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Traditionally, the outfield corners are home to heavy hitters. This year’s crop of right fielders has combined for a 110 wRC+, one point ahead of first basemen for the current major-league high as well as the highest mark at the position since 2011. The left fielders’ collective mark of 106 is the majors’ third-highest, one point ahead of that of third basemen, and the position’s second-best mark since 2011.

Even so, several contenders — which for this series I’ve defined as teams who are above .500 or have playoff odds of at least 10.0%, a definition that as of today currently covers 17 teams — are getting meager offensive production at one corner or another, by which I mean receiving less than 1.0 WAR at the spot, which makes them eligible for a place among the Replacement Level Killers. As the July 31 trade deadline approaches, they may want to do something about that, particularly since there’s no August waiver period during which they can tweak the roster. Having said that, I’m somewhat less focused on these teams’ eventual solutions, whether via trades or internal options, than I am in pointing out the problems.

Also, note that I’ve ruled out including the Angels among the left fielders, since the mid-June return of Justin Upton, who had been sidelined for nearly three months by turf toe, has already provided the team a substantial upgrade; even while slumping lately, he’s accounted for 0.3 of the team’s 0.6 WAR in 25 games, a 2.0 WAR pace over 162.

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12:01

Jay Jaffe: Howdy folks, good afternoon and welcome to another edition of my Thursday chat. I’m still digesting my amazing weekend at the Hall of Fame inductions in Cooperstown and neck deep in Replacement Level Killers, the fifth installment of which — corner outfielders — should be up soon. Obviously, there are a lot of questions about the July 31 trade deadline, so let’s get to it.

12:04

Jay Jaffe: I think we’ll see a lot of deals in the coming days. This breakdown from last year, compiled by the great Eric Stephen of True Blue LA, is worth bearing in mind: — Last year: 4 trades during the All-Star break 1 trade on July 21 1 trade on July 22 1 trade on July 24 2 trade on July 25 Then the floodgates, 35 trades over the final 6 days (18 on July 31) — Thus I suspect we’ll start seeing a trickle of deals soon, and then a flood.

12:07

Jay Jaffe: I would imagine it’s a factor but one individualized to each team — he’s obviously not going to the Astros given the presence of Alex Bregman and Gerrit Cole, for example. I suspect that the execs of any teams who are serious about acquiring him are discreetly discussing his potential reception with a few clubhouse leaders for some added input. But talent still carries the day, and his is considerable, particularly in a market that’s stretched pretty thin and one in which some of the other top targets — Bumgarner, Syndergaard — might not be dealt after all.

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Watch a baseball game. Pick a side. Now, wait for a pitcher on the team you’re rooting for to fall behind in the count 3-0. It feels pretty bad, doesn’t it? There is, I think, no feeling quite like the helplessness that comes when your team is behind in the count 3-0. There are worse feelings, sure, even within the confines of baseball. There’s the feeling of losing a close game, coughing up a lead, or seeing a favorite player injured. Nothing is quite the same, though, as the long dread of trying to escape from 3-0.

Why does 3-0 feel so uneasy? I think it’s because there are no good quick ways out of the jam. You feel nervous, and you’re going to feel nervous for a while. Next pitch a ball? That’s disappointing for obvious reasons, but at least the tension is over. No, the real problem is that a strike doesn’t feel much better than a ball. So what are you hoping for? You certainly don’t want a swing — swings on 3-0 are tremendous for the batter.

Do you want a take, then? The pitcher grooves a fastball, and the batter watches it fly by? Sure, that’s probably the best outcome you can hope for in the situation, but that’s small consolation. Get a strike, and it’s still 3-1; time for another 30 seconds of watching your team in a tough situation. Even then, what are you hoping for? Batters are producing a .475 wOBA after 3-1 counts this year, better offensive production than any player in baseball’s overall line.

Even if, and this is a huge if, your team gets two straight strikes — now it’s 3-2. This is after a nerve-wracking minute of real time, potentially involving some loud foul contact. You’ve worried about walks for two straight pitches, wondered if the pitcher has it today, and still — 3-2 is a hitter’s count. At the beginning of the at-bat, if I told you it was headed for a 3-2 count, you wouldn’t have been happy. That’s the best case scenario after you reach 3-0. No wonder 3-0 feels so bad. Read the rest of this entry »

Spend any time in a big-league ballpark in the hours before first pitch, and you’ll likely see a pitcher standing in short right or left field, throwing a flat ground. He’ll start his delivery just inside the foul line, feet planted on green grass. His catcher will be around 45 or 50 feet away, half-crouched in the shallow part of the outfield usually reserved for soft line drives. The pitcher will wind and deliver eight or nine times, usually at something like 80% effort, before huddling with his catcher and perhaps a coach or two. Then, gloves loose in their hands, the men will walk back to the dugout to continue their pregame routines.

That scene plays out hundreds of times a day in ballparks across the country. But the practice of throwing flat grounds has come under scrutiny recently, as coaches and front office personnel increasingly worry about the risk of an injury. Over the last few months, I asked a dozen or so players, coaches, and executives about flat grounds and how they’re used. After those conversations, I’m confident in two things: One, most teams who’ve thought hard about the practice have concluded that it has a neutral effect at best and could potentially be harmful. And two, that flat grounds probably aren’t going away anytime soon.

First, the case for flat grounds. For the most part, pitchers I asked told me that they just want to get a better sense of how individual pitches feel coming out of their hands. For that, they insisted, it doesn’t matter whether you’re throwing off a mound or on the field, and faced with the choice between schlepping out to a bullpen mound or simply stepping from the dugout into short right or left field, they prefer the latter. Many discounted immediately my theory that the lack of a drop-down from the mound interrupts upper-half timing based on the moment the front foot hits the ground. “I’ve been throwing flat grounds all my life,” said Marco Gonzales, “and I’ve never noticed a difference.”

But a number of coaches I spoke to expressed variations of the same concern: That practicing pitches on flat ground when they will eventually need to be thrown off a mound gives players bad information about what their repertoire will actually look like in-game.

“We’ve found that the feel guys get for the plate isn’t accurate [while throwing flat grounds],” said the Mariners’ Brian DeLunas. “For sliders and split-fingers especially, you’re just not going to get the same break. I have guys out there who’ll try to throw those pitches, and they’ll be like, damn, this pitch isn’t working! But if your slider isn’t breaking on a 50-foot throw, that’s actually good, because it really should be breaking in the last 15 or so feet.”

There are also elements of standard pitching deliveries that have in-game consequences but simply can’t be practiced on flat ground. “With a flat ground,” said Carl Willis, the Indians’ pitching coach, “the risk is that because you’re not able to get as much extension [on the front half], the consistency of work can suffer. Sometimes you’ll see a guy lose his posture as he comes down the slope, and you want to be able to maintain that posture throughout games. The only way you can really know it, and feel it, is to practice it on the mound.”

But the argument for flat grounds has never been that they replicate an in-game environment. The case is that they’re convenient, and require substantially less effort — and therefore presumably create less wear-and-tear for tired arms — than throwing full-speed off a mound. But is that last claim actually true?

In 2017, Driveline Baseball released a study (building off of a 2014 article in the American Journal of Sports Medicine) that suggested that, holding velocity constant, flat ground pitching generates about 6% more stress on elbows and shoulders than throwing off the mound. Critically, the study also found that stress does not decrease linearly with reduced effort, which means that if pitchers are throwing at 80-90% velocity on flat ground, the stress on their arms is likely about the same as it would be throwing full speed off the mound. Internal studies reaching similar conclusions have led the Mariners, at least, to try eliminating the practice altogether throughout their system (though with limited effect). Other teams have not gone quite as far, despite acknowledging the public evidence.

“If you’re talking about these guys throwing high-effort, it’s a proven fact that flat grounds can be more harmful at the same rate of speed than on the mound,” said Oakland’s pitching coach Scott Emerson. “But if you slow it down, it’s ok. They mostly just use it for target practice. And I’m just using it to see how the pitches look coming out of their hands. Nothing more than that.”

“In my experience, the flat ground can take a little bit of stress off of the arm for guys who are trying to recover,” said Willis. “That’s simply because they’re not working down the slope. That foot plant [which comes 4-6 inches above where it would off the mound] does hinder some extension a little bit, but if you can maintain that delivery, sometimes it tends to help with the recovery, coming back to make your next start.”

To my ear, the persistence of the practice league-wide in the face of reasonably sound evidence that its main theoretical benefit (the lower effort required) isn’t actually a benefit at all seems less about arm stress than convenience.

Most big-league teams carry 12-13 pitchers, and most big-league parks are equipped with just five outdoor mounds: two in the bullpen for each team, and one in the center of the diamond. If teams insisted that their pitchers throw exclusively off of mounds, they’d still only have two mounds to use (the mound on the field being, of course, in use for batting practice, and the remaining four divided between two teams). That would add an element of coordination to a pre-game period already rife with competing priorities for players’ time. “Besides,” one coach told me, “most of our players just aren’t going to walk their asses the 150 yards from the dugout to the bullpen to do their work.”

There’s also a degree of inertia: flat grounds persist because they’re something players have always done. This starts in amateur leagues, where the imbalance between mounds available and players using them is even more stark than in the pros, and where there is even less knowledge of the potentially harmful effects. Gonzales’s response to my question, quoted above, was typical of player responses for this story. Most reacted to my questions about flat grounds as if I had asked them if they put their pants on one leg at a time in the morning, or why they eat breakfast before lunch; they just do, and don’t think much about it. “I’d love it if we had six or seven mounds so we could do all our work there,” said Emerson. “But we don’t. For a lot of our guys this is just a part of their daily routines.”

But as conservative as baseball can be about its traditions and routines, the last two decades of constant self-evaluation and reinvention by coaches and front offices demonstrates that even long-held practices can change when they’re no longer deemed useful. “I don’t think that clubs have really thought hard enough about the risks to flat grounds,” said Bobby Evans, the former Giants’ general manager. “I think the assumption is that it’s just a warmup, when it might really be something that can put players at risk of injury. I want to know more.”

I do, too. There’s a benefit to allowing players to continue long-established routines, to be sure, and it’s probably one I underrate as an external observer of the game. But the evidence for flat grounds as a practice seems flimsy, and I’m not sure I’d be all that invested in it even if the evidence were good. At the very least, I’d welcome the opportunity to learn more about its biomechanical effects. For now, I’m with DeLunas: “Can you imagine a golfer going to the range and spending their afternoon hitting the ball with the back of the club over and over? They would never, ever do that. So why do we?”

The wonderful David Laurila contributed reporting by interviewing Cleveland’s Carl Willis.

Cleveland entered last offseason with one of the better rosters in baseball, but they spent the winter not offering Michael Brantley a qualifying offer, not bringing in an MLB-level replacement, switching out Edwin Encarnacion for Carlos Santana and Jake Bauers, trading away Yan Gomes, and then went through months of rumors that it would trade one of the best starting pitchers in the game, be it Corey Kluber or Trevor Bauer. In the end, they kept the rotation intact, but did nothing for the outfield, relying on stars on the pitching staff as well as Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez on the position player side. In short, the team left itself vulnerable, and two months into the season, it looked like the chickens had come home to roost. With another two months in the books, the club is almost where they were expected to be to start the year.

At the beginning of every season, FanGraphs puts together Positional Power rankings. This is where Cleveland ranked at every position.

There’s Lindor, Ramirez, the starting rotation, and then a bunch of below-average or worse players. Those rankings netted Cleveland an expected 97-win season, but they were heavily reliant on the stars delivering. Through 59 games, Cleveland was 29-30. Here are the main reasons.

• Lindor missed the first several weeks of the season. In just three weeks, his replacements Max Moroff and Eric Stamets were nearly a full win below replacement. Stamets got two hits in 48 plate appearances while Moroff hit better than that with a wRC+ of 3. Lindor came back and performed up to his normal standards, but instead of the two wins Cleveland expected from shortstop, they ended up with around one-third of that amount.
• Ramirez was terrible for two months. Instead of generating a win per month, he was a replacement-level player.
• The outfield was even worse than expected. Bauers, Leonys Martin, Carlos Gonzalez, and Greg Allen were a combined 1.5 wins below replacement. Slightly below-average play from Tyler Naquin, Jordan Luplow, and Oscar Mercado in fewer plate appearances were not enough to bring the outfield to even replacement level during this time.
• Mike Clevinger was hurt after just a few starts while Kluber missed a month. Even with Carlos Carrasco, Bauer, and Shane Bieber all pitching reasonably well, the rotation took a hit.

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Last week, FanGraphs wrapped up our annual Trade Value Series. As a window into teams’ valuation of players, it’s an invaluable resource, built as it is from a mixture of industry sources. One thing it isn’t, though, is a list of players we realistically expect to be traded. The top 10 players on the list, for example, have an average of six years of team control remaining, and all of them except Vladimir Guerrero Jr. play for teams that are currently contending. They’re great theoretical trade pieces, in other words, but not likely to actually be traded.

That conundrum, the fact that the most valuable players are among the least likely to be traded, has always been a feature of the exercise. Mike Trout topped the list for five straight years at one point, for example, and was quite literally too valuable for teams to be able to acquire, even if the Angels had been willing to deal him. Evan Longoria, likewise, was a repeat Trade Value champion, but his first extension with the Rays made him so valuable to the team that they couldn’t even contemplate moving him.

Most of the time, then, the Trade Value Series is more of a Theoretical Value Series. Most isn’t all, however, and that’s where this article comes in. One of the benefits of having 12 years of trade values is that we can look at things that don’t happen all that often. If only 1% of top-50 players get traded, we should still have six results in our sample. With the benefit of aggregation, then, let’s take a look at how often the trade in trade value comes into play.

The first question you probably have is how often a player on the Trade Value list gets traded at all. The answer to that is tricky. For example, here are the number of Top-50 and honorable mention players traded within the next year after appearing on a FanGraphs Trade Value list:

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As I noted yesterday, within the context of the 2002-19 period covered by our splits, second basemen have reached their offensive nadir, with a combined 90 wRC+ this year. At the same time, shortstops are building upon last year’s periodic zenith (97 wRC+) with an even 100 mark — in other words, one of the most demanding defensive positions is collectively producing league-average hitters. At least in part, that’s due to the kids. Last year, nobody older than 31 made even 150 plate appearances as a shortstop, and just three players over 30 played at least 100 games at the position, the lowest total since MLB expanded to 30 teams in 1998. This year, the Rangers’ Elvis Andrus, the Giants’ Brandon Crawford, and the Marlins’ Miguel Rojas are the only players on pace to do so.

Increasingly, shortstop is a young man’s position, and the crop of talent is remarkable: Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, Paul DeJong, Francisco Lindor, Jorge Polanco Corey Seager, and Fernando Tatis Jr. are all in their age-25 seasons or younger, and of the 14 shortstops who have totaled at least 1.7 WAR thus far (including Gleyber Torres, who thanks to Didi Gregorius‘ injury has played more than twice as many games at shortstop than second thus far), 10 of them are 26 or younger.

Meanwhile, just seven teams, including three contenders, have gotten less than 1.0 WAR from their shortstops to date. For this series, my definition of contenders is teams who are above .500 or have playoff odds of at least 10.0%, a definition that currently covers 18 teams, with the surging Giants (52-50) joining the party since I kicked off this series. For as small as that group of shortstops is, I’m making it even smaller by omitting the Nationals, whose alternatives to Trea Turner have offset his 1.4 WAR with a combined -0.8, compiled mostly while he was sidelined with a broken right index finger. I’m skipping them and, as with last year, doubling up this entry with the third basemen, who are near their own offensive high for the period, with a 105 wC+ mark (they were at 107 in 2016, and 106 last year); just eight teams, including four contenders, are below 1.0. I’m omitting one of those as well, since the Brewers’ Mike Moustakas has not only delivered 1.1 of his 2.7 total WAR there while filling in for Travis Shaw, but has opened up second base for top prospect Keston Hiura, who’s off to a flying start (136 wRC+, 1.5 WAR in 39 games).

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1:00

Kiley McDaniel: video from Luis Patino from the Futures Game:   FanGraphs Prospects @FG_Prospects   Padres RHP Luis Patino is our 10th-ranked pitcher and 31st-ranked prospect in the minor leagues. Here’s our footage from the Futures Game when he sat 96-99 mph w/cut, mixing in a plus slider, at least an average changeup and starter traits, despite his youth (19 y/o) & loud stuff 24 Jul 2019

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