For the last 15 years, Tom Tango — now senior database architect on MLB’s Statcast team — has hosted the Fans’ Scouting Report on his site, tapping into the wisdom of the crowd to create another data point to help in the evaluation of a player’s defensive performance each season. While we’ve hosted the results of the voting on FanGraphs the last few years, we’re excited to announce that we’ll now be hosting the voting for the project on the site, as well.

Using the link to the scouting report here, you will be able to provide your evaluation of the defenders on a specific team; this should be for the team you watch most frequently. Instead of providing an overall valuation of a player’s defensive contribution this year, you’ll be grading players on a series of individual skills, which will be tallied into a final overall rating. These ratings should be drawn from your own observation, and as best as you can manage, not be influenced by other defensive metrics you’ve seen for any particular player.

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Since the second Wild Card was introduced in 2012, Major League Baseball has enjoyed most of what the expanded playoff field has done for the game. The extra playoff berth has made division titles significantly more important. Winning a division outright allows a team to bypass the play-in game to advance into the October tournament. The second Wild Card has also created two more playoff races, allowing the majority of clubs to retain some plausible chance of reaching the postseason into the second half.

The Wild Card play-in game has also made for some compelling television, manufacturing two made-for-TV elimination games.

But the new format isn’t without its flaws, the most prominent of which, in the opinion of this author, is this: the No. 1 Wild Card can be a significantly better team than the No. 2 Wild Card but is nevertheless subject to playing in something of a coin-flip game after the grind of a 162-game season. It can be pretty unfair to have, say, a 98-win team lose to an 86-win team in a one-game playoff.

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In one form or another, the majority of posts at this site are based on some type of leaderboard. Highest average velocity among qualified pitchers, lowest ground-ball rate among qualified batters: these are the sort of distinctions that attract the attention both of writers and readers — and even illustrate the game’s trends towards one pole or another.

Generally speaking, when Mike Trout appears on a leaderboard at FanGraphs, it’s because he’s exerted his excellence in yet another way. Currently, for example, Trout possesses the top batting line among all active players and also the second-most baserunning runs among active players and the second-highest WAR total among all major-league batters ever through age 25.

One capacity in which Trout hasn’t been able to exert his excellence, however, is team success. During his time in Anaheim, Trout has made the playoffs on just one occasion. It was in 2014, and his Angels were swept out of the playoffs promptly. The Angels have had some decent seasons during Trout’s career — they won 89 in 2012, 85 in 2015, and they also currently have a winning record. Odds are, however, that Trout is about to finish his sixth full season as the best player in baseball, and he’s never won a single game in the playoffs. That’s odd.

We know that baseball is a team sport, and even when one-third of teams make the playoffs every year, one player can’t do it alone. Every player is very much reliant on his team. Even Mike Trout.

If it seems unusual that a player of Trout’s stature has failed to win even a single postseason game, that’s because it is. To provide a little context before taking a more historic approach, below is a table featuring the best position players by WAR since Trout exhausted his rookie eligibility in 2012. I’ve also included the total number of postseason games each player has won during that time.

This is one of the few bad leaderboards on which Trout’s name appears. Since becoming an MLB regular in 2012, Trout has recorded double the WAR of all but 10 players. Of those 10 players, Paul Goldschmidt is the only one (besides Trout) not to win a playoff game. Arizona will get an opportunity this season to address that issue — and, of course, Goldschmidt himself recorded two playoff with the Diamondbacks in 2011. Of the top-20 position players since 2012, the only others not to win a playoff game are Giancarlo Stanton and Kyle Seager. With expanded playoffs, good players generally get opportunities to appear on a winning club at some point, and reaching a playoff series generally means winning a playoff game.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about another odd end to an American Association game, a recent javelin-baseball crossover, Nick Sinay, the first Tibetan-born player signed by an MLB team, and MLB’s new record single-season home-run total, then answer listener emails about Mike Trout’s defense, multiple aspects of BABIP, the most Alexa’d MLB players, the worst scoreless starts, Blue Jays reliever Carlos Ramirez, the 2018 schedule’s pitching implications, getting ejected mid-play, rules against on-field fraternization, a season-ending series between two prospective playoff opponents, what would happen if pitches could be bounced for strikes, and more.

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Episode 769
The guest on this edition of the program, managing editor Dave Cameron, has a new MacBook. He can’t use it to record the podcast, however, because his mic has a USB cable; his new computer, only USB-C ports. It’s a case of planned obsolescence in action. How might that concept apply to baseball? Is there a type of player likely to be rendered obsolete? Cameron’s short answer: “Yes.” His longer answer: that’s the content of this episode of the podcast.

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 46 min play time.)

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Even the Cleveland Indians, the best team in baseball by run differential and authors of an AL-record winning streak, aren’t without question marks.

Currently, they’ve got a significant one — namely, in center field. Just over a week ago, Chris Davis stepped on Bradley Zimmer’s left hand as the latter attempted a head-first slide into first base. The result: a broken fourth metacarpal. Zimmer, who had taken over the lion’s share of work in center field, is now probably out for the rest of the season, including the postseason.

In the absence of Zimmer, Cleveland was left with a void in center. To understand how they’ve decided to address that void, it’s necessary to know a little something about the infield.

The Indians like their infield alignment. Recently, the club shifted Jose Ramirez from third base to second — where he rates as a well above-average defender — and assigned third-base duties to fellow Fringe Five alum Yandy Diaz and his intriguing gifts. That pair is complemented by Giovanny Urshela — at the very least, an excellent late-inning defensive replacement who also possesses enough glove to back up Francisco Lindor at shortstop. This was the formula the club used during their 22-game win streak.

With the infield settled, the Indians found themselves wondering what to do with longtime second baseman Jason Kipnis, who has recently returned from another stint on the DL.

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Sure, this might be a weird time to talk about something from June 4. It’s not like there’s any real urgency to this. And I will grant the unfamiliar phraseology.

I’ll explain how I got here. As I write this, the Twins are getting pasted by the Yankees. The Yankees are winning 11-3, but at one point, in the third, they were losing 3-0. In that inning, Byron Buxton came up with two outs and runners on the corners, and when he saw the first pitch from Luis Severino, he tried to bunt. The bunt went foul, but the very attempt struck me as odd. I went to look up some stuff about bunts.

The Buxton bunt attempt, sure, was unusual. Rare is the two-out bunt with a runner in scoring position. But, forget all about the Buxton bunt, because I’d like to call your attention to a Cody Bellinger bunt. Three and a half months ago, Bellinger batted against Zach Davies, with nobody out and a runner on first. With the count 3-and-0, Bellinger bunted for a single.

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