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In his first year as an everyday center fielder in 2015, Kevin Pillar put up the kind of defensive numbers that make folks question defensive numbers. Pillar was a below-average hitter who finished the season with the same WAR as Miguel Cabrera, thanks to his gaudy defensive runs saved totals. The talk of the offseason, regarding Pillar, then became, “Well, if he can just become a slightly better hitter, how high can his ceiling be?”

The answer is probably “pretty high,” because while we should’ve expected Pillar’s defensive numbers to regress — it’s tough for anyone to consistently run +15 run seasons — they’ve actually gotten better. In fact, Pillar’s already topped last year’s UZR total, and we’re still at the All-Star Break.

The bat, though, hasn’t come along. It’s even declined a bit. For a major step forward in Pillar’s offensive game, the type that, when paired with his apparent defensive value could make him a borderline superstar, one of two things would’ve needed to happen: (1) he’d need to start taking some walks, or (2) he’d need to add some pop.

Walks aren’t there. Walks have gone down. Down, to the point where only one qualified hitter’s done it less often. And the power’s not there, either. Pillar’s 2015 isolated slugging percentage was .121. His career ISO coming into this year was .123. This season, it’s just .133. Up, but no real difference.

Except, there is a difference within Pillar’s game, and it’s a part of a hitter’s game that directly correlates to hitting for more power. It’s just not all adding up. See, I wrote a post about Jake Lamb adding power the other day, and noted that, from 2015 to 2016, Lamb added the most average distance on his air balls, and the second-most exit velocity. Matt Holliday, who’s hitting for his best power in five years and isn’t playing through injury like he was in 2015, was tied for first in distance and solely in first in exit velo gains. Those two really stuck out from the pack, and it’s reflected in their power numbers.

I didn’t mention the guy who was third in both gains, though by now you can probably guess who it is:

Pillar’s added 27 feet to his average air ball, and is hitting them five miles per hour harder. The only guys who have muscled up more on air balls have seen significant power spikes, yet Pillar’s power production hasn’t budged. The added authority can only be viewed as a positive, but here’s the problem. Holliday’s gains landed him in the top-15 of both average air ball distance and exit velocity, among the 243 batters with 50+ air balls in each of the last two years. Lamb’s put him in the top-five of each. Pillar still ranks 123rd in average air ball distance, and 108th in exit velocity. The gains are monumental — really — but he was coming from such a low place (bottom-10th percentile in each category in 2015), that he’s still coming up short.

Kevin Pillar is at least hinting at some untapped power, and that’s undoubtedly a good thing for the future of his own well being, as well as the Blue Jays as a team. Only thing is, it’s still untapped, and he’ll need another leap forward for those gains to actually reap any rewards.

Ben and Sam banter about box scores and the All-Star Game, then answer listener emails about alien abductions, odd career arcs, Clayton Kershaw, and being above or below .500.

This is stupid. I mean, honestly, I think it’s kind of smart, but the subject is stupid. This is arguing semantics on account of a single pitch thrown in an exhibition baseball game that, no matter what they say, doesn’t really matter. Just — I want you to understand, up front, there isn’t a real good point for this. This post needn’t exist, but I’m a pitching dork, and a pitch in Tuesday’s All-Star Game captured the attention of my dorkiness. It was the most talked-about pitch of the contest. This is how Jose Fernandez started David Ortiz in the third inning:

The thing to notice is that “80” down there. Sometimes, Jose Fernandez throws 80 mile-per-hour breaking balls. This wasn’t one of them. Ortiz said Fernandez threw a changeup. Fernandez smiled and said he threw a fastball. Obviously, it wasn’t a normal fastball. The normal fastball buzzes 96. So, did Fernandez actually throw a changeup, or a slow fastball? I believe the evidence points to the latter. I warned you this would be stupid.

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Now that we’ve seen the triple-digit velocities of the Major League All-Star Game, let’s take a look at two prospects who sit in the low 90s with their fastballs! If that’s not exciting enough, neither one has what you might consider a plus secondary pitch! They’re not at the top of any prospect lists! Wait. Why are we going to talk about Phil Bickford and Joe Musgrove, anyway?

Because they have plus command. Command isn’t a thing on which you can easily put a number. Not only are minor-league strike zones more, uh, diverse than major-league ones, but so is the level of competition. A pitcher with a blazing fastball can fill up the zone with poor command and produce low walk rates. Think of Jose Berrios, who recently came up to the big leagues after putting up great walk rates in the minors — and this despite reservations on his organization’s behalf about his command. The command didn’t look sharp when he got to face big leaguers.

Plus command is a funny thing, though. When it’s not paired with elite stuff, it can be denigrated. Some don’t think much of misters Bickford and Musgrove. But, since Eric Longenhagen got a good look at those two at the Futures Game, and I had a chance to talk with each, let’s combine our views to take a clear look at these two and see what particular struggles they have, and what they have to say about fastball command. Turns out, they each have some unusual movement on their fastballs, and ideas on how to improve the rest of their repertoires.

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I’m of the belief that, if you look close enough, you can find at least one moment of beauty in every baseball game. But, as someone with a ton of firsthand experience watching Phillies games over the past five seasons, I can confirm that sometimes you have to look really hard to find that beauty. In reflecting on the first half of the season, I wanted to identify games in which baseball’s innate beauty and excitement had shown through most brightly. Using Win Probability Added (WPA) as an objective, if imperfect, means of identifying the amount of drama in a game, I isolated two contests which make a strong case for the title of Most Exciting Game of the First Half.

My methodology was simple. First, I looked at team WPA accrued by a team’s pitching staff in a game. I added the pitching WPA for both teams and found the game with the highest combined WPA. Next, I repeated the process with WPA recorded by both teams’ offenses. The result is the game in which pitchers did the most to impact their teams’ win expectancy and the game in which position players did the most to impact their teams’ win expectancy. Let’s take a look at both of them and see if either game stands out as the most exciting game in 2016.

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As has become customary, both Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and Tony Clark, head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, held press conferences during All-Star week to field questions regarding various issues affecting the game. Unsurprisingly, one of the issues about which both men were asked concerned the ongoing litigation over the allegedly illegally low wages paid to minor-league players.

For his part, Manfred insisted that the minor-league wage debate “is not a dollars and cents issue” for the league. Instead, he asserted that the league was merely concerned with the feasibility of applying these laws to professional athletes:

“I want to take extra BP — am I working, or am I not working? Travel time. You know, is every moment that you’re on the bus, is that your commute that you don’t get paid for? Or is that working time? Where’s the clock, who’s going to punch a clock keep track of those hours?”

“Who’s going to keep track of those hours? When you’re eating in a clubhouse with a spread that the employer provides, is that working time, or is that your lunch break? We can figure out the economics. The administrative burden associated with the application of these laws to professional athletes that were never intended to apply for professional athletes is the real issue.”

Meanwhile, Clark contended that his hands are tied on the matter, since the MLBPA does not currently represent most minor-league players, and thus “legally [doesn’t] have the ability to negotiate on their behalf.”

To some extent, both Manfred and Clark expressed fair and legitimate concerns regarding the issue. At the same time, however, further examination reveals that both statements appear to be somewhat disingenuous.

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The Cleveland Indians had a pretty good rookie last year. Francisco Lindor: pretty good! Led all American League rookies in WAR! Didn’t end up winning the award — that went to Carlos Correa — but, boy, did Lindor have a strong case. Cleveland had been anticipating the arrival of Lindor for some time, as he’d long been viewed as the type of prospect that would make an immediate impact. The type of prospect that one might expect to compete for the Rookie of the Year. You don’t see too many prospects burst onto the scene the way Lindor did.

Bradley Zimmer and Clint Frazier aren’t expected to debut until at least 2017, so no one would have expected another Cleveland player to be competing for the Rookie of the Year in 2016, yet here we are at the All-Star Break, and another Indian sits atop the rookie WAR leaderboard for position players. This time, it’s Tyler Naquin.

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I think we all love the idea of a hitter being taught by Barry Bonds, or a pitcher being taught by Pedro Martinez. It’s because we can’t help but imagine those icons might in some way be able to convey their baseballing essence. In reality, it doesn’t work like that. Pedro wasn’t Pedro because of some career lesson; he was Pedro because he simply threw his pitches better than anyone else, and the things that allowed him to do that are particular to him. You can’t teach your own personality, you can’t teach your own feel, and you can’t teach your own instincts. You can teach mechanics. It doesn’t require a star to teach mechanics.

Have you ever heard of Travis Higgs? No offense to Travis Higgs, but, no, probably not. Higgs has never made it to the major leagues. He was never a hot-shot prospect. He hasn’t been involved in any kind of high-profile scandal that I know about. To my own brain, Travis Higgs might as well be someone named, I don’t know, Reginald Beanbottom. Higgs has never meant anything to me. But he’s meant an awful lot to Drew Pomeranz. In a way, Higgs is partially responsible for turning Pomeranz into a complete starting pitcher.

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Episode 667
Jeff Sullivan is a senior editor at FanGraphs. He’s also the sensitive male guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

This episode of the program either is or isn’t sponsored by SeatGeek, which site removes both the work and also the hassle from the process of shopping for tickets.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 7 min play time.)

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