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The Minnesota Twins remain among the season’s early surprises, as they still reside in first place in an AL Central Division that includes a heavy division favorite and reigning AL champion in the Cleveland Indians.

There are a number of reasons the Twins are where they are atop the division. They have improved offensively from a 95 wRC+ club a year ago, to a 101 mark this season. Miguel Sano is the loudest reason for that — literally, as a loquacious presence in the clubhouse and also as owner of the most violent contact in the league. A more selective Sano is mashing, and the public seems to recognize this: the 24-year-old leads All-Star balloting at third base. In a world with a lame Mike Trout, Sano is in the MVP discussion, as well. Max Kepler and Robbie Grossman are raking, and while Joe Mauer remains a shell of what he was, he has posted a .359 on-base mark.

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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
Boston at New York NL | 19:05 ET
Price (12.0 IP, 99 xFIP-) vs. Pineda (64.2 IP, 79 xFIP-)
The Yankees have recorded the top BaseRuns record in the majors not, as has frequently been the case in the past, on the strength of aging relics but rather on promising young players.

Regard, the club’s top-five players by WAR this year, featuring four players aged 27 or younger:

This evening, the team’s strong corps of position players — which currently ranks fourth in the majors by WAR — is complemented by Michael Pineda. Still a couple years shy of 30 himself, Pineda continues to control the strike zone like few other pitchers in the league.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Boston Radio.

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The 2017 MLB draft is going to kick off early next week. What do I know about the MLB draft? Nothing! What can I tell you about which teams are good drafters? Very little! I don’t really know what might count as my specific field of expertise, but I know some fields that definitely *aren’t*, and the draft is one of them. You and I, we’re on the same level. Unless you read about the draft a lot, in which case, you’re the smarter one here.

I can’t tell you the first thing about how the draft is going to go. I don’t know which picks might seem risky, and which picks might seem safe. The best I can do for draft-related content is analyze results. Why don’t we take a few minutes to review those? Who has drafted well? Who hasn’t? There, we can have some ideas, if we allow the numbers to be the guide.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Scooter Gennett and Cubs infield positioning, follow up on a Nelson Cruz question, and answer listener emails about defining “homegrown,” home-run league leaders, Liam Hendriks’ charity pledge, an official-scoring decision, the 40/40 club, the Cubs’ reputation, tracking warm-up pitches, the error-prone A’s, how to allocate extra runs, resting players, a baseball prophecy, the mysterious Sam Dyson, and more.

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There’s not a soul out there that thought the 2017 Brewers would be as good as the 2017 Cubs. There’s not a soul out there that thinks the 2017 Brewers will be as good as the 2017 Cubs. And yet, the 2017 Brewers have been as good as the 2017 Cubs, at least by wins and losses, which are ultimately the only numbers that matter. The Cubs have three more wins than defeats. The Brewers can say the same of themselves. The Cubs have been billed as an active dynasty. The Brewers have been rebuilding. I’ll be damned. We’ll all be damned.

One key to understanding what’s going on: Before the start of the season, we ran our annual positional power rankings, and the Brewers rotation slotted in at 25th place. By actual WAR to this point, that same Brewers rotation ranks in seventh place. A certain amount of credit ought to go to Chase Anderson, who’s exceeding expectations. But he’s not exceeding them quite as much as Jimmy Nelson. In Nelson, it looks like the Brewers might have an ace.

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Between Scooter Gennett’s four-homer game and a Max Scherzer start during which the right-hander racked up 11 strikeouts through his first four innings (thanks, in part, to a new toy), the country might have missed another remarkable feat on a major-league playing surface last night — namely, Boston reliever Joe Kelly hitting 104 mph in a plate appearance against Aaron Judge.

Judge, to his credit, fouled the pitch off.

But the important information is conveyed by this portion of the screen:

Yes, there have been issues with Statcast’s velocity readings this year. The final pitch speed, tracked by the Doppler radar component of Statcast, was later revised to 102.2 mph. Still, it now stands as the fastest thrown by a major-league pitcher this season, and it was the fastest of Kelly’s career, according to PITCHf/x and Statcast data.

It’s also the second time Kelly has hit 102.2 mph this season: he also reached that mark against Anthony Rizzo on April 28, according to Statcast.

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Sometimes baseball history requires an explanation. History is happening all of the time, and we try hard to point it out when it does. I don’t think requiring an explanation necessarily makes certain achievements any less remarkable, because context is important, and there are numbers that need adjustments. Like, it could take a while to convey just why last year’s Cubs defense was so amazing, but at the end, you’d understand how amazing it was. It just takes some mental digging and sorting.

Explanations, though, lose people. You’re left with a receptive audience, but the audience is smaller than it would’ve been, at the beginning. There’s baseball history of the sort that appeals to dorks, and there’s baseball history of the sort that appeals to everyone. That second kind is powerful. That second kind brings fans to their feet. Over the weekend, there was a standing ovation for Edinson Volquez. Tuesday evening, there was a standing ovation for Scooter Gennett. Scooter Gennett hit four home runs in a baseball game. That’s historic because he hit four home runs in a baseball game. That’s as simple as history’s ever going to get. And so Scooter Gennett has made himself unforgettable.

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Entering the 2017 season, Marcell Ozuna had been a roughly average offensive player over the course of his career and slightly better than that in the field. Per 600 plate appearances, that works out to something close to a three-win player. This year, Ozuna looks like he might reach 3.0 WAR by the All-Star break. He’s getting on base nearly 40% of the time and has powered up with 14 homers just a third of the way through the season. His switch from center field to left field doesn’t seem to have hurt his value.

There’s talk that Ozuna, whose salary is likely to increase through arbitration, could be a trade target. With two-plus seasons left of team control, it certainly looks like Ozuna is breaking out. That said, we’ve also seen this show before. Is this somehow different?

Back in 2014, Ozuna broke out for the first time. After a half-season of playing time the year before, Ozuna hit .269/.317/.455 and with good numbers in center field. The result: a four-win campaign. The following year, Ozuna was pretty close to average for a while, then slumped badly enough for the Marlins to send him to the minors and prevent him from becoming a super-2 arbitration player. Last year, Ozuna recorded solid numbers, hitting .266/.321/.452 and essentially matching his 2014 campaign. Unfortunately for Ozuna, the surge in offense over the last few seasons meant that his 116 wRC+ in 2014 was now just 105 last year. While hitting 5% better than average last year might not seem that great, we should remember that Ozuna broke out last year, too.

On May 20 of last season, I wrote a piece asking, “Is Marcell Ozuna Breaking Out?” At the time, Ozuna was hitting a lot like he is right now. Good power with a high BABIP has been Ozuna’s path to productive performance. Here are some relevant stats on Ozuna for this season and last season:

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