Four trades of relative significance occurred last Friday. With all due respect to Howie Kendrick, the other three trades are my primary interest. The Mets and Orioles, each far separated from the top of their divisions, made deals to beef up their major-league teams, dealing young players in the process. On top of that, the Mariners and Rays, just 2.0 games from each other in the wild-card race, made a deal to address their respective weaknesses. These deals seem to re-affirm a belief that began to surface with the introduction of the second wild card, but has likely never been as pronounced as this year (in part due to the mediocrity of the American League, in all likelihood). The line between buyers and sellers has blurred, leaving many teams dabbling on both sides.

As of July 29th, FanGraphs lists the Mets’ playoff odds at a measly 8.1%, which makes sense given their 48-53 record and 13.5-game deficit in the NL East. In fact, that exact record is shared by the lowly Marlins, who felt the need to deal their closer, A.J. Ramos. The Mets acquired Ramos despite virtually no chance to compete for a title this year. Now, the validity of the trade is up for debate, as relievers are highly volatile and the Mets roster is flawed enough to argue they should fully rebuild. What really matters, though, is that the Mets opted to start their winter shopping early, as opposed to simply selling off short-term assets and waiting for the offseason. With Ramos under control for 2018, the team clearly felt that they have enough to simply retool their roster, giving them a shot in ’18.

The O’s made a similar but yet very different move, adding Jeremy Hellickson from Philadelphia. Hellickson is a pure rental, and the Orioles, to this point, have not been a good team. At 48-54, FanGraphs gives them a 2.6% chance of making the playoffs. The primary reason for that record in a starting rotation that has been an unmitigated disaster, with just one pitcher (Dylan Bundy) posting an ERA below 5.00 (4.53). Even amid rumors of Baltimore dealing away some primary pieces, Dan Duquette must have seen an opportunity to add some stable innings to a rotation that is anything but stable. Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports reported after the deal that Baltimore could still deal off pieces. That seems to hint that Baltimore has interest remaining competitive as long as possible, but not at the cost of mortgaging the future in what’s been termed a “seller’s market.”

Finally, we have the very interesting trade between Seattle and Tampa. Neither player on their own is of huge interest, as Erasmo Ramirez boasts a 4.80 ERA, while FanGraphs pegs Steve Cishek at a -0.1 WAR. However, with limited control left, both are clearly win-now assets, moving between teams that are contending for the same playoff spot. Jerry Dipoto’s love of trades has been well documented, but this is possibly his most fascinating. The motivation is clear, as Seattle has a need in the back end of its rotation, and Tampa Bay has worked effortlessly to revamp its entire pen. But we rarely see teams move players off the big-league roster when contending in July, and it’s even more rare to see a deal between two teams competing against each other for a playoff opportunity.

Whether due to increased parity, opportunistic general managers, or simply an odd one-day coincidence, it appears as though teams are taking a less rigid stance on buying and selling. With just about everyone in the American League within shouting distance of contention, we may be in for one of the more interesting trade deadlines in recent memory (ed. note: now complete!). And if your favorite team is out of it, you may still have a reason to get excited these next few days, as teams like the Braves threaten to make moves toward contention regardless. With a unique trade market, many clubs may see fit to stick their toes on both sides of the line, re-assembling their roster without the limitations that a rigid approach brings.

I will lead this off by saying that I am both a fan of the Cleveland Indians and frustrated by the 2017 season. I generally try to write about things I have less of a stake in, but a weird stat caught my eye, and it merits discussion, bias be damned.

On the year, Cleveland has performed in a manner that has not reached their lofty expectations. They stand at 48-45, just a half game ahead of the inversely surprising Twins. You could point to a lot of reasons why this is true. Corey Kluber, excellent while on the field, has spent time on the DL. Young Francisco Lindor has caught the weak fly-out bug. After a slow start, Edwin Encarnacion has continued to put up his worst year since his breakout. Of the field, Jason Kipnis is still the same man, but you would not be able to tell by watching him play baseball this year. And I could continue with the players who have not quite met their external expectations that were placed upon them when the season started. Still, the Indians have the seventh-best run differential in baseball, and an even better BaseRuns differential, so the underlying stats still look good. How is this team only three games above .500?

Well, the Indians have a combined wRC+ of 102, a respectable total that is good for tenth in the MLB if you factor out pitchers. For a team expected to be above-average offensively coming into this season, that’s somewhere between disappointing and reasonable. It’s not as if they’re 25th in baseball, and randomness happens, so tenth is pretty good. In low-leverage situations, they are even better, putting up a Fonz-esque (cool) 111 wRC+. In medium leverage, they’ve been almost as good. In high-leverage situations, the Indians have a *twenty-eight* wRC+. For clarity’s sake, I’m going to call this HLwRC+.

If you read this website, I don’t need to explain how horrific that is, but I will anyway because it’s fun. In high-leverage situations, the Indians have basically batted like Kyle Freeland, a man who, before this year, likely had not held a baseball bat since high school. And it’s not particularly fluky either. FanGraphs’ batted-ball data shows that Cleveland has the lowest Hard% in these situations, and the fifth-highest Soft%. They’re definitely not an ideal gas, because they have not gotten hotter under pressure.

I really cannot overstate how ridiculously bad this is! Coming into the season, the lowest single-season HLwRC+  since 2002 was 50, by the 2003 Tigers. That team had zero(!) players worth 2+ wins, and had a 80 wRC+ in all situations. The lowest HLwRC+ by a team with a winning record was the 2006 Detroit Tigers, at 60. So much to say about this: that team won 95 games and went to the World Series! They must have been winning every game by scores like 10-3. Also, impressive turnaround by the Tigers. Their most valuable players were Carlos Guillen and Jeremy Bonderman. Wow.

This is a team-wide problem. Jose Ramirez, who’s quickly becoming one of those “so underrated, they’re properly rated” kind of players, has a wRC+ of 150, but an HLwRC+ of 34. Yan Gomes has some funny numbers: wRC+, 81, not great. HLwRC+: -81. In fact, only one member of the team with over 150 PA this year has a higher HLwRC+ than wRC+, and that is Roberto Perez, whose latter number is 37. Of course, all of these are small sample sizes.

At their current pace, Cleveland is on track to have about 218 more high-leverage at-bats. If from here on, their HLwRC+ equals 102, their current wRC+, they would still finish the season with an HLwRC+ of 60! Obviously, they’re still in first place, and have set themselves up to make the postseason for a second year in a row. But they’ve done so while being the anti-Freddie Mercury.

I have included anonymous descriptions of three players. The descriptions include stats that were compiled by  those players a little before the All-Star break.

I have included a link to a Google Survey (at the end of this article). No information is being collected other than your responses. (The survey also includes an optional question about your personal assessment of your baseball knowledge).

The question is: Which player would you rather have for the rest of this season?

Please keep the following facts in mind when answering the question:

1. The league average BABIP is .299.
2.  The league average K% is 21.6%
3. The league average BB% is 8.6%
4. The league average HR/H is 14.5%
5. On average in the league, 33% of the time a bat touches the ball, a hit occurs.

Player 1: “Frank”

Frank is a young hitting prospect. He has little major-league track record outside of the first half of this season, and he was considered a top prospect coming up through the minor leagues. He has been described as “freakish” in his size.

Frank strikes out nearly 30% of the time and walks nearly 17% of the time. 53% of the time his bat touches the ball a hit occurs. 30% of those hits are home runs.

Frank compiled these numbers through 81 Games and 352 PA.

Player 2: “Tom”

Tom is a young player, but he has been around long enough that he is verging on a veteran. He has been described as a “model slugger.”

Now in his eighth season, Tom has a career BABIP of .320, K% of roughly 28%, BB% of roughly 11%, and HR/H Ratio of 26%.

This season his BABIP is .299, his BB% is 10.5%, and his K% is roughly 24%. 38% of the time his bat touches the ball a hit occurs. 27% of those hits are home runs.

Tom complied these numbers through 83 Games and 352 PA.

Player 3: “Dan”

Dan is a young player, but he has a considerable track record. He has been described as one of “the most valuable properties in the game.”

Now in his sixth season, Dan has a career BABIP of .301, K% of roughly 17%, BB% of roughly 7%, and HR/H Ratio of 16%.  

This season his BABIP is .234, his BB% is 8.6%, and his K% is roughly 20%. 29% of the time his bat touches the ball a hit occurs. 24% of those hits are home runs.

Dan compiled these numbers through 82 Games and 360 PA.

Here is the survey link: https://goo.gl/forms/Fd7StZznZqQ5Brth2

I will follow up with an article a week after this is published, showing the results, revealing who the players are, and assessing what the projections expect from those players the rest of the year.

The Cubs have struggled this year. They are two under .500 and 5.5 games back in almost mid-July.

There was a lot of talk about the Cubs’ defensive regression and worse pitching, but one of the biggest problems has been the hitting. Last year they had a 106 team wRC+ which has regressed to a below-average 94 wRC+ this year.

That is not good, but it also means there’s a lot of room for improvement. The Cubs’ struggles are mostly based on their .279 BABIP, as their .180 ISO and 10% BB rate are above league average and their K% is about average. According to those stats, they should be at least above average.

The Cubs should hit better than that, and they have, outside an abysmal May and early June.

Here is the monthly breakdown (month: wRC+, BB, K, ISO, BABIP):

April: 98 wRC+, 10,22.9,.162, .313

May: 83 wRC+, 10.1, 21.1, .177, .242

June: 96 wRC+, 9.7, 22.7, .194, .282

July: 112 wRC+,9.2, 21, .212, .293

As you can see, the peripherals are not that different; if anything the ISO was trending upwards during the season. What was different was the BABIP, and that especially in like six weeks in May and early June.

Now there is no reason to believe the Cubs’ low BABIP would be for real, and the Cubs’ season ISO if anything might be a little low. They won’t be ISOing over .200 like in July so far, but high .180s seem to be a realistic goal. But even if they stay at their current peripherals of 10, 22, .180 and their BABIP improves to around .300 in the second half they should be a good hitting team.

The Cubs’ young core can hit, and they will never be much better than they are now. They have Rizzo and Bryant at their peak, and Contreras, Happ, Baez and Russell aren’t bad hitters either. And even the struggling Schwarber should bounce back. He probably was overrated by Cubs fans as his contact and defensive issues are for real, but his 14% BB rate and .212 ISO are solid and he was a big time victim of BABIP, at .199. Now his BABIP was partly due to his 14% IF fly rate and his predictable pull tendency (shift), but .199 still is way too low. Schwarber might just end up being a poor man’s Adam Dunn, but while hardcore Cubs fans see that as an insult, peak Adam Dunn was a pretty good hitter and even if he is not the second coming of Babe Ruth, Schwarber should be decent at least offensively.

So from a hitting perspective, there is no reason to wait. The Cubs can hit now and the service time clock for the core is ticking, although there are still quite a few years left and this certainly is no now-or-never situation. Also, except for Eloy Jimenez, all major prospects have been called up so there is also no reason to wait for guys in the minors. This is the Cubs’ core and it is one that gave them two big years.

So why potentially risk wasting one of the control years of the core? The Cubs are a few games back, but realistically, it is a weak division, and they still have clearly the best postseason odds in their division. And once you make the PS any team can win anyway, so grab that playoff run if you can; the chances are not going to get better.

Now the Cubs probably win the division without a move, but there is a risk the Brewers pull through. Also the Cubs do have future issues. Arrieta is going to be a free agent and might be declining a little anyway, so it will be tough decision on whether to re-sign him as he still won’t be cheap. Lackey is getting old too, and Hendricks, while not bad, clearly had a fluke-ish season last year. Lester is still good, but how much longer will he stay an ace at age 33? And all the typical buy-low Theo signings for the fifth spot so far did not work this year.

The Cubs have some interesting pitching prospects but nobody of note is remotely big-league ready.

So if you can add a cost-controlled young ace, now is a good time. Next year, arbitration will start to kick in, and the core won’t stay that cheap forever. That means a cost-controlled ace would ease the salary situation. The Cubs at some point need to make a move for pitching anyway, and why not do it now, when you are a couple games back and a hot-at-the-wrong-time Brewers club could cost you a very valuable playoff run that you counted on before the season started?

The Cubs still are in a good position, but there has been a negative swing in playoff odds that the Cubs could counter with a big move. Of course, that big move will hurt the Cubs a lot in what it will cost, but if there is a chance to get a deal done, now might be a very good time, and since the Cubs’ window, while not eternal, is not closing anytime soon in the next years, it probably makes sense to go for a long-term solution rather then a rental.

The Cubs have a chance to do two things at once: get back some of the playoff odds they lost due to their mediocre two and a half months of baseball in a season that was seen as a lock to make the PS, and fix a future need in the rotation, and IMO Theo should use that situation to make the move this deadline. There really is nothing to wait for — the future is now for the Cubs.

Batting average was rightly criticized as a measure for player performance when better stats arrived. Batting average only measures a part of hitting skill (getting hits), and not other crucial things like walks and power. Because of that, better statistics like OBP and OPS and finally wRC+ were used to evaluate players.

Over the years, Ks went up, but also contact quality increased, so batting average did not change that much, but about 20 years ago BABIP maxed out and has stayed at .300 ever since while Ks continued to climb. Still, the number of .300 hitters isn’t down that much; in 1997 it was 35 and last year it was 25. Hitting .300 always was a tough thing to do, and still is.

Hitting .300 is not productive by itself of course, but if you look at the .300 hitters last year it seems like the “empty .3o0 hitter” that was often used as an example of why BA is bad to judge hitters is basically not existing anymore. Last year only five of the 25 .300 hitters hit single-digit homers and none of the 25 had a below-average wRC+. It seems like slapping the ball in play is not enough to hit .300 anymore with today’s defenses. Basically the modern .300 hitter is a powerful hitter in most cases. The .300 hitters of last year averaged a mightily impressive 132 wRC+ and a whopping 4.7 WAR so it was truly an elite group (seven out of the top 10 in WAR hit .300).

You can illustrate the value of hitting .300 pretty well when you look at the dated stat of OPS. Its components are OBP and SLG. OBP is hits+walks+HP/PA and last year 71% of all on-base events were hits. And even slugging is heavily influenced by BA as it is BA+ISO. The importance of ISO has grown over the years but still SLG is about 60% driven by BA and only 40% by ISO. That means that BA still has a huge influence on batting production.

What we do see is that the .300 hitters are good contact hitters. On average they have a 15% K%, which is way better than the league average (around 22%). No .300 hitter had a K% of above 25% and only two were even above 20%. Still, K% does not have a big correlation with batting performance since there are still the weak slap hitters and productive TTO, but the below-15% K hitters as a group have a respectable 109 wRC+.

Again it looks like the weak slap hitters are a dying breed. We all have noted that the league is getting closer together in power and this could actually mean a comeback for contact and batting average. it doesn’t mean that slap hitters will come back, but since power seems to be about maxed out (still increasing but more because the bottom guys now also hit bombs), now players can get more productive by adding contact without sacrificing power; with the new ball or whatever, you don’t need to hit the ball that hard, just at the right angle, and that can be done without striking out more.

Now we all read the stories about players who got more productive by swinging harder and striking out more, increasing their power (Alonso, Freeman), and we all notice the huge power hitters with a ton of Ks being quite productive (Sano, Judge, Gallo, Stanton, Bellinger), and that is true, but those guys are all huge power guys (and still won’t be .300 hitters at least when you think that last year’s correlation of Ks and hitting 300 is still true).

The more desirable thing for the average player is probably to be like Murphy or Altuve, who don’t strike out and still hit 25 bombs. Those guys don’t hit the ball super hard (around average EV) but they make a ton of solid contact at good launch angles.

It is a bold statement, but I think the batter of the future would be a guy who hits the ball reasonably hard but makes good contact and hits the ball in the air. Hitting the ball in the air like Billy Hamilton won’t get it done, but once you are past a certain threshold, there are no extra points for more EV. A 120 MPH homer doesn’t plate more runs than a 100 MPH homer.

Now, of course, the extra power still has a value. Last year everyone hit 30 HR and still the leaders were only mid 40s, but this year we actually might get 50-bomb guys again. But still, I think that we won’t see a proliferation of Judge or Sano types. I think the new conditions actually hurt those guys a little because a team now can find a 25-HR guy who makes contact and defense more easily, making it harder for the big slugger to separate himself from the pack.

The Astros actually already incorporated that successfully. They improved their contact without really giving up power and they now really do well.

Low Ks don’t have an intrinsic value, but if power is already maxed out and the league is striking out so much, it is pretty easy to separate yourself from the pack. The low-K thing already was en vogue after the Royals won, but they still did it at a cost of low power. The Astros are basically the Royals 2.0 because they also have power.

One of the more subtle stories of the dawn of the statistical revolution in baseball was the case of Frank Thomas. Frank was a big slugger, but not exactly graceful in the field. Since he played in the American League for a long while, he often was slotted as the DH. On paper, this would make sense. A team could theoretically use his bat in the lineup while playing someone else in the field, to avoid his lack of fielding. Well, despite what current trends seem to say, baseball is not played on paper, and some factors that cannot exactly be explained can derail logical thinking, like the Thomas at DH theory.

What I mean by this is that for some reason, Thomas’ best seasons as a hitter came when he played in the field. In his two MVP seasons, he played only 17 games (about 5%) as the DH. In all five of his All-Star seasons, he was voted in as a first baseman. This idea is further explained in Tom Tango’s The Book. For some reason, he was just not as good as a hitter as a DH. Maybe he was not as engaged, maybe he was “cold,” or maybe it was some other weird reason. I tried to dive into the splits to see the exact numbers, but could not get the exact data. Yet, the idea still remains: hitters may perform differently when placed in different spots in the field, or when they are not in the field at all.

I decided to apply this logic to the Minnesota Twins’ All-Star slugger, Miguel Sano. Like Thomas, Sano hits the cover off the ball, but isn’t as skilled in the field. Some would think that this means the Twins should play him as the designated hitter. Again, from a superficial level, this would seem to make sense, as his defensive liabilities would not come into play.

I looked into his splits for the 2017 season. With about 250 plate appearances as a third baseman and about 60 as a designated hitter or a pinch-hitter, there were enough observations to perform a hypothesis test (specifically a Two Sample t-Test) on the subject.

My test criteria is as follows:

• Null Hypothesis: Batting Average/OBP/wOBA as 3B = BA/OBP/wOBA as PH/DH
• Alternative Hypothesis: Batting Average/OBP/wOBA as 3B ≠ BA/OBP/wOBA as PH/DH

My level of significance is 95% confidence, or a = 0.05.

For those who are not familiar with the two sample t-test for equal population means, or if you may have forgotten formulas for test statistics, degrees of freedom, point estimates, or anything else, you can find it all here.

Here are Sano’s splits. One can note the obvious difference in his batting statistics, but is this difference statistically significant?

Let’s dive in. Well, here is my test:

It appears that the difference in means for batting average and wOBA are significant, meaning we can reject the null hypothesis that Sano bats the same when in the field and when off of the field. OBP was not significant, so we fail to reject the null for that metric, but the p-value was still relatively weak.

From this analysis, one can see that Sano does in fact perform worse when he doesn’t play 3B. Perhaps the Twins have already keyed onto this, as Sano has four times as many ABs as a third baseman than as a designated or pinch-hitter. The Twins do have a few decent utility infielders, so maybe they are just squeezing in playing time for those guys when they move Sano to DH. But, in this case, the statistics don’t lie: please play Miguel Sano at third base.

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.

On June 22 the Chicago Cubs sent a struggling Very Large Human, Kyle Schwarber, to the minors. The Warbird earned it, with the 20th worst fWAR and 6th worst bWAR among qualifying hitters. His OPS is just two points shy of Albert Pujols‘, a goal that you kids at home should no longer aspire to. Schwarber’s inoffensive offense has led to much discussion, most of which revolves around two competing theories:

1. This is just a slump, and Scwharber will come out of it. He’s way better than he’s shown in 2017. Craig Edwards said as much in these pages a couple of weeks ago.
2. Schwarber’s fallen and he can’t get up. There is something fundamentally wrong with him that is going to take considerable time to correct, if it is correctable at all. The demon that possessed Jason Heyward in 2016 has found a new human host.

The Cubs, predictably, are publicly sticking with Theory 1, and not without reason. As Edwards pointed out, there is plenty of statistical evidence suggesting Schwarber is basically the same hitter he was during his torrid 2015 campaign. The walk rate is about the same. The K rate is about the same. The power is still there — how many guys with an ISO over .200 get sent down? And that most basic of slump detectors, BABIP, is flashing red: Schwarber’s BABIP is a minuscule .193, last among qualifiers.

Or is this all whistling past the graveyard? A deeper look at Schwarber’s numbers reveals some seemingly alarming trends. Specifically, he’s been virtually helpless against the slider this year, “slugging” it at an .042 clip. In 2015 he murdilated sliders, slugging .593 against them. For those of you not near a calculator, that means between 2015 and 2017 Schwarber lost 551 points of slugging against one of baseball’s more common pitches — losing more than most hitters will ever attain.

There were specific sliders that Schwarber found particularly tasty in 2015 — those down and over the plate. This year, not so much. As his FanGraphs pitch value tables indicate, the slider has become garlic to Schwarber’s vampire. (Not that I am in any way suggesting that Schwarber is an undead being of any sort.) Other teams, aware of this newly opened hole in his swing, have accordingly started feeding Schwarber a steady diet of sliders.

Except that they haven’t. Schwarber is actually seeing slightly fewer sliders this year than he did in 2015. Maybe major-league front offices would benefit by reading more brilliantly researched blog posts like this one.

Or maybe there really isn’t anything there after all. One good way to evaluate a hitter is to watch how other teams are treating him, and Schwarber’s opponents haven’t pitched him much differently than they did in 2015, at least as far as pitch selection is concerned. This doesn’t seem to be a Heyward situation, where a gaping hole did open in his swing, and pitchers began attacking him mercilessly with high fastballs.

Another good way to evaluate a hitter is to watch how his own team treats him, and the Cubs have been almost painfully patient with Schwarber. He was bad in April before getting much, much worse in May. A power spurt in early June was not enough to save him from Iowa.

Last year, the Cubs had good reason to be patient with Heyward, even though he was producing about as much reliable power as Pakistan’s grid. There were two reasons for this: (1) he was making substantial contributions with his glove; and (2) from about April 15 on, the Cubs had a divisional lead of at least 75.5 games. No, really. Look it up.

The Cubs patience with Schwarber is less obviously explicable. Replacements for his limp bat were at hand in the minors, including Ian Happ and (more recently) Mark Zagunis. Schwarber adds nothing to the team’s defense, and the Cubs this year are in a remorseless fight to the death in the NL Central.

So the Cubs and their opponents have been behaving (for most of the season, anyway) as though Schwarber is in a slump, rather than suffering from some more fundamental problem. The Cubs might be looking at his track record — in his brief minor-league career Schwarber’s OPS is 1.042, and, you know, that 2015 season was so awesome!

But Schwarber didn’t have a season in 2015, he had less than half a season: 273 plate appearances to be exact. He’s had 261 PAs this year. So to this point, Schwarber’s entire career does not yet amount to the equivalent of even one full major-league season. His career has been strange in that his PAs have been so highly segregated: 273 fantastic PAs followed by 261 awful ones, with some World Series heroics in between that would melt the hardest of non-Cleveland hearts. Put it all together though, and you have one short, not-all-that-impressive career thus far. His career OPS+ is 102, and his career wRC+ is 104. Those numbers simply aren’t good enough for an essentially postionless player. Here’s a list of left fielders with a career OPS+ of 102. For those of you who can’t click through, trust me, it’s short. The Cubs didn’t plan to use the 4th pick of the 2014 draft because they wanted the next Garret Anderson.

Past performance does not fully predict future results, and there are some reasons to think that the real Warbird is closer to the 2015 version than the 2017 one. As noted above, his minor-league stats were through the roof, and a very competent front office used a very high draft pick to get him. His trouble with the slider looks more like a reframed BABIP slump — that is, a run of bad luck during a small sample size — than a genuinely exploitable hole. He’s still only 24.

And yet, the Cubs did send him down. This probably has more to do with the pennant race than with Schwarber; the Cubs simply can no longer afford to give away outs. The move takes some pressure off of Schwarber himself (though he may well not see it that way), and takes the pressure off of Joe Maddon to either write Schwarber into the lineup every day and answer a bunch of annoying questions about it, or not write Schwarber into the lineup and answer a bunch of annoying questions about it. But if Schwarber’s last 261 PAs are simply down to bad luck, why couldn’t the first 273 PAs be down to good luck?

I don’t really believe Schwarber is the next Garret Anderson, but I’m less certain than some Cubs fans that we know who the real Schwarber is yet. Schwarber’s demotion will help the Iowa Cubs sell tickets. Whether it helps the Chicago Cubs sell playoff tickets remains to be seen.

The sabermetric revolution has brought us baseball nerds a lot of great information. More than anything, though, it has brought us a plethora of defensive statistics that help us understand a side of the ball that was previously mainly just measured by… (gulp) fielding percentage. Executives now pay top dollar for outfielders who take great routes to the ball, even if they make don’t have the strongest arm. Or an infielder who can get to a ton of balls, even though he makes more errors than the guy with no range.

Thinking about some of the top players in the league, they may not be as highly thought of as they are if we could not accurately quantify their defensive excellence. Francisco Lindor does not just look smooth at everything he does, but the numbers back him up. Conversely, Khris Davis at first glance looks like one of the best players in baseball, hitting countless long balls in Oakland. But Davis rates as one of the worst defensive outfielders in baseball and is not much more than a league-average player because of it. This led to me to thinking about, are the Davises of the world better than the Andrelton Simmonses of the world, who can field like Ozzie Smith, but hit like Mario Mendoza. I have created a list of nine players that are studs defensively but struggle hitting, and nine who work wonders with a bat but not with the glove. The teams will be compared at the end to see which one would come out on top if they were to actually play.

Defense

C –  Salvador Perez – If you know anything about Salvy, as he is affectionately called, you know he is as durable as they come behind the plate. That, paired with his defense behind the plate makes him quite the valuable backstop. Salvador Perez has nine more Defensive Runs Saved since 2014 than the second place Yadier Molina, in a similar amount of innings. But offensively, Perez is not as strong. He has not had a wRC+ above 91 since 2013, excluding this year which is not halfway over. The guy just does not walk, as he has not had a BB% over four percent in any full season.

1B – Joe Mauer – Albeit a shell of his former self that used to strike fear into pitchers into the Metrodome, Mauer can still pick it at first. He is among the top at his position over the past few years at DRS, ErrR and UZR/150. Mauer does not have the power he used to, with isolated power hovering around .100 for the past few years. He walks a pretty solid amount, usually at around 10 percent.

2B – Yolmer Sanchez – A name not known to many, Yolmer Sanchez is a somewhat promising young player in Chi-town. Sanchez is not that experienced, but has shown positive defensive traits thus far. He is above average in turning double plays, not making errors and range. Despite that defensive success, Sanchez has not resembled any sort of an offensive threat. While improving this year, his OBP is usually well under .300, and his SLG% is also under .400.

3B – Darwin Barney – To have a 75 wRC+ and still finish with 2.4 WAR in a year says a lot about a player. That is was Barney accomplished in 2012. Talk about a journeyman utility guy; Barney has had some decent playing time in his career, notably with the Cubs, but for the most part, he has been an extra infielder with a slick glove at whatever position he is playing. At third, he has been solid in a limited amount of innings. He has a UZR/150 of 6 since 2014. Offensively though, he does not hit for power, does not walk and has been a below average baserunner the past few years.

SS – Jose Iglesias – The Tigers’ shortstop makes some of the smoothest plays in baseball. He is a treat to watch in the field, but no so at the plate. Iglesias has 12 career home runs, a walk rate under five percent and is a below average baserunner. He is in the top few among shortstops in defense as a whole, but is arguably the best at not committing errors.

LF – Colby Rasmus – When Rasmus is thought of by a normal fan, they probably think of towering home runs and excessive strikeouts. That is very understandable, but did a little deeper and you’ll find a very above-average defensive outfielder. Rasmus has the most Defensive Runs Saved of any left fielder, and he has fewer innings that almost anyone at the top of the leaderboard. Colby Rasmus has an insane arm in left, leading to an incredible UZR/150 of 30.3 over the past year and a half. Now he is by no means a bad hitter, but he is on the list because he is rather mediocre offensively, and stellar defensively. The only thing consistent about Rasmus is his astronomical strikeout rate. He is powerful, but has not gotten substantial playing time a lot because other parts of his game have been sub-par.

CF – Kevin Pillar – This is what Pillar is known for. He covers ground like few others can, while sacrificing his body for unbelievable diving grabs on a regular basis. Pillar’s RngR is the best in baseball over the past few years, and has saved nearly 40 runs since 2015. He is a well above-average baserunner, but his walk rate is under five, and his career OBP is right around .300.

RF – Jason Heyward – His $184-million contract with the Northsiders is also well worth it after that alleged speech he gave during the fateful rain delay in Game 7 of the World Series. But hey, it does not hurt that he is one of the best defenders in the game. Heyward’s UZR/150 since 2015 is over twice as high as the next qualifier. He has unbelievable range and a very good arm. Heyward has had offensive success in the past, but seems to have lost that magic with the Cubs. He has hit just 13 long balls since the start of 2016. The Cubs’ outfielder has his two lowest outputs of Hard% over the past two years.

Offense

C – J.T. Realmuto – Realmuto has burst on the scene to an extent with his above-average offensive output in the past year and a half. In 2016 and in the start of 2017, his wOBA has been above .330, very solid for a catcher. He is also an above-average baserunner, and can even swipe you a few bags, as he did 12 times last season. Framing is not one of Realmuto’s strong suits, though. In his two seasons with the most playing time, 2015 and 2016, he combined for -27.2 Framing runs, per Baseball Prospectus. He has -10 DRS since 2016.

1B – Miguel Cabrera – The best right-handed hitter I have ever seen is not that great at defense. For context, Miggy’s RZR has been worse than Ryan Howard since the start of 2016. He is just jaw-dropping with a bat in his hands, though. The utter consistency of his sheer dominance of whatever is thrown at him is generational. He has had an OPS of .900 or higher in every year but two since 2005; three of the years, his OPS was well over 1.0. And in those two years he did not get there, he was very close, with an OPS in the very high .800s.

2B – Daniel Murphy – The spokesman of the launch-angle revolution has otherworldly numbers at the plate since the start of 2016. He batted .347 last year with just a .348 BABIP, implying his success was legitimate. His wOBA last year and this year thus far have been over .400. With all that though, he has been, without much question, the worst defensive second basemen in baseball since the start of last year. Murphy’s range what you would assume a player that looks to Pablo Sandoval to have. He also commits more errors than average.

3B – Jake Lamb – One of the biggest reasons the Diamondbacks are having the season they are is because of their third baseman. Lamb is walking a lot and hitting with a lot of power, a recipe for success. He is not that great at the hot corner though, as he has been below average at making errors and turning double plays while managing to have limited range.

SS – Xander Bogaerts – The Aruba native has not replicated the success he had for most of last year during this year, but is still clearly an above-average offensive shortstop. He has had an OBP of over .350 for three straight years now and has cut his SwStr% down severely, all the while being an incredible baserunner. The questions about his glove, though, have turned out to be legitimate. He makes very few plays out of his zone because of his lack of range.

LF – Matt Kemp – Remember when Matt Kemp was arguably the best player in baseball? He is a far cry from that, plus a few pounds. He is still hitting well over .300 with power. His Soft% is very low, as it has been for years. According to FanGraphs, he has a lifetime defensive WAR of -143.3. There are a lot of bad defensive left fielders in baseball currently, notably Robbie Grossman, Yasmany Tomas and anyone in Baltimore, but Kemp may be the worst.

CF – Tyler Naquin – Oh boy. I saw Naquin’s downfall coming before it happened, but he was still overall a productive player offensively last year, if you look at the season as a whole. His wRC+ was 135, albeit clearly unsustainable. Naquin’s BABIP was .411, and he really struggled in the second half. He was a disaster in center field, taking some of the worse routes I have ever seen. He did have a pretty solid arm, but he used it too much because of how many extra-base hits he allowed.

RF – J.D. Martinez – This is what bursting on the scene actually looks like. Martinez has put up jaw-dropping numbers over the past few years, relative to what he had in years past. Martinez’s OPS has been .879 or higher every year since 2013, including in 2017, where he is currently at 1.065. Statistically though, Martinez does not really do anything well in right field. He has been way worse than Jose Bautista since 2016 in fewer innings.

To me, the most evident difference between these two hypothetical squads  is the name recognition. Nearly every player on the offensive-heavy team is a household name, or has some form a popularity. The other team, though, has one, arguably two names that the average fan would know. Name power, though, does not translate to wins. These two teams playing would make for some interesting baseball. The defensive squad would be a treat to watch play together, but it would be tough for them to field the rockets hit at them by Miggy and co. I decided to calculate how the WARs of these players stack up. I calculated the average of their WAR last year (expanded to 150 games) and their WAR this year (again, expanded to 150 games) of those that are playing.

Now what does this tell us? Not a whole lot. Not only is WAR not a perfect stat, but a lot of these are skewed, like Tyler Naquin. I would project Naquin to almost have a negative WAR in 2017, but because he had a lucky 2016, and has not really played in 2017, he has a 3.2 WAR. Conversely, there is someone like Kevin Pillar who is off to not a great start in 2017, but should turn it around, and is punished because his WAR is not that high yet.

I would project the offensive team to win, though. Again, that does not tell us a much. I just picked players who I saw as bad at one part of the game and good at another. Someone else doing this could have picked other players and gotten a much closer result. This defensive team I chose would have a very hard time scoring runs, and while the offensive squad may struggle in the field, notably with range, they have so much firepower that they could be not be slowed down. I would love to see these teams battle, as it would make for some long home runs and exciting plays in the field, but I think these guys are doing just fine on their own teams.

Home runs are up across the league and everyone is searching for reasons. One assumption that would make sense is that with the feedback system of Statcast, the league gets closer together in launch angle since we know that the best hitters have an average LA of around 12-15 degrees and players that are way off that would be incentivized to correct that or else be replaced by other hitters who can do it.

First, let me say that I used at-bat cutoffs since that is what Statcast allows for. I used 250 for 2015 and 2016 and 100 for 2017 to date. That probably changes the values a little. Specifically my average LAs look higher than the usually-cited league averages, probably because bench players who hit weakly are excluded.

Looking at the average LA, the chosen group of hitters went up from 11.7% in 2015 to 15.9% in 2016 (+4.2) to 16.6% (plus another 0.7).

So what did definitely happen was an increase of the launch angles across the board. However, when looking at the standard deviations, the league did not get closer together. SD was 3.6 in 2015, 3.8 in 2016 and 4.2 in 2017. It seems like not everyone is adjusting at the same pace.

So let’s look at different subsets here.

The average of the top 20 went way up from 17.8 in 2015 to 25.1 in 2017 (+7.3). The average of the bottom 20 also went up, from 4.2 to 8.0 (+3.8) degrees. The Q25 went up from 9.4 to 13.9 (+4.5) and the Q75 from 14.3 to 19.2 (+4.9) degrees.

So LA definitely went up across the board in all groups, but if anything it accelerated more at the top than on average or at the bottom. The league is increasing LA but so far it is not getting closer together.