This is Michael Lortz’ second piece as part of his June residency at FanGraphs. Lortz covers the Tampa Bay baseball market for the appropriately named Tampa Bay Baseball Market and has previously published work in the Community pages, as well. You can find him on Twitter, as well. Read the work of all our residents here.

According to the old stereotype, Florida is an elephant graveyard where everyone’s retired grandparents go to spend their final years. They drive slow, play bingo on Wednesdays, and clog the roads on the way to their early-bird specials.

The reality, as is frequently the case, is much more complicated.

As I mentioned in my first article, Tampa Bay is a growing region. Not only economically, but also in population. Earlier this year, the Tampa Bay Business Journal reported that the region of Tampa-St Petersburg-Clearwater is expected to top 3 million people by the end of 2017. According to the US census, approximately 330,000 people in Tampa Bay are over 65, or 11% of the population. A significant portion, but far from the majority.

Transplants are a large segment of the Tampa Bay population. In 2014, the New York Times published an article depicting where the population of each state came from. According to the Times, only 36% of Florida residents were natives, 8% were from New York, and 8% were from other Northeast states. We can probably safely assume many of the urban parts of Florida have a higher percentage of non-native Floridians. Which means Tampa Bay may have a higher percentage of transplants than other parts of Florida.

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Corbin Burnes is carving up hitters. Recently promoted to Milwaukee’s Double-A affiliate, the Biloxi Shuckers, the 22-year-old right-hander boasts a 0.99 ERA, and he’s allowed just 37 hits in 63-and-two-thirds innings. The bulk of that dominance has come with the high-A Carolina Mudcats, with whom he spent the months of April and May.

Drafted by the Brewers last June out of St. Mary’s (California) College, Burnes is looking every bit a steal as a fourth-round selection. Plus stuff is a big reason, as is a take-no-prisoners attitude. Unlike a lot of young pitchers, Burnes doesn’t shy away from the power-pitcher label.

“I definitely consider myself a power pitcher,” Burnes told me before making what is thus far his lone Double-A start (which was truncated by weather). “I’ve got a power fastball and a pretty hard slider. The goal for us is to get a guy out in three pitches or less, but I’m not trying to feed the middle of the plate and let them hit it. For the most part, I’m out there trying to miss bats.”

He’s been missing a fair number of them. In 99.1 professional innings, the confident right-hander has punched out 101 batters. And when he has induced contact, he hasn’t been burdened by barrels. Burnes’s batting-average against as a pro is a flyweight .178.

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Andrew McCutchen’s time as a Pirate was always likely to end in one of two ways: either by way of trade or departure as a free agent. Several years ago, a significant portion of the fan base — and perhaps a significant portion of the clubhouse — would have liked to have seen another contract extension for the 2013 NL MVP, but that was always unlikely. The club had little interest in guaranteeing a player entering his 30s a nine-figure contact, and McCutchen seemed uninterested in taking another below-market deal.

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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
San Diego at Arizona | 21:40 ET
Lamet (10.0 IP, 75 xFIP-) vs. Ray (69.0 IP, 84 xFIP-)
Beethoven’s third — known as the Heroic Symphony — marked the beginning of his “creative middle-period,” according to a source familiar with the situation. As for what Dinelson Lamet’s third will mark, this is uncertain. His first two have been excellent, however. Over 10.0 innings, the 24-year-old right-hander has recorded nearly a 40% strikeout rate, sitting at roughly 96 mph with his fastball.

Here’s an example of not his fastball, but his slider, with which pitch he’s recorded a swing and miss 20% of the time:

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Arizona Radio.

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Over the last three years, Max Scherzer has kicked it up a notch, progressing from simply a very good pitcher to one of the best three in the major leagues. He attributes some of that success to an improved curveball, a pitch that has served to complement his already devastating slider. Perhaps it’s because of his curveball’s effectiveness that he’s not afraid to continue tinkering. Perhaps the introduction of a new, third breaking pitch will lead to another leap forward, if that’s even possible.

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Episode 746
The prolific Travis Sawchik is a former beat reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and author of the book Big Data Baseball. He’s also the guest on this edition of the program, during which he discusses a hotly contested trade in his Hardball Dynasty league and another hotly contested trade in his Hardball Dynasty league. Also: the scouting report which the Pittsburgh Pirates may or may not have composed on Sawchik during his tenure as a newspaperman.

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

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 13 min play time.)

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about another brawl involving a baseball, the still-sky-high home-run rate, and Jon Lester’s successful pickoff, then revisit their preseason playoff-team picks to decide which ones they would change.

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Around the end of last September, Clayton Kershaw began an experiment. A few times a game, seemingly at random, Kershaw would drop down and deliver a pitch from more of a sidearm slot. He took the experiment with him into the playoffs, and although that seems like it would’ve been ballsy, one of the explanations given was that Kershaw used to pitch from that slot in high school, so it wasn’t completely unfamiliar. It was clear immediately that the experiment was interesting. It was less clear whether it was particularly successful. Kershaw had a total of 25 pitches tracked from his lower slot, and I wrote about them in March.

One of the things about Kershaw is he doesn’t say much. So he didn’t offer much analysis of his own little quirk. We couldn’t be sure, therefore, whether Kershaw would resume dropping his arm in 2017. He didn’t throw any pitches like that in his first start. He didn’t throw any pitches like that in his second start. He didn’t throw any pitches like that in his first eight starts. It certainly looked like the experiment was dead. So it goes. If nothing else, at least he was still Clayton Kershaw.

Then start number nine came along. It’s back. For 21 pitches in the last four games, it’s been back. And Kershaw has added a new twist to his new twist.

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