Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the third-place Nationals and Wade LeBlanc’s extension, then answer listener emails about trading Bryce Harper, signing Bryce Harper, throwing super-slow pitches, a DH as the best player ever, hitting flares on purpose, losing games to set up a specific playoff matchup, John Olerud and the Hall of Fame, when to tell fans to “make some noise,” the players with the most RBI against one team, forcing opponents to play out of position, an MLB re-entry rule, drafting based on publicly available info, the worst playoff teams and best non-playoff teams, a mysterious masked player, and more, plus a real-time reaction to the Nats’ incredible comeback and Stat Blasts about the best hitters after 0-2, the Rockies being better on the road, and the low leaguewide home-field advantage.

Audio intro: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "Makin’ Some Noise"
Audio outro: Buzzcocks, "Noise Annoys"

Link to Travis’s post about the Nationals
Link to info on the batted-ball “donut hole”
Link playoff teams with worst winning percentages
Link to non-playoff teams with best winning percentages

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the Rays using backup catcher Jesus Sucre as a pitcher to protect a lead, the return of Shohei Ohtani, Javier Baez’s exciting and silly steal of home, and what life would be like with deferred payments. Then (29:58) they bring on Phillies international scouting director Sal Agostinelli to discuss his Willians Astudillo-esque career, discovering, signing, and developing Astudillo, the July 2 signing period, scouting teenaged players, amateur scouting vs. international scouting, the importance of makeup, how to judge international-scouting success, signing players despite being saddled with a small bonus pool, the difficulty of focusing on baseball in Venezuela, expanding into new international markets, and more.

Audio intro: Talib Kweli (Feat. Nigel Hall), "Mr. International"
Audio interstitial: Nat King Cole, "Calico Sal"
Audio outro: Stackridge, "The Road to Venezuela"

Link to Jeff’s post about position-player pitchers
Link to list of deferred payments
Link to Javier Baez’s steal of home
Link to Philadelphia Inquirer feature on Sal Agostinelli
Link to 2018 team WAR from international amateur signees
Link to feature on Phillies’ international scouting
Link to Sal’s baseball-training site

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No one ever wants to play 16 innings. Pretty much no one ever wants to watch 16 innings, but, certainly, no one ever wants to play them. Even Ernie Banks would want those 16 innings spread over two games, instead of just one. At a certain point, baseball breaks down. The rosters get warped and everyone’s tired, and while you could say it becomes more of a psychological battle than a physical one, the baseball at the end of a marathon resembles only slightly the baseball at the start. There’s a reason Rob Manfred has talked about changing the rules in extra innings, and it’s not because he hates baseball. It’s because, when a game goes too long, the players hate baseball. And based on how few people remain in the stadium, many of the fans do, too.

The Rays and Marlins played 16 innings on Tuesday. The Marlins are out of it, and the Rays might as well be, but there’s no giving up, not in the regular season. Definitely not in early July. The game took place in the NL ballpark, and things inevitably got weird. The Rays, of course, don’t have a conventional pitching staff, so they quickly ran low on pitchers. Meanwhile, over the past three years, no one with at least 150 plate appearances has a lower wRC+ than Dan Straily, but the Marlins were forced into using him as a pinch-hitter. A game that goes 10 feels like it’ll end after 11. A game that goes 15 feels like it’ll end after the heat death of the universe. At any moment, a team might score a run. But after it’s been long enough, scoring feels impossible.

At last, in the 16th, things broke the Rays’ way. The game had been tied at four since the fifth. Then the Rays put up a five-spot. The rally featured an RBI single by long reliever Vidal Nuno, and the hit was his second in as many innings. As Nuno batted in the 16th, he’d thrown only 26 pitches. It looked as if Nuno would be fine to close the game out. Then he ran down the line after contact.

Vidal Nuno strained his hamstring. He was replaced. Though the Rays wound up ahead 9-4, they’d need someone to record three outs. They didn’t turn to their bullpen. They turned to their bench.

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The Washington Nationals have a problem. The Braves and Phillies have arrived ahead of schedule, as we know. The Nationals enter play Thursday in third place behind those two clubs, seven games behind the Braves and five-and-a-half games behind the Phillies.

While the Nationals have trailed in the NL East for much of the season, their FanGraphs playoff odds have dipped below 60% (59.4% as of Thursday afternoon) for the first time this season.

While the Super Teams are taking care of business in the American League, the NL field remains more open. And at the moment, the Nationals are the only preseason division favorite, the only so-called preseason Super Team, with playoff odds below 89.9% and division odds less than 50% (43.5%). With their loss to Red Sox on Wednesday, the Nationals fell below .500 (42-43).

While teams often go through struggles and sluggish periods in the marathon that is a 162-game season, we’re now more than halfway into this season and the Nationals have never gotten on track. It appeared that Washington might be getting right about a month ago as they moved back into first place and held a half-game lead in the division on June 10. But they fell out of first place on June 12 and haven’t been back, losing 16 of their last 21 games. Read the rest of this entry »

Albert Almora Jr., Theo Epstein’s first draft pick as Grand Poobah of the Cubs organization, is having himself a nice little season this year at the age of 24. His on-base percentage of .370 is 32 points up on last year’s career high. His .462 slugging percentage is also a career high, though buttressed not so much by increased home-run power as by an increase in the rate at which he hits doubles (one in every 14 plate appearances this year compared to 1-in-18 last year). His 1.8 WAR, of course, is already at a career high, and he plays stellar defense in center field. Oh, and if the season ended today, his .329 average would put him neck-and-neck with Scooter Gennett for the NL’s batting title.

“Batting title”: that’s the funny term we give the hitter who finishes the season with at least 502 plate appearances and the highest batting average in the league. It sounds really good! A reasonable person might conclude, in fact, that someone who wins the batting title is necessarily one of the best batters in the league. But, of course, they’re not — at least not all of the time. Last year, for example, one of the very best hitters in the National League was Giancarlo Stanton, and he “hit” — see how the language works against our understanding? — just .281. Aaron Judge was among the very best in the Junior Circuit, and he hit .284. And this year, the Year of our Lord Mike Trout 8 and of the Common Era 2018, Albert Almora Jr. is currently ranked 52nd in wRC+ among qualified hitters, and he’s in strong contention for the batting title. He just might win it.

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While Matt Carpenter has turned his season around after a dreadful start, and Marcell Ozuna and Kolten Wong made strong showings in June after struggling previously, Dexter Fowler has yet to get going. In fact, the Cardinals’ 32-year-old right fielder ranks among the league’s worst hitters and least valuable players, and lately he’s been losing time to younger alternatives — all of which is surprising given his recent track record. He wound up in the headlines earlier this week when Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak singled him out publicly in a weekly podcast spot with a team broadcaster, questioning Fowler’s level of effort and energy in a manner rarely seen these days, at least from the type of model organization that the Cardinals fancy themselves.

It was bush-league stuff, particularly given its timing, as Fowler was preparing to go on paternity leave for the birth of his second child and thus unavailable to respond directly.

Speaking to Dan McLaughlin for the Scoops with Danny podcast, Mozeliak said of Fowler:

“I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and question his effort and his energy level and those are things that I can’t defend. What I can defend is trying to create opportunities for him, but not if it’s at the expense of someone that’s out there hustling and playing hard. I think everybody just needs to take a hard look in the mirror and decide what they want that next chapter to look like. In Dexter’s case, maybe taking a brief timeout, trying to reassess himself and then give him a chance for a strong second half is probably what’s best for everybody. I’m hopeful to touch base with him in the near future to really just decide what makes the most sense, but clearly he’s not playing at the level we had hoped.”

Ouch. Within that statement, Mozeliak didn’t identify whether it was teammates, coaches, managers, front office personnel, or angry fans — a cross-section of observers, not all of whose opinions should carry equal weight — complaining about Fowler. Nor did he cite instances where Fowler failed to hustle, the discipline for which would generally fall upon manager Mike Matheny. Think Nationals manager Matt Williams pulling Bryce Harper for failing to run out a ground ball to the pitcher circa 2014 or Dodgers manager Dave Roberts benching Cody Bellinger earlier this season — two cases of a manager transparently using a young star to set an example for a slow-starting team. And in saying “I’m hopeful to touch base” with Fowler, Mozeliak all but admitted that he was airing laundry publicly instead of first going to the player to discuss whatever problems had arisen. This isn’t the way well-run 21st century baseball teams typically function.

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Monday through Wednesday notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

7/2

Brewer Hicklen, OF, Kansas City Royals (Profile)
Level: Low-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: HM   FV: 35+
Line: 4-for-6, 2B, HR

Notes
Hicklen has some statistical red flags if you’re unaware of the context with which you should be viewing his performance. He’s a 22-year-old college hitter with a 30% strikeout rate at Low-A. But Hicklen hasn’t been committed to playing baseball for very long, as he sought, late in high school and throughout college, to have a football career. He went to UAB as a baseball walk-on and eventually earned a football scholarship as the school’s defunct program was to be reborn. But Hicklen’s physical tools stood out as he continued to play baseball (plus speed and raw power), so he was drafted and compelled to sign. He hasn’t been focusing on baseball, alone, for very long and has a .300/.350/.525 line in his first full pro season. He’s a toolsy long shot, but so far so good.

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In recent memory alone, the conduct of Marlins owners has been defined largely by questionable judgment, from the purchase of a team whose payroll they could not afford to the alleged pocketing of revenue-sharing monies that should have been put towards improving the on-field product. They have claimed to be based in the British Virgin Islands in hopes of taking a court case to arbitration and even sued season ticket-holders and vendors.

Legal aficionado Sheryl Ring addressed the absurdity of what the Marlins are doing:

That’s right: the Marlins obtained a judgment against a season ticket holder using as leverage the fact that his attorney suffered a heart attack. They then attempted to take away a building he owns to collect on that judgment — and all because he didn’t want to renew his season tickets.

[…]

Because, consider: the Marlins haven’t sued just their fans; they’ve also sued ballpark concession vendors who, due to low attendance, were unable to stay in business and thus renew their contracts or pay the $2 million entry fee charged by the team.

What makes that tactic strange is that those lawsuits include claims against companies that have filed for bankruptcy protection, which means that the team is engaged in expensive litigation against entities that may have little or no ability to pay back the amount the team says it’s owed.

You could say that the Marlins are conducting a peculiar type of experiment: what happens when a team alienates its fans to such a degree that no one is left to watch.

As images like the following reveal, the experiment appears to be working.

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