Dan Connelly of the Baltimore Sun broke the news, since confirmed by MLB:

Waiting on official word but hearing Chris Davis has tested pos for amphetamines. 25 game suspension

— Dan Connolly (@danconnollysun) September 12, 2014

The Orioles have 17 regular season games remaining, so this puts Davis out for the rest of the year, plus eight additional games beyond the regular season. The interesting question, which I have not yet been able to find the answer for, is what this will do to his postseason eligibility when the suspension ends.

You’ll recall that MLB and the player’s association updated their PED suspension policy this year, after not being happy with Jhonny Peralta playing well in October last year, making players who failed a test for PEDs ineligible for the postseason, even if their suspension ended before the playoffs began. However, stimulants have a different tier of penalties than PEDs, as you’ll note by Davis’ 25 game ban, and it isn’t entirely clear whether this postseason ban applies to stimulants as well.

MLB’s official tweet mentions that Davis will be suspended for the postseason, but does not mention whether its for just the eight remaining games beyond the regular season — which would mean he’d be eligible to return for the World Series if the Orioles got that far — or whether the postseason ban for a failed PED test applies to stimulants as well. The best guess is that it doesn’t, and that Davis will be allowed to return for a potential World Series once his suspension ends, but that highlights a pretty odd divide in the rules. MLB’s penalties clearly judge a failed test for PEDs as a worse offense than one for stimulants, but it doesn’t exactly follow that having a recently-suspended PED user tarnishes the postseason in a way that a recently-suspended amphetamine user does not.

But it seems like those might be the rules, as odd as they seem.

Continuing the theme of filling in the gaps in the FanGraphs Library, today we’re debuting a glossary entry explaining Base Running (BsR). We’ve had BsR on the site for a while, and you can find mention of it in the glossary amid the entries for wSB and UBR, but never on its own. Considering that BsR is featured on the main leaderboard page and serves as one of the building blocks of Wins Above Replacement (WAR), it earned a full entry.

It also became clear that some people were confusing it with BaseRuns, which is an entirely different thing, and we needed a place to make the distinction clear.

As always, feel free to post any questions you may have about the metric in the comments below. You can also get your FanGraphs and sabermetrics questions answered Wednesdays at 3pm, during our chat designed specifically for that purpose. Should you have any related questions, feel free to contact me on Twitter @NeilWeinberg44 as well.

Insofar as the Cape Cod League — that is, the country’s most notable collegiate, wood-bat summer league — insofar as it ended on August 15th, it is either (a) entirely absurd or (b) almost entirely absurd that one would choose to return to it on a Thursday in mid-September. Insofar, however, as that same league produced nearly half of this year’s first-round draft picks — and has a history of serving as a summer home to many future major-leaguers — it’s also the case that really any occasion is an appropriate one to consider the Cape Cod League in some depth.

To the end of doing that, below are the final SCOUT leaderboards for this year’s top Cape League hitters and pitchers — and notes concerning same. (All data courtesy Pointstreak. Find last year’s best performances here.)

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Recently, I pointed out to Chris Young that he may have been right about how the league was going. Jeff Sullivan found that contact rates on pitches high in the zone are down. David Appelman helped us show that the league has a low-and-in happy zone for home runs per fly ball. The league as a whole has a hole up and in. Evidence seems to be mounting that the league is full of low-ball hitters, perhaps in response to the strike zone expanding at the bottom of the zone or the increasing use of the two-seamer.

So, with the riseballers like Young — Jered Weaver, Sean Doolittle, and company — finding success, who are the guys they need to watch out for?

The first name came to Young easily. “Brian Dozier, he will yank that high pitch all day long,” said the Mariners’ righty. He’d probably seen something like this chart, which shows Dozier’s run production in each quadrant of the strike zone:

Young praised the Twin’s second baseman and his “level swing plane” as part of the reason Dozier does well against the high pitch. Take a look:

Young talked about a couple other guys, too. He said that Coco Crisp, in a normal year, is somebody he has to worry about, but that this year things have changed a little. The heat maps from last year and this year reflect that he might be on to something — Crisp isn’t quite the high-ball threat he was before. He mentioned that Brandon Moss “fouls that high pitch off, he can’t put it in play, but he won’t miss it either.” Moss does reasonably well against high and tight with respect to the league, actually.

Bradley Woodrum once took a look at swing planes and their effect on pitcher-batter matchups. Looks like there’s something to it. After all, Josh Reddick has one of the biggest uppercut swings in baseball (and he’s not changing it) and he’s about 50% better against ground-ball pitchers than fly-ball pitchers, accordingly. It makes sense that his swing would have trouble against the high pitch, and it does.

Really nailing this all the way might take more time than we bloggers can afford, but it wouldn’t be surprising if a team employee had put in hours of video work sorting players by their swing planes. High and tight might work for most of the league, but throw one there to Brian Dozier, and you’re in trouble.

In the seventh inning of the Cubs’ August 23rd game home against Baltimore, very potent infield prospect Javier Baez hit the seventh home run of his career in just his 82nd plate appearance. This impressive and immediate exhibition of power wasn’t particularly surprising. Both Baez’s minor-league numbers and the scouting reports suggested that, upon his promotion to the majors, that the 21-year-old Puerto Rico native would likely homer and strike out at rates considerably higher than league average.

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Victor Martinez leads the majors in wRC+. Victor Martinez doesn’t appear on the first page of our WAR leaderboard. These are the kinds of results that make people question whether defense is too heavily emphasized in WAR, and certainly, Martinez’s status as a full-time DH is the primary factor in the divergence between his offensive value and his overall value.

But I’m not trying to talk about that again. Instead, Martinez is instructive of another issue, as a reminder that on base percentage is not created equal for all players. After all, the entire goal of reaching base is to score runs, and players turn their baserunning opportunities into runs at different clips. In fact, the range of scoring runs as a percentage of times on base can be pretty large.

The league average player in the AL — we’re ignoring the NL because of pitcher hitting, for this case — scores 30% of the time they reach base on a non-HR. The guys who lead the league in turning times on base into runs are, as you’d expect, quite fast: James Jones leads the league at 48%, and not coincidentally, he’s also 25 for 26 in stolen base attempts this year. Jones’ speed allows his times on base to be more valuable than a player with the exact same OBP.

But then there are guys on the other side of the ledger. Victor Martinez isn’t the slowest guy in baseball, but he is a converted catcher in his thirties who has already had knee surgery, so not surprisingly, he doesn’t score as often when he gets on base. For the season, Martinez has come around on just 24% of his times on base, even though he’s had J.D. Martinez and his .538 slugging percentage behind him for most of the year.

Martinez isn’t last in the league in this category, though; In fact, he’s not even in the top 10. Here are the 10 players who have scored the least often on their run-scoring opportunities.

Escobar is a surprising name, because he’s a shortstop with some speed, but this is probably just a function of the Rays offensive problems this year, as his career mark is 30%, and his career low before this season was 28%. Certainly, a player’s teammates offensive production can have an impact on this number, and Escobar is an example that this isn’t entirely within a player’s control.

But look at the rest of the names on the list. DH, DH, C, DH, DH, 1B/DH, C, 1B, 3B. This is basically a list of the slowest players in the game, and the guy who hits last in the string of decent hitters on the Mariners. Ortiz’s number is almost shockingly low, as he’s only scoring once every seven times he gets on base.

Speed has often been overrated in baseball circles, as it usually is found in guys who can’t hit all that well. But it does matter, and when evaluating offensive performance, we should remember that a nifty OBP from a baseclogger is not equal to that same OBP from someone who can actually run.

The fun thing about data is that we can say the same thing many different ways. If I wanted to prove a point, I could throw up a series of graphs and charts to enhance my argument. I actually plan to that very thing quite soon, so stay tuned, America.

We know that we are in a golden age of pitching. That the hitting boon of the early 2000s has ended, and a combination of regression, shrinking strike zones, stronger drug screening and other things is leading to pitching prowess coming back in a big way. You are discerning baseball fans, so you were already aware of this. If you are new to baseball or an alien or just like graphs, here’s some proof.

Strikeouts are up, FIP is decreasing. I could have thrown a bunch of other lines in there as well, but it doesn’t seem necessary. To be completely honest, this recent supremacy of pitching can be summed up in this recent tweet from Jeff Passan:

This is really hard to believe: Victor Martinez is the only player in baseball with an OBP above .400. Recent years: '13: 7. '12: 4. '11: 6

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) September 8, 2014

Here’s a graph to compliment:

One, ONE dude has an OBP above .400 this season. In fairness, Giancarlo Stanton (.399), Jose Bautista (.397), Andrew McCutchen (.397) and Paul Goldschmidt (.396) are all within spitting distance. But let’s say one more player hits that threshold this season. That’s still the lowest number of qualified batters since 1983. The 1999 Cleveland Indians had five qualified batters that had a .400 OBP or better.

There’s also another side to this coin. Victor Martinez, at age 35, is getting on base more than anybody. Martinez really is having a banner year. He’s reached his highest WAR since 2007, and is set to have the best hitting season of his career. He is currently second in the league in wRC+, behind only Jose Abreu. He’s hitting better than Stanton, Mike Trout or Yasiel Puig. Did I mention he’s 35? Given his age and his performance during this, his contract year, the 2015 offseason should shape up to be a very interesting one for the VMart camp.

We’re all smart people, we all know things. But sometimes, a simplified, boiled down perspective can really pull everything together. The offense/pitching dichotomy ebbs and flows. Batting will again rule the day at some point. But even fans of dingers and high-scoring games must admit we’re in a pretty special time right now. This is our grandparent moment — when, in 30 years, we can tell all those whippersnappers about baseball during our day. When nobody scored any runs. And we walked uphill both ways to watch it on our cell phones. And we were grateful.

Earlier today, Finnish martial artist and FanGraphs contributor August Fagerstrom submitted for the consideration of everyone a collection of reasons to believe in Cleveland right-hander Danny Salazar. As Fagerstrom notes, Salazar’s eight later-season starts in the majors compare favorably not only to the eight starts he recorded earlier this season but also to the most recent eight starts made by basically every pitcher in the majors. His 54 FIP-, for example, is the ninth-best such figure among qualified starters over the last month.

Nor is Salazar the only one among Cleveland’s starting pitchers to have produced elite-type numbers of late. In fact, over the last 30 days, Cleveland’s rotation has recorded the best league- and park-adjusted xFIP and FIP and ERA — and also the best WAR figures, too, of both the fielding-independent and run-allowed variety.

Regard, by way of illustration, the top-five rotations over the past month, sorted by WAR:

It might be difficult for some, owing to the alarmingly large gap between Detroit’s fielding-independent and run-prevention numbers, to say that the Tigers have featured the second-best rotation over the past month. Regardless, the point remains: by any criteria one might choose to define pitching success, the Indians have been the best by it over the last month.

Here are the individual starters who’ve contributed to that cause, with their numbers from the last 30 days:

Before the current season, this group above had produced 7.6 WAR total over 882.0 innings in the entirety of their collective careers. As a group, they had accounted for fewer wins than Justin Verlander did by himself in 2009 — and way less efficiently, too.

Of late, however, this same cadre of relative misfits has been excellent, producing a collective total of 4.6 WAR in 161.2 innings since last month at this time — or, a slightly higher rate of WAR per inning than Felix Hernandez has produced in 2014.

It is not only probable but also a definite certainty that Jon Daniels and Thad Levine and Ron Washington and probably also, like, half of the dogs in the Dallas Metro Statistical Area are more qualified than the present author to hold forth on what is best for the Texas Rangers. Nor is it my intention, at all in what follows, to hold forth on any such thing.

Rather, the purpose of this brief post is only to submit a formal request — or, as formal a request as one is capable of making by means of an internet weblog featuring banner ads for the Brazilian Butt Lift. The request is as follows: that they (i.e. the Texas Rangers) allow pitcher Alex Claudio to start one and/or more than one baseball games this September.

For those readers who are less well acquainted with fringe prospects, below are some relevant facts regarding Claudio.

He:

• Is a 22-year-old left-hander from Puerto Rico; and
• Began the current season in the High-A Carolina League; and
• Subsequently recorded strikeout and walk rates of 23.3% and 3.6%, respectively, in 92.0 innings across three minor-league levels; and
• Has recorded strikeout and walk rates of 31.3% and 6.3%, respectively — and also a ground-ball rate of 55.0% — in 7.1 relief innings for Texas following a mid-August promotion; and
• Has recorded, in those 7.1 relief innings, an average fastball velocity (84.6 mph) just a little bit slower than Cardinals infielder Daniel Descalso;
• Has recorded the absolute slowest average changeup velocity (67.5 mph) among anyone to throw a pitch this season.

So far as dramatic effect is concerned, it’s possible that the facts above aren’t ideally arranged. What one needs to know about Claudio, though, is that he (a) features conspicuously underwhelming arm speed, but has also (b) produced decidedly above-average figures (so far) at four different levels this season.

It’s not uncommon, probably, for a relief pitcher to ascend a couple levels and then find success in the majors based on his ability to dominate same-handed batters. Unlike other left-handers with sub-optimal velocity, however, Claudio doesn’t necessarily profile as a LOOGY. While he throws from a low-ish arm slot and features an effective slider, Claudio’s beautiful and strange changeup allows him to neutralize right-handed batters reasonably well, too.

Like, for example, how he decisively neutralized Collin Cowgill recently by means of his changeup:

And then how, here, he neutralized Cowgill again via the changeup on the very next pitch:

Again, though: the intention of this missive isn’t necessarily to argue that adding Alex Claudio to the rotation might make the Rangers better. Rather, it’s to point out that it would obviously make them more interesting — and that, given his record to date, that Claudio probably wouldn’t embarrass either himself or the club.

One of the great things about FanGraphs is the ever increasing number of stats and features available on the site. One of the downsides of that is that if you miss the initial announcement, things can get awfully confusing awfully quickly. In my efforts to update and expand the FanGraphs Library, I noticed a number of stats that slipped through the cracks and failed to get their own entries after debuting on the site. Today, we are correcting another one of those absences.

One of our most prominently displayed statistics is Defense, or Def if you’re checking out the leaderboards or player pages. We rolled Off and Def out about a year ago as simple combinations of stats we already offered on the site, but if you weren’t hanging out on FanGraphs in mid-September 2013, you might not have known what they meant. Def is simply fielding runs above average (Ultimate Zone Rating at FanGraphs) and the positional adjustment added together and tells you about a player’s total defensive value relative to league average. It is a cumulative stat, so it is based on the quality and quantity of your performance. To learn more about run value stats, check out last week’s entry in the Library.

As always, feel free to contact me on Twitter @NeilWeinberg44, in the comments, or during my weekly chat at 3pm eastern on Wednesdays with any and all FanGraphs and stat related questions.