Among the early-season strikeout leaders, one finds many of the usual names, pitchers like Chris Sale, Max Scherzer, and Noah Syndergaard. But sandwiched between Syndergaard and Justin Verlander, at seventh overall, is a bit of surprise: J.A. Happ. The veteran lefty has struck out 33.6% of batters faced so far this year.

Because strikeout rate begins to stabilize before almost any other metric, this is a possible first sign that something about Happ is fundamentally different. His swinging-strike rate — another predictive figure — has also jumped, up to 14.1%. He’s never reached double-digits by that measure over the course of a full season.

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Among the comments Kiley McDaniel and I received from people in baseball regarding the updated draft board we published last week is that Oklahoma quarterback and center fielder Kyler Murray should have probably been on it. Evaluators see him as a crude but gifted speedster with good pop for his size who possesses more projection than most because of his athleticism. Murray is performing this year (.290/.390/.520 at publication) on the baseball field despite little prior in-game experience.

While I’ll consider his merits as an athlete more fully in a moment, it seems important to briefly recount Murray’s somewhat circuitous path to the present. A superstar high-school quarterback, Murray was expected to replace Johnny Manziel at Texas A&M as soon as he reached campus. At the same time, though, he was also a first-round shortstop prospect. He removed himself from MLB draft consideration by refusing to do some of the mandatory paperwork and testing for eligibility. He went to A&M, split QB reps there with Kyle Allen as a freshman, then transferred to Oklahoma, where sat out a year due to NCAA transfer rules. In 2017, he held a clipboard behind Heisman winner Baker Mayfield.

All the while, Murray barely played baseball (although he did spend last summer on the Cape). Now, he’s Oklahoma’s starting center fielder and also locked in another quarterback competition as a redshirt sophomore, juggling both sports at the same time.

Discussions about Murray invariably lead to which of those sport he should play professionally — and, as part of that, which path might be more lucrative for him. Because Murray is available for the MLB draft this June but not for the NFL’s own draft until next year, baseball has the opportunity to present its case first.

The size of his signing bonus obviously isn’t the only factor Murray is likely to consider. The prospect of a full year as a starter at a big football school — with the possibility of making a run at a Heisman — is probably appealing to him. The reality of football’s health risks — which, for a 5-foot-11 quarterback, might be even riskier — are also likely present.

That said, we can at least try to see if a clearly superior financial path lies ahead for Murray as he comes to a fork in the road this June. To do this, we have to know some things about each sport’s draft and then get some idea of where Murray might be drafted and how he would be compensated in each case.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Ronald Acuña’s debut and the Braves’ pivot to position players, the history of Peter Bourjos losing his job, Eric Lauer’s less heralded/distinguished debut, Kazuhisa Makita, the Angels maxing out their mound visits, and the state of Shohei Ohtani hype, follow up on outfield bobbling and baserunner blocking, and then answer listener emails about teams forfeiting, when homers caught up to triples for good, the Aroldis Chapman-Gleyber Torres trade, the value of long plate appearances, adding an extra plate umpire, a consistently inconsistent umpire, bad pitchers with good K:BB ratios, a visiting-team hypothetical, and the deceptive Rockies offense, plus Stat Blasts on two-strike hitting, foul outs, and performance vs. relievers.

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Officially, Ronald Acuna Jr. has been promoted. It’s right there on the transaction wire, with Peter Bourjos getting designated for assignment to make room. In short, it’s Acuna Day, or at least, it’s the first of what people hope will be hundreds or thousands of Acuna Days to celebrate. All the ugliness about service-time manipulation — it’s all still there, and it’s going to happen again, but at least Acuna himself won’t have to play in the minors ever again, barring a slump or a rehab stint. Today is the first day that Acuna will earn a major-league salary.

Acuna is pretty much the center of attention. Indirectly, though, that makes the Braves kind of the center of attention on the team scale. And, you know what, all things considered, the Braves have had a pretty strong start, even without their top prospect. They have more wins than losses, and one thing I’ve been struck by are surprise contributions from various journeymen. Even though he’s presently hurt, the Braves have gotten use out of Anibal Sanchez. Ryan Flaherty has been outstanding in the infield, even though he’ll shortly be replaced by Jose Bautista. Preston Tucker has been fine as a regular outfielder, even though he’s being replaced by Acuna. And then there’s backup catcher Kurt Suzuki. The backup to the currently injured Tyler Flowers.

For Suzuki, we’re not talking about only a productive first month. This would’ve been incredibly easy to miss, but Suzuki was tremendous in 2017, too, as a part-timer. Then the Braves re-signed him for $3.5 million. It’s been a long time since Suzuki was considered someone compelling. He’s 34 years old, which means he doesn’t have many playing years left. I don’t know how much more Kurt Suzuki is going to do. But as a fun little exercise, I’ve put together a short quiz. Let us give Suzuki the credit he deserves.

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Some kind of cliff is almost certainly coming, but the Giants figure they could still have another run. For 2018 — and, right now, all that matters is 2018 — the Giants ought to be competitive. Far more competitive than they were last summer. You know the criticisms, though. The Giants are old. They might not have enough youth. And they also might not have enough power. That’s something they’ve worked to address, and their actual power is somewhat depressed by their own home ballpark, but recent Giants lineups haven’t instilled much fear. The club has been done no favors by Hunter Pence’s apparent decline.

Just the other day, 27-year-old righty Mac Williamson hit this home run.

On its own, that’s impressive. Righties don’t hit home runs to that area in San Francisco, particularly at night. But if you know anything about Williamson, you know he’s always had power. Every so often, Williamson would run into a ball and obliterate it. The issue, as it frequently is, was consistency. Williamson didn’t do that often enough. How many hitters do that often enough?

So let’s no longer look at this on its own. Since being recalled from the minors, Williamson has started five games. He homered in the first one. He homered in the fourth one. And he homered in the fifth one. Something might be brewing, here. Because Williamson isn’t just a player doing well. He’s a player doing well after overhauling the very core of his game.

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Albert Pujols is signed through 2021 on a 10-year, $240-million deal that is widely considered the worst contract in baseball. In 2011, his last season with St. Louis, Pujols posted a then-career-worst 4.0 WAR. He’s yet to best three-and-a-half wins with the Angels and, last year, was worth negative 1.9 WAR. There’s no doubt the Angels would get out from under this onerous deal if they could.

Yesterday, Meg Rowley held a chat. In said chat, a commenter named Yo-Yo asked this question.

Yo-yo was referring to this article from Baseball Prospectus in which Matthew Trueblood speculates that Albert Pujols is actually 40 and not 38, and thus two years older than he claims. Per Trueblood:

To anyone who followed baseball closely around the time of Pujols’ explosion onto the scene in 2001, this will come as no great surprise. Four of Pujols’ first six player comments in Baseball Prospectus Annuals make reference to the rumored discrepancy between his listed and real ages. Pujols’ age became a topic of some discussion in the run-up to his hitting free agency in 2011, and a panel of experts that included industry-leading writers and front office members alike formed a near consensus that he was older than listed. It’s been several years since the issue has been treated or talked about seriously, but my recent Twitter poll asking respondents how old they think Pujols is (noting that he’s listed at 38) found just 35 percent believed the party line.

Now, Trueblood doesn’t really present anything close to what would be considered real evidence of Pujols having falsified his age, let alone conclusive proof. But the idea of baseball players, particularly from the Dominican, being older than listed isn’t a new phenomenon. Miguel Tejada might be the most famous case, but Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero, and lesser known players like Octavio Dotel and Wandy Rodriguez, among others, were, too. Again, that doesn’t mean that Pujols is guilty of doing the same thing, but it does, perhaps, help to explain why those pesky rumors just won’t go away. And, as Trueblood explains, it’s an understandable thing to do for young Dominican players.

Firstly, let’s make sure to say this: I am not accusing Pujols of what I would consider unethical or truly fraudulent behavior. Pujols’ background and early life story are unique, involving living in the Dominican Republic until mid-adolescence, then immigrating to the United States. He and his family were in a difficult position, when they came here in 1996: Pujols would not be eligible to attend American high school, at least in a normal setting, if he were 17 or older. That didn’t just put his baseball future at risk; it threatened his chance to pursue opportunities of all kinds on even footing with his peers.

But Yo-Yo presents a fascinating question. If Pujols were, in fact, two years older than the Angels thought when they signed him, could they use that to get out of their contract with him?

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The Astros allowed eight runs to the Angels and lost on Tuesday night, thus falling out of first place in the AL West. At this time of year, none of that is a big deal, but what’s noteworthy is that the eight runs surrendered were as many as the defending world champions had given up in their previous seven games combined. The barrage, which included two homers by Andrelton Simmons and one by Mike Trout, broke an eight-game streak in which the Astros had allowed two runs or fewer, the longest in the majors in nearly three years, and put a dent in what has been one of the most stifling early-season run-prevention acts in recent history. You may have heard: these guys are still very, very good.

The Astros’ two-or-fewer streak actually began with a loss, in this case a 2-1 defeat to the Mariners on April 16, but they rebounded with a vengeance, outscoring Seattle 20-4 over the final three games of that series, all of them victories, then allowed just two runs during a three-game sweep of the White Sox. Monday night’s 2-0 loss to the Angels ended their winning streak but kept the prevention streak alive, albeit for just one more day.

According to the Baseball-Reference Play Index, the Astros’ eight-game streak of preventing two or fewer runs tied four other clubs for the second-longest of the post-1992 expansion era:

The 2015 edition of the Astros — the one that marked their return to contention — posted the longest such streak since 1992 (Pirates, July 30-August 8), holding the Rays, Dodgers and Yankees to two runs or fewer in nine straight games. The 1982 Cardinals also had a nine-game streak; you’d have to go back to the 1974 Orioles (August 29 to September 7) to find a 10-gamer. Even at eight games, what the Astros just did was pretty special.

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When Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel released FanGraphs’ 2018 Top 100 Prospects list in February, Mike Soroka was described as “polished.” That’s especially meaningful given that the right-hander in the Atlanta Braves organization won’t turn 21 until August. And it’s far from his only attribute. Augmenting the aforementioned plaudit was an equally praiseworthy note that “everything he does is above average to plus.”

Add in the fact that Soroka dominated Double-A last year as a teenager — he had a 2.75 ERA in 26 starts at Mississippi — and it’s understandable why he ranks No. 34 overall on our list. Among pitchers (including two-way stalwarts Shohei Ohtani and Brendan McKay), he comes in at No. 14.

Drafted 28th overall by Atlanta in 2015 out of a Calgary, Alberta, Canada high school, Soroka is continuing his fast-track ways in the early stages of the 2018 campaign. In four outings with the Gwinnett Stripers, the 20-year-old has allowed just five runs in 22.2 innings against Triple-A competition. On Monday, he held Pawtucket scoreless through seven efficient frames.

Soroka discussed his have-fun attitude and the optimization of his repertoire this past weekend.

———

Soroka on switching his focus from hockey to baseball: “I was a hockey player growing up. That was my main focus. When I was 12, I went to the Cal Ripken World Series, which is about the same age as the Little League World Series with a few differences. I represented Canada there. That’s when baseball got a little more serious, although it was still only in the summer months. A year or two later, I found that I just liked baseball better. I never went to a baseball practice, or to a game, that I didn’t want to be at.

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