Earlier today I wrote about how the Braves should feel motivated to trade Julio Teheran, given all of the circumstances of the market. I believe what I said in that post, and I do think that, from a rational perspective, the time now is right to sell Teheran while he’s cruising. That all being said, this is sports, and at the core of this whole endeavor, there are fans, fans driven mostly by emotions. You know who likes Julio Teheran? Braves fans. You know who likes young, home-grown, up-and-coming players? Fans of teams like the Braves. Sure, it makes sense to sell high on Teheran. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. Losing sucks, and it makes a team do sucky things.

One way to feel better about this stuff, though, is to shift focus. Teheran has been a good young pitcher on a team that hasn’t had enough good young players. That’s part of why trading him would be painful. He’s not alone, however. There’s been a little bit of concern over who would start the game to open the new park next year, if Teheran goes away. Looks like there could be a fine internal option. If you want to think about the next No. 1 of the Braves, might I interest you in Mike Foltynewicz?

Foltynewicz has been a prospect for a long time because of his big and powerful fastball. Like many pitchers known mostly for big and powerful fastballs, Foltynewicz has a history of throwing an insufficient number of strikes. He was a part of the Astros’ trade for Evan Gattis, and back then, it was unclear whether Foltynewicz would be a starter or a reliever. He’s been with the Braves now for a year and a half.

To get to the point fast, two tables. One metric I like to play around with is a pitcher’s rate of pitches thrown while ahead in the count. Sure, strike rate works fine enough, but I like thinking in these terms. Let’s look at Foltynewicz’s last few seasons.

Foltynewicz was traded in January 2015. Before that, in the upper levels with the Astros, Foltynewicz threw a below-average rate of pitches while ahead in the count. As a Brave, Foltynewicz has moved forward, and he’s done so this year in a big way. How big? Well:

This is just a snapshot in time, and between now and the end of the year, some numbers will shift around, but here you see Foltynewicz in the big-league lead. He’s thrown a greater rate of pitches while ahead in the count than anybody else, given the same role, and when you do that you give yourself a hell of an advantage. Foltynewicz keeps hitters on the defensive, and he’s doing this as a starter, a starter who the other day lasted 107 pitches. This isn’t the guy the Astros traded. This is a guy that guy could’ve become, but usually, pitchers stop short of developing this successfully.

It’s not like he’s an ace now. There’s polishing yet to be done, as Foltynewicz looks to get hitters to more often expand their zones. As has been the case for a while, he could stand to improve the secondary stuff. And! Bone chips. Foltynewicz is pitching with bone chips. But just look at where things are: Foltynewicz is a 24-year-old who can buzz triple digits, and he’s now frequently getting ahead in the count. More than ever before, Mike Foltynewicz is looking like he’s in command. The Braves have been collecting big arms with big risks. Here’s one that’s working out.

Kevin Kiermaier is not going to be voted American League Most Valuable Player. I personally would not vote for Kevin Kiermaier as American League Most Valuable Player. He’ll be on zero radars, and that’s perfectly fine. Other players will be more deserving — I just want to quickly expand on something that came up during my chat last Friday.

Let’s say you really really really wanted to make the Kiermaier MVP case. I don’t know why. Maybe you’re a family member. Maybe you have money on the line. Maybe you just enjoy getting into statistical arguments. Where could you start? I’d recommend starting on May 21. That’s when Kiermaier sustained an injury that knocked him out of action for almost two months. After the Rays game on May 21, they stood at 20-20. They had a strongly positive run differential. Since then, the Rays have posted the worst record in the majors. The run differential has sucked. Kiermaier just returned Friday.

Kiermaier is a decent hitter, all things considered, but you’re a FanGraphs reader and you know him for his defense. So let’s focus on that defense for a second. To what extent could we consider Kiermaier a difference-maker in the outfield? This year, when Kiermaier has started, the Rays have allowed a team BABIP of .260. Meanwhile, when Kiermaier hasn’t started, the Rays have allowed a team BABIP of .341. That’s not all Kiermaier, of course, because not all balls in play are directed toward center field, but that’s an absolutely enormous difference. When Kiermaier went down, the Rays’ run prevention cratered, and that probably isn’t all on the pitchers.

That would have to be around the core of the Kiermaier argument. That, when Kiermaier has been unavailable, the Rays defense hasn’t been able to make up for it. It’s not just center field — Kiermaier’s presence allows the other outfielders to position themselves differently, too. Kiermaier would be thus presented as the keystone. You don’t have to buy it. Obviously, Kiermaier alone isn’t responsible for that whole difference. But there are still so many people who downplay the importance of an elite-level defender. The Rays would argue the opposite.

As long as I’m here, what if we were to expand beyond just 2016? Kiermaier has been a regular or semi-regular going on three years, now. How valuable has his outfield defense been to the Rays? This is one way you could choose to look at it. It would suggest that he’s been extremely valuable.

I know there are a lot of variables folded in here. I know this captures more than just Kiermaier by himself. But we already have numbers that try to capture individual defenders by themselves. This looks from the team perspective, and when Kiermaier has started in the outfield, Rays pitchers have allowed fewer runs per nine, by 70 points. There’s a 38-point gap in BABIP, which works out to nearly a hit a game. Kiermaier has a career DRS of +63 runs. He has a career UZR of +50 runs. The team-level numbers do nothing to make those look silly. If anything, they make them look like under-estimates. Which sounds crazy, but here we are.

The Rays know that Kevin Kiermaier is valuable. You presumably already knew that Kevin Kiermaier is valuable. Could be he’s even more valuable than we thought. And he could be a crucial reason why the Rays are seemingly about to start selling. In a way, when Kiermaier got injured, they just didn’t have a chance.

You don’t often see GMs fired two weeks before the trade deadline, as this is a pretty busy time of year to be shaking up a front office. You don’t often see the Twins fire anyone, as organizational continuity has been a hallmark of their club, and why they’ve only had five GMs in their franchise history. But today, the Twins bucked both trends, relieving Terry Ryan of his duties, and replacing him on an interim basis with assistant GM Rob Antony.

Minnesota Twins announce GM Terry Ryan has been relieved of his duties. Assistant GM Rob Antony as Interim GM. pic.twitter.com/LF2iYotKZ9

— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) July 18, 2016

Ryan is well respected within the game, but this shows that even his leash was only so long; a GM with a lesser reputation would have likely been removed from the post a while ago, given the number of missteps the front office has made of late. The team’s investments in Ervin Santana and Ricky Nolasco haven’t paid off, and after finding a breakthrough with Phil Hughes, an early extension has turned him into a liability as well, after he went back to being Phil Hughes. Combine that with the Joe Mauer contract going south — which, to be fair, mostly had to do with Mauer’s concussion issues forcing a move off catcher, which couldn’t have really been predicted — and a team with a mid-level payroll was not getting much of a return on their significant financial investments.

That puts a lot of pressure on the team to develop a host of young stars, but Byron Buxton hasn’t yet lived up to the hype, Miguel Sano is too one dimensional to carry a team by himself, and young arms like Kyle Gibson have failed to turn into high-quality starters. With too many things going wrong, the Twins find themselves with the worst record in the American League, and not enough hope for the current roster that things are going to turn around any time soon. And so they decided to make a change.

That said, this should be a fairly attractive job for a younger candidate looking to make their mark in the game. Buxton isn’t a complete bust just yet, and with Sano around, there are a couple of potential cornerstone pieces in place, if the new regime can figure out how to maximize their abilities. The team also isn’t as bad as their record makes them look — their BaseRuns record is 40-51, still not great, but less disastrous — and could be in line for some improvement even without a lot of tinkering. Toss in a division that doesn’t have a traditional behemoth, and the Twins path back to contention could be shorter than some of the other jobs that have opened up lately.