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Major League Baseball stadiums have been the site of a series of unfortunate accidents in recent years in which fans seated in the upper deck have toppled over the safety railing and fallen dozens of feet onto the concourse below. The most infamous of these incidents occurred in 2011, when Texas Rangers fan Shannon Stone fell to his death while reaching over the upper-deck guardrail to try to catch a ball tossed into the stands by Josh Hamilton.

Although not as highly publicized, Atlanta’s Turner Field has rather shockingly been the site of three such fatal falls in just the last eight years alone. Most recently, in August 2015, Gregory Murrey fell over a guardrail to his death after losing his balance when standing up from his second row, upper-deck seat.

In a new lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Murrey’s family seeks to hold the Braves legally accountable for his death, arguing that the team failed to take the basic precautions necessary to protect fans from injury in the upper deck. In particular, the suit contends that had the safety railing at Turner Field been installed at a more appropriate height, Murrey’s unnecessary death could have been avoided.

Interestingly, in addition to suing the Braves, the lawsuit also names MLB itself as a defendant in the case, claiming that the league has consistently failed to require its teams to install sufficient safety railing in the upper deck. As a result, Tuesday’s lawsuit may bring renewed awareness to a fan-safety issue that, at least in recent years, has taken a backseat to injuries resulting from foul balls or broken bats flying into the stands.

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The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion in the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) received a future value grade of 45 or less from lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth during the course of his organizational lists and who (b) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, and John Sickels, and also who (c) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing on an updated prospect list or, otherwise, selected in the first round of the current season’s amateur draft will also be excluded from eligibility.

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I write a lot about player adjustments. I write so often about player adjustments I start to get a little self-conscious about it. I just do it because I love doing it, and because sometimes I forget what else there is to cover. I love it when a pitcher tries to add a new pitch. I love it when he adjusts an old pitch, or when he starts using the same pitches in different ways. It interests me when a hitter starts putting more or fewer balls in play on the ground. Or, there are the cases where hitters pull the ball more, or spray the ball more. There are so many types of adjustments. There’s one in particular we very seldom see. One we also dream about players making. Randal Grichuk, for his part, is giving it a go.

Grichuk has had a familiar hitting profile: big power, but limited by wavering control of the strike zone. He’s been the hitter equivalent of a talented pitcher with overwhelming stuff but inconsistent command. Those pitchers can still be valuable, but more often than not, they never figure out how to throw strike after strike. And, even more often than not, aggressive hitters tend to stay aggressive. It’s easy to observe when a guy is swinging too much, but it’s not an easy thing to improve.

In his last 10 games, Grichuk has drawn nine walks. He’s struck out six times. To put it another way, Grichuk has drawn a quarter of his career walks in the most recent 7% of plate appearances. Obviously, it’s too soon to say anything for certain, but it’s incredible we’re even here in the first place.

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Chris Archer isn’t where he wants to be. He’s made four starts this season — in two of them, he’s allowed three runs, and in the other two of them, he’s allowed six runs. One of the especially bad starts came Wednesday, and now Archer stands with baseball’s fifth-worst ERA, and baseball’s sixth-worst FIP. Archer so far has been mostly dismissive of his struggles, but given how he also ended last year on a pretty flat note, fans are paying close attention. By no means would concern be unwarranted.

One certainly shouldn’t be too concerned. This is something we can say without even going too deep. While Archer has some ugly numbers, he also has a top-20 xFIP, owing to his high rate of strikeouts. The stuff is still there, for the most part. And while there have been too many hits, Archer hasn’t shown any decline in contact rate. It’s still not easy to get the bat on the ball, and as long as Archer is getting whiffs, he stands a good chance of getting straightened out.

You just can’t say this has all been nothing. Archer himself would tell you he hasn’t executed. Not with sufficient consistency. He hasn’t located the ball like he’d like to, and that’s made him vulnerable. When the location goes, you can blame something physical, or you can blame something mechanical. I trust that Archer is healthy, so I’m thinking about mechanics. And I do have a guess at what’s been wrong. To repeat: this is a guess! I am not Chris Archer, and we’ve never even emailed. If we’ve ever been in the same room, I sure as shoot didn’t notice. What follows is just one thing I have noticed. Put however much stock in this as you want.

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Ben and Sam reopen the great debate about who’s better, Bryce Harper or Mike Trout.

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On Monday, we talked a bit about Bryce Harper, and the fact that he is making a legitimate run at Mike Trout for the title of best player in baseball. Harper is somehow building off of last year’s dominant season, and at 23, he’s taking his remarkable performance up another level. But Harper isn’t the only 23 year old superstar playing near the beltway, and remarkably, he hasn’t even been the best player in the area this year. That title belongs to Manny Machado.

Through the first couple weeks of the season, Machado ranks second in the majors in batting average (.407), fourth in on-base percentage (.467), and second in slugging percentage (.796). This across-the-board dominance means that his .530 wOBA edges out Harper’s .526 wOBA for the top spot on the leaderboard, and Machado is the primary reason the Orioles are in first place in the AL East. While he has been overshadowed by the remarkable early-career success of Trout and Harper, and to some extent by Carlos Correa’s arrival last summer, it’s important to realize just how great Machado has become.

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Over the last few weeks in this space, we’ve conducted ball-in-play based analyses of position players’ and starting and relief pitchers’ 2015 performance. Last time, we considered AL relievers. Today we’ll present the last installment of this series, focusing on NL relief pitchers. It’s admittedly a little dicey to evaluate relief pitchers in this manner. The sample sizes are much smaller, and filled with more noise. Still, it’s a worthwhile exercise that can show us the different ways in which closers, set-up men, et al, get it done.

First, some background on the process. I identified the 214 relief pitchers from both leagues who yielded the most batted balls in 2015, making sure that all team save leaders were included in the sample. From that group, I selected 28 pitchers from each league for further scrutiny. Pitchers are listed with their 2015 league mates; those who were traded during the season will appear in the league in which they compiled the most innings. Pitchers are listed in “tru” ERA order. For those who have not read my previous articles on the topic, “tru” ERA is the ERA pitchers “should” have compiled based on the actual BIP frequency and authority they allowed relative to the league. Here we go:

Relief Pitcher BIP Profiles

	AVG MPH	FB/LD MPH	GB MPH	POP%	FLY %	LD%	GB%	ADJ C	K%	BB%	ERA-	FIP-	TRU-
Jansen	88.07	91.64	86.56	7.4%	46.3%	11.1%	35.2%	85	40.0%	4.0%	64	56	43
Kimbrel	89.42	92.05	86.82	3.9%	30.5%	19.5%	46.1%	62	36.4%	9.2%	69	70	45
A.Chapman	83.53	86.39	79.65	8.1%	33.0%	21.8%	37.1%	83	41.7%	11.9%	41	49	51
Storen	87.16	90.47	84.11	5.1%	32.6%	23.9%	38.4%	75	29.4%	7.0%	87	73	58
AJ.Ramos	86.80	90.72	82.82	4.4%	35.9%	16.4%	43.4%	76	31.4%	9.4%	59	80	60
W.Smith	88.72	91.15	88.36	1.4%	37.5%	15.3%	45.8%	91	34.5%	9.1%	67	61	63
Romo	84.14	90.03	80.39	4.1%	27.6%	23.4%	44.8%	95	30.9%	4.4%	83	53	64
Strop	89.71	90.49	89.35	4.6%	24.3%	19.7%	51.3%	74	30.0%	10.7%	74	81	64
Kelley	88.13	92.83	85.75	4.9%	33.0%	19.4%	42.7%	88	30.7%	7.3%	66	67	66
Melancon	87.99	92.05	85.13	3.3%	19.3%	19.8%	57.5%	73	21.2%	4.8%	59	75	66
Benoit	83.22	90.00	77.46	4.3%	32.1%	17.3%	46.3%	69	24.8%	9.1%	63	98	66
Dyson	88.41	91.73	87.26	1.9%	12.5%	16.8%	68.8%	73	23.0%	6.8%	66	76	67
Familia	86.23	90.18	85.06	2.5%	19.1%	20.1%	58.3%	90	27.9%	6.2%	50	71	69
R.Delgado	84.95	89.42	82.25	5.7%	35.0%	18.0%	41.2%	67	23.7%	10.7%	80	97	69
H.Rondon	87.60	89.05	85.96	1.6%	25.6%	20.4%	52.4%	84	24.6%	5.3%	43	69	70
Maurer	84.09	88.76	78.90	4.7%	25.5%	22.1%	47.7%	68	18.9%	7.3%	81	86	70
Fr.Rodriguez	85.64	89.08	82.26	2.1%	27.9%	23.6%	46.4%	97	28.7%	5.1%	55	72	71
Grilli	87.98	91.56	82.00	5.9%	41.2%	25.9%	27.1%	104	32.1%	7.1%	76	57	73
Rosenthal	87.76	91.57	87.65	4.5%	30.5%	19.2%	45.8%	93	28.9%	8.7%	55	63	74
Ziegler	88.89	89.20	88.51	0.5%	13.1%	13.6%	72.8%	65	13.7%	6.5%	45	89	75
Papelbon	88.57	90.98	89.24	2.8%	32.2%	15.3%	49.7%	95	21.5%	4.6%	54	95	81
Giles	88.55	90.67	87.58	2.2%	31.1%	21.9%	44.8%	107	29.2%	8.4%	46	54	82
Casilla	86.68	92.23	81.26	2.6%	27.1%	23.9%	46.5%	102	25.4%	9.4%	77	100	89
Nicasio	85.93	89.70	82.34	2.5%	29.3%	24.8%	43.3%	94	25.0%	12.3%	103	74	90
Jeffress	86.72	89.96	84.98	0.0%	18.0%	23.8%	58.2%	109	23.5%	7.7%	65	80	95
Cishek	86.47	90.89	83.03	0.6%	31.5%	21.8%	46.1%	98	19.8%	11.1%	92	102	103
Axford	91.65	93.10	91.09	1.3%	25.8%	16.8%	56.1%	120	24.8%	12.8%	92	85	112

First, a little background. The larger group of 214 relievers had a cumulative strikeout rate of 22.2% and walk rate of 8.2%. Both rates are higher than the comparable marks for starters (19.8% and 7.0%, respectively). The larger group of relievers also conceded less authoritative contact than starters, allowing lesser overall (88.02 mph for relievers, 88.46 mph for starters), FLY/LD (91.24 vs. 91.78) and grounder (85.76 vs. 86.30) authority. With regard to BIP frequency, relievers outpaced starters in the key grounder-rate category by 45.6% to 45.2%, and matched them in pop-up rate (3.2%).

The subset of relievers listed above generally represents the cream of the relief crop. Most of the column headers are self-explanatory, including average BIP speed (overall and by BIP type), BIP type frequency, K and BB rates, and traditional ERA-, FIP-, and “tru” ERA-. Each pitcher’s Adjusted Contact Score (ADJ C) is also listed. Again, for those of you who have not read my articles on the topic, Unadjusted Contact Score is derived by removing Ks and BBs from opposing hitters’ batting lines, assigning run values to all other events, and comparing them to a league average of 100. Adjusted Contact Score applies league-average production to each pitchers’ individual actual BIP type and velocity mix, and compares it to league average of 100.

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It is abundantly clear which team won the R.A. Dickey trade. Acquiring Noah Syndergaard, Travis d’Arnaud, John Buck, and Wulimer Becerra from the Blue Jays for Dickey, Josh Thole, and Mike Nickeas in December 2012 has paid off for the New York Mets in a big way. This isn’t a particularly controversial opinion in need of detailed supporting evidence, but Spencer Bingol covered the particulars of the Mets’ heist several months ago, even before Noah Syndergaard turned into a starter who pitches like a lights-out closer.

Barring something unexpected, the Mets will have gotten more wins at a lower price from their part in the trade than the Blue Jays will have from their part in the trade by the time Dickey’s contract expires at the end of this season. Then the Mets will continue to reap the benefits for several more seasons while d’Arnaud, Syndergaard, and Becerra remain under team control. There’s no way, in an absolute sense, to spin this as anything but a win for Mets and a loss for the Blue Jays.

This kind of retrospective analysis is valuable, but it is a bit simplistic. The interesting question isn’t which set of players performed better; that’s obvious.  The interesting question is if the Blue Jays would have been better off not making the trade.

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