It would be fair to label me a skeptic of Dexter Fowler’s defense skills. Despite recording basically average fielding numbers over his two years with the Cubs, Fowler had graded out as a distinctly below-average center fielder in every season of his career before joining Chicago ahead of the 2015 season. In each of the past two years his name has appeared in my early-season defensive-outlier posts, and before last season, I wrote an entire piece wondering if Fowler had actually improved as a defender or if he had merely benefited from better positioning.

Of course, even if the pre-Chicago version of Fowler is the real one, he actually still profiles as a decent player. He has a fantastic walk rate, has exhibited average power as a major leaguer, makes good contact — and, since leaving hitter-friendly Coors Field, has managed to produce a 121 wRC+, well above league average. Dexter Fowler the Hitter and Dexter Fowler the Fielder present two different points from which to begin an analysis of his future value. Let’s take a look at both.

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The Houston Astros have been the most aggressive team of the winter, acquiring Brian McCann, Josh Reddick, and Charlie Morton in the last few days, as they attempt to make their move from contender to division-favorite. The second most aggressive team so far? Probably the Atlanta Braves.

They started off the hot stove season last week by signing Bartolo Colon and R.A. Dickey to help fill out the back of their rotation. And now, according to reports, they’re aiming for an ace.

Braves are aggressively swapping offers for starting pitchers. Rival officials think Braves and Astros will add the most help this winter.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) November 16, 2016

More specifically, there’s this from David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

They’ve had talks with teams about trading for still another starter, most notably Chris Sale, 27, a native of Lakeland, Fla. The five-time All-Star left-hander is under contractual control for three more seasons at below-market rates — $38 million total in that three-year span including two option years — and has finished in the top five of the American League Cy Young Award balloting for four consecutive seasons after finishing sixth in his first season as a starter in 2012.

The Braves have also inquired about the Rays’ Chris Archer and Athletics’ Sonny Gray, but Sale is their focus, a person familiar with the situation said.

The price for Sale could be enormous, likely a package including multiple top prospects. The Braves have said they’re not at a point in their rebuild where they’re ready to trade top prospects to fill in gaps, but to get an ace they seem at least willing to consider changing that plan.

On the one hand, this shouldn’t be that surprising: GM John Coppolella is a strong believer in the value of starting pitching, and especially so, in the value of frontline aces. This the kind of pitcher the Braves are always going to be looking for under his watch, and given that they’ve been outspoken that they want to win sooner than later, it shouldn’t be that surprising to see them pursuing players who could significantly improve their roster. Especially with their new stadium opening up next spring, the Braves don’t want to put a bad product on the field, potentially wasting the revenue boost that comes from opening a new ballpark.

But on the other hand, before the team aggressively turns future assets into present value, the Braves should make sure they’re not following in the footsteps of the Arizona Diamondbacks, whose desire to push their window to win forward by a year or two ended up doing a tremendous amount of destruction to the organization.

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Earlier recaps: Episode 1 / Episode 2 / Episode 3 / Episode 4 / Episode 5 / Episode 6 / Episode 7.

Welcome to our recap of the eighth episode of Pitch, entitled “Unstoppable Forces & Immovable Objects”. As always, there are spoilers, so proceed with caution.

Prior to today’s Padres game, Mike Lawson (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) has a breakfast meeting with his agent. Mike has cleared waivers, and several teams are now interested in trading for him. The agent wants to know how open Mike is to waiving his no-trade clause. As of now, Mike isn’t especially amenable to this idea. “We’ll get rained out before I ever leave San Diego,” he declares.

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Credible baseball analysis, such as the sort which populates this website, is recognizable insofar as it begins with evidence and then works from that evidence towards a conclusion. The present document differs in this way from credible baseball analysis. For the purposes of this post, what the author has done is actually not to begin with evidence, but rather to start with the conclusion itself — and then worked to find evidence that might support that conclusion.

Here’s the conclusion, now and forever: Oakland minor-leaguer Max Schrock is a more promising baseball prospect than so-called “experts” would have everyone believe. Why it’s essential to reach this conclusion, that’s not entirely clear. The return on investment of this eventuality isn’t immediately evident. However, ever since the present author wagered his professional reputation on the suggestion that Schrock would someday become an MVP, any data which supports that unlikely hypothesis has held some interest for him. And so what one finds here is a post that supports that unlikely hypothesis.

This particular dispatch from the Max Schrock Propaganda Machine regards Schrock’s performance at the Arizona Fall League. As of today, the AFL has only a single game remaining on its schedule — namely, the championship contest between Surprise and Schrock’s Mesa squad on Saturday. In other words, the bulk of the data for this year’s edition of the Fall League has been recorded. And what that data suggests, if one can believe it, is that Max Schrock is a more promising baseball prospect than so-called “experts” would have everyone believe.

Let’s begin with a recent observation:

I can't see so good without my glasses, can someone tell me which batter has lowest strikeout rate in Fall League? pic.twitter.com/ooUo9FFkor

— Carson Cistulli (@cistulli) November 16, 2016

What one finds here is a leaderboard of the AFL’s top qualified batters by strikeout rate, current as of a few days ago. What one also finds is Oakland minor-leaguer Max Schrock at the top of that leaderboard.

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The Astros had themselves a busy Thursday, picking up Brian McCann from the Yankees, and then signing Josh Reddick out of free agency. This is not intended as an overreaction to that. There’s no such thing as a team being “put over the top,” and the Astros haven’t been dramatically altered by adding a decent corner outfielder and a veteran catcher whose contract was partially paid down. The reality is that an awful lot was already in place. It’s just worth talking about what’s being constructed, instead of me focusing specifically on Reddick. The smaller story is that the Astros signed Reddick for four years and $52 million. The bigger story is that the Astros are entering the league’s upper class.

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The Yankees acquired two high-octane arms from Houston in exchange for veteran catcher Brian McCann today in right-handed pitchers Albert Abreu and Jorge Guzman.

Abreu is the main piece for New York, a somewhat undersized (on paper, anyway) righty with absolutely electric arm speed that he produces with little effort. Abreu’s fastball will sit in the low- to mid-90s, usually 91-96, and touch as high as 98. He has well below-average command of his fastball (and the rest of his repertoire) right now but the ease of Abreu’s delivery allows for considerable projection in this area, though of course it’s not a foregone conclusion that he’ll develop starter-level command.

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Without looking at either team too hard, you might think the Astros needed major league pitching and the Yankees needed major league pitching. So of course the Yankees traded catcher Brian McCann (and $5.5m a year) to the Astros for prospect right-handers Albert Abreu and Jorge Guzman. We’ll learn more about the prospects (other than their high velocity fastballs) later, but the major league teams probably both needed this trade, and it might have actually been about pitching for the Astros anyway.

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Back in 2008, after a half-decade of great hitting, David Ortiz slumped a bit, recording “only” a 124 wRC+. At 32, it was fair to expect some decline in performance. An offensive line 24% better than league average — as opposed to the 45-75% he’d been sustaining — seemed like a reasonable indicator of that decline. The next season, Ortiz slumped even more, posting just a 100 wRC+, essentially becoming a replacement-level player in the process. It made sense to wonder if he were finished. He wasn’t, of course. Ortiz proceeded to put up a 148 wRC+ over the next seven years, retiring after this past year following his age-40 season.

At 36, free agent Jose Bautista is a few years older than Ortiz was back in 2008, but similar questions apply. From 2010 to 2015, the former Jays outfielder put up a 156 wRC+, establishing himself as one of the best hitters in the game. He entered spring training this year thinking big in free agency, hoping for a contract well above $100 million. Following his 2016 season, that seems less likely. Bautista produced “only” a 122 wRC+ — and, for the first time during his tenure with the Blue Jays, Bautista was a below average player, putting up just a 1.4 WAR.

Despite a disappointing season at the plate, though — and questions about his arm holding up in the outfield — the projections expect a rebound for Bautista. Our Depth Chart forecast calls for a 128 wRC+ and 2.8 WAR from Baustita, which would still make him a valuable player next season.

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Mike Trout probably isn’t going to win the MVP today. I’ll be honest with you: It’s hard for me to care very much. I know that it would mean something to Trout, and I know we’re all supposed to rail against arguments we disagree with, and I do disagree with the argument that Trout isn’t the league’s most valuable player. I just don’t see how it really matters. All Trout’s missing is a piece of hardware, and a nice moment with his friends and family. As recognition goes, he’s already widely recognized as the best player in the game. Even the people who don’t vote for him say that. And, down the line, Trout’s numbers will speak for themselves. His Hall-of-Fame candidacy won’t come down to the number of awards he picked up. Voters look beyond that, and, even more importantly, Trout’s unlikely to be a borderline case. He’s on track to coast into Cooperstown, and he’s on track to be one of the best players ever. Everybody sees that, and missing an award won’t slow him down.

In a way, Trout might even benefit from not winning. An award, sure, is an excuse to try to appreciate a great player. But when Trout finishes second or third, then people get to argue the voting’s unjust. The conversation revolves around Trout, and it sheds light on how much better he is than the rest of his teammates. In short, when MVP voting comes around, Trout’s greatness is widely broadcast. People hear about it, regardless of who actually wins the damn thing.

I now want to touch on that greatness one more time. One thing that separates great players from good ones is that great players are never satisfied. Every player is to some degree motivated, but the great players make improvements. If you look at Trout, along the line, he improved his power hitting. He improved his contact ability, and he improved his approach. He improved against high fastballs. There’s recently been one more improvement. We’re pretty much out of things that Mike Trout doesn’t do.

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