Not entirely, no. Before acquiring Christian Yelich and signing Lorenzo Cain, the Brewers still had a host of other talent scattered throughout their lineup that made them interesting, if not necessarily intimidating. But Davies occupies a particular space that their more established players have surpassed and that their other younger players have yet to enter.

He’s going into his third full season and has provided nearly six wins for the team, and his approach could make you believe he could keep doing that in the middle of the rotation. He’ll play 2018 at just 25 years old.

Travis Sawchik detailed why Davies is an outlier toward the end of last season. At 6’0, 155, he creates his success by combining guts, guile, and execution. Of those three characteristics, guile may pique the most interest.

From his start on July 19 and after, Davies was a different pitcher. He made a big adjustment to his sequencing as he adapted the usage of his secondary pitches to better complement his two-seamer.

Davies’s two-seamer and changeup fade to the same quadrant of the strike zone. If he was working off the fastball, it may have been giving batters a better opportunity to tee up a changeup because of how tunneling works. They would have looked the same to batters by the time they had to decide to swing, generating a similar bat path.

Meanwhile, his cutter and curve could have come out of the same tunnel as his two-seamer, but ended up working the opposite side of the plate. Batters would have had a much more difficult time picking up what was coming next.

Given how Davies’s two-seamer and changeup work the same area of the plate, it’s interesting that their drop in wOBA was identical after July 19, and equally interesting that the cutter and curveball became so much more effective.

These differences after Davies’s change in sequencing speak to the possible impact a tunneling effect could have had on his overall game. While tunneling isn’t necessary for pitchers to have success it may be especially productive for a guy who throws in the low 90s and lives on the edges of the zone.

Sequencing better in any count is bound to help performance, but it appears to have helped Davies in one particular situation. When he was behind 3-1 before July 19 — 38 times in 19 starts — hitters were smacking the ball into play at over 100 miles an hour. After that date — 26 times in 14 starts — he coaxed hitters’ exit velocity down to 87.3 mph. Once or twice a game, Davies turned absolute screamers into much more average balls in play. That’s critical when a pitcher isn’t going to generate outs on his own with whiffs, as Davies won’t with his career 6.55 K/9.

We can probably fairly consider this adjustment as deliberate, based on another quote from him in Travis’s article:  

“I think it just comes down to the other side of the game that not a lot of people pay attention to…[t]he thinking part of the game…[smaller guys]  have to rely upon smaller details about their game that can give them an edge.”

What if that also explains, at least partially, how the Brewers decided to go big by trading for Yelich and signing Cain? Teams have billions of data points to measure player performance. Davies’ subpar raw skills apparently haven’t kept him from being able to make adjustments and providing tangible value, despite falling outside what those data points might influence teams to prioritize. In this respect he’s a player who gives his team a unique edge.

We’ll have to wait to see an encore from Milwaukee’s holdovers from 2017, as well as the impact their newcomers make. But Zach Davies finds himself at the heart of a team looking to make some noise in a challenging NL Central.

All data from Statcast.

Mookie Betts was incredible in 2016. As the third-best player in the Majors, he posted a 7.9 fWAR. But this year has been different. His .261/.341/.434 triple slash line is a far cry from the one he posted last season of .318/.363/.534. His 101 wRC+ tells us he’s producing runs at a rate that is barely above league average, while also revealing a lot of his value has come from his defense.

And yet, he’s still on pace for about 4.5 fWAR, which still makes him one of the game’s top assets. He continues to be awesome, but a different kind, and different enough to ask “what’s changed?”

There are some significant differences from last year to this year in Betts’ contact profile. In general, he’s swinging less. Like, a lot less. Last year he took the 20th-most pitches in the league. This year, he’s taking the fourth-most. He’s also swinging at fewer pitches in the zone, while making more contact when he goes outside it. That’s an odd combination for a player so disciplined at the plate. It suggests pitchers have adjusted to Betts and that he might have picked up on it, but that he hasn’t quite countered yet.

And though it helps us see what’s fueling a lower triple slash this year and, by matter of course, lower WAR, it doesn’t tell us how pitchers have adjusted to Betts. He’s seeing just about the same pitch mix this season as last, save for one thing. He’s getting about 22% sliders this year, or an additional 5% more than in 2016.

His wOBA against sliders is just .276 this season. That’s lower than what even his expected wOBA against sliders was last year, which he topped by 57 points. And like dominoes, this one push is impacting other pitches he’s seeing.

Changeups are also giving Betts considerable problems, and it could be because he’s been oddly less patient with them than other offerings in 2017. Despite seeing almost the same exact amount this year as last, and swinging at them at a nearly identical rate, his weighted pitch value against the offering is more dramatic than any other. He’s managing an unimpressive -0.43 mark this season. In 2016? It was at 3.67. He’s gone from waiting for changeups to show up in his wheelhouse to swinging at them freely. It’s extremely uncharacteristic for Betts, and it’s yielded just a .260 wOBA against the pitch.

Consider how the changeup is designed to induce weak contact, how it can often fade and drop away toward the lower outside corner of the zone, and how sliders drive to the same portion of the plate. Pitchers seem to have found a way to sequence their stuff against Betts to thoroughly influence the damage he can create with the bat.

This is particularly true with right-handers, against whom Betts is batting only .253 in 2017. Last year, he hit .331 against them. And because the league features about two and a half as many right-handers as southpaws, the trouble for Betts becomes emphasized that much more.

Mookie Betts is still exceptional. He’s still demonstrating elite control of the zone, as evidenced by a walk rate that equals his K rate. But there appear to be plate adjustments that will be necessary for him to make if he’s to return to being one of the game’s absolute best.

Rhys Hoskins is getting a lot of digi-ink recently. You may have read about him being only the third player ever to have eight dingers in his first 15 games. Or maybe the first player to have 19 RBI in those same games. Or how he’s walking nearly as much as he’s striking out. Or how he’s doing it with a BABIP flirting with the Mendoza line. Or how he’s done it all despite having only 64 plate appearances and after starting out 0-for-12. All these things are worth talking about.

None of those reasons acknowledge Hoskins in the context of the current Phillies lineup, though. Maybe it’s because the team is the clear-cut worst in the majors this year. Or how they’ve been so terrible the last few years that it mirrors their futility in the 90s. Or how they stand in such stark contrast to the organization’s great run from just a few short years ago. All of these things are worth not talking about.

But the way the this year’s team persists makes it important to look at Hoskins in their construct.

These numbers back up everything about Hoskins at the start of this piece. They also tell us a couple of other things about the rest of the current Phillies core, whose average age is 25. (Jorge Alfaro is excluded because he’s only played in nine games this year.)

Nick Williams has probably been the second-most exciting bat in the Phillies lineup this season, but his BABIP and K% also make him the biggest wild card moving forward. Cesar Hernandez is a worthwhile hitter who provides value in a few ways. Odubel Herrera goes through stretches that are equal parts brilliance and frustration. Freddy Galvis is a defense-first shortstop who isn’t a total black hole at the plate. And Maikel Franco may be genuinely concerning at this point, which could be why JP Crawford is seeing time at third base in AAA.

As members of the second-worst offense in baseball, do they provide a single reason to get excited when watching them? They can be compelling on a given night, but no one in that group has a game-altering skill that urges you to tune in or stick with them through a whole contest.

It’s more than not having a standout skill, though, and goes beyond being bad. It’s that this Phillies team’s greatest flaw often seems to be that they can handily beat themselves. How each individual performs at the plate can provide one example.

Galvis is the eighth-easiest out in baseball when he’s down in the count. Nick Williams would be up there if had enough at-bats to qualify. Odubel Herrera is in the top 50. Maikel Franco is 74th, but his overall game hasn’t struck fear into anyone in a couple years. Cesar Hernandez is quietly one of the better second basemen in the league, but he doesn’t offer nearly the offensive upside as Hoskins.

That likely makes Hoskins the best of the Phillies core at avoiding outs when behind in the count, and what contributes to him already being the team’s best hitter. Consider his crazy low BABIP and ability to walk and it gets easier to buy into. Yes, the sample size is small. But it’s also yielded results very similar to what his minor-league profile says to expect.

Hoskins isn’t just making outs at a lower rate than his teammates when down in the count. He’s shown himself to be adept at causing damage in such situations. That’s when he’s hit half of his eight home runs, meaning he doesn’t make it about just shortening up or taking a pitch. He simply doesn’t give a flip if he’s behind. He appears calm at all times. Combined with true talent, that is what makes for perhaps the most dangerous type of player.

Now, add that distinction to a lineup of other serviceable players where one or two of them grow. Add a pitcher or two to Aaron Nola, who’s becoming an ace. Think of other help coming from the minors. Things are looking much better for the Phillies, even if they come with conditions.

Rhys Hoskins has been excellent, but that’s not all. He’s clarifying Philadelphia’s path out of the basement, and possibly back to relevance, rather quickly.

Last night brought another Astros game and another win for the club. On the hill and pitching pretty darn well was Charlie Morton, whose career has been as compelling for his talent as for his injuries. He went 6.1 innings and gave up a single run, on three hits, with four walks and nine strikeouts.

If you do a quick search, you’ll see a lot of comparisons of Morton to Roy Halladay, and, depending on the year, a lot of bad jokes about how such a comparison is crazy. But it’s really just about their size and motion to the plate. Curiously, there might be a more relevant comparison to make between Morton and a current Phillie based on mechanics and arsenal: Aaron Nola.

Morton and Nola are two right-handed pitchers who use a three-quarters arm slot. They also both rely on two-seamers and curveballs, which make for a fun pitch mix. The two-seamer zips away from the throwing arm while the curve snaps late glove-side, potentially allowing for full plate control.

And now, we can see just how similarly these pitches move for Morton and Nola. When I watch these guys and the way their offerings break, I think of them keenly casting a fishing line or maneuvering a whip. It’s snappy but fluid, and reaches the target deliberately.

That’s what makes the combo so useful. Even if a hitter knows one or the other is coming, the movement on each can keep them unpredictable.

This informs how they try to mess with hitters, too: the curve from Morton moves in on lefties and gets them to hack and whiff, while the two-seamer from Nola to the same hitters is designed to get them to take a strike. To righties, Morton’s two-seamer backs them up while Nola’s curve can coax more swings. Take a look at these gifs:

In general, Morton also gets more movement on his pitches and comes with more velocity. But he also has about four inches and 40 pounds on Nola, which could certainly influence the 6 milliseconds when spin is put on the baseball and force with which it gets to the plate.

Saying Nola is more valuable than Morton is a no-brainer, though. He’s nearly 10 years younger and one of his best skills — control — can be one of Morton’s weaker ones. He’s already accounted for a full win more than Morton this season despite throwing only 12 more innings. The comparison isn’t so much about the players at their peak as it is how their perhaps unsuspected similarities gives a glimpse into the way each can contribute to a team with legitimate World Series aspirations.

Morton is a sound complementary piece on an Astros team that’s on pace for 100 wins. Nola could be a main reason a Phillies team charges at the World Series in a few years. The ride watching each will be fun.

Morton gif from GramUnion. Nola gif from Phuture Phillies.

Early on in a season, we get to talk about eye-popping numbers that players put up. We warn of sample sizes, though, and almost crave stability. We wait impatiently for the season to steady itself and almost breathe a sigh of relief when it happens — when we can start to buy into what an individual is doing.

But as the season wades on and we move toward the postseason, the biggest stories often come from singular moments. And while we can’t predict who, exactly, will define his team’s season with a single play, we might be able to take a pretty good guess.

With weighted on-base average from Statcast, we get to see just how much a player is contributing each time they step to the plate. With expected weighted on-base average, we get to see how well their results line up with their approach.

The differences in expected and actual wOBA for these players in the early going is no small thing. The 20-to-45 point gap would have put them in a completely different class of players had things gone as expected. Manny Machado figured to rank ahead of Kris Bryant; in reality, he lingered above Freddy Galvis. There’s an example like that for each of the other three, too. While the early performances of these guys might have lasted long enough to make us feel like they were a certain kind of reliable this season, their recent play highlights how fast things can change.

The rankings associated with each player give a sense of what their teams would have enjoyed had circumstances fell more in their favor. Rankings aren’t included since the start of July because the sample size may emphasize a gap that could be misleading — Kyle Seager, for instance, has the smallest difference of the four in wOBA-based production but drops 76 spots because of it.

That’s also to intentionally emphasize something else: all of these players’ teams are in the playoff hunt. Seager’s Mariners are tied for the Wild Card lead and Machado’s Orioles, despite abysmal pitching, are only 1.5 games out. Moreland’s Red Sox and Santana’s Indians each lead their division by four games. And for better or worse, their turnarounds could be playing a big role in who’s playing in October.

So consider the implications. Do the Mariners possibly lead the Wild Card at this point if Seager’s production more closely matched what was expected? Are the Orioles smashing expectations again if the same were true for Machado?

Could Santana have delivered a more comfortable divisional lead for Cleveland earlier? Is he doing that now by exceeding expectations with a white-hot bat? Moreland broke his toe in June — what impact has that had on the Red Sox building similar divisional comfort, and how big of a role could him simply being able to put pressure on his back foot play?

The answers to these questions may or may not be rhetorical, but all of these players are having a string of moments that could help define their team’s season. While we’ve longed for stable samples to dig into, their turns in production are showing us the ebb and flow of a game that remembers snapshots more than anything. As we come down to the wire, the big picture is telling us how it’s constructed of little ones.

The All-Star break brings a chance to reflect on what’s happened so far this season. For me, that means going back to examine a series of offseason pieces on various players. It’s fun to see what I might have been right or wrong about.

One such piece was about the struggles of Jimmy Nelson in 2016. In short, there were too many walks, not enough strikeouts, and too much disappointment. Specifically, I said that if Nelson “was your probable starter it was probable you’d sigh.”

But I also cited Nelson’s propensity to adjust through his career and made two suggestions as to how he could bounce back this season:

1. Set up on at a different position on the rubber.
2. Wrangle additional spin he gained from 2015 on all pitches, which could feed into sequencing.

Where a pitcher sets up on the rubber is one of those things that seems so utterly simple that it might not even feel like a real suggestion. But the change does do something fundamentally critical, which is influence the path of the baseball to the plate.

These images come with a caveat: Milwaukee’s camera angle at home was different last year. I had to find one that looked as straight-on as possible, which was a game against the Cardinals in St. Louis. That said, it appears as though Nelson has moved his back foot in to meet the edge of the rubber this year, whereas it hung off a bit in 2016. The difference seems to border on negligible and just enough to matter. Being more centered can help throwing toward the middle of the plate and letting the spin on each pitch speak for the movement.

Jeff Sullivan broke down Nelson’s full motion, though, and found that, regardless of setup on the rubber, he’s driving more directly to the plate. That aids the ball’s path, too — maybe even more — and still contributes to letting the spin on his offerings do the talking rather than trying to command a part of the zone every time.

Like Sullivan, The Sleeper and the Bust posited that Nelson has embraced something new. Paul and Eno focused on his arm angle on his slider, enabling two-plane break that distinguishes it from his curveball. Feeding into the arm angle would be a different grip that accommodates it.

The uptick in slider spin would seem to back all that up. In 2017, Nelson’s added 124 revolutions to it. (Dang!) The truly fascinating detail here is just how little the arm slot and grip changes might be to provide that kind of jump.

Driveline Baseball has detailed how spin could be put on a ball in 6 milliseconds. For perspective, consider that a baseball generally reaches the plate in 40 milliseconds, or four-tenths of a second. The way it moves is determined more than six times as fast.

The new break on Nelson’s slider may also better facilitate fastball use this year. Last year, his heat started leaking over the heart of the plate as the season wore on. Sullivan noted how Nelson’s change in motion this season has seen him throw less across his body. By being more direct now he can more readily attack up and down in the zone. Combined with how his new slider bites to the glove side, his mechanics allow his strongest pitch to augment his ability to sequence.

Nelson’s performance isn’t the only reason this is all relevant. After his final start of a miserable 2016, he told reporters that “I know that [pitching coach Derek Johnson] and I are doing the right things.” In the winter I said that may have been true, but that he might not have put it all together optimally.

Sometimes that work can take time to make an impact. His 2017 is a testament to the split-second nature of baseball, and how blinking at the wrong time means you might miss something big. Nelson was close to becoming an afterthought. Now he’s a major reason Milwaukee sits atop the NL Central halfway through the year.

This weekend, we learned of 22-year-old stud closer Roberto Osuna’s anxiety and how it’s keeping him from taking the field. Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports stepped back and humanized the concept of a quality professional not feeling suitable for work because of something like this. It’s a thought that too often feels foreign because of the status we give pro athletes.

Dominant on the field, Osuna appeared to be overwhelmed in his quotes about his well-being. From Brown’s piece (emphasis mine):

“I really don’t know how to explain it,” he said. “I just feel anxious. I feel like I’m lost a little bit right now. I’m just a little bit lost.

“This has nothing to do with me being on the field. I feel great out there. It’s just when I’m out of baseball, when I’m not on the field that I feel just weird and a little bit lost.

“I wish I knew how to get out of this, but we’re working on it, trying to find ways to see what can make me feel better. But, to be honest, I just don’t know.”

In a single sitting, Osuna says “just” five times. And it might be the most dangerous word that could be used in this context.

Though we’ve made strides in accepting anxiety as a legitimate medical concern, there is still a stigma that surrounds it.  But because it doesn’t inherently come with a fever or cast it’s often looked at as something that someone just needs to deal with. Meanwhile, symptoms can mimic a heart attack.

It’s not even strictly a mental obstacle. It’s chemical. Anxiety is tied to cortisol levels in the body. Cortisol is regarded as the stress hormone and is critical to our natural fight-or-flight instincts. It is adrenaline’s tag-team partner. It’s triggered by high-leverage situations with a lot on the line, which happen to be the kind from which Osuna makes a living. So when he says his current state has nothing to do with him being on the field, it’s probably fair to say that’s actually highly unlikely.

The body doesn’t release these chemicals like a faucet. There is no convenient handle to portion out the amounts one might receive at any given moment. It’s possible that Osuna gets into games and simply can’t turn off the very thing that makes him so damn good on the mound once the game is over; that cortisol floods through his system unchecked.

And why would he know how to turn it off? What background might he have to keep it in check? We’re generally not a culture that prepares for the come-down. At 22, he’s already got two-plus years experience in the bigs. But dealing with anxiety? That’s probably not a focus through the developmental process in baseball operations, even though there are well-vetted methods that can easily be implemented.

The brain loves patterns and automation. For the most part, it wants you to be able to go about your day without having to stress too much. But danger may arise quickly when the stress response it’s equipped with for protection gets folded into patterns of automation that are designed for comfort. That’s why “just” can be an alarming word to pair with statements about feeling “weird” and “a little bit lost.”

How Osuna and the Jays handle this is ultimately their business, and only their business. But I fear an announcement in the coming days saying he’s fine. He’s already been back on the mound. Osuna may not be out of the woods for some time, though, and if it’s stopped him from entering games, it could be severe for him. It can take years of practice and strategy to appropriately address anxiety. I only hope that he and the team comes to that conclusion on their own. If they don’t, the situation could get much worse.

Player contracts can be fascinating because of how we tend to examine them. We can do it through a micro lens, figuring how each one impacts the shape of the team and its ability to compete; or we can look at them with a macro perspective and see how they do or don’t impact the overall business of a franchise. As fans and analysts, we usually go the micro route.

Part of going the micro route in examining player contracts is questioning whether a player just became overpaid or underpaid upon signing his new deal. Dave Cameron did just that when considering Jean Segura’s recent extension, expanding on how Segura may well have left money on the table when he inked his five-year, $70-million extension earlier this month:

Perhaps Segura just really likes Seattle, likes the ballpark, likes the organization, and isn’t as concerned about whether he’s on a sustained winner. But 18 months from free agency, it seems like he might have had a chance to earn more money on a team with a more certain future, so him taking an extension now is certainly a risk on his part, as he could end up as an underpaid asset on a team without enough around him to win consistently. That’s not what you generally want.

This is  a fair thought. Players rarely — if ever — have the chance to influence what the market will pay them, and where. Signing a deal that potentially pays anything less than maximum value, then, could certainly be regarded as shortsighted and a risk.

It’s at this moment in evaluating new contracts that it becomes worthwhile to ask: on whose behalf might the player be leaving money on the table, and for whom is it a risk? Them, or players down the line?

Players should absolutely push for every dollar the market is willing to pay them. This idea becomes emphasized when we remember how disparate the split in revenue is between players and owners. It doesn’t matter that the dollar amounts on both sides are absurd to most people. Players gain zero benefit by taking less pay.

But if we consider recent economic research, we might see why Segura didn’t necessarily push for every single dollar. Doctor George Simon comments on a study from Christian Bayer at the University of Bonn and Falko Juessen at Dortmund University that details how money doesn’t necessarily buy happiness but that levels of financial certainty do impact our general well-being. And the bottom line is Segura’s new deal still comfortably puts him in a mental place where he is “gaining steadily in [his] overall sense of security.” He can put in the same exact work as he did before signing this contract and feel much more at ease.

The real risk in deals like Segura’s, then, may be for other players in the future. The micro approach for him — the part of his signing that considers only the needs of Jean Segura and his family — is something he clearly finds satisfying. Otherwise, he probably doesn’t sign. But the macro perspective, or the one that would consider how his new contract could be used as a benchmark for others in the future, is probably left wanting.

As statistics have become more advanced and public, we’ve gained myriad ways to understand baseball more in depth. We don’t just know that Aaron Judge smacks the crap out of the ball; we know that he can hit it out of the park at more than 120 miles per hour. We don’t just know that Yu Darvish’s pitches can dive all over the zone, but that they have an average spin rate of more than 2500 revolutions per minute.

While those stats represent single facets of a player’s game, there’s one that incorporates everything they do to give a sense of their overall value: Wins Above Replacement, or WAR. Depending where you find your stats — there’s fWAR from FanGraphs or bWAR from Baseball Reference — there will be subtle differences in how it’s calculated. But the point is the same: to tell you who the best and worst players are compared to anyone who could replace them.

WAR is the type of stat that enables us to react in real time, and with relatively sound reason, to newly-signed contracts. It’s how we can say Kevin Kiermaier’s deal is probably a notable win for the Rays and why Ryan Howard’s last extension was premature at best.

The reality we shape as observers and fans often looks at these contracts under a microscope, and only under a microscope. When a guy strikes out looking to end a rally, or gives up the hit that sparks one, that’s when we notice. And, fair or not, those moments craft the narratives we often carry throughout the life of a player’s contract.

Zooming out is helpful, though. In certain context, there might not be such a thing as a bad contract.

Owners have been raking in the money for a long, long time. They’ve pretty much always taken home more than the players and in recent years that difference has only grown. When you consider that there are only ever as many owners as there are teams, and that the players’ share is split hundreds more times, the disparity becomes emphasized.

If we want additional perspective, we can look at how the percent of overall revenue accounted for by player salaries has decreased almost annually like clockwork.

Revenue data goes beyond that which fans and analysts use to justify a point of view on a player’s worth to their team. Those trains of thought spur additional conversation about how a given contract can influence the team’s composition and ability to compete for championships. And these points may well hold water. But they probably don’t provide much influence on the business perspective.

No matter how good or bad a contract is, a team is likely still profitable and operating within a relatively certain margin of error that isn’t dramatically different than if they didn’t have that deal on the books.

That’s not to say owners don’t care about a bad contract. It’s just that, at an operational level, they have to concern themselves with the bottom line first and foremost because it’s what allows them to persist. Sure, the big deals that go sour are disappointing to them, but they’re not damning.

Injuries are something that pronounce their impact differently on every player in the game. Some guys have freakish bodies and recover faster naturally. Others push themselves to accelerate their return. But recovery from some injuries can’t be sped up. Maladies like inflammation are plainly matters of time.

JA Happ went on the 10-day DL on April 18 for having it in his elbow. He’s finally back on the mound in the Majors after being out for more than a month.

Kendall Graveman just hit the DL for soreness in his throwing shoulder and is “taking anti-inflammatory medication and resting,” per Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. Manager Bob Melvin says he’s been through this before, that it’ll take longer this time, and that the team is going to “let this thing calm down” before trying to build up his endurance again. The passivity in his words is telling.

And if you have the heart to remember the end of Roy Halladay’s career, you’ll remember inflammation in his throwing shoulder cost him time on the DL amidst his body simply telling him, “please, no more.”

Inflammation is a general response from the body that results from cell agitation. It can occur from normal use — “normal” being a relative word. It intends to clear out damaged cells but the process causes pain, discomfort, and inherently imbalanced levels of certain proteins in our bodies. And the things a ballplayer does every day, the extreme motions they constantly put themselves through for more than half a calendar year, make them prime candidates to become victims of it.

Enter yoga.

There’s no causal relationship between yoga and reduced injuries. But as I researched its impact on ballplayers for a job, I couldn’t help but think of the benefits. And I did find that it has been connected to balancing the proteins that can get whacked out in players’ bodies through the course of a season.

Researchers have studied a particular form called Hatha yoga, which combines poses (asanas), breath control (pranayama) and meditation. They explored its ability to help aid in recovery from the regular wear-and-tear we put our bodies through. “Regular” is another relative term — think of the twist and torque your favorite hitter exhibits on each swing and how that could eventually cause a dreaded oblique strain.

The study’s trippiest finding centers on epinephrine levels in the brain, which are fueled by the adrenal gland and play a large role in maintaining both physical and emotional stress. In focusing on the differences between novices and experts, experts experienced higher levels of epinephrine on a regular basis. That surprised even the researchers.

Common sense might tell us that the more we have of something, the more we get used to it, and then the less impact it has on us. It’s why a person going skydiving for the first time can find it exhilarating while it’s just another day at the office for the instructor they’re attached to. It’s the same when a pitcher isn’t excited about his velocity inching up through the spring. He can expect it because of what he’s thrown in the past.

The study found the opposite with yoga, though. The body adapts to the poses, breathing patterns, and meditation in Hatha yoga, and the person gets better at it; but chemically, they don’t get used to it. It doesn’t become old hat. Instead, the practice becomes invigorating and those who practice it build up what becomes an expandable physiological embankment of wellness.

What’s more is that, based on the study’s parameters, a player could approach expert level at yoga over the course of a single season. A few hours a week could help keep their protein levels balanced through the summer and avoid the fickle complications of inflammation. And beyond even that, it offers a fresh, low impact way to optimize their body that could pay long-term dividends.