Last night, the Baltimore Orioles dealt Brian Matusz and the 76th overall pick in the draft to Atlanta for minor-league pitchers Brandon Barker and Trevor Belicek. As lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen noted on Twitter, the $838,900 in bonus money tied to that pick bumps the Braves’ draft and international bonus pool up to $13.2 million, which gives them the third-largest pool in baseball. Only the Reds and Phillies have more.

Neither of the two pitchers involved cracked Baseball America’s top-30 prospect list for Atlanta heading into the year, which tells you just about everything you need to know about them: they’re fringy. Barker did earn a mention on our Braves list, but was relegated to the “Quick Hits” section.

Brandon Barker is a 23-year-old righty who’s had a moderate amount of success in a starting capacity. He spun a 3.25 ERA and 3.49 FIP in 147 innings last year, but did so with an unremarkable 18% strikeout rate. The Braves bumped him up to Double-A this year, where he’s had a good deal of success. His strikeout rate has ticked up over 22%, resulting in a 2.00 ERA and 3.46 FIP. KATOH pegs him 0.9 WAR over his first six years in the majors.

Trevor Belicek was drafted as a starter in the 16th round of last year’s amateur draft, but has worked exclusively out of the bullpen this year. He seems to have taken well to his new role. In 28 innings pitched, the southpaw has spun a 2.50 FIP with a 28% strikeout rate. However, he’s made just one appearance above Low-A, so he’s completely untested against polished hitters. The outlook for 23-year-old Low-A relievers isn’t great, so KATOH pegs him for 0.3 WAR over his first six years in the majors.

The two minor-league arms headed to Baltimore have pitched well in the minors this year, but since they’re both 23 and don’t have much of a track record, they aren’t really prospects. It’s unlikely they’ll make any sort of noticeable impact at the big-league level. Matusz was once a top prospect, but he’s an unremarkable lefty reliever these days. He’s been all sorts of terrible this year, and the Braves have already designated him for assignment. The real asset trading hands here is the bonus-pool money. The Braves are essentially agreeing to take on the remainder of Matusz’s one-year, $3.9 million contract in exchange for more spending power in the draft.

Last week, Jeff Sullivan showed how easily pitchers can exploit the flaws in Yasiel Puig’s approach right now; simply pitch him away. He’s swinging at something close to two-thirds of the pitches on the outer third of the plate or further outside; the league average on those pitches is roughly half of Puig’s rate. While he’s never been a selective hitter, Puig’s approach is undermining his entire offensive game right now.

But the problem with chasing pitcher’s pitches isn’t just that you stop drawing walks. It has that effect too — Puig has drawn just two walks in his last 126 plate appearances, dating back to April 12th — but swinging at pitches on the fringes of the strike zone means that you are much less likely to make quality contact. Puig’s problem isn’t really that he’s swinging through pitches; his contact rates are not that different from what they were a few years ago. He’s not even striking out any more than he used to; his 20.3% K% this year is lower than his 20.7% career mark.

But there has been one huge change in Yasiel Puig’s game this year, and it’s killing his production; he’s turned into a pop-up machine.

Yasiel Puig’s Infield Flies

Season	Plate Appearances	Infield Flies	Popup%
2013	432	9	2.1%
2014	640	11	1.7%
2015	311	7	2.3%
2016	158	13	8.2%

Puig has already set a career high for infield flies in a season, and we’re six weeks in to the year. And as the season has gone on, this has only gotten worse.

12 of Puig’s 13 infield flies have come in the last 30 days. During that stretch, 39% of his fly balls have not even reached the outfield, a staggeringly high total; no other player is over 30% during the same stretch, and the guys who are over 25% are guys like Billy Burns and Didi Gregorius, and they only are that high because they rarely hit the ball in the air.

His popup rate per plate appearance over the last month is a staggering 11.8%, over five times higher than the league average. It’s easy to look at his .203 BABIP over the last month and say there’s some positive regression coming, but when you’re just hitting towering fly balls to the shortstop, that’s not bad luck; that’s bad hitting.

And that’s why Yasiel Puig is batting .180/.196/.300 over the last month. And it’s one of the main reasons the Dodgers offense is scuffling. If the Dodgers are going to contend for the NL title this year, they’re going to have to figure out how to get Puig to stop hitting so many infield flies.

Earlier today, I published a post over on the main site digging into Cincinnati’s historically bad bullpen. Within that post, I noted that the Reds’ staff of relievers entered the day with the worst team ERA since 1961, the worst team FIP since 1961, and the worst team home run rate since 1961. The consolation prize, as it were, is that their team walk rate of 11.6% was “only” 1,390th of 1,476.

Well, as I write this post, the Reds’ bullpen’s walk rate is 12.5%, up nearly a full percentage point from this morning, dropping them 70 spots on the all-time leaderboard from 1,390th to 1,460th. It’s the bottom of the seventh in their game in Cleveland, and Reds relievers have retired six batters and walked seven. Also, they’ve made history in the process. More history. More of the kind of history teams and players don’t want to make.

That history looks like this:

In the bottom of the fifth inning, starting pitcher Alfredo Simon was removed from the game and relieved by right-hander Steve Delabar. Delabar walked Jason Kipnis to load the bases and struck out Francisco Lindor. Then, with the bases still loaded, Delabar walked four consecutive batters, effectively hitting a grand slam for Cleveland while re-loading the bases with a fresh set of legs.

I asked FanGraphs researcher Jonah Pemstein to run some numbers on this phenomena, and this is what he found.

This marks just the sixth time in recorded history (dating back to 1974) that a team drew four consecutive walks with the bases already loaded, and the first time in 12 years. The other teams to achieve the feat are as follows:

• Pittsburgh, 5/9/2004
• Texas, 4/19/1996
• Boston, 5/7/1992
• Atlanta, 5/25/1983
• Boston, 8/28/1981

Not only that, but Delabar himself made history. In each of the five previous instances of a team walking four consecutive batters with the bases already loaded, at least one pitching change was made during the streak. The Reds did not make such a change:

Steve Delabar is the only pitcher since at least 1974 to walk 4 straight batters w/ bases already loaded, per FG research (h/t @japemstein)

— August Fagerstrom (@AugustFG_) May 18, 2016

At least they’re making history.

The weakest free agent class in recent memory just got weaker again, as Francisco Cervelli has now joined Stephen Strasburg in taking a mid-season extension rather than testing the open market this winter.

Sources: Francisco Cervelli has signed a three-year contract extension with the Pirates. Total money is $31 million.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) May 17, 2016

As Passan notes in another tweet, Cervelli’s rise to a $31 million guaranteed contract has been pretty remarkable, given that he was suspended as part of the BioGenesis scandal in 2013, then spent most of 2014 on the disabled list. When the Pirates picked Cervelli up as Russell Martin’s low-cost replacement, he was a 29 year old without any real big league track record of success and a tainted reputation.

18 months later, Cervelli has established himself as one of the better catchers in baseball. Since the start of the 2015 season, he ranks behind only Buster Posey in catcher’s WAR, which actually undersells his value, considering that Cervelli also rates as one of the game’s best pitch framers. For last year, StatCorner graded him out as 27 runs better than average; Baseball Prospectus had him at +19.

Cervelli is an elite defender who also hits pretty decently, making him a very valuable contributor to a contending club. Selling $31 million for three free agent years is certainly light for what he brings to the field; this is the same price Denard Span got last winter, coming off an injury-shortened season, and only a little more than Gerardo Parra got. Cervelli is clearly more valuable than those two, so relative to his true value, this is a steal for the Pirates.

But there is some logic in Cervelli taking the deal now as well. The Pirates almost certainly would have made him a qualifying offer this winter — if that still exists, anyway — and that could have potentially limited his market if he was tied to draft pick compensation. He’s also a 30 year old catcher who has a long history of health problems, and given that teams are shying away from paying big money to aging players, Cervelli probably wasn’t going to cash in on a monster contract this winter, especially because a lot of his value comes from pitch framing, which the market has shown no willingness to pay for.

If he got to free agency and rejected the qualifying offer, maybe he could get four years and $50 million, arguing that he’s similar enough in overall value to Ben Zobrist that he should get near that deal despite the fact that 30+ catchers age very poorly. But there’s risk in that plan, as Cervelli could easily get hurt or see his production tumble over the rest of the season; he’s not exactly a sure thing, and it is worth noting his offensive production is BABIP-heavy.

So Cervelli probably left some money on the table with this deal, but he also sold some real risk that he was carrying, gets a solid guarantee from a contending club that he’s comfortable with, and doesn’t have to worry about where he’s going to spend the rest of his productive days. This isn’t a max-out-the-dollars contract, and the Pirates should be thrilled with the production they’ll get for the price, but there are enough reasons to see why he did this that it seems like a nice deal for both sides.

The Atlanta Braves are 9-28, the worst record in baseball through the first quarter of the season. So, today, they did what teams with the worst record in baseball do: they scapegoated the manager.

The #Braves have fired manager Fredi Gonzalez.

— David O'Brien (@DOBrienAJC) May 17, 2016

Because I don’t think we have a lot of insight into who is a good or bad manager, I don’t really think we know whether Gonzalez was part of the problem or part of the solution in Atlanta. Clearly, this team was not going to be any good this year, and Gonzalez’s job was to try and make chicken salad out of, well, you know. The team’s offense has been a complete and utter disaster, however, with imported veterans like Erick Aybar (.185 wOBA), A.J. Pierzynski (.238 wOBA), Jeff Francoeur (.250 wOBA), and Kelly Johnson (.295 wOBA) failing to provide any value in their stop-gap roles, and the kids who have been promoted haven’t shown that they’re ready for prime time. Gonzalez’s nightly line-up was Freddie Freeman and the seven dwarves, plus whatever lousy starting pitcher he had to roll out there that night.

Certainly, a lot of guys on the team are underachieving, and this is how baseball works; when the team performs poorly, the manager gets the axe. And it seems likely that the team was going to change managers at some point, as most managers don’t survive the transition from trying-to-win through rebuilding to make it back to the trying-to-win-again phase. Gonzalez knew this was the job he was being tasked with, and he had to know that it was probably going to lead to his dismissal if things got ugly. And they have.

But it’s also difficult to see that anyone else could have done significantly better with this team. The Braves assembled a collection of replacement level old guys to try and hold down the fort while their prospects developed; the old guys appear to have declined faster than they expected. This is the price the team is paying for focusing on future value. Things will get better in Atlanta when guys like Dansby Swanson start arriving, but for now, Gonzalez was tasked with trying to coax wins out of a terrible roster. He didn’t, so now someone else will try, and thanks to the power of regression to the mean, the team will look like it improved under the new guy.

Gonzalez couldn’t win with a team that isn’t good enough to win, so now the team will try someone else. It’s how baseball works, even if it isn’t really the managers fault that his team gave him a lousy roster.

Guess what! Here’s another place where the Cubs have been really super good. Ground balls — you’re familiar with them. When you’re the team pitching, you want those ground balls to get scooped up and turned into outs. From the Baseball-Reference Play Index, here are the best teams this year against grounders, as measured by slugging percentage allowed:

Twins in last. Cubs in first! Cubs in first by a decent amount. Now, we can track this historically. Here are the league-average marks since 1988:

Something truly bizarre happened between 2000 – 2002. That’s some bad data recording. Or at least, some inconsistent data recording. Those are the three crazy years, but just to be safe, let’s ignore the years before, too, and just focus on what’s happened since 2003. Since 2003, here are the top 10 lowest slugging percentages allowed on grounders:

SLG Allowed, Grounders, 2003 – 2016

Team	Year	SLG
Cubs	2016	0.202
A’s	2005	0.213
Cardinals	2004	0.213
Red Sox	2016	0.215
A’s	2010	0.221
Blue Jays	2008	0.222
Cardinals	2016	0.222
Astros	2006	0.222
A’s	2014	0.223
Mariners	2016	0.223

SOURCE: Baseball-Reference

2016 seasons very obviously incomplete.

Long way to go here — nothing is set in stone. The Cubs’ number will bounce around, and it isn’t quite fair to compare a partial season to a bunch of complete seasons, but this at least tells you about the Cubs’ pace. The Cubs are on pace to be phenomenally good against ground balls, as their lead above is one by 11 points over the 2005 A’s. That there are four teams in there from this season provides that necessary reminder that it’s too soon to go nuts, but, hey, all right, nice job Chicago.

StatCorner provides some related information. There, the Cubs have been 17 runs better than average on grounders. That ranks them No. 1, narrowly ahead of the Indians, and well ahead of the third-place Rockies. The Braves are at -15 runs because everything about the Braves has been terrible. This isn’t about the Braves, though. This is about the Cubs, and about another area where they’ve been an excellent baseball team. They can’t stay this good everywhere. But boy are they ever good.

Teams were waiting for months, literally months, to see what Tim Lincecum would look like on the other side of his hip surgery. He finally held his showcase, before scouts representing most of the organizations in the game, and, here, let’s put you in their shoes. It’s Tim Lincecum pitching!

All right, that is most definitely Tim Lincecum, and he is most definitely pitching. Is he pitching like a major-league-caliber starter? A major-league-caliber reliever? How many millions of dollars do you give him? Lincecum threw a few dozen pitches, looking like this. Based on that experience, teams had to get negotiating.

Lincecum was certain to sign somewhere. It always felt like he was most likely to sign somewhere out west, even with the Giants not super open to letting him start. Now we’ve just about got a resolution, and it’s the obvious one. Jon Heyman reported Lincecum was leaning toward the Angels, and Ken Rosenthal had some confirmation. This still isn’t finalized, but it’s almost there. I don’t know about the money, but it doesn’t really matter, because it’s not any of our money, and because we can guess that Lincecum is signing for a low base with some incentives. The Angels would’ve had to offer enough to stand out, but their location works to their benefit.

The Angels are obvious because they’re out west, because their rotation sucks, and because they’re somewhere around the fringes of the race. They just managed to sweep the Mariners in Seattle, which was very impressive of them, but their record is not good, and they could use the shot in the arm. The most interesting starter on the Angels is out for a year. The second-most interesting starter on the Angels is healthy and active, but he’s interesting because his velocity has fallen off of a cliff. Andrew Heaney might be done for the year. Tyler Skaggs has had some bumps in his recovery from Tommy John. C.J. Wilson is testing out a new arm slot. Jhoulys Chacin just got picked up from a horrible team for nothing and added to the rotation. Matt Shoemaker has an ERA of literally 9.12. Hector Santiago is useful, and Nick Tropeano is also looking useful, but, I mean, read this paragraph again if you have to. What do the Angels have to lose? How bad could Lincecum possibly be? And, people know him. They like him, and they’re intrigued by him. He generates buzz. That much is undeniable.

Lincecum, for what it’s worth, isn’t game-ready yet. Not for the majors — he’ll go to the minors for some kind of stretch, looking to settle in. No one could actually know how well he’s going to do, but Lincecum has always hung on to one thing. Even as his stuff declined, Lincecum kept on generating swings and misses.

The question now is how much stuff he has. Reports from the showcase had Lincecum topping out around 92, and in 2010, he was effective with a fastball that averaged 91.3. Talk from last fall suggested that Lincecum’s hip surgery could be restorative, and that’s why there’s the perception of upside. If he has some power back, that’s helpful. And even more important, if Lincecum doesn’t hurt anymore, he could achieve improved mechanical consistency, which is at the heart of everything. Better consistency = better location = better results. Every single time a player comes back from injury, you can see reason to hope, and this situation is no different. It’s easy to believe. Everyone wants to believe in a comeback.

The Angels, though, aren’t expecting Lincecum to be in Cy Young form. That would be silly of them to expect, and that would be silly for Lincecum to expect. Truth be told, I don’t know if the Angels are expecting anything. It’s just, their situation was this: The team isn’t good, and it’s been beset by injury. There was some money available, and Lincecum provides potential value, at minimal cost. If he doesn’t work out, well, Matt Shoemaker hasn’t been working out, and Lincecum is more interesting than he is. If he does work out, hey, that’s super, maybe something could happen here. This has been the most obvious potential match since the Garrett Richards news broke. Don’t listen to those people out there; sometimes you can predict baseball.

The slowest changeup thrown by an Angels pitcher does not belong to Jered Weaver, he of the 82-mph fastball. No, it belongs to right-handed reliever Mike Morin, whose fastball has touched 95 this year. And for that reason, I hereby declare Mike Morin’s changeup to be The Silliest Changeup in Baseball.

I’ve been wanting to write about this for a while, but despite solid peripherals, Morin struggled to prevent runs last year, and so all he had was this silly, silly changeup. As things stand now, though, he’s got a 1.84 ERA and a 3.10 FIP, and the changeup is still preposterous, so I figure this is my chance.

The changeup is silly for mostly this one reason:
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It requires but a single digit to understand how good Wade Davis has been over the last couple years. Scan the ERA column for this year or last, and the first thing with which you’re greeted is the number zero. You can stop right there. After the zero, the other digits don’t matter. For all intents and purposes, an ERA of 0.34 is the same thing as an ERA of 0.76 is the same thing as an ERA of 0.93. Whatever the number, as long as it starts with a zero, it signifies that the pitcher in question is allowing fewer than one run per nine innings, and it doesn’t get any better than that.

Sometimes, with metrics like Fielding Independent Pitching, it doesn’t even take a digit. It just takes a symbol, and you can stop reading. Like with Hector Rondon, all you have to see is the minus sign. Hector Rondon’s FIP this season is -0.15. That’s negative zero point one five. Rondon has broken the run estimator that is Fielding Independent Pitching.

Of course, even though it feels like we’ve been saying it for a while, it’s still early. And not only is it early, but Rondon is a reliever, and so the sample is even smaller. He’s thrown 13 innings. This means very little! But it is fun! And if the Chicago Cubs had one area that might’ve been viewed as a potential future weakness before the season began, it might’ve been the back end of the bullpen. Rondon, Pedro Strop and Justin Grimm have been great in recent years, but they didn’t have a Kenley Jansen or Craig Kimbrel-type name back there.

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Max Scherzer just threw a complete game in a victory over the Detroit Tigers. That’s not the important part. The important part is that the outs went like this:

1. Foul out
2. Strikeout
3. Strikeout
4. Strikeout
5. Strikeout
6. Strikeout
7. Strikeout
8. Strikeout
9. Strikeout
10. Strikeout
11. Ground out
12. Foul out
13. Strikeout
14. Strikeout
15. Fly out
16. Ground out
17. Strikeout
18. Strikeout
19. Fly out
20. Strikeout
21. Strikeout
22. Strikeout
23. Strikeout
24. Strikeout
25. Strikeout
26. Strikeout
27. Fielder’s choice

Sorry, I just had to see them all laid out like that.

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