The Mariners currently possess nearly a 70% chance of making the postseason, are six games clear of the Shohei Ohtani-less Angels, and are firmly in control of the American League’s second Wild Card.

Back at the beginning of the season, this looked unlikely. Back at the beginning of the season, the Mariners had less than a 10% chance of making the postseason by our methodology. In the meantime, the club has not only lost Robinson Cano to injury but also to PED suspension. Their one-time ace, Felix Hernandez, is nearly a replacement-level player. The club is leaning heavily on Wade LeBlanc.

The absence of Cano and the decline of Felix both count as serious hurdles to the club’s postseason’s hopes. It’s looking less and less, however, like Wade LeBlanc is a liability. It’s looking more and more, rather, like he’s someone who can continue helping this team.

Just to give some context on what Wade LeBlanc is, here are some figures of note. LeBlanc made his major-league debut with the Friars in 2008, and was worth -0.6 WAR in 21 innings with more walks than strikeouts. The next year, he posted a FIP of nearly 5.00 in 46 innings and walked nearly four per nine. The year after that, he started 25 games for the Padres, threw 146 innings, and had a 4.80 FIP. Before this year, LeBlanc’s best season was — depending on what metric you chose — either 2012, where he was worth a half-win across 68 innings as a swingman (despite a FIP once again over 4.00), or 2011, where he accrued 0.8 WAR despite a 132 ERA- and 107 FIP-.

I could keep going, but you get the idea. LeBlanc, now 33, has spent the last few years as an up-and-down depth arm bouncing across the majors and Triple-A, passing through Miami, Anaheim, Pittsburgh, Houston, and Toronto, among others, before landing with Seattle.

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One week’s worth of at-bats isn’t going to tell you a lot about a player. Hitters can look very good or very bad for entire weeks or even months, and it doesn’t necessarily represent their talent level or tell you a whole lot about it. For example, on April 9, Shin-Soo Choo began what has been thus far the worst week of the entire season. He came to the plate 29 times and got one hit, a single, which was good for a -70 wRC+. However, on the season, he has a 134 wRC+, which is not too far from his career line. Didi Gregorius had a 336 wRC+ the second week of the season and a -66 wRC+ the second week of May. Crazy things can happen in 20-30 plate appearances, and two of the craziest stretches of this century happened in the past two weeks.

You’ve probably heard that Mike Trout has been on a roll lately. That last statement has almost always been true for the past seven seasons, but it was particularly true last week. From June 11 to June 17, Trout came to the plate 28 times. He reached base via a hit 13 times, including four homers and a double. He was walked on seven occasions and was hit by a pitch once. He struck out five times. That leaves just two occasions where Trout made contact with the ball and got out. Once he hit a sacrifice fly and once he grounded into a double play. He was not named the American League Player of the Week.

That Trout was not named Player of the Week is a surprise, but sometimes consistent greatness doesn’t get rewarded. What’s more surprising is that Trout’s week wasn’t the best offensive week of the season. More specifically, it was not even the best offensive performance this month. That honor goes to Paul Goldschmidt one week earlier. From June 4 through June 10, Goldschmidt came to the plate 29 times. He reached base via a hit 16 times, including four homers, one triple, and six doubles. He also walked three times and was hit by a pitch. He struck out four times and made an out on a ball in play six times. His 455 wRC+ narrowly edged out Trout’s 439 in a week’s time.

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Notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen running slightly later than usual due to travel for the FanGraphs meetup in Denver this weekend. Read previous installments here.

Clay Holmes, RHP, Pittsburgh Pirates (Profile)
Level: Triple-A   Age: 25   Org Rank: 27  FV: 40
Line: 7.1 IP, 5 H, 0 BB, 8 K, 1 R

Notes
Holmes has had mediocre command throughout his career and has generally projected to a bullpen role where he’d theoretically be a mid-90s sinker/slider guy. In the past month, he has thrown 66% of his pitches for strikes and has been locating his slider to the back foot of left-handed hitters effectively. He looks more like a backend starter than a reliever right now, but it’s a four-start run juxtaposed against more than a half decade of fringe control.

Alexander Montero, RHP, Boston Red Sox (Profile)
Level: Short-Season   Age: 20   Org Rank: NR  FV: 35+
Line: 5 IP, 3 H, 0 BB, 7 K, 1 R

Notes
Montero’s presence and early success is a welcome sight for one of the worst systems in baseball. He’s a relatively projectable 20-year-old with a three-pitch mix led by a fastball that’s up to 95 mph and a diving split changeup. Montero signed late for an amateur IFA last summer, inking a deal just weeks before he turned 20. He pitched in the DSL last year and was skipped directly to the New York-Penn League this summer after finishing extended.

Brandon Wagner, 1B, New York Yankees (Profile)
Level: A+  Age: 22   Org Rank: NR  FV: 35
Line: 3-for-5, 2B, HR

Notes
Wagner has had an odd developmental path. He was a chubby high school first baseman from New Jersey who spent two years at a Texas JUCO and became a 6th rounder as he improved his conditioning. He has displayed a career-long ability to discern balls from strikes and is a .365 OBP hitter over four pro seasons. During that time, Wagner has moved his batted-ball profile like a glacier from 50% ground balls down to 40% and has now begun to hit for significant in-game power. Six-foot first basemen with average, pull-only power are still long shots, but if Wagner keeps performing if/when he’s promoted to Double-A, he’ll at least force re-evaluation the way Mike Ford did.

Jackson Kowar, RHP, University of Florida (draft rights controlled by Kansas City)
Level: CWS Age: 21   Org Rank: NR  FV: 45
Line: 6.2 IP, 5 H, 2 BB, 13 K, 0 R

Notes
Kowar was dominant in his College World Series start against Texas yesterday, reaching back for 95-97 toward the end of his start and was flashing a 70 changeup. He also threw 121 pitches.

Jacob Amaya, SS, Los Angeles Dodgers (Profile)
Level: Short-Season  Age: 19   Org Rank: HM  FV: 35
Line: 1-for-1, 4 BB

Notes
Amaya’s tools have a utility vibe because his frame limits his power projection to something around average or just below it, but he’s an average athlete with defensive hands befitting a middle infielder and advanced bat-to-ball skills. If he grows into a 6 bat, which is unlikely but possible, it won’t matter that he doesn’t hit for a lot of game power.

Notes from the Field

I’m just going to drop a bunch of D-backs notes from yesterday’s AZL action. Alek Thomas went 0-for-3 but ground out tough at-bats and spoiled several good pitches while he did it. He also made two impressive defensive plays, one which might have robbed a homer and another in the left-center gap that robbed extra bases. Jake McCarthy looks fine physically (of note since he was hurt for most of his junior year at UVA) and took a tough left-on-left breaking ball the other way for a single in his first pro at-bat. Twenty-year-old righty Luis Frias was up to 96 mph, rehabbing Brian Ellington was up to 97. Finally, lefty reclamation project Henry Owens (Allen Webster, Owens, and Clay Buchholz have all been D-backs for some amount of time during the last year, which isn’t surprising if you know the roots of this current front office) K’d 5 in 2.1 innings with some help from the umpire. He was 87-90 with an above-average changeup, an average breaking ball, and arm slot closer to what he had as a prospect with Boston after he was side-arming last fall.

The opener revolution originated in Tampa Bay earlier this season and has since spread to Los Angeles and San Diego.

Padres manager Andy Green, a colleague of former FanGraphs manager editor Dave Cameron, has expressed interest in continuing bullpen games. The strategy make some sense, as the Padres have one of the strongest and deepest bullpens in the game, trailing only the Yankees, Astros, and Brewers in relief WAR. The Padres have bullpenned four times in four weeks and three consecutive times through a vacant spot (Joey Lucchesi’s) in their stating rotation, most recently on Sunday at Atlanta.

Of the four bullpen games, Matt Strahm has started all of them. Strahm has taken to the role.

Since Strahm became a starter — or, more precisely, “an opener” — he’s been dominant. In his last three appearances, all technically starts, Strahm has recorded 11 strikeouts and no walks against 29 batters while conceding just three hits and a single run in 8.0 innings.

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Last week, I discussed the consequences of an expanded strike zone on the game, finding that it leads to more strikeouts and fewer balls in play. While some have suggested that a larger zone — by inviting more swings from batters — might actually result in an uptick in batted balls, the observed results don’t support that hypothesis. Whatever gains a larger zone creates in terms of swing rate, they’re negated by an increase both in whiff rate and called strikes, leading to more strikeouts overall.

What that post addressed was what would happen if the strike zone got bigger. This post attempts to answer a similar question — namely, what would happen if the strike zone got smaller?

In order to test the effects of a shrinking strike zone, it’s necessary first to identify an actual instance in which the strike zone has gotten smaller. Fortunately, such an instance exists, thanks again to the research of Jon Roegele, who produced this visual in his piece on the strike zone last year.

That’s the 2007 strike zone on the left and 2017 zone on the right. As you can see, the outside edge to lefties used to be called a lot more frequently than it is now. The bottom of the zone has gotten larger for both lefties and righties (a point addressed in my last post), and the result has been a smaller strike zone for lefties than their right-handed counterparts.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Steven Brault‘s national-anthem performance, Brandon Morrow‘s ignoble injury, the Kelvin Herrera trade, banana ambivalence, a suspicious baby-powder puff, Vinny Castilla‘s bat-boning, an interleague-play update, Jose Urena‘s control, the New Orleans Baby Cakes and minor-league team names, the senseless Giants-Marlins beanball war, the debut of Jonathan Loaisiga, and a sound-of-strikes study, then answer listener emails about hoax broadcasts, Jon Gray’s confusing stats, public pitcher MRIs, whether American teams license their names to Asian teams, managers whose ages are higher than their teams’ win totals, linking DHs to starting pitchers, the most games played in a single season, pitchers who don’t know which batters they’re facing, trading draft picks for Mike Trout, baseball mulligans, and the ideal baseball era, plus Stat Blasts about Rich Sauveur and the longest rookie eligibility periods and the most beneficial batter strikeouts ever.

Audio intro: Sparks, "Angst in My Pants"
Audio outro: Elton John, "White Lady White Powder"

Link to Steven Brault’s national-anthem performance
Link to Meg Rowley’s Lind article
Link to Maldonado’s HBP puff
Link to Jeff’s interleague-play post
Link to Vinny Castilla’s bat boning

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Episode 820
Baseball coverage features considerable ranking and also no little voting. Maine, meanwhile, recently became the first state to employ ranked choice voting in an election. Meg Rowley, managing editor of the Hardball Times and also scholar in the field of Representation, is tasked with commenting on both simultaneously in this edition of the program.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 50 min play time.)

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I don’t mean to alarm you, but it’s true. I know that, as I write this, the A’s are clobbering the Padres. And earlier on Wednesday, the Blue Jays took a one-run game over the Braves. But also, the Reds beat the Tigers. There is plenty of season left to go, and it’s a guarantee that there will be events that surprise all of us, yet for right now, at this moment in time, in interleague play, the National League has a better record than the American League. You can understand why this is notable.

I write a post like this once or twice every season. I mean, not a post like this, but a post that serves as a midseason interleague update. The posts have generally all said the same thing: The AL still looks like it’s the better league. That statement has been true for quite some time. Because there’s still so much baseball left, the AL could end up better in 2018 once again, but I thought I’d give you a snapshot of our present reality. I think we’ve all been waiting for this!

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It might seem a bit premature, but I think it’s time to talk about the American League playoff picture. Even though we’re only in the middle of June, the field might already be rounding into its final form, so we ought to at least entertain the conversation. During the preseason, we thought we had this all figured out; the preseason is when we feel our most clever. And for the most part, things in this sortable table don’t look terribly different than we expected them to before Opening Day.

The Astros, Yankees, and Red Sox are the class of the league, with all three teams projected to win at least 100 games and the first two of those each projected to win 103. The Indians are worse than we thought they would be, but the presence of the Royals, White Sox, Tigers, and even the Twins means their pursuit of another division championship likely won’t be imperiled.

We expected the Indians to win, and it looks like they will. We expected the Yankees and Red Sox to kick the snot out of each other on their way to sterling records, and for one of them to end up a quite overqualified Wild Card teams, and that looks overwhelmingly likely, too. And despite their currently narrow two-game lead on the Mariners, we expected that the Astros would run away with the West. That still looks probable, as well. It all still mostly looks probable. We (or at least the projections) were pretty clever.

Except for one thing, that is — namely, that the Mariners are currently in sole possession of the second Wild Card and that the Mariners are 7.5 games up on the Angels.

This isn’t a post about the Mariners, per se, but it is useful to think about how they got to this point. As Jay Jaffe wrote, they’ve been both ridiculously successful in one-run games (currently 23-10) and ridiculously clutch in high-leverage situations. (Their current 7.17 Clutch Score still leads the AL.) Their bullpen is quite good (fourth in the AL). Mitch Haniger has taken a big step forward, Marco Gonzales a more modest one. James Paxton has a FIP in the twos. Jean Segura would deserve to be an All-Star if shortstop weren’t such a crowded position.

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Shohei Ohtani was supposed to win the American League Rookie of the Year. And, you know, he still might, depending on how he recovers from his injury. His numbers are great, and he deserves a bonus for the degree of difficulty of his job. But Ohtani’s elbow makes me nervous, and I’ve become skeptical about these things. You can’t count on him coming back and looking like himself. And as the award goes, that would open up the door. One prime contender would be Gleyber Torres. Another strong contender would be Miguel Andujar.

And as I look at things, the Yankees might very well run the table. Rookie of the Year voters select three names. Torres or Andujar could finish first. The other could finish second. And Domingo German could finish third. Or, I suppose, second or first, if he had a really good second half. But the point here is that the Yankees have three great and significant rookies. In March, Torres was considered the Yankees’ No. 1 prospect. Andujar was considered their No. 2 prospect. German slotted in at 13th.

A month and a half ago, Travis wrote about German right here. Since then, over 40 innings, German has allowed 28 runs, which is too many. Yet he’s also generated 45 strikeouts, with only a dozen walks. He’s turned in three strong starts in a row, and four times in a row, now, he’s gone at least six innings. I will not be making the point that German is amazing. I will be making the point that he’s probably being underrated. That might just be a consequence of how loaded the Yankees already are.

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