. But just look at where things are: Foltynewicz is a 24-year-old who can buzz triple digits, and he’s now frequently getting ahead in the count. More than ever before, Mike Foltynewicz is looking like he’s in command. The Braves have been collecting big arms with big risks. Here’s one that’s working out.

Kevin Kiermaier is not going to be voted American League Most Valuable Player. I personally would not vote for Kevin Kiermaier as American League Most Valuable Player. He’ll be on zero radars, and that’s perfectly fine. Other players will be more deserving — I just want to quickly expand on something that came up during my chat last Friday.

Let’s say you really really really wanted to make the Kiermaier MVP case. I don’t know why. Maybe you’re a family member. Maybe you have money on the line. Maybe you just enjoy getting into statistical arguments. Where could you start? I’d recommend starting on May 21. That’s when Kiermaier sustained an injury that knocked him out of action for almost two months. After the Rays game on May 21, they stood at 20-20. They had a strongly positive run differential. Since then, the Rays have posted the worst record in the majors. The run differential has sucked. Kiermaier just returned Friday.

Kiermaier is a decent hitter, all things considered, but you’re a FanGraphs reader and you know him for his defense. So let’s focus on that defense for a second. To what extent could we consider Kiermaier a difference-maker in the outfield? This year, when Kiermaier has started, the Rays have allowed a team BABIP of .260. Meanwhile, when Kiermaier hasn’t started, the Rays have allowed a team BABIP of .341. That’s not all Kiermaier, of course, because not all balls in play are directed toward center field, but that’s an absolutely enormous difference. When Kiermaier went down, the Rays’ run prevention cratered, and that probably isn’t all on the pitchers.

That would have to be around the core of the Kiermaier argument. That, when Kiermaier has been unavailable, the Rays defense hasn’t been able to make up for it. It’s not just center field — Kiermaier’s presence allows the other outfielders to position themselves differently, too. Kiermaier would be thus presented as the keystone. You don’t have to buy it. Obviously, Kiermaier alone isn’t responsible for that whole difference. But there are still so many people who downplay the importance of an elite-level defender. The Rays would argue the opposite.

As long as I’m here, what if we were to expand beyond just 2016? Kiermaier has been a regular or semi-regular going on three years, now. How valuable has his outfield defense been to the Rays? This is one way you could choose to look at it. It would suggest that he’s been extremely valuable.

I know there are a lot of variables folded in here. I know this captures more than just Kiermaier by himself. But we already have numbers that try to capture individual defenders by themselves. This looks from the team perspective, and when Kiermaier has started in the outfield, Rays pitchers have allowed fewer runs per nine, by 70 points. There’s a 38-point gap in BABIP, which works out to nearly a hit a game. Kiermaier has a career DRS of +63 runs. He has a career UZR of +50 runs. The team-level numbers do nothing to make those look silly. If anything, they make them look like under-estimates. Which sounds crazy, but here we are.

The Rays know that Kevin Kiermaier is valuable. You presumably already knew that Kevin Kiermaier is valuable. Could be he’s even more valuable than we thought. And he could be a crucial reason why the Rays are seemingly about to start selling. In a way, when Kiermaier got injured, they just didn’t have a chance.

You don’t often see GMs fired two weeks before the trade deadline, as this is a pretty busy time of year to be shaking up a front office. You don’t often see the Twins fire anyone, as organizational continuity has been a hallmark of their club, and why they’ve only had five GMs in their franchise history. But today, the Twins bucked both trends, relieving Terry Ryan of his duties, and replacing him on an interim basis with assistant GM Rob Antony.

Minnesota Twins announce GM Terry Ryan has been relieved of his duties. Assistant GM Rob Antony as Interim GM. pic.twitter.com/LF2iYotKZ9

— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) July 18, 2016

Ryan is well respected within the game, but this shows that even his leash was only so long; a GM with a lesser reputation would have likely been removed from the post a while ago, given the number of missteps the front office has made of late. The team’s investments in Ervin Santana and Ricky Nolasco haven’t paid off, and after finding a breakthrough with Phil Hughes, an early extension has turned him into a liability as well, after he went back to being Phil Hughes. Combine that with the Joe Mauer contract going south — which, to be fair, mostly had to do with Mauer’s concussion issues forcing a move off catcher, which couldn’t have really been predicted — and a team with a mid-level payroll was not getting much of a return on their significant financial investments.

That puts a lot of pressure on the team to develop a host of young stars, but Byron Buxton hasn’t yet lived up to the hype, Miguel Sano is too one dimensional to carry a team by himself, and young arms like Kyle Gibson have failed to turn into high-quality starters. With too many things going wrong, the Twins find themselves with the worst record in the American League, and not enough hope for the current roster that things are going to turn around any time soon. And so they decided to make a change.

That said, this should be a fairly attractive job for a younger candidate looking to make their mark in the game. Buxton isn’t a complete bust just yet, and with Sano around, there are a couple of potential cornerstone pieces in place, if the new regime can figure out how to maximize their abilities. The team also isn’t as bad as their record makes them look — their BaseRuns record is 40-51, still not great, but less disastrous — and could be in line for some improvement even without a lot of tinkering. Toss in a division that doesn’t have a traditional behemoth, and the Twins path back to contention could be shorter than some of the other jobs that have opened up lately.

It’s that time of year again. Time to gather around adult beverages ($4 pints!) and appetizers (free thanks to FanGraphs and BeerGraphs!) and talk baseball with some of your favorite writers. Thursday, July 14th, at 7pm at the Rocking Horse in Chicago, FanGraphs has invited the writers below (and a few more off list) to come and be merry with you. This is a 21-and-over event — the BeerGraphers would have rioted if the beer selection wasn’t top notch — but if we keep packing these things, we’ll do more of these in different venues and styles.

See you soon.

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It’s always been easy to forget that Jason Heyward’s actually a pretty good hitter. The bar was set so high, with a 134 wRC+ as a 20-year-old in 2010, that it became easy to overlook his consistent above-average performance at the plate from 2012-15 as underwhelming. This year, it’s become even easier for Heyward to appear underwhelming, because for once, he actually has been.

Heyward entered the 2016 season with a career batting line 18% better than league-average, and to this point in the season, he’s been 17% worse than league-average. It’s a big swing, and it’s turned Heyward from a player whose bat, when paired with his elite defense, made him a borderline superstar, to essentially a glove-only commodity. That glove alone has still provided the Cubs with a win or two already, but it’s certainly not what they paid for.

Heyward’s shown some signs of life lately — he was a league-average hitter for the month heading into the All-Star Break — but even then, there’s been something that seems… off… about Heyward’s swing.

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In his first year as an everyday center fielder in 2015, Kevin Pillar put up the kind of defensive numbers that make folks question defensive numbers. Pillar was a below-average hitter who finished the season with the same WAR as Miguel Cabrera, thanks to his gaudy defensive runs saved totals. The talk of the offseason, regarding Pillar, then became, “Well, if he can just become a slightly better hitter, how high can his ceiling be?”

The answer is probably “pretty high,” because while we should’ve expected Pillar’s defensive numbers to regress — it’s tough for anyone to consistently run +15 run seasons — they’ve actually gotten better. In fact, Pillar’s already topped last year’s UZR total, and we’re still at the All-Star Break.

The bat, though, hasn’t come along. It’s even declined a bit. For a major step forward in Pillar’s offensive game, the type that, when paired with his apparent defensive value could make him a borderline superstar, one of two things would’ve needed to happen: (1) he’d need to start taking some walks, or (2) he’d need to add some pop.

Walks aren’t there. Walks have gone down. Down, to the point where only one qualified hitter’s done it less often. And the power’s not there, either. Pillar’s 2015 isolated slugging percentage was .121. His career ISO coming into this year was .123. This season, it’s just .133. Up, but no real difference.

Except, there is a difference within Pillar’s game, and it’s a part of a hitter’s game that directly correlates to hitting for more power. It’s just not all adding up. See, I wrote a post about Jake Lamb adding power the other day, and noted that, from 2015 to 2016, Lamb added the most average distance on his air balls, and the second-most exit velocity. Matt Holliday, who’s hitting for his best power in five years and isn’t playing through injury like he was in 2015, was tied for first in distance and solely in first in exit velo gains. Those two really stuck out from the pack, and it’s reflected in their power numbers.

I didn’t mention the guy who was third in both gains, though by now you can probably guess who it is:

Pillar’s added 27 feet to his average air ball, and is hitting them five miles per hour harder. The only guys who have muscled up more on air balls have seen significant power spikes, yet Pillar’s power production hasn’t budged. The added authority can only be viewed as a positive, but here’s the problem. Holliday’s gains landed him in the top-15 of both average air ball distance and exit velocity, among the 243 batters with 50+ air balls in each of the last two years. Lamb’s put him in the top-five of each. Pillar still ranks 123rd in average air ball distance, and 108th in exit velocity. The gains are monumental — really — but he was coming from such a low place (bottom-10th percentile in each category in 2015), that he’s still coming up short.

Kevin Pillar is at least hinting at some untapped power, and that’s undoubtedly a good thing for the future of his own well being, as well as the Blue Jays as a team. Only thing is, it’s still untapped, and he’ll need another leap forward for those gains to actually reap any rewards.

You should always begin from the premise of, they’re all amazing. Every player in the major leagues — every player is amazing. The worst player you’ve ever seen on your favorite team possessed the sort of raw talent most baseball players could only dream of. Given that, in this age of information, I absolutely love the data that allows individual players to stand out. They’re the freaks among the freaks. Take pitchers. This season, Aroldis Chapman has thrown 48 pitches at least 102 miles per hour. The guy in second place has nine. Or, take hitters! We can do this now. This season, Giancarlo Stanton has hit six baseballs at least 118 miles per hour. The guy in second place has one. It’s unbelievable that anyone would stand out. Those are some of the most delicious statistics.

Now, pitch velocity? That’s a skill thing. Batted-ball velocity? That’s also a skill thing. What I’m about to talk about isn’t exactly a skill thing in the same sense. But I want you to know something about Jacoby Ellsbury. I need you to know something about Jacoby Ellsbury. In what way does Jacoby Ellsbury most stand out from the crowd? Eight times already this season, Ellsbury has reached base on catcher’s interference. The guy in second place has done it twice. Ellsbury has already tied the all-time record for a season. It is the All-Star break.

I made a note to write something about this a few weeks ago, when Ellsbury was at six. Then it happened a seventh time on July 1, and it happened an eighth time on July 4. What’s funny is I already wrote about this phenomenon in August 2013. Back then, Ellsbury seemed weird because he’d reached on interference four times. Already this season, he’s doubled that. Here’s Ellsbury’s entire career, and the last decade of the rest of Major League Baseball, in terms of times reaching on catcher’s interference.

It’s not a new thing, and it is a new thing. It’s not a new thing, in that Ellsbury has done this a bunch of times before, and it’s even factored into advance scouting reports. Other teams have long warned their catchers about Ellsbury’s stance and swing path. What’s new is this rate. Eight times, already, in a half-year. If other teams are learning, they’re not showing any evidence. Ellsbury has taken 0.33% of all big-league plate appearances this year. He’s drawn 32% of all catcher’s interference calls. It is genuine silliness. C.J. Cron, Aaron Hill — they’ve reached twice on such interference, which is weird enough. With Ellsbury, he’s reached on catcher’s interference twice as often as he’s homered.

Here’s the most recent case. On July 4, Ellsbury swung and caught a piece of Dioner Navarro’s glove. Ellsbury still hit the baseball, and he hit it fairly well, but it was also a routine fly out. The only difference was Ellsbury remained at first base after running down the line.

A side view for you, showing how subtle this can be:

It was so subtle, in fact, that on the White Sox broadcast, there were 89 seconds that passed between Ellsbury making contact and the announcers saying what had happened to allow Ellsbury to reach base. As Ellsbury stood on first, here’s how the following plate appearance began:

The scoreboard up there says none on, two out. Actually, there was one on, with one out, which is why James Shields worked from the stretch, and looked over at the bag. The White Sox broadcast didn’t know to expect that Ellsbury could pull this off. The Yankees broadcast was on it. They’ve seen this happen enough. And also, while actual catcher’s interference can be subtle, the sign for catcher’s interference is anything but.

Umpire: look at this guy
Umpire: this guy is an idiot

For what it’s worth, the interference isn’t always subtle. On July 1, Ellsbury reached on Derek Norris‘ interference. Behold:

It feels cheap, maybe. Like reaching base on a technicality. It is reaching base on a technicality, but it’s important to recognize that Ellsbury isn’t doing anything against the rules. I can’t imagine this is something he tries to do on purpose, because he’s up there trying to hit the baseball, and you can’t be thinking about two things at once. Other hitters stand even further back in the box, and this is just a part of Ellsbury’s swing — his natural path sometimes takes him a good distance backward. Catchers are supposed to know about that. They’re supposed to move a few inches back. Many of them do. Obviously, not all of them do. Ellsbury’s on an incredible pace. None of the interferences have won the Yankees a ballgame, but a time on base is a time on base. Ellsbury’s “effective” OBP is higher than his real OBP by 15 points.

According to that linked article from the New York Times, Pete Rose holds the career record with 29 times reaching base on catcher’s interference. Ellsbury, today, stands at 22. He has an excellent shot of making the record his own. I suppose he has some shot of doing it this very year.