Yesterday, Nick Stellini noted that there might be an AL East bidding war for third basemen this summer. The Red Sox’ current third basemen are a collection of misfits, while the Orioles could choose to shift Manny Machado back to shortstop to replace J.J. Hardy if they find there aren’t that many appealing options in the shortstop trade market. Both teams are playing well enough to expect to be buyers, and in some form, the left side of the infield looks like a place both teams could make real improvements.

But if I’m Dave Dombrowski, I’m probably not planning on trading for a third baseman this summer. I think there’s a pretty decent chance that the Red Sox’ stretch-run third baseman is already in the organization.

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Gareth Morgan’s BABIP went down on Tuesday. On the balls in play that he recorded, the Seattle Mariners outfield prospect grounded out, flew out, and singled. He had other at-bats, as well. In one of them, he fanned for the 46th time on the season. In the other two, he homered.

Morgan’s stat sheet is… intriguing. The 2014 second-round pick is slashing a solid .291/.352/.473, with four long balls, in 122 trips to the plate. He’s put up those robust numbers despite a 39.3% strikeout rate.

And then there’s his ball-in-play fortune. Prior to the aforementioned dip, it stood at .491, the highest mark in professional baseball. (He now ranks third, at .475, having been leapfrogged by Clinton Lumber Kings teammate Anthony Jimenez and Blue Jays prospect Bo Bichette.)

The 21-year-old native of Toronto, Ontario, wasn’t aware of that statistical factoid when I spoke to him after Tuesday’s game. Nor could he offer an easy explanation for the mix of whiffs and safe landings.

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A frequently asked question this spring in FanGraphs chats, and presumably around water coolers inside and outside the Beltway, concerned which Bryce Harper we would see in 2017.

Would we see the 2015, Ted Williams-like, Griffey Jr.-in-his-prime, Hall-of-Fame-trajectory version? Or would we see something closer to the perplexing, if still productive, 2016 version. (Harper must have been restricted by nagging injuries last season, right?)

So far it seems like the answer is more likely the former, but perhaps it is neither. Instead of settling for somewhere between those outcomes, perhaps what Harper has really set out to do is to exceed the extremely high bar he set in 2015.

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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
Colorado at Minnesota | 19:10 ET
Chatwood (48.0 IP, 92 xFIP-) vs. Berrios (7.2 IP, 136 xFIP-)
The Mysteries are a series of episodes from the life of Jesus of Nazareth on which Catholic people meditate while praying with a set of rosary beads. Twins right-hander Jose Berrios is a different sort of mystery — one who features impressive physical tools and an excellent minor-league track record but who has nevertheless had trouble preventing runs at the major-league level. His season debut was superficially promising (he allowed just one run in 7.2 innings) but troubling in other ways (he struck out only four of 27 batters and allowed a lot of fly balls). His opponent, Tyler Chatwood, has recorded one of the league’s lowest strike percentages but has compensated for it — from an aesthetic point of view — with one of the majors’ quickest paces.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Colorado or Minnesota Radio.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about a mid-start adjustment by Clayton Kershaw and answer listener emails about what constitutes a “jam,” pitchers who’ve allowed the most first career hits, how to analyze player problems and improvements, team abbreviations, hitters who homer and bunt, left-handed infielders, whether bats could be causing the home-run surge, and more.

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As a FanGraphs reader, you’re presumably familiar with the TTO acronym. Just in case you’re not, TTO stands for Three True Outcomes, and said three true outcomes are walks, strikeouts, and homers. They’re the outcomes least likely to lie to you; they’re the outcomes that tell you the most about the individuals involved. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that there are more strikeouts now than ever before. You also know that home-run rates have taken off. So this plot should fit with what you’d figure. Viewing over an entire century of baseball, you see league-wide TTO% taking flight.

This season, a third of all plate appearances have ended with either a walk, a strikeout, or a homer. As recently as 1992, it was more like a quarter of all plate appearances. It was a fifth of all plate appearances in 1946. The image there speaks for itself, so I suppose I don’t need to address it any longer. The trends are up, is the point. There’s no sign of this pattern changing course.

Recently, the Effectively Wild podcast received a listener email, asking how high is too high. That is, how high could TTO% go before the game just feels all weird and broken? I didn’t have a good answer. I’m unconvinced the average fan cares about this as much as analysts do. We’re the ones who need stuff to write about, while the average fan just wants to know if a given team is winning or losing. Here’s one thing I can say: The future might look like the Rays. Nobody else TTOs quite like the Rays do.

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Episode 741
Over the past few years, a number of players have benefited from a change in swing mechanics or approach. Josh Donaldson and J.D. Martinez most famously. Yonder Alonso and Aaron Altherr more recently. Now that the means exist to recognize adjustments more quickly, is it also possible to anticipate breakout performances before they actually occur? This is the question that managing editor Dave Cameron nearly answers on this edition of the pod.

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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 39 min play time.)

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Theory: Players have gotten better than ever at hitting pitches down in the zone. I don’t think this counts as a controversial theory anymore, and it goes hand in hand with what’s been casually termed the fly-ball revolution. Anecdotally, it seems like there are more and more hitters trying to hit the ball in the air. Generally speaking, this is achieved by swinging with more of an uppercut, and, generally speaking, players with uppercuts are more productive down in the zone, instead of up.

Theory: This is one of the reasons why there’s been an emphasis on higher-spin fastballs. Those are the tougher-to-hit fastballs, fastballs you mostly want to be elevated. This past offseason, I put forth the idea that the cure to the home-run spike could involve more fastballs up. If pitchers just focused somewhere else, then hitters wouldn’t so often be able to elevate the pitches at their knees. To summarize, simply: It seems like there would be a pitcher response to the hitter response. It seems like there should be more high fastballs.

But, are there more high fastballs? Turns out this is really easy to check. And the answer is, well, basically, no.

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