Everyone in the majors has, at some point, been considered a star. Certainly not in the major leagues, of course, but the majors select the best of the best of the best of the best. The majors pull the best players from Triple-A. Triple-A pulls the best players from the lower minors. The lower minors pull the best players from high school and college and various other countries. And even from there, those levels tend to pull the best players from the youth circuits. Players in the majors are elites at their sport, and as the saying goes, everyone used to be the best player on one of their teams.

Still, players do get separated and classified. As players move up the ladder, some are seen as better than others. Those perceived to have the most talent end up as highly-ranked prospects. Everyone else, not so much. Many of the eventual top players were seen coming. Alex Rodriguez was a highly-ranked prospect. Mike Trout was a highly-ranked prospect. Corey Seager was a highly-ranked prospect.

Something I like to revisit from time to time is the collective big-league performance from the guys who weren’t highly-ranked prospects. Obviously, there will be the occasional surprise. How many surprises are there? Let me give you a decade of data. There are more surprises than you might realize.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the Indians (again), the AL Cy Young race, Jacoby Ellsbury’s new record, the 2018 MLB schedule (and the possibility of a pitch clock), and Shohei Otani’s impending availability. Then they answer listener emails about Mookie Betts, what constitutes the “heart of the order,” ERA hypotheticals, the hot corner, sign-stealing vs. pitch-tipping, and more.

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Episode 767
Matt Olson was absent from most or every top-10 prospect list for Oakland entering the season. This year, however, he’s recorded nearly two wins for the A’s in fewer than 200 plate appearances. Similarly, Philadelphia’s Rhys Hoskins and the Yankees’ Aaron Judge have defied all reasonable expectations with the bat. How is it possible that all three players — and others like them — have so thoroughly transcended their future-value estimates? Managing editor Dave Cameron does less to answer that question than raise it over and over.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 43 min play time.)

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My sense is that the fly-ball revolution isn’t something I even need to explain. You know the argument, you know the theory, and you know about some of the most successful cases. Ground balls are mostly unhelpful, right? So why not…not…hit ground balls? Francisco Lindor has attempted to stop hitting ground balls. He’s doubled his home-run total, from 15 to 30. Good luck finding someone who scouted him in the minors who thought he’d hit for that kind of pop.

Yet, largely, the fly-ball revolution’s very existence feels anecdotal. One can’t help but notice the league-wide numbers, and how little they’ve shifted. Compared to last year, this year’s average ground-ball rate is down half a percentage point. The league has hit 44% ground balls. A decade ago, the league hit 44% ground balls. Who cares? Is anything actually going on?

It is. It’s just a little bit hidden. Thanks to the wonders of Statcast, we can see where the league has been actively changing.

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A veteran scout once described baseball to me as a “big man’s game.” When you spend some time in clubhouses, particularly around starting pitchers, that certainly seems to be an indisputable fact. Many starters are beginning to resemble tight ends or wing types in basketball.

But there are always exceptions. There are always outliers. And those cases are particularly interesting, at least to this author, because they represent instances in which a player has weathered whatever selection bias exists and found his own path to the pinnacle of the sport.

Zach Davies is an outlier.

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Episode 766
Tim Wu argues in his book The Attention Merchants that “capturing and reselling attention has been the basic model for a large number of modern businesses.” This idea of attention is relevant to the game of baseball. Will the use of radar tracking systems allows scouts to divert more attention to the field? How do the increased responsibilities of the beat reporter remove his or her attention from the game itself? Also discussed: innovation. What if it weren’t allowed, if clubs were permitted no competitive advantages? Travis Sawchik doesn’t care for the idea. He is, nevertheless, the guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

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.

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While we at FanGraphs have tried to supply you with plenty of Indians-related content during their historic torrid streak — Cleveland matched the 2002 Oakland A’s for the American League record with a 20th straight win Monday night — it seems like the club’s run might be failing to receive the recognition, nationally, that it’s due.

Perhaps one reason is Major League Baseball’s criteria for what constitutes a “winning streak.” The 1916 New York Giants are credited with baseball’s longest winning streak, at 26 games. But that Giants club didn’t actually win 26 consecutive games. Over a 27-game span in September of that year, they sandwiched a 12- and 14-game winning streak around a tie.

A 26-game winning streak? Fake news!

To this author, it’s nonsensical that a “winning streak” would not feature an actual, uninterrupted, consecutive series of wins. A better way to characterize the Giants’ feat would to define it as baseball’s record non-losing streak. The “real” mark ought to belong to the 1935 Cubs, who won 21 straight and whose achievement Cleveland has the opportunity to match this afternoon against the Tigers.

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You wouldn’t believe what the Angels have had to deal with on the mound. I know that you wouldn’t believe it, because I’ve had trouble believing it, and I look at this stuff every day. The Angels aren’t the only team in baseball that’s had to work around pitcher injury and ineffectiveness, but their staff has been left in relative tatters, and still they’re pushing to advance to the playoffs. Now, when you’re thinking about the Angels, you have to think about Mike Trout, and he’s been very obviously the best player on the team. Andrelton Simmons, too, has had an outstanding five-odd months. But teams need to have some manner of pitching. The Angels have had to find ways to survive.

It’s the rotation that’s been depleted in particular. As I write this, the Angels rotation ranks 28th in baseball in WAR, with only the White Sox and Reds down below them. Out of curiosity, I pulled up every single individual team-season since 1950. For every team in every season, I identified the starting pitcher with the highest WAR. The Angels’ starter with the highest WAR this year stands at 1.2. That currently has the Angels ranked third from the bottom, in terms of having the worst best starter. And I should say, while there are a few weeks left to play out, that guy at 1.2 is done for the season. So if a pitcher will surpass 1.2, it’ll have to be somebody else. The 1983 Padres rank lowest, among teams that finished at least .500. Their best starter had a WAR of 1.6.

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