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Rafael Devers will be called up to the majors on Tuesday. Well, I suppose he may technically be called up today, but he’s not expected to start Monday’s game, so it might not be until Tuesday. Whatever day he’s officially promoted, he’ll become the first 20-year-old position player promoted to the majors this season. While Travis Sawchik has already discussed Devers in the context of the Red Sox’ situation, I’d like to look at him in the context of 20-year-old call-ups.

I went back to 1985 in pulling info for 20-year-old call-ups, and there are some interesting things to be shared. Let’s start at the beginning: Devers will become just the 78th player since 1985 to be called up to the majors for his debut as either an 18-, 19- or 20-year-old. Here’s a breakdown of all the relevant players:

(Note: You get one attempt to guess who the 18-year-old was. If you get it wrong, you must serve a self-imposed banishment from FanGraphs for a period of 10-10.5 hours.)

As you can see, the last three years have represented a bit of a dry spell for young call-ups. From 1985 to 1994, there were 26 call-ups. There were also 26 from 1995 to 2004 and 24 more from 2005 to -14. This season is far from over, obviously, but if this holds, it will become the lowest three-year total since ’85. The current lowest periods are 2014-2016 and 1999-2001, at five. Teams are either more cautious these days or front offices are experiencing less pressure to produce winners — which may be an inevitable result of teams purposefully tanking.

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Happy Trade Deadline Week, folks.

T minus 175 hours, roughly, until the non-waiver deadline horn sounds.

This period, of course, represents the last, best chance for contending clubs to add pieces and fill gaps — and for sellers to spin off remaining assets. Dave Cameron updated his buyer-seller status list last week and things remain fluid. Just since that update, the Brewers’ playoff odds have declined by roughly 20 percentage points to 10%, so there’s still quite a bit of uncertainty in places like the NL Central, which will add an element of drama to the period. Teams must first decide how much they are willing to bet on themselves.

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Episode 757
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) Jimmy Nelson’s use of the kinetic sciences, (b) the prospects of realignment in Major League Baseball, and also (c) the BBWAA Hardball Dynasty league.

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 1 hr 17 min play time.)

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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
Washington at Arizona | 16:10 ET
Strasburg (119.2 IP, 80 xFIP-) vs. Ray (112.0 IP, 90 xFIP-)
The author’s haphazardly constructed algorithm has selected this afternoon’s Washington-Arizona game as the day’s most compelling. In this case, the distinction seems warranted. Consider: both probable starters have the capacity to overwhelm hitters, each having produced a top-10 strikeout rate among baseball’s 70 qualified pitchers. As for the clubs involved, both continue to play games of some relevance, the D-backs very much chasing a Wild Card spot while the Nationals attempt simply to preserve their lead in the NL East.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Washington Radio.

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Jose Berrios is having a breakout season. In 13 starts for the Minnesota Twins, the 23-year-old right-hander has a 3.50 ERA, and he’s won nine of his twelve decisions. His breaking ball is a big reason. It’s a plus pitch, and certainly not run-of-the mill.

I recently had the following exchange with Twins pitching coach Neil Allen:

How would you describe Berrios’s breaking ball?

“It’s Bugs Bunny. It’s pretty darn good.”

Is it a curveball or a slider?

“It’s a little bit of both.”

Chris Gimenez had a less-catchy, but every bit as compelling, response to the same question(s).

“It’s a curveball, but he can make it a little more slider-ish when he’s really trying to wrench it down and away from a right-hander,” said the Minnesota backstop. “It’s the closest I’ve seen to Corey Kluber’s curveball, and to Yu Darvish’s slider. I’ve had a chance to catch both of those guys, and that’s some pretty elite company to be in.”

Curveballs and sliders are obviously classified differently, so I asked Gimenez to elaborate. Read the rest of this entry »

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
Toronto at Cleveland | 19:10 ET
Stroman (119.0 IP, 81 xFIP-) vs. Salazar (55.0 IP, 81 xFIP-)
The author’s haphazardly constructed algorithm has identified today’s Toronto-Cleveland game as the most appealing. While, at this point in the season, a club’s playoff odds — and, specifically, the proximity of those odds to 50% by the coin-flip method — are weighted more heavily than pitching-related variables, the performances this year by Marcus Stroman and Danny Salazar have been exceptional or something like exceptional this year. This, in conclusion, accounts for the logic behind the selection of this game as the day’s most appealing.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.

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Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
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Fringe Five Scoreboards: 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013.

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion among the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickels*, and (most importantly) lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen and also who (b) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing on any updated list — such as the revised and midseason lists released by Baseball America or BP’s recent midseason top-50 list — will also be excluded from eligibility.

*All 200 names!

In the final analysis, the basic idea is this: to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.

Yonny Chirinos, RHP, Tampa Bay (Profile)
This represents Chirinos’s third consecutive appearance among the Five. His start this week, on Wednesday against Pirates affiliate Indianapolis, was consistent with the others he’s produced over the past month or so. Against 26 batters over 6.0 innings, the 23-year-old right-hander recorded an 8:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and conceded his lone earned run on a homer (box).

Chirinos continues to exhibit impressive comfort with his secondary pitches, showing a willingness to throw them in all counts. Indeed, he began his most recent appearance with three different pitches, all for strikes, to dispatch swiftly of Indy leadoff hitter Eury Perez.

This video footage documents that sequence:

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