The Royals are rolling, and when I wrote about them Monday morning, I made sure to highlight their outfield defense, which is probably the team’s greatest strength. But even bad teams have their own greatest strengths, and there’s another reason why the Royals currently find themselves in a playoff position. It’s definitely not the only reason, but it’s a tough thing to ignore.

This is the glossary page for the FanGraphs Clutch statistic. You can think of it as a measure of timeliness, and it does a hell of a job of explaining some of the things that have happened in the past. Now here’s a table of the top- and bottom-five teams of 2014, in terms of overall Clutch:

The good news for the teams on the left: what’s happened has happened. The bad news: this isn’t really the kind of thing that’s predictive, at least not to this extent. Clutch gets regressed extremely heavily to the mean, no matter how many times one tries to argue it doesn’t. The bullpen certainly plays a part, but it’s not like bullpens are all that reliable, either.

A fun fact for you: the Royals are 63-53, while the Cubs are 50-66. Yet, their respective BaseRuns records are 56-60 and 57-59. In real life, the Royals might go to the playoffs, and the Cubs are looking ahead to 2015. In an alternative life that strips out sequencing, they’re just a couple of mediocre teams trying not to fall asleep for the final six weeks. What I’m absolutely not saying is that the Cubs have played as well as the Royals. They haven’t! The Royals have been clutch, and the Cubs have been unclutch. But the teams probably aren’t as different as they look in the standings. Good sequencing is a positive, but it’s also not really a skill.

You might be wondering: which has been the most clutch team of all time? I don’t know, but I can tell you the most clutch team since 1974. It’s the 2008 Angels, who finished 100-62 with a Pythagorean record of 88-74. Their clutch score: 14.9. They had an overall .743 OPS, and an .808 OPS in high-leverage situations. They allowed an overall .729 OPS, and a .649 OPS in high-leverage situations. The least-clutch teams: the 1984 Phillies and the 2001 Rockies, at -12.7. Neither the Royals nor the Cubs are on an all-time pace, but boy can sequencing ever make good math look bad. Nothing has an effect on win/loss records quite like choosing one’s moments.

Over on the main blog, we’ve just published an introduction from Kiley McDaniel, who is the newest member of the FanGraphs team. Though he’s not entirely new; Kiley previously wrote for FanGraphs a few years ago before taking on a full-time job as the prospect writer for Scout.com. Today, though, Kiley returns to FanGraphs to head up our prospect coverage, and we’re excited to have him back in the fold. Additionally, Kiley has enlisted the help of some friends, and together, they’ll be covering the minor leagues — and amateur levels, to a lesser degree — in a different way than we have previously.

Kiley’s experience working for the Yankees, Orioles, and Pirates has given him some valuable experience into the inner-workings of MLB decision making processes, and he’s previously covered prospects for both ESPN and Scout, in addition to his earlier stint at FanGraphs. We think you’re going to like what he has to offer, and some of the new projects that he’ll be leading the charge on. While there are certainly many others doing great work in bringing interesting coverage of minor leaguers, we want to cover prospects in a way that aligns with what you’ve come to expect from FanGraphs, and Kiley’s got some great things in store for those of you who really like the prospect side of the game.

I’d be remiss to not mention the yeoman’s work that Marc Hulet has put in here over the last few years, heading up the offseason prospect lists and putting in a remarkable amount of work every offseason. Marc’s begun contributing more regularly to RotoGraphs, and you will still find his write-ups on minor leaguers published there on a regular basis, but we are extremely thankful to Marc for the years of work he put in covering prospects for us.

We’re excited to have Kiley and his crew on board, and you can look forward to a flood of new prospect coverage coming to FanGraphs in the coming weeks.

A federal judge in New York ruled on Friday that Major League Baseball will face trial for violations of federal antitrust laws by stemming the exclusive broadcast territories for each of its 30 teams. Several regional sports networks and cable and satellite companies that benefit from the exclusive territories will also face trial on antitrust charges.

Consumers who purchased Extra Innings and MLB.tv sued MLB, the RSNs, and cable and satellite companies in 2012 claiming that the league’s exclusive broadcast territories resulted in fewer options and higher prices. The court’s order — issued late in the day on Friday — came in response to motions for summary judgment by MLB, the RSNs, and the cable and satellite companies. Federal court procedures permit defendants to use such motions to argue that the key facts in the case are undisputed and defeat the plaintiffs claims as a matter of law.

In its motion, MLB argued first that baseball’s antitrust exemption precluded claims based on the exclusive broadcast territories. But even if the exemption does not apply, MLB claimed, the exclusive TV territories are pro-competitive in that they lead to cooperation between the home and visiting teams, and strong regional broadcasts across the league. The RSNs and cable and satellite companies argued that they were, in essence, innocent bystanders to MLB’s exclusive territories and, therefore, can’t be liable under the antitrust laws. My previous posts explaining the lawsuit and the defendants’ motions for summary judgment can be read here and here.

In her order denying summary judgment for the defendants, Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that baseball’s antitrust exemption does not preclude claims challenging the league’s exclusive broadcast territories. She then held that the consumer plaintiffs had submitted credible evidence — in the form of sworn testimony from economic experts — showing that the demolition of the exclusive broadcast territories would lead to more broadcast choices and lower prices. This evidence was sufficient to preclude summary judgment for MLB. As for the RSNs and cable and satellite companies, the court found evidence that they were not innocent bystanders but had, in fact, taken steps to ensure that the exclusive broadcast territories remained in place.

You can read a copy of the court’s 57-page decision here.

Even with this court decision, MLB’s exclusive broadcast territories will remain in place for some time. The court will hold a conference later this month at which she’ll likely set pre-trial deadlines and a trial date. At trial, the consumer plaintiffs will bear the burden of proving that the exclusive broadcast territories are unreasonable restraints on competition. A trial could last weeks and will inevitably be followed by more motions and an appeal.

The risks are high for MLB and its broadcast partners. A verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, if upheld on appeal, would upend the rights fee agreements of all 30 teams, the streaming rights that give rise to Extra Innings and MLB.tv, and the national TV contracts — deals which result in hundreds of millions of dollars flowing to MLB and its teams every year. With those kinds of risks, parties will often do what they can to avoid trial.

Stay tuned.

According to Keith Law, the Cubs have acquired Jacob Turner from the Marlins for “a couple of minor leaguers”. Turner was a pretty high profile prospect a few years ago, is just 23, and this acquisition falls in line with the Cubs buying low on young pitching and seeing what sticks. Assuming the two minor leaguers have minimal value, this is probably a decent enough move by the Cubs, because young arms sometimes turn into Jake Arrieta.

But before we throw the Cubs a parade for acquiring Turner, let’s maybe point out something of importance: the current version of Jacob Turner does not belong in a Major League rotation, and barring some dramatic improvement from either his change-up or his curveball, he profiles best as a middle reliever.

Since the start of the 2011 season, 149 pitchers have thrown at least 100 innings against left-handed batters. By K%-BB%, Turner ranks 147th. Here are his peers in controlling the strike zone against lefties.

Marquis is a replacement level scrub at the end of his career. Mendoza is a swing guy who makes spot starts when someone is hurt. Westbrook is out of baseball. The only guy in this mix who has had any real value of late is Chacin, who has succeed by limiting BABIP and HR/FB ratio while pitching in Colorado. Turner hasn’t shown the same ability to limit hard contact, and his results have actually been worse than his also-bad peripherals.

Yes, Turner is 23, and yes, there’s plenty of time for him to live up to the promise he showed as a minor leaguer. Maybe the change-up will get better and he’ll have a real weapon against left-handers someday. He doesn’t right now, though, and until he does, he’s going to project as a reliever, and not even the kind of reliever you can trust with full-inning, high-leverage appearances.

Last week, we reported on the ongoing bankruptcy saga involving Comcast SportsNet Houston, the joint venture created and owned by Comcast Sports Group, the Houston Astros and the Houston Rockets. More than a year after its launch, CSN Houston hadn’t reached carriage fee deals with any cable or satellite company in the Houston area, other than Comcast. That led to financial distress and to an involuntary bankruptcy petition filed by Comcast last fall.

Last night, AT&T and DirecTV filed a plan with the bankruptcy court to assume control over CSN Houston. As part of the reorganization plan, AT&T and DirecTV will create a new limited liability company with 1,000 shares — 40 percent owned by AT&T and 60 percent owned by DirecTV. The Astros and Rockets back this plan, despite giving up their ownership interests in the regional sports network.

If the bankruptcy court approves this plan, the new RSN (likely to be branded a ROOT Sports Network like other DirecTV owned sports networks) will negotiate new rights fee agreements with the Astros and the Rockets. Under the CSN Houston agreement, the Astros were scheduled to receive $60 million annually.

One of the most commonly cited sabermetric statistics for hitters and pitchers is Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) and our Library entry on BABIP is newly renovated. Not only does the entry now contain the BABIP equation, which was previously absent (oops!), but it walks you through a more nuanced explanation of why we care about BABIP and how to use it responsibly.

We have a BABIP entry in the Offense and Pitching sections of the Library but the entries are the same, so clicking to either will do.

Click over to the Library for a full breakdown, but feel free to post questions about BABIP here. We also have a post going up in the Library blog today that illustrates the importance of BABIP and the concept of luck, so feel free to post questions there as well. You can also reach out to me on Twitter @NeilWeinberg44 or stop by our weekly Q&A chat Wednesdays at 3pm eastern to ask questions about advanced stats or the site’s features.

A fight between the Orioles and Nationals over MASN’s television rights fees has been brewing for years. MASN (Mid-Atlantic Sports Network) was created as a form of financial compensation to the Orioles when MLB moved the Expos from Montreal to Washington, D.C. to become the Nationals. MASN is majority owned by the Orioles but has exclusive rights to broadcast Orioles and Nationals games. The agreement establishing MASN set a floor for the Nationals’ TV rights fees and a formula for how those rights fees would increase on an annual basis. After five years, the Nationals had the right to petition to reset the formula, and if the parties couldn’t agree, the matter would be taken to arbitration before a panel established by MLB. For more than two years, the teams have been fighting over this new formula. We learned and reported last week that the dispute did go to arbitration and that the MLB-established panel issued a decision in June in favor of the Nationals. The Orioles then filed a lawsuit in New York state court to overturn the arbitration decision and in an initial victory, convinced the court to stay enforcement of the decision until the merits of its claims can be fully explored. A stay order means that the status quo that existed prior to the arbitration decision — with MASN paying the Nationals only $33 million per year in rights fees — will continue for the time being. The court also rejected MLB’s request to keep all documents in the case under seal. MASN’s petition to undo the arbitration decision charges the arbitration panel with a conflict of interest, because it is comprised of representatives of three other MLB teams who would benefit financially if the Nationals receive a larger rights fee, via the league’s revenue sharing system. MASN and the Orioles also claim that the arbitration panel ignored the formula used by MLB for years to determine how to divide a team-owned RSN’s revenues into rights fees (which are contributed to the revenue-sharing system) and profits (which are not). By ignoring that formula, the Orioles, contend, the arbitration decision will leave MASN with very little in the way of profits — in direct contravention to the agreement that created MASN in the first place. You can read MASN’s petition to vacate the arbitration decision here. The court has scheduled a hearing for later this month on whether to permanently enjoin the arbitration decision.

One of the reasons I really like having InstaGraphs is that it gives us a more natural place to link out to other good stuff around the web. It’s more natural to have a link in a blog designed for several hundred word posts than it is to have one where we’ve trained you to expect 1,000 words. And often times, the article I’m linking to doesn’t really need supporting commentary.

Like this one, for instance. Ben Lindbergh tackles the question of the advantage of having elite starting pitching in the postseason. These kinds of studies have been done before, and the conclusion isn’t revolutionary, but there are still a lot of people who think that you can dramatically skew the odds in October by loading up on high quality pitching, but the data keeps pushing back against that idea.

The home run paragraph of Ben’s piece:

So why doesn’t the quality of a team’s top three starters or its ace register as significant? For one thing, the differences between teams are compressed in the playoffs, relative to the regular season: Teams with terrible staffs don’t make it to October, so the gulf between the best- and worst-pitching playoff teams isn’t as stark as we’re used to seeing during the season’s first six months. Perhaps more importantly, there’s more than one way to win baseball games, and even under an expanded playoff format, teams don’t get to October without doing something well. A team with an inferior pitching staff often makes up for its weakness on the mound by being better on offense.

Read the whole thing, and keep the takeaway in mind, because you’re going to be inundated with “pitching wins championships” cliches for the next few months, even though the reality is that good baseball teams win championships.

Pedro Alvarez isn’t incapable of making a good defensive play. Here is one from not long ago!

Unfortunately, this sort of thing has been far too common:

The Pirates are trying to figure out what to do with Alvarez, because they’re in the middle of a pennant race and his throwing errors are piling up. It helps for them to have Josh Harrison available, but then they also just lost Andrew McCutchen, and Alvarez might not be suited to move to first base anyhow. Alvarez has never been a total stranger to throwing errors, but, we have such data going back to 2002. Here are the highest single-season throwing-error totals over that span:

(1) 23, Pedro Alvarez (2014)
(2) 18, Mark Reynolds (2008)
(3t) 16, Julio Lugo (2004)
(3t) 16, Chad Tracy (2004)
(3t) 16, Edwin Encarnacion (2006)
(3t) 16, Edwin Encarnacion (2008)
(3t) 16, Ryan Braun (2007)
(3t) 16, Starlin Castro (2011)
(3t) 16, Pedro Alvarez (2012)

Already, Alvarez has the highest total by five, and the Pirates have another 51 games left to play. It remains to be seen how many games Pedro Alvarez has left to play, but the Pirates are trying like hell to get to the bottom of this because this isn’t only important for the short-term — the state of Alvarez’s defense could determine whether or not he’s tendered a contract for next year. He’ll be up for about $5.5 million – $6 million in arbitration, and his WAR right now stands at 0.0. It’s hard to imagine that Alvarez could be non-tendered, but it’s also hard to imagine setting a recent high for throwing errors before the regular season’s trade deadline.

The quirk of it: a year ago, Alvarez finished with 12 throwing errors and 15 fielding errors. This year, he’s at 23 throwing errors and one fielding error. So Alvarez improved in one area and got worse in another, not unlike how he’s reduced his strikeouts but also reduced his power. It’s been an eventful season for Pedro Alvarez. It’s also been a much worse season, but I wanted to be nice. Not a lot of people out there right now being nice to Pedro Alvarez.

It’s an August tradition; the Yankees flex their financial muscle to claim some overpriced player on waivers in order to add him for the last few months of the season. Only this time, the tradition has been turned on its head, as the Nationals claimed Matt Thornton, and the Yankees decided to let them have him.

Thornton move saves #Yankees about $4.5M. Rest of ’14 salary, plus $3.5M in ’15. NYY working on other things, could redirect money.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 5, 2014

That’s right; the Yankees just let a quality left-handed reliever go for nothing but cash savings because they are working on directing that money somewhere else. It’s interesting to see the Yankees dumping salary here, when they spent the last few weeks taking on money to add the likes of Chase Headley, Brandon McCarthy, Martin Prado, and Stephen Drew. Perhaps more interesting will be what deal that are working on that would consume the money they just saved on Thornton, as it has been publicly reported that the Phillies just placed a bunch of their expensive players on waivers yesterday.

For the Nationals, they get a decent lefty specialist who isn’t atrocious against right-handers for $1 million over the rest of this season and $3.5 million next year, and don’t have to give up any talent in exchange. For a team in their position, this is a nice little addition, and gives their bullpen another solid arm for October.