For a while, it seemed like Chris Sale was going to be an American League Cy Young Award shoo-in. Now, while Sale hasn’t exactly gotten much worse, the favorite might be Corey Kluber, who basically hasn’t allowed a run since coming off the disabled list three and a half months ago. If the winner isn’t Kluber, it’ll be Sale. If the winner isn’t Sale, it’ll be Kluber. I don’t know what it would take for neither to win, short of some weird form of voter collusion. The race is pretty obviously down to two horses.

In here, I’d like to highlight the performance of Luis Severino. Severino has not been as good as Sale, and he has not been as good as Kluber. Yet, in part because of those two pitchers, Severino might not have fully gotten his due, because he’s been the next-best pitcher in his own league. Last season, at 22, Severino was demoted from the Yankees’ starting rotation. Now he’s one of the biggest reasons why the 2017 Yankees have overachieved and nearly locked up a spot in the playoffs. The Yankees dreamed that Severino would one day turn into an ace. As young as Severino still is, it seems those dreams might’ve already come true.

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When examining the 2018 draft’s collection of top high-school shortstops, one is confronted with three vastly different physical entities in Santiago HS (CA) SS Brice Turang, Montverde Academy (FL) SS Nader De Sedas, and North Broward Prep (FL) infielder Xavier Edwards.

Edwards is explosive. A plus-plus runner with good hands and enough arm for the left side of the infield, he also possesses gap-to-gap power. He’s performed, in games, against elite pitching and might be my first pick among all 2018 high schoolers if we were picking teams for a game of sandlot ball tomorrow. He’s also a slight 5-foot-9 and 155 pounds.

De Sedas is a switch-hitting hammer who was being covered in his native Panama when he was just 13 years old. He moved to Florida late in adolescence and has shown big raw power from both sides of the plate, as well as feel to hit in games despite having adopted switch-hitting somewhat recently. But while De Sedas has premium arm strength and is smooth for his size, he’s also rather big. At a listed 6-foot-2, 192 pounds, De Sedas is already larger than Manny Machado (6-foot-3, 185) and Evan Longoria (6-foot-2, 170) were when coming out of high school.

Finally, there’s Turang. Lean, rangy, and acrobatic, he also features a plus arm. He’s instinctive, procedurally advanced, and a potential plus defender at short, but he may have limited, one-dimensional offensive impact.

As with any prospect, I’ve attempted to project the future defensive value of the three players mentioned here. Because of their vastly different builds, however, I became curious about the physical makeup of major-league baseball’s current shortstops and how the upcoming draft class — especially De Sedas, who belongs near the top of the class if he can stay at short — fits among them.

To address my curiosity, I began compiling not only the current heights and weights of the league’s shortstops but also their heights and weights at age 17 — or, roughly the age at which each of them was either drafted or signed out of Latin America. I then expanded my criteria to include all players who had recorded at least 450 innings at shortstop during the last three seasons. I also calculated both current BMI and also BMI at age 17 — as well as changes in height, weight, and BMI during that span.

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With just under two weeks to play in the regular season, much of the focus in media has turned to those teams participating in the postseason chase. We speculate on who’s going to get in, who’s best situated to advance in the postseason, etc., etc. By late September, though, the vast majority of actual major-league teams and players are already planning for next season.

And while the Rays have fallen out of the Wild Card picture, Rays pitcher Alex Cobb is positioning himself well for 2018.

After losing most of the previous two campaigns to injury and exhibiting something less than his previous form through the opening months of the current season, Cobb is saving his best for the second half. His surge is quite timely: he’s set to enter free agency this offseason, at a time when even reclamation arms can earn eight figures.

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There’s dizzying loop hidden within the effort to build better baseball players. Because every player possesses a different body, it makes sense not to be prescriptive with mechanics. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions in baseball.

But there are still some underlying truths. All things being equal, power is good. Velocity is good. And so on. If coaching is tailored too closely to a perceived type, it might prevent the player from developing the sort of power or velocity to transcend that type. It’s possible that this is what happened to Andrelton Simmons for a few years.

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George Springer is hitting for contact.

Much has been written about how, this year, the Astros have easily the lowest strikeout rate in baseball. One of the most strikeout-heavy lineups around has opted to put the bat on the ball, and now the Astros have a giant lead in wRC+. Part of that improvement in contact comes from adding players like Josh Reddick and Brian McCann. Part of that improvement in contact comes from the emergence of Yulieski Gurriel. And part of that improvement in contact comes from George Springer’s improvement in contact.

Young players improve. When you start to learn the major leagues, you tend to get better. But this — this is extraordinary. This isn’t just a young Astros player doing better at baseball. This is *George Springer,* making contact on a consistent basis, and if that doesn’t immediately grab your attention, perhaps it’s because you’ve forgotten what Springer used to be.

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Episode 768
If a general manager were guaranteed that an amateur prospect would produce two-and-half wins in the majors just two years after joining an organization, that general manager would almost certainly draft the relevant prospect in the first round — if not among the the top-10 or even top-five picks of that first round. Cardinals shortstop Paul DeJong has recorded two-and-a-half wins in the majors two years after being drafted — and yet was selected in the fourth round out of Illinois State. DeJong, Jose Martinez, and Tommy Pham entered the season with fewer than two career wins between them; they’ve produced more than 9.0 WAR, however, in 2017. Who’s the next great Cardinals non-prospect? Eric Longenhagen speculates on this and a number of other concerns.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 16 min play time.)

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You’re probably aware that the torrid Cleveland Indians have taken over the top run-differential spot in baseball and the No. 1 playoff seed in the AL.

You’re probably also aware that the Dodgers still hold the best record in baseball despite looking beyond terrible in September.

But did you know the Dodgers no longer hold the No. 2 run-differential spot in the sport? It’s true. That distinction now belongs to the Yankees, who entered play Monday having outscored the opposition by 62 runs (191 runs scored, 129 runs allowed) since August 14. And following last night’s victory over Minnesota, New York has now won 20 of their last 31 games.

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Give it enough chances and baseball will make you look bad, because at the end of the day, baseball’s a fair game, sufficiently fair that everyone is bound to think it isn’t every once in a while. Baseball can be mean to players at the bottom of the roster, sure, but baseball can also be mean to, say, Miguel Cabrera. It can be mean to Mike Trout! And it can be mean to Clayton Kershaw. Monday evening, it made Kershaw look bad in the blink of an eye.

In his career, when the bases have been loaded, Kershaw hasn’t been perfect. Baseball makes it impossible to be perfect. Kershaw had allowed bases-loaded hits. He’d allowed a bases-loaded double, five times. He’d issued a bases-loaded walk, six times. Once, Kershaw was responsible for a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch. Another time, he was responsible for a bases-loaded balk. For good measure, there was also once a bases-loaded wild pitch. Even before Monday, with the bases loaded, Kershaw had made mistakes. But he’d never allowed a home run. When Kershaw woke up Monday morning, he didn’t know how it felt to give up a big-league grand slam. When he went to bed, it was probably all he could think about.

Aaron Altherr. Officially, Aaron Altherr is the reason Kershaw can’t ever catch up to Jim Palmer.

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