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See also: National League.

Below are some notable selections from the draft’s second day. I chatted live for the first three hours of Day 2 here. If you missed any Day 1 analysis, the draft live stream is located here and analysis of the first day is available here for the American League and here for the National League. My top 100 with tool grades, scouting reports, etc., is here.

The numbers in parentheses beside each name indicate the round in which the relevant prospect was drafted.

Baltimore Orioles

Michael Baumann (3), a right-handed pitcher from Jacksonville, was just off my draft top 100. He’s got a strong build, above-average fastball, potential above-average slider, and had enough of a curveball and changeup to project as a starter on basis of repertoire depth.

There are concerns about the length of his arm action and the way it limits his command. CF Lamar Sparks (5) from Seven Lakes HS (TX) has a projectable frame, above-average bat speed, and runs well enough to stay in center field for a while. He’s the athletic, projectable sort of athlete on which Baltimore’s system is currently short. He’ll have to overcome his swing’s length.

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Below are some notable selections from the draft’s second day. I chatted live for the first three hours of Day 2 here. If you missed any Day 1 analysis, the draft live stream is located here and analysis of the first day is available here for the American League and here for the National League. My top 100 with tool grades, scouting reports, etc., is here.

The numbers in parentheses beside each name indicate the round in which the relevant prospect was drafted.

Arizona Diamondbacks

High school pitchers Matt Tabor (3) and Harrison Francis (4) both have promising physical projection, and Tabor’s velocity was already starting to climb this spring.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric forefather Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game.

How are they calculated? Haphazardly, is how. An explanation of the components and formulae which produce these NERD scores is available here. All objections to the numbers here are probably justified, on account of how this entire endeavor is absurd.

Most Highly Rated Game
Los Angeles NL at Cleveland | 19:10 ET
McCarthy (57.2 IP, 86 xFIP-) vs. Kluber (49.1 IP, 77 xFIP-)
Despite currently trailing the Minnesota Twins by two games in the AL Central, Cleveland nevertheless retains about an 85% probability of winning that division. Despite occupying first place with basically two other clubs, the Los Angeles Dodgers possess roughly an 85% probability of winning the NL West. Talented clubs, is what one finds here. This alone seems like sufficient grounds for one, looking to hold terror at arm’s length for a moment, to tune in.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.

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A short while ago, on the Effectively Wild podcast, Ben and I took a few minutes to respond to a listener email about jams. That triggered a conversation about what a jam actually is. In a sense, I think we could all agree we know a jam when we see one, but I long for greater precision. Where’s the line between a jam and a non-jam? I didn’t have the answer. Ben didn’t have the answer. This is where you come in.

The Wikipedia glossary of baseball defines a “jam” as a situation “when runners are in scoring position with less than two outs and good hitters coming up.” The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary defines a “jam” as “a difficult situation during a game.” It continues: “Usually it is said that a pitcher is in a “jam” when the opposing team is in a position to score, such as when the bases are loaded with no outs.”

Here’s a reference to Zach Davies being in a jam with the bases loaded in the bottom of the first. Here’s Jameson Taillon in a so-called jam with two on in the bottom of the fifth. Here’s Brett Cecil in a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the eighth. Here’s a random reference I found to a Brandon McCarthy jam in the third, when he kicked a frame off with a double and a walk.

Some situations are very obvious jams. Some situations are very obvious non-jams. I’m interested in the in-between, and this screams for a FanGraphs community polling project. As such, below, you will find 12 very simple polls. Each poll describes a different game situation. Assume, under all circumstances, that we’re dealing with average, regular players. Each poll then asks a yes-or-no question: Is the situation described a jam? Don’t worry about right or wrong answers. Just go with your gut. Your collective guts will lead us to some kind of truth.

I’ll analyze the results later on, if it indeed seems like they’re worthy of analysis, which I assume they will be. Thank you in advance, and, happy polling. It’s time to define the undefined.

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Prior to covering professional baseball, I covered household expenses and built a meager savings by reporting on Clemson athletics for the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier. Clemson has typically been a fixture in the NCAA Tournament and in early June of 2010 I covered a bizarre scene at the regional in Auburn, Alabama.

One of Clemson’s star players was Kyle Parker, who was also the starting quarterback for the school’s football team. While playing quarterback at Clemson was the higher-profile amateur position, he was expected to choose baseball professionally, as he’d shot up draft boards that spring and was regarded as a potential first-round pick. On the opening night of the draft, Parker found himself also playing an NCAA Tournament regional elimination game against Auburn in Auburn.

Parker was the starting right fielder for Clemson, and Auburn had something of a party deck just beyond and above the right-field wall, where a rowdy collection of loyal Auburn partisans gathered. As a sort of preemptive measure, Parker approached the section of fans before the game and suggested they heckle him in any manner they chose, but he made one request: he ask they avoid one subject matter in their taunts and that was anything related to the draft.

Parker envisioned a scenario in which the fans out there distracted him while his team was on the field. “Hey, Kyle, you just went fifth overall!” “Hey, Kyle you’re really sliding!” Imagine the NFL draft taking place the night of the national title game. This was nearly the baseball equivalent.

In the middle of the seventh inning, a cheer went up during a rather innocuous, low-energy point in the game. It was audible throughout Plainsman Park. It had been produced by the Parker family, seated in the grandstands on the first-base side. The yelps indicated that Parker had been selected 26th overall by the Rockies, who at the time had a thing for college quarterbacks (See: Helton, Todd and Smith, Seth.) Earlier in the game, Parker had smashed a three-run homer, so maybe the whole life-changing-moment, life-changing-money thing hadn’t been so much of a distraction. Or maybe Parker was smart to make a personal appeal to the Auburn’s rowdiest contingent of fans. A similar situation played out this past Monday night, as University of Florida Friday night starter Alex Faedo was selected 18th overall by the Tigers while his Gators were in the midst of an NCAA Tournament game.

I will hardly be the first or last person to question the awkward timing of the amateur baseball draft. Baseball faces a number of challenges related to the draft given that it has its own feeder system (the minor leagues) to consider, while the NFL and NBA largely use colleges to develop much of their future talent. Major League Baseball probably has little interest in pushing back the draft and losing weeks of potential development time with minor-league seasons underway and short-season ball on the verge of beginning. College baseball, for its part, has shown little interest in changing its schedule. While the sport might benefit from holding its postseason when school is still in session and students are on campus, cool early-spring weather already puts Northern schools at a disadvantage.

While the timing of the draft isn’t the most pressing issue facing college or professional baseball, it is the most obvious portal through which to view the imperfect relationship between MLB and college.

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Episode 749
When Mike Trout slid headfirst into second base recently on a stolen-base attempt, he incrementally improved his odds of beating the catcher’s throw. He also increased the probability for injury. In the end, he did steal the base. He also did suffer an injury, one that’s likely to keep him out till mid-July and cost the Angels a couple wins. The cost, in this case, would appear to seriously outweigh the benefit. Does that mean that Trout shouldn’t ever attempt a steal if the play is likely to be close? Is there an argument for valuable players to avoid unduly exerting themselves? Managing editor Dave Cameron answers similar to these.

A reminder: FanGraphs’ Ad Free Membership exists. Click here to learn more about it and share some of your disposable income with FanGraphs.

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 42 min play time.)

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Writers have a tendency to fall all over themselves in their haste to identify the newest breakouts. I do it, myself, because that’s the kind of stuff that’s most exciting, and you always want to be first. So this is why, every April, you’ll see enthusiastic articles about players who seem to be over-achieving. Once April is in the books, then only April is in the books, and surprisingly strong numbers stand out. Potential breakouts make themselves known, and few writers have the willpower to resist.

What’s less common is the eventual follow-up. Absolutely, some of those potential breakouts turn into actual breakouts. Far more often than not, the potential breakouts end up having been just regular players on hot streaks. This specific article — this is a follow-up. The Yankees are in first place in large part because the Aaron Judge breakout seems to be real. And yet Judge isn’t alone in being a major contributor, because there’s also increasing reason to believe in Aaron Hicks. Hicks right now is tied for sixth among position players in WAR, and he started as one of the Yankees’ backups. He is a backup no longer.

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We’re still 100 games away from the end of the season, but we’re getting closer to that time when teams have to decide whether they’re in or out of contention for the playoffs. Some clubs might have to make the tough choice of moving themselves out of contention despite having a reasonable playoff shot. In the American League, nearly every team is still in the race. That might change over the course of the next month, of course, but the field certainly looks like it will still be crowded come July.

There are five playoff spots up for grabs in the AL, and while a lot can and will happen the rest of the way, there are four teams to which our playoff odds give roughly an 80% or better chance of making the playoffs: the Houston Astros, Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox, and New York Yankees. The Astros look well on their way to potentially 100 wins, while the Indians, Red Sox and Yankees appear to be moving toward close to 90 wins, a figure that generally amounts to a spot in the postseason. Those four teams total 359% of the 500% total odds available. After that, seven teams have something close to a 10%.

After the first four teams, no club has a better than a 50% chance at the playoffs. The team at the top, Toronto, is currently in last place in its division. Here are the playoff odds since the beginning of the season for the rest of the teams in the American League — with the exception, that is, of the rebuilding Chicago White Sox, who have been near zero all season long.

Does that look like an incomprehensible mess? Well, welcome to the AL Wild Card race. If it helps at all, the list of teams at the bottom of the chart is in order in terms of their current playoff odds. There are seven teams with close to a 1-in-10 shot of making the playoffs, with a couple more in Kansas City and Oakland that possess an outside chance of getting back into the mix. If you picked the top team currently by the odds, Toronto, taking the field is probably a better bet.

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