The Mets & the False Dichotomy of Buyers and Sellers

"Do you think the Mets will be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline?"

I've been asked this numerous times by NY fans desperate for a Met-amorphosis for their favorite team.

The answer, Met fans, is: No.

Not no, they will be neither. No, that is not the question. 

It is not the question because it is a false dichotomy. 

Somehow we have alighted on this bent twig of buyers and sellers, as if any team that is not in the playoff chase this season should simply tear itself down and start all over, like it's undressing for bed.

Sell the Free Agents; Keep the Rest
But the Mets are not the Reds, Tigers or White Sox. It is not true that they are doomed to failure for the foreseeable future unless they completely retool. They do not roster star players whose useful years will have passed by the time they next contend.

The Mets have been slowed not so much by poor play this year or lack of talent as by injury. If they can keep their talent on the field, and particularly on the mound, they are eating at the adult table.

The Mets aren't playing for 2017 anymore. They're hopelessly behind in the standings in both the division and Wild Card chase. So they can punt this season. But they need to strengthen themselves for 2018 when they could be a pennant prospect.

Sure, if they can get anything for Curtis Granderson, Lucas Duda, Neal Walker, Addison Reed and Jay Bruce they should go ahead and flip them. Those players are all free agents after this season. Unfortunately, Walker is hobbled, Granderson's tank is empty and Dudas grow on trees. It's hard to see them receiving anything useful in return. Reed and Bruce might generate some return, though the Sandy Alderson would like to re-sign their sterling set-up man/back-up closer.

The Mets are Not Alone
Those kinds of short-term moves make sense, but only if they help the team win next year. The next division winner might very well include the starting staff now in Queens and plenty of the everyday players on the roster.

There are other teams in this situation. The Pirates and Cardinals have sufficient talent to compete next year, with a few tweaks. Neither should jettison every veteran in uniform, the way the Tigers and Royals absolutely must to avoid a decade of obsolescence. If the Blue Jays, Mariners or Rangers conclude that the curtain has likely fallen on their 2017 act, they also need to tiptoe through the trade season.

The point is, it is not simply a matter of choosing between emptying the farm for a late season surge or dumping the veterans with an eye towards 2021. There are plenty of teams that are good enough to win -- next year -- and should try again with the roster they have now, more or less.

Jansen and Kimbrel: Order is Restored

The most amazing relief pitcher in baseball is Kenley Jansen.

The most valuable relief pitcher in baseball is Craig Kimbrel.

 
All is right with the world.

In 30 frames Jansen and his all-World cutter have whiffed 50 batters and walked, hey, where did the walks go? I can't find any walks. Did you see his walks?

No one has ever fanned 36 batters without issuing a free pass. Jansen has blown by that by 33%. He has a K/BB rate of . . . infinity.

Jansen's 0.91 ERA is fueled by a very low Z-contact rate (rate of contact on balls in the strike zone) and a very high O-swing rate (rate of swings at balls outside the strike zone.) Put them together and you get a finisher who is flummoxing the National League. He has allowed 17 hits and recorded 15 saves. 

Whew!

Kimbrel, now in his second season in Boston, might be even more dominating. He leads all relievers in WAR with 2.2 after just 70 games. He's on pace for the best season by WAR of his illustrious career, better than any season as a closer by Mariano Rivera.

In 32 innings, only nine batsmen have hit safely against him. With five walks and 59 strikeouts -- nearly two an inning, Kimbrel is simply overpowering AL batters. His 0.85 ERA and 0.44 WHIP outshine everyone, including Jansen.

For his career, Jansen has a lifetime 2.11 ERA, a 0.87 WHIP and 682 Ks in 438 IP. 

For his career, Kimbrel has a lifetime 1.79 ERA, a 0.91 WHIP and 705 Ks in 433 IP.  After 2017, he will have Cy Young votes in five of his nine seasons. Coming out of the bullpen!

For both pitchers, none of that includes the last 60% of their best year so far.

It's nice to see these two performing at their peak. It makes it fun to think about what would happen if they kept it up for a bunch more years.

Is This All There Is?

Take a look at the standings 70 games into the season. Could it really be that there is almost nothing left to learn?

By a combination of poor prospects entering the season and predictably poor performance, the following teams are essentially eliminated from the playoffs:
San Diego
Cincinnati
Philadelphia
Atlanta
Anaheim
Oakland
White Sox
Royals
Tigers

Thank you for playing. You get the home version of our game as a parting gift.

The Giants appear to be felled by a 26-44 start. They border on mathematical elimination in the NL West and sit 17.5 games out of the Wild Card.

So there is one-third of MLB that can cash it in for the season -- in mid-June.

On the other hand, the Nationals and Astros are on the verge of clinching. The Dodgers too, though theirs is conceivably a Wild Card.

The NL Central is a dumpster fire, but it seems inevitable that the Cubs will cobble together enough pitching to win that flaccid division.

That doesn't leave us much drama in the Senior Circuit. 

Colorado and Arizona have performed surprisingly well, and it's hard to believe they can maintain a .634 and .623 level of play (respectively), but who is going to run them down? The Marlins, Mets, Cardinals or Pirates, 11 or 12 games behind? Even if the Mets got the gang back together for an extended period and played .600 ball the rest of the way, that would get them to 87 wins, a number the Rockies and Dbacks will surpass even if they lose more games than they win going forward.

It appears we have our National League playoff teams mapped out already. By Father's Day.

In the AL, anyone can win the East or snag a Wild Card and maybe Texas or Seattle can challenge them. The Twins will eventually wake up and discover they are the Twins, probably around the time Cleveland blows by them for the AL Central lead.

And that will be that. The Yankees and Red Sox look strong; add the Indians and Astros and you have a five-way battle for the play-in game.

We're 70 games in and so much has been decided. Can that be all there is?

100 Bucks for . . . What???

I haven't paid attention to boxing in decades and to MMA ever. I'm not even clear on the difference between MMA and UFC.

But I don't live under a rock. (I live under suspicion.) So "news" of a Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight has reached me. Probably you too.

It's a big event. A Big Event. This year's Fight of the Century kind of thing. Hundreds of millions of dollars involved. And I've been hearing talk of a $100+ pay-per-view pricetag.

This makes me laugh.

Look, I don't know anything about this fight or these guys, but I do know enough to realize that it is a farce, a money grab, a publicity stunt and nothing else.

Consider some logic for a second:

1. Floyd Mayweather retired two years ago. He's coming out of retirement not to fight a great boxer, but for this sideshow. He's a massive favorite, which means he has nothing to gain except...an immense payday.

2. Mayweather's fights are notoriously dull. They are bad viewing. He's a defensive fighter with few knockouts. His last Fight of the Century against an aging Manny Pacquiao was reputedly a snorefest.

3. Conor McGregor isn't a boxer. Sure, he viciously punches people, but he also kicks and wrestles them. And he won't be allowed to do any of that in this fight. There are 45 boxers with a better chance than McGregor of winning this fight.

4. The run-up to the fight is where the action is. McGregor is a poet with a rapier wit and a mean streak. His scathing psychological carve-ups of opponents is incredibly entertaining. But that's yours for free. You don't need to pay $100 for it.

A lot of things in America boggle my mind. Unlike this, some of them actually matter. Nonetheless, I can't imagine why anyone would pay to see this carnival, or even dedicate an hour to it, much less shell out 100 clams for it. 

P.T. Barnum was a genius.

An Even More Worserer Contract

Recently, I mentioned that Albert Pujols's contract was the worst ever. Big money, small returns, never the player the Angels expected and now declining rapidly with four more brutal years left.

So, a defensible position.

But I neglected to consider a large ursine bamboo eater. Yes, the Big Panda

Pablo Sandoval inked a five-year, $95 million deal with the Red Sox that's nearly half done and he has "contributed" two losses against replacement. 

For $95 million he has made the Sox worse. And he has done it each year.

For three years he has hit, fielded, run the bases and avoided injury about at the level of an American Legion baseball player. Without a contract he would literally be out of professional ball right now.

And there are two more years left on his deal. Plus an option that the Red Sox are sure to pick up. And throw in the garbage.

So that might be the worst contract ever because literally every penny of it, all $95 million, was a waste.

My bad.

Who Is Ryan Schimpf and What the Hell is He Doing?

Ryan Schimpf lives quietly in SoCal anonymity, which is to say he's the third baseman for the San Diego Padres.

You probably haven't heard of him, but he's a revolutionary.

Schimpf last year batted just .217 but earned three wins by smashing 20 home runs in half a season.

It's been the same but more this year. He's hitting .158 with 14 home runs. Those 14 big flies represent more than half his output of hits.

The Launch Angle King
Schimpf is the tip of the spear in the world of launch angles. He has adopted with prejudice the philosophy of swinging hard on an upward plane to produce fly balls that leave the yard. In a world where 11 degrees is an average launch angle, Schimpf is golfing his contact on a 29 degree angle, first in the Majors. That's first, not necessarily best.

At 5'9, 180, and 29 years of age, Ryan Schimpf is neither the biggest nor most pedigreed ballplayer. Aaron Judge, for example, has 11 inches and 100 pounds on him, and Billy Hamilton could beat Schimpf in a race to Schimpf's own hand. Schimpf isn't fast or powerful, so he's pushing all his chips to the middle of the table and betting on an upward swing. It's yielded him two seasons on the MLB roster and 34 home runs in less than a full season's work.

Maybe Hedge His Bets
But Schimpf might want to pull a few of those chips back. The folks at 538 determined that the optimal launch angle for fly balls is about 25 degrees. Anything more yields too many high fly balls and popups.  That's less than Schimpf's average batted ball and it's yielding, well, a lot of high fly balls and popups. Schimpf's 43% fly ball rate is nearly double the league average and pretty certainly more than is ideal.

Suppose he cut his launch angle in half? That would make him Justin Smoak, another guy who might be otherwise employed but for his new approach. Smoak's hit more jacks than Schimpf, and also more of everything else good.

The great philosopher, Mae West, said, "too much of a good thing is . . . wonderful." But in this case, there's a limit to how much a batter should angle his swing. And Ryan Schimpf appears to have found it.

The New Paradigm in Hall of Fame Declines

Albert Pujols, who smacked the 600th home run of his Hall of Fame career this week, may be a pioneer in career decline.

You probably remember the sad declines of some great players. Mickey Mantle nearly unable to walk. Willie Mays a pathetic shadow of himself. Steve Carlton 6-15, 6.40 with as many walks as strikeouts.

But those guys hung on a year or two too long. They wanted to play. They didn't know anything else.

Pujols's performance has diminished seven of the last eight seasons. He  became a below average player last year and has sunk to replacement level this year. By next season, his 18th, he will be unrosterable.

But he will be rostered. The Angels inked him to one of the worst contracts of all time, a 10-year, $240 million deal at age 31.

Pujols will have four more years of payments after this, untenable, season.

Why Keep Playing? 114 Million Reasons
There is no reason but money for Pujols to stay on. He will not reach homer number 700. He will suffer injury. He will lower his lifetime batting average, now just eight points clear of .300, and his OBP, which has fallen below .400.

If Prince Albert were to walk away at the conclusion of this campaign, he would leave $114 million on the table. That he's already cashed a Powerball ticket -- $230 million over his career -- does not make it any more palatable to turn down $114 million doing what you love, even if you never get out of the dugout.

It is possible, depending on whether the Angels simply pay him off and turn him into a roving ambassador, that Pujols will don the uniform for five full seasons while contributing negatively to Anaheim's pennant thrust. 

That is an inner circle Hall of Fame decline. No one has quite done that.

Cabrera and Wright Too
But it may become the new norm, at least for a while. Miguel Cabrera has stumbled to below average offense so far this year. With six more years and $184 million guaranteed on his contract after 2017, he could also become a massive albatross in Detroit.

The Mets suffer the same ignominy with David Wright, who can't even get on the field. Including 2017, Wright has four seasons of guaranteed payment, worth $67 million to him. For $60 million from 2015-2017 he has offered the Mets a nice smile and three-tenths of a win.

Teams may have learned not to sign these ridiculous, backloaded contracts anymore. We saw what Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion had to settle for this winter. 

For a few more years though, some former great players will limp up to the plate and flail fecklessly at fastballs simply because they are getting paid for past deeds.

How To Add 150 Points of OPS Overnight

Prior to Tuesday night, Reds second baseman Scooter Gennett was hitting .270/.308/.450 with three homers and 20 RBIs. He had produced 0.4 WAR in 46 games this season. 

One day later, he stands at .302/336/.578 with seven homers and 30 RBIs. He is now a well-above-average hitter and has produced 1.2 WAR in 47 games.

That's what a four-homer, five-for-five game will do for a slappy utility player.

By the way, the four-homer game is rarer yet than a perfect game, hitting for the cycle or Scott Kazmir DL stints. The list of four-homer performers (17 of them) includes:

Lou Gehrig,
Gil Hodges,
Joe Adcock,
Rocky Colavito,
Willie Mays,
Mike Schmidt,
Bob Horner,
Shawn Green,
Carlos Delgado,
Josh Hamilton.

And now Scooter Gennett.

The smallest number of lifetime homers among the previous 16 is Bobby Lowe's 71. He played for the Boston Beaneaters. 

Gennett is now at 42.

Scooter Gennett. 

Get that launch angle up, friends.

Is There Fire Where There's Smoak?

It might have escaped your attention that MLB bust Justin Smoak, a native of Goose Creek, SC, 20 miles from the source of these words, is enjoying a career 1/3rd of a year in his eighth season.

A spare part most of his career, he was one tooth in the gear the Blue Jays hoped would offset the power output of departed Edwin Encarnacion.

Now Smoak is doing it all by himself. A career .223 hitter, he's delivering .283/.348/.550 with 14 blasts and out-slugging not only Encarnacion (.230 with 10 homers) but also any version of Justin Smoak we've ever seen.

With an OPS 130 points higher than his next best season's, Smoak has, in just the first 50 games of 2017, doubled his lifetime WAR. And he's doing it in a different way than the rest of the sport.

The buzzword today in MLB is launch angle -- swing up so that when you make contact you have a chance at extra bases. It sacrifices some BA and OBP for power. But that was already Justin Smoak's career modus operandi, and while it's kept him in The Show, his sun may have been setting. What has changed for Smoak is the quantity of his upward contact: he's fanning three percent less than league average, compared to six percent more in his previous seven years.

That might not seem like much, but take my word for it, it's the difference between .223 and .283, between replacement-level player and starting first baseman. And the reason seems to be that he's laying off breaking balls outside the strike zone. It's a small adjustment, but the kind that has given us Eric Thames and Aaron Judge and, now, Justin Smoak. So while we're comparing 50 games to 3000 previous trips to the plate, it might be sustainable.

That would be Smoak without the mirrors, and that would be a nice career boost for a guy who seemed headed back to Goose Creek.

Holding Court on the Best Rookie Season

In 1975, rookie Fred Lynn took the American League by storm, earning a Rookie of the Year award and capturing the MVP along with it. He hit a league leading 47 doubles along with seven triples and 21 homers, batting .331/.401/.566 to lead the AL in OPS and won a Gold Glove in center field. His 7.4 WAR was second best among position players that year (behind Rod Carew.)

If it wasn't the greatest rookie season for a position player of all time, it's on the list. You might prefer Ichiro's "rookie" season in 2001 when he hit .350, stole 56 bases and earned 7.7 WAR or Ted Williams's 1939, when he blasted 86 XBH and compiled a .436 OBP en route to 6.7 WAR. Or perhaps you're partial to Albert Pujols and his 88 XBH, .403 OBP and 6.6 WAR that got lost in the drama of 2001.

(It's worth pointing out that Mike Trout's 20-year-old season blows all of these away, but he squandered his rookie status with 123 at-bats at age 19.)

Whatever your preference, it might all soon be moot. If Aaron Judge were to keep this up, he would lead the majors with 57 homers and 136 runs scored. His .326/.433/.691 and exemplary defense in right would be worth 10.5 WAR. In the absence of Trout's league-leading everything else, Judge is the top candidate for both Rookie of the Year and MVP.

The Signs Are Good for More
Can Judge keep this up? No one knows the answer, of course, not even Aaron Judge. We do know that he has passed the first adjustment test. The mammoth right-hander's May was every bit as intimidating as his April and he has shown improved plate discipline over his Minor League career. He's also performing this way despite striking out a jabillion times -- he's on pace for 200 Ks -- but also 100 walks. 

By definition, it's not likely the 25-year-old is quite this, because no one has ever been quite this his freshman season. But it's also quite likely he is something. After all, consider that not-too-shabby list above. If Judge performs at half this rate the rest of the way he's still nearly a seven-win player with close to 40 home runs. 

You've read and heard all the Judge puns, but they miss the point. This guy might just be Aaron.

Three Warm Takes

Over his career, Ben Revere has played 784 games, batted over .290 four out of six full seasons and hit 9 home runs.

J.D. Martinez has hit 8 home runs in his first 17 games of '17. He's batting under .290.

Martinez has produced almost as much offensive WAR (0.9) in those 17 games as Revere has produced since Opening Day 2014 (1.1).

------------------------------

Mike Trout made all of baseball cry when he tore a ligament in his thumb this past weekend. He's going to have surgery and miss two months. 

So here's the question that will keep us interested this season: can Trout miss two full months of the season and still lead the league in WAR? The two guys closest behind him, Ervin Santana and Aaron Judge, aren't going to keep this up.

------------------------------

Starting soon we will have Major League Baseball without Mike Trout or Bryce Harper. Almost makes me want to watch the Stanley Cup Finals.

The Dodgers Are All About the Playoffs

The Dodgers are acting like an NBA team this year, like the Cavs or Warriors or Spurs. In the NBA, the season is long and meaningless and teams have sewn up spots halfway through the schedule. In baseball, it's not so cut and dried a) because the distribution of talent is not nearly as lopsided and b) because making the playoffs is significantly more difficult and fraught with challenges.

Still the Dodgers have won their division and secured a playoff spot each of the last four years, but they've been stymied on the way to the World Series. A big part of that has been the relative ineffectiveness of all-World starter Clayton Kershaw in the post-season. Could he just be gassed by season's end?

It may be that Dodger brass thinks so. This year, with help from the truncated 7-day and 10-day Disabled List, something new is going on with the Chavez Ravine pitching rotation. Combining a quick hook (average start - 87 pitches) with liberal use of the DL, the team is stashing pitchers between starts and employing six starting arms. Of their first 46 games, Dodgers pitchers had 34 times rested more than four days between starts.

This puts more stress on the relief corps, but again, creative use of the DL can help spell relievers while rostering their temporary replacements. There has never been, and doesn't appear to be now, much patrolling by MLB of DL use.

You might think of this as prophylactic employment of the DL. Rich Hill, Kenta Maeda and Alex Wood have had their injury issues, so limiting their usage by shuttling them back and forth is a clever way of protecting their health.

The purpose of this would seem to be keeping arms fresh for a long playoff run, which can last 21 additional games for a team that gets to the World Series. And frankly, that makes sense, because for the Dodgers, just as for the Cavs and Warriors, it's not a successful season unless they get to the championship series.

Maybe the Snakes Are Better Than We Thought? Nah.

Entering 2017, one could be forgiven for looking kindly upon the chances of the team in Phoenix, anchored as it is by some real talent. Zack Greinke is a true rotation ace. Paul Goldschmidt is a quiet superstar -- maybe the best first baseman in the game. A.J. Pollack and Jake Lamb are stars and David Peralta is another good outfielder.

Unfortunately for the Diamondbacks, the measure of a team isn't its cleanup hitter or its ace, but its  #8 hitter, its fourth starter and its set-up guy. Thanks in large part to the disastrous front office tenure of Tony LaRussa and Dave Stewart, the Dbacks' cupboard is bare beyond those players named.

Coming into the season, the Dbacks were projected to field among the worst players in the game at catcher, second base, shortstop, and left field.  Add to that the worst bullpen in the Majors, and you have too much for Zack Greinke, Paul Goldschmidt, Jake Lamb and A.J. Pollack to overcome.

Well, we're 46 games into the season and Arizona has a .587 winning percentage, "on pace" for a 95-win campaign. The reason, in its entirety, is that players at the above-mentioned positions have performed better than league average. When you're expected to be the worst team in the league at your position, and instead your 12th or 13th our of 30, that's a big improvement.

And maybe the team is better than we thought they were. Maybe the kindly lookers were right about them. But probably not.

New research by Jeff Sullivan at Fangraphs shows that even though pre-season analytical projections don't have much of a track record, they are more than twice as predictive of a team's performance after Game 50 as a team's performance in the first 50 games of the season is. In other words, the first 50 games can be very deceptive and bear very little relationship to how good a team actually is.


What 's that telling us about the Diamondbacks? It's telling us to take them with a grain of salt. In fact, consider every team's start the same way. If you're a fan of the Giants, Mets and Blue Jays, that's good news. If you like the Brewers, Rockies and Twins, it's not so much.

Just remember one thing: the first 50 games do count. So if the Dbacks are 10 game over .500 and play a mere .500 the rest of the way, they will end the season at 86-76. And that could get them into the Wild Card.

More Stuff About Mike Trout You're Totally Sick Of

Yeah, sorry, this is another Mike Trout episode.  Guy is so freakin' amazing, it's hard not to sing odes to him.

As of May 22, he's hitting .350/.466/.757 with 14 home runs this season. He leads the league in OBP, SLG, OPS and, well, what else you got? He's "on pace" for 57-137-.350 with 36 steals. Just another year.

You know the phenomenon that has been Eric Thames? He's put up unprecedented numbers, almost as awesome as Trout's. Trout has a higher batting average, on base average, slugging percentage, OPS, home runs, RBIs, steals and well, everything but runs scored and air time.

Trout is now the youngest player ever to 150 homers and 150 steals. Not exactly a surprise, right?

He's jumped to fourth on the Angels' home run chart -- after five and a half years.

He's got more lifetime WAR, 52, than Lou Brock, Kirby Puckett and Jim Rice. They're in the Hall of Fame, you know.

He's 9th on the active list for WAR in only his sixth full season. The next player under age 26 is Manny Machado...at 54th. Trout has three times Bryce Harper's WAR.

How Hall of Fame is Trout? He's already over the "Black Ink" measuring tool for an average Hall of Famer. Black ink measure the number of categories a player leads his league in. Trout is at 28.

He's at 98 on Bill James' Hall of Fame monitor, where 100 is the Hall standard. He has already out-earned the average HOF center fielder in peak WAR value. 

That's Trout's first 851 games. If he repeats this performance over his next 851 games, he'll have 104 WAR, more than Joe Morgan, Jimmy Foxx, Eddie Matthews, Cal Ripken and George Brett. And he'd be 30.

Life doesn't work that way, of course. Players can get hurt, exploited, diverted or old. Diving into second base ahead of a catcher's throw 30 times in a season takes its toll. So we'll see.

But we've already seen. Mike Trout is the best ever at this point. Sorry, I just had to point it out again.

Baseball's Golden Age

For some reason, and unlike any other sport, baseball's fans love to denigrate the game and pine for days of yore when everything was better.

We hear constantly about how baseball is too slow, how its popularity is declining, how the umps are all inept, how the playoffs are all wrong and so on.

Although I agree that some changes could be made to goose the pace of games, in every other respect these complaints are unwarranted. More people attend a month of MLB games than the entire NFL schedule. Instant replay has demonstrated how incredibly close many calls are in all sports. Baseball's playoff format might be the best of any major American sport's given the utter ineptitude of the NBA and NHL to fashion a coherent tournament.

(At the risk of beating a long since buried and mourned horse, and of drifting off on a tangent, the NBA, after three desultory rounds of their tournament, is a month later careening to a finals match-up that any casual follower could have predicted last June. In the NHL, one of the conference finalists, the one going home today with a chance to claim a spot in the championship series, lost as many games as it won this season and qualified 16th for the playoffs.)

The Cubs and Red Sox Have Won the World Series, For Godsakes
All of which flooded into my head recently when a petitioner in a Fangraphs chat asked the writer to identify the best era in baseball history. My immediate reaction was, right now! (To his credit, the writer agreed.)

Consider the last 16 years in the Majors. Eleven different teams have won the World Series, and of the three teams that have repeated, one of them hadn't won a Series in 87 years, another in 56. Eight of the winners claimed their first ever title (Diamondbacks, White Sox, Angles) or won for the first time in 28+ years (Giants, Red Sox, Phillies, Royals and Cubs.) Compare that to the often-named Golden Age, when the hardware never moved from The Bronx. Yawn.

It's far beyond that, of course. We've never seen an era of young talent, particularly at the keystone and shortstop positions. Rougned Odor might not even qualify among the game's top 10 second baseman, except when rating right crosses. Yet he slugged 33 home runs last year. A list of the 10 best shortstops includes one player over 29 (30-year-old Brandon Crawford). And we haven't even mentioned the historic starts of Kris Bryant, Manny Machado, Bryce Harper and the greatest 25-year-old in baseball history. 

Exit Velocity and Launch Angles
You like the guys who bring the heat instead? Basically every 100 mph pitch ever thrown in MLB games has been recorded this decade. We know how fast pitches go because we know more about the game than we could ever have thought to ask two decades ago, thanks to Statcast and advanced baseball analytics.

The second Wild Card, the trade deadline and the concept of the total teardown have created interest in the game across America, even among fan bases rooting for teams bumbling their way to triple-digit losses. You want to get closer to the game? You can tweet to your favorite player and he might answer you. Who needs an autograph?

And don't forget the stadiums. There has never been a ballpark like PNC Park, Camden Yards or AT&T, and we still have Fenway and Wrigley. The game is 150 years old and we're seeing things we've never seen before. It's an amazing time.

You're Living In It
I'm sorry to disappoint you, but baseball has not only never been better, it's never been close. The best era for baseball -- it's today.

And the best news is, it's fixing to be tomorrow too.

My Favorite Player This Year is J.D. Martinez

Tigers outfielder J.D. Martinez is pummeling the ball like no one else and he's somehow flying under the radar.

We're now in game number 40-something and Martinez has walked 4.5 times as often as he's struck out. He's batting .500 and nearly two-thirds of his hits have been home runs.

That gives him an OPS of 2.118. Babe Ruth's best was 1.379.

Why is no one paying attention?

Is it because he's not in the NY or LA markets?

Is it because of his team's mediocrity?

Is it discrimination against Latinos?

Is it because he's played in six games?

Maybe that's it. 25 plate appearances.

Gotcha.

What Eric Thames Figured Out

 You might be surprised to know that Eric Thames isn't any better at slugging than he was when he began his career.

It's true. Thames arrived in the Big Leagues in 2011 with plenty of power. The muscular 210-pounder slammed 30 home runs in his only full Minor League season at Double-A and went yard 12 times in half a season at the Big League level the following year.

Sometimes it's what you don't do that makes you better. Thames figured out in Korea that he had to stop diving after pitches out of the zone. Korean hurlers don't throw as fast, so they have to use location to get batters out. Once Thames learned patience overseas he began swatting like no others.

Thames's primary improvement from his pre-Korea days is his ability to scoff at the bad stuff and wait for a pitch he could drive. Thames has the 11th best rate of laying off pitches outside the strike zone -- known as O-swing rate -- at 20.8%. That compares to 36.8% in 2011 before he headed east.

It's more testament to the fact that the biggest, strongest and most athletic ball players are not necessarily the best hitters. Combine athletic ability with focus, maturity and patience and you get a star from material that yielded marginal Major Leaguer on talent alone.

I Want My Team to Trade for Matt Harvey Right Now

Matt Harvey is a mess. You may have noticed. The Dark Knight appears to have struck midnight and turned into a pumpkin. So, of course, I want him for my team.

Following stellar freshman and sophomore half-seasons for the Mets, a visit to Dr. Andrews in 2015 and then a bounce-back junior year, Harvey stood at 25-18, 2.53 with 449 strikeouts and just 94 walks in 427 innings heading into last season. He lived off 98 mph heat, two wicked secondary pitches, and praise from hitters and former pitchers alike. His future seemed assured

But the unsettling stirrings were already there, even beyond the serious health issue. Harvey and his agent, Darth Vader Scott Boras, had complained about overuse heading into the playoffs after his TJ surgery, a complaint they later backed down from. Then 2016 turned into a disaster, with his fastball cooling to 92-93, his ERA ballooning to 4.86 and an eventual diagnosis of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.

Get Rid of the Bum
Coming into 2017, no one knew what to expect. With less heat, Harvey could no longer simply overpower hitters. Questions remained about whether he could retire batters with a different pitching style than the fastball-first repertoire that got him there. And then last weekend, when Harvey got sauced and missed a game, then feigned self-righteousness and threatened to appeal the resulting suspension. He eventually backed down and acknowledged his immaturity.

Met fans would like to be rid of Matt Harvey, but the team labors in the real world. In that place, Harvey's value is at its lowest point, given his lack of performance, character and health. Although he has regained some of his high heat, the early results this season, following last year's travails, suggest this knight will never regain his armor.

So what is Matt Harvey at this point? Tantalizing potential and nothing more.

The problem for Met brass is this: every other team knows all this, decreasing Harvey's trade value to near-nothing With team control ending after next season, even a mediocre Harvey will soon get much more expensive. If Sandy Alderson wants to rid the franchise of a perceived cancer, he has no choice but to trade him for an empty gesture.

Give Me A Shot at the Knight
The Mets really have no choice but to hang onto Harvey and see what he can offer. Even if he's not the Cy Young candidate he appeared on his way to becoming, league-average starters have tremendous value, particularly to a team with Wild Card aspirations and a disintegrating rotation. But if they decide to dump him, I want my team to snag him.

The reason is that it won't take much to secure this lottery ticket with a chance of hitting. Maybe the payoff won't be the mega jackpot, but with so little invested, even a small payoff is a positive development. Matt Harvey has already been successful in the Majors, which puts him ahead of any  prospect my team would have to relinquish.

The False Testimony of Derek Jeter

Oh how we have missed Derek Jeter. We've managed to survive two years and 35 games without him, (Thank God for the Cubs!) during which time the official sculptor of the New York Yankees has been busy carving his likeness onto a plaque for unveiling this weekend.

So the tributes will flow and the accolades will fill the air. To the sold-out crowd's delight, Jeter's spirit magic will enter The Stadium as they retire his number 2 and his aura will ascend to heaven. Already, sports shows that treat baseball like gum on their sneaker bottom have dedicated segments to his monumental character and leadership. 

He Should Be President
Yes, the same America that smiled upon the character and leadership of Donald Trump is transfixed by those attributes in Derek Jeter. But I'm sure that will not give the crowd, or the mesmerized sports media, a moment's pause. 

Just to be clear, I don't doubt that Jeter is a great guy with strong character and outstanding leadership skills. It's just that he has become the vessel into which we have poured all our appreciation for leadership in sports. There were literally dozens of athletes who shared these characteristics during Jeter's career -- maybe more. He's the only one we celebrated at all, much less continuously at full voice for 20 years.

The Perstistence of an Overblown Narrative
I want to relate a story that the fine baseball writer Buster Olney is telling this week as testimony to Jeter's great character.  Olney remembers a game in 1998 in which a popup fell between fielders, prompting pitcher David Wells to react with frustration. Olney received word that young Jeter had chewed out Wells in the clubhouse, demanding that he show his teammates respect. Olney asked Jeter about it and Jeter denied it vociferously. Within a minute Olney discovered that in fact it was quite the tongue-lashing. 

Olney tells this story as an encomium to Jeter's great character -- that he would take the initiative to set the tone for his team, but then reject efforts to bestow credit upon him. Fine, spin it that way if you like. What I heard was that Jeter lied to Olney's face. Imagine the umbrage Olney would have taken had any other ballplayer lied so blatantly to him.

In fact, what happened there is just confirmation bias piling up more evidence for the narrative that has engulfed the sporting public. Imagine all the alternative scenarios and ask yourself if Olney would have drawn any different conclusion:

1. Jeter deflects question saying what happens in the clubhouse stays among the players.
Conclusion: Jeter is a great team leader who refuses to take credit.

2. Jeter refuses to talk about it.
Conclusion: Jeter is a great team leader who refuses to take credit.

3. Jeter admits there was a discussion but plays it down.
 Conclusion: Jeter is a great team leader who is reluctant to take credit.

4. Jeter defends his actions and says in no uncertain terms that the team won't tolerate disrespect.
Conclusion: Jeter is a great team leader who is setting the tone for a championship team.
 
You see, there is no scenario in which Olney doesn't retell this story as a tribute to Jeter. In fact, Jeter chose the least magnanimous option -- lying through his teeth. But when the narrative of Jeter as the Mother Teresa of horsehide has as much momentum as it has had for years, it's very difficult to avoid getting caught up in it.

But I've managed.

From Superstar to Bench Warmer: Andrew McCutchen's Demise

Remember Dale Murphy, the Braves' star center fielder who stood atop the baseball mountain from 1982 to 1987? He hit 45% better than average, smashed 36 homers a year, won five Gold Gloves and two MVPs, and was headed to Cooperstown.

Then, at age 32, he turned into a pumpkin. In his last six seasons, he hit just .234/.307/.396 with just 88 homers. He stole the same number of bases in those six seasons as he had in '87 alone (16) but was caught four more times (10). He moved to right field as his glove got ragged and he never sniffed the Hall.

The same thing appears to have happened to Andrew McCutchen, except in a much shorter period of time. Year before last, he was a certified superstar, a five-tool highlight reel and a perennial top 5 MVP candidate. He hit .313/.404/.523 for the four years corresponding with his age 25-28 seasons, while commanding center field and delivering 26 WAR. He won the MVP in 2013 and was even better in '14. The woebegone Pirates made the playoffs.

McCutchen wasn't the same last year, at age 29, and the whispers began. His fielding was, by all accounts, no longer tolerable in center. His hitting waned to .259/.336/.430, below average for an outfielder. And the Bucs stayed home in October.

Most confoundingly, there didn't seem to be any underlying injury to blame for the slippage. Pitchers just seemed to be able to get him out. Or maybe he was just hiding something.

So 2017 has bloomed with Cutch in right field. His fielding has ticked up so far. And his hitting has ticked further down. Now it's early, but there's no sign of the guy who, just two years ago, finished fifth in MVP balloting. He's hitting .235/.321/.435, almost all of it against lefties.

So now the talk has begun: is Cutch a platoon player? Is he a fourth outfielder? Was that it? He's 30 years old!

It's only early May and McCutchen might bounce back to his old form. But every day he's just ordinary is another piece of data suggesting that's what he now is. It's a mighty, and mighty quick, fall for a guy who was the face of the game just yesterday.