Kuzul

Jake Arrieta is trying to author a worthy follow-up to a Cy Young-winning season, and he’s doing it on a Chicago Cubs team that’s trying to end a 108-year championship drought.

Nobody ever said accomplishing either task would be easy.

After losing the first two games of a four-game series against the New York Mets, the Cubs turned to Arrieta on Saturday hoping he would at least give them a chance to escape Citi Field with a split. Instead, Arrieta kicked things off with a 35-pitch first inning that included a two-run homer by Neil Walker, and ultimately lasted just five and one-third in a 4-3 loss.

With that, Arrieta turned a meager two-start skid into a slightly more concerning three-start skid:

A 5.96 ERA over three starts doesn’t constitute a disaster, but it’s still jarring once you remember this is the same guy who posted a 1.77 ERA last season. And for any pitcher, a 14-11 strikeout-to-walk ratio over three starts is…not good.

The Cubs have other problems—and we’ll get to those—but this is one they particularly don’t want to deal with. It’s supposed to be Easy Win Day when Arrieta pitches. It hasn’t been recently, and that obviously raises the question of what’s wrong.

Arrieta appears to be OK physically. Brooks Baseball can show his arm slot has been reasonably consistent all year. The same goes for his velocity. And though he didn’t have his best stuff against the Mets, he did sit around 94 mph with his sinker and climbed as high as 95.6 mph

As that K/BB ratio suggests, Arrieta’s bigger problem has been execution. To an extent, this isn’t just a blip on the radar.

Arrieta’s overall strike percentage is down from 65.2 in 2015 to 63.2 in 2016. A primary issue has been his command of his sinker. Going into Saturday, he was putting a smaller percentage of his sinkers in the strike zone than he was in 2015:

• 2015: 55.1 percent
• 2016: 51.2 percent

These aren’t perfectly clear windows into what’s up with Arrieta’s command. But they back up what the eye test has been saying all along: relative to last year’s overwhelmingly great performance, Arrieta hasn’t been as sharp in 2016.

But before we go turning a molehill into a mountain, here’s a good point from Ryan M. Spaeder:

Arrieta’s ERA was 1.74 before he hit this rough patch, but a 2.33 ERA is still pretty darn good. And with 115 strikeouts in 108.1 innings pitched, he hasn’t needed a ton of help from the baseball gods to get his ERA low. He’s still slinging some nasty stuff.

As for Arrieta’s command of that stuff, at least he’s aware he can’t keep doing the same things and expect different results.

“It’s a game of adjustments,” Arrieta said after the St. Louis Cardinals beat him June 22, per Carrie Muskat of MLB.com. “I have to take it in stride and learn from it and go back to work tomorrow and combat the things that teams have done against me recently. It’s an easy fix. I think the byproduct will be very positive.”

So far, it hasn’t been an easy fix. But in light of what Arrieta did last season and what he’s done this season even despite some issues, he’s more than deserving of the benefit of the doubt.

In the realm of Cubs-related issues, the big picture is more concerning than what’s going on with Arrieta. They’ve won only four of their last 13 games, with three of those wins coming against the lowly Cincinnati Reds. Go back even further, and they’re now just 26-23 since getting out to that incredible 25-6 start.

Such is life when flaws begin to show themselves. And right now, the skipper is well aware of the one that’s plaguing his offense.

“For the most part, we were really good this April at making contact,” Joe Maddon said after Thursday’s 4-3 loss, per Jesse Rogers of ESPN.com. “May was not as kind, June we’re falling backwards. We have to get back to where we were in April. That’s my biggest concern.”

Making contact was a problem last year, as the Cubs offense led baseball with a 24.5 strikeout percentage. This year, that problem has indeed caught up to them after hiding in April. From April to May to June, the Cubs’ strikeout rate has risen from 19.0 to 21.8 to 24.3. They now already have 23 whiffs in two games in July.

Meanwhile, the Cubs are also having issues with their bullpen. Its ERA has gone from 2.72 in April to 3.80 in May to 3.96 in June. They may be getting more antsy about this, as George A. King III of the New York Post recently reported the Cubs had dispatched three scouts to observe the New York Yankees‘ trio of Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman.

Things have certainly changed since that 25-6 start. Around then, it was hard to argue with FanGraphs’ Dave Cameron’s notion that the Cubs looked like a perfect baseball team. But looking back now, it was obviously too good to be true.

However, a state of panic is not advised.

The Cubs offense may be racking up the whiffs, but whiffs didn’t stop it from being dangerous last year. So it goes in 2016. As of this moment, the Cubs still sit atop the National League with 420 runs scored. With an OPS in June (.792) that was much like their OPS in April (.796), they’re also not necessarily trending backward. And if Jason Heyward gets going (and he should), this offense will find another gear.

The Cubs’ pitching could also be in worse shape. This is mainly because their starters have yet to post an ERA over 3.00 in any month. With Arrieta likely to be fine in the long run, only Jason Hammel’s history of slow finishes is worth worrying about.

And as much as everyone is freaking out about the club’s bullpen, the last month could have been worse. Remove Adam Warren, Justin Grimm and Joel Peralta from the equation, and Cubs relievers pitched to a 2.66 ERA with 60 strikeouts in 61 innings. Thanks mainly to strong work from Hector Rondon, Pedro Strop and Trevor Cahill, the core of the bullpen held strong.

The Cubs may no longer be perfect, but their downfall hasn’t taken them from “perfect” to “bad.” They’re still a formidable team. In the parlance of our times, all that’s happening now is them going through some [stuff].

It’s not pretty, but it probably won’t be permanent.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Remember when the Cavaliers were the hottest act in Cleveland? You know, what with their winning the NBA Finals and snapping the city’s 52-year championship drought?

Well, they had their time. Now it’s the Indians’ turn, and you can practically hear them telling the Cavs, “Anything you can do, I can do better.”

The Tribe went into Friday’s afternoon tilt at the Toronto Blue Jays having won 13 games in a row. That afternoon matchup gradually turned into an evening contest, as the Indians and Blue Jays waged a battle that lasted more than six hours and into the 19th inning.

That was when, in the top of the inning, Carlos Santana punched every gut in the Rogers Centre with a solo home run that snapped a 1-1 tie. Behold:

After that, Trevor Bauer finished off a five-inning scoreless appearance out of the bullpen to preserve a 2-1 win. It may only be one win for two games’ worth of baseball, but they’ll take it.

“I guess if you’re going to set a record, you might as well do it the hard way,” said Bauer afterward, via Jordan Bastian of MLB.com.

At any rate, that’s 14 in a row for the Indians and a 49-30 record overall. They lead the AL Central by seven games over the defending champion Kansas City Royals. 

In times like these, the obligatory warning is that just as things are never as bad as they seem during a losing streak, things are never as good as they seem during a winning streak. Cleveland is not going to win its final 83 games. Even asking the Indians to stay on a 100-win pace is asking a lot.

But now, I shall follow that obligatory warning with a fun fact. As of Friday morning, these were the American League teams with the best odds of winning the 2016 World Series at Baseball Prospectus:

1. Cleveland Indians: 20.0%
2. Texas Rangers: 7.5%
3. Boston Red Sox: 6.2%

You see how the Tribe were on top? You see how it wasn’t even close? This may come off like a bold stance on the part of BP’s calculations, and perhaps an overreaction to the club’s winning streak.

Or, it could just be a plain ol’ slice of truth.

One of the older cliches in the book claims that pitching and defense (AKA “run prevention”) win championships. It’s an idea that can (and has) been put to the test, but there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence in favor of it. The San Francisco Giants have based their recent dynasty around run prevention. Likewise, the Royals relied heavily on run prevention in going to back-to-back World Series.

This should be music to the ears of the Indians. Run prevention is something they not only do better than other AL club, but way better. They entered Friday allowing only 3.68 runs per game, putting them comfortably ahead of the Houston Astros at 4.22 per game.

The lion’s share of the credit goes to Cleveland’s starting rotation, which closer Cody Allen called “the backbone of the team” in speaking to Bastian. One measure rated Cleveland’s rotation as the AL’s best last year, and it’s now leaving little doubt that it deserves that honor in 2016. The 3.48 ERA owned by Tribe starters is the best in the AL.

This isn’t too surprising. Many rated Cleveland’s rotation as one of the best in baseball coming into the year. Christina Kahrl of MLB.com posited it might even be the best, mainly because of the three-headed ace monster of Corey Kluber, Danny Salazar and Carlos Carrasco.

And so far, they’re performing just as well, if not better, than their 2015 selves:

Anyone could have seen this coming. What was harder to see coming is Bauer making the case that Cleveland’s Big Three is actually a Big Four. He’s breaking out with a 3.02 ERA in 95.1 innings. After years of frustrating results, the 2011 No. 3 pick looks like a completely different pitcher, as August Fagerstrom of FanGraphs wrote.

Meanwhile, there’s Josh Tomlin at the back end. Just your garden-variety No. 5 starter with a 3.21 ERA. No biggie.

The work being done by Cleveland’s rotation might be half the explanation for why the club is so excellent at preventing runs. But Allen, Jeff Manship, Dan Otero and the rest of a bullpen with a 3.05 ERA (No. 2 in the AL) deserves its credit as well.

Catching the ball is also important. And with Francisco Lindor and Jason Kipnis holding it down up the middle, Baseball Prospectus’ defensive efficiency metric shows the Indians convert batted balls into outs better than any team in the AL:

1. Indians: .726
2. Rangers: .718
3. Blue Jays: .716

All this is basically the long way of agreeing with what Tom Ley of Deadspin said in a more straightforward fashion: “Nobody can beat the Indians because nobody can hit them.” From their rotation to their bullpen to their defense, they’re a run-prevention nightmare.

That makes for a pretty large margin for error for an offense that’s in good-not-great territory. But that’s not to say Cleveland’s lineup is a pushover. It offers a good mix of power and speed. The Indians have slugged more home runs (100) than the mighty Red Sox offense and have swiped more bases (63) than every AL team except the Astros. 

It’s hard to call the Indians the best team in the American League. They look the part right now, but the obligatory warning above must be kept in mind. Plus, the Rangers and Baltimore Orioles are awfully good in their own right.

What’s clear now, and what should remain clear going forward, is that the Indians are one of those teams nobody will want to face in October. The way they prevent runs, they wouldn’t need to score many of their own to deliver another championship to Cleveland.

That would make them guilty of stealing the Cavaliers’ thunder. But from the sound of things, a kinda-sorta important Cavalier is OK with that:

It’s good to be the king. It’s also good to have the king’s blessing.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The votes are in, and now we wait for the official word on who’s invited to the 2016 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Perhaps there will be some surprises.

Unless, of course, all our predictions come true.

It’s been a couple of weeks since our last set of predictions for the 34-man rosters for the American League and National League All-Stars. Things have changed since then. The fan vote closed Thursday night, and the arrival of July means the grand reveal of the rosters (July 5) and the Midsummer Classic itself (July 12) are just about here.

Like last time, the idea is not to propose which players should be All-Stars. It’s to guess who the fans—whose voting patterns have gotten frequent updates—the players and AL manager Ned Yost and NL manager Terry Collins will choose to be in uniform at Petco Park on July 12. There’s also the final vote, which is a total shot in the dark at this juncture.

Whatever the case, the following is certainly a who’s who of excellent ballplayers. Read on and enjoy!

Begin Slideshow

It’s happening a year later than they would have liked, but Wil Myers has become a star for the San Diego Padres in 2016.

Given the state of things in San Diego, though, all this does is raise the question of when Myers will be starring on a different team.

The Padres are not only terrible, but are clearly tanking. Their big effort to strike it big in 2015 ended in failure, and they didn’t bother to keep the dream alive. The departures of Ian Kennedy, Justin Upton and Craig Kimbrel over the winter signaled the start of a full-on rebuild.

Now the Padres are in last place in the NL West at 33-45, and their rebuild has already led to James Shields’ exit via the trade market. If they were willing to get what they could for Shields while they could, their best trade chip may indeed be next.

That’s Myers, of course. The 25-year-old has an .874 OPS and a career-high 18 home runs through 76 games. Throw in 11 stolen bases and strong defense, and you get a guy Baseball-Reference.com WAR and FanGraphs WAR agreed was an elite first baseman entering play Tuesday:

This is a departure from what Myers did the last two years. In 2014 with the Tampa Bay Rays and in 2015 with the Padres, he OPS’d just .675 with 14 home runs across 147 games. He seemed to be damaged goods, hurting his right wrist in 2014 and then having surgery on his left wrist in 2015.

However, this is also the kind of player Myers teased he could be when he won American League Rookie of the Year in 2013. He had an .831 OPS and 13 homers in only 88 games that year, numbers that were in tune with what he did as Baseball America‘s Minor League Player of the Year in 2012.

Regaining his health always had to be Myers’ first step toward reclaiming his former glory. Not surprisingly, he’s taken that step. He was optimistic in an interview with Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune just before Opening Day and was singing the same tune a few weeks later, according to Dennis Lin, also of the Union-Tribune:

One of the biggest things is really finding that feel and finding what it was like to be healthy and be good at the same time. I’ve been so far removed from that, since 2013 and at the beginning of last year, but I’m finally feeling that again. … I’ve started to find that approach, I’ve started to find that confidence again, I’ve started to find that reassurance that I can play at a high level in the big leagues.

A mechanical change could have just as much to do with Myers’ turnaround as having his health and confidence in a better place. As AJ Cassavell of MLB.com reported, hitting coach Alan Zinter is having Myers start his load “a split-second earlier.” As a result, some key weaknesses have disappeared.

“He’s had that opposite-field power all year,” Padres manager Andy Green said. “But now he’s got the ability to cover all pitches at this point in time. He looks great.”

Myers is indeed doing a better job of going the other way, entering Tuesday with a career-low 36.5 pull percentage. According to Baseball Savant, this is the first time in his career that he’s hit pitches in and pitches away with equal efficiency:

Those are the details, but the big picture is simple. Myers was a talented young player who got bad for good reasons and is now good again for good reasons. Factor in the Padres’ dire situation and the sign that says they’re open for business, and the trade winds swirling around Myers haven’t come out of nowhere.

There’s no guarantee Myers will actually go anywhere. Judging from what Jon Morosi of MLB Network reported recently, the Padres aren’t desperate to flip him:

At Today’s Knuckleball, Jon Heyman added Myers figures to stay in San Diego at least through the All-Star break. That way he can be the local hero in a game played at Petco Park.

Beyond that, there’s the obvious reason the Padres aren’t in a hurry to deal Myers. In Heyman’s words: “Another reason that they want to hold on to him altogether is that he’s emerging as the slugging star they’d hoped.”

Find a place to wedge in “young and controllable,” and the gist is that much easier to get. Like all rebuilding teams, the Padres need to accumulate as much young and controllable talent as they can. At 25 and with three years of club control beyond 2016, Myers fits the bill.

Myers is the only Padre who does, though. The young talent they’re looking to build a winner around is still mostly in the minors, and there’s not enough of it for the Padres to plan on having built a winner before Myers’ time with the club runs out. At the start of 2016, Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus and ESPN.com all had the San Diego farm system ranked in the bottom half of the league.

A Myers trade could fix that. According to Heyman, the Padres have four A-grade prospects in mind as his sticker price. Getting that return or something close to it on this summer’s market isn’t impossible.

As Aaron Gleeman highlighted at Baseball Prospectus, 2016 is shaping up to be a bad year for production at first base. The haves are feeling the effects just as much as the have-nots. Among the teams that could potentially be in the market for a first base upgrade are the New York Yankees, Washington Nationals, Houston Astros, Texas Rangers, Miami Marlins, New York Mets and Boston Red Sox. Whenever there are that many prospective suitors, the seeds for a bidding war are there.

Simply getting Myers as a quick fix isn’t the only reason teams could stay in the fray.

With this winter’s free-agent market due to feature few impact bats, Myers’ three extra years of controllability should look attractive. There are also the alternatives to consider. Jay Bruce and Ryan Braun look like impact trade chips for teams seeking bats. Ditto for Jonathan Lucroy. But none of those three offer much value beyond 2016. And if a team is looking strictly for a first base upgrade, the best option after Myers might be Chris Carter. He has more power than Myers, but that’s it.

For now, odds are the Padres will indeed hold on to Myers through the All-Star break. But after that, the August 1 trade deadline will be near. Trade winds that are only blowing now could start howling.

Come August 2, Myers could be donning new threads.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

It was roughly this time three years ago that Yasiel Puig was putting the finishing touches on a debut month for the ages. He was having the kind of impact that can only be measured in kilotons, and it was making the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ future look that much brighter.

Fast-forward to now, though, and Puig‘s place in the Dodgers’ future looks like something he’ll have to earn all over again.

The right fielder’s fourth major league season isn’t off to a good start. He’s hit only six home runs with a .249/.293/.373 slash line through 59 games. With that, numbers that started out strong in 2013 and 2014 have found some quicksand: 

Even as Puig was struggling to match his usual production last season, you could still say with a straight face he was a good player when healthy. He technically qualified as an above-average hitter, and the defensive metrics also made him an above-average fielder.

It’s harder to make this rationalization in 2016. Puig‘s defense rates as excellent, but even excellent defense in right field isn’t enough to balance out what’s clearly below-average offense. He’s also missed a few weeks with a hamstring injury after similar issues sidelined him for half of last season. That makes the “when healthy” stipulation an awfully big sticking point.

On the bright side, Puig has showed signs of life since coming off the DL last Tuesday. He hit .368 with a home run in his first five games back and whacked a two-RBI single in Monday’s 5-4 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. Per his manager, these are the signs of real progress.

“Before he went on the disabled list, he was kind of chasing hits,” Dave Roberts told Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register before Monday’s game. “He’s kind of reset. He’s slowing things down and, like we’ve talked about all year, taking balls and swinging at strikes. I think he’s doing a better job of that.”

However, Puig‘s history makes it hard to trust this will continue. And if he does indeed regress to a level of play in line with what he’s been doing recently, the Dodgers could decide it’s time to move on.

If this sounds like a familiar talking point, that’s because it’s one that first came up last summer.

The genesis seemed to be the unflattering/not-at-all surprising stories about Puig revealed in Molly Knight’s book on the Dodgers, The Best Team Money Can Buy (h/t Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports). Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe piggybacked on that when he reported the “noise is growing louder on Puig and his low favorability among teammates.”

Of course, none of this led to anything. As Jon Heyman, then of CBS Sports, reported, the Dodgers weren’t actually interested in moving Puig. They certainly would have had to sell low at the time. Holding on to Puig and hoping his character and production could improve was the right idea.

Heyman went on to report the Dodgers were sticking to this mindset in the winter, too, with the idea being to “try to reach” Puig and inspire him to change. In contrast to a predecessor who never seemed to know how to approach Puig, Roberts echoed that sentiment before spring training.

Despite some bad optics—including some harsh words from a former teammate and the father of a current teammate, as well as a bar fight that attracted an MLB investigation—things were actually looking good in spring training. Puig stopped being a nuisance and played the part of the good soldier, impressing even Clayton Kershaw.

“I’ve been really impressed with him this spring,” the Dodgers ace told Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times (h/t Kyle Ringo of Yahoo Sports). “He’s putting in a lot of work.”

And so it went in early April. Puig hit .405 over his first 10 games, showing signs of finally putting it all back together.

Those signs have since disappeared, though. Puig‘s plate discipline is the worst it’s been since his rookie season. He’s also struggled to make good contact, entering Monday with 28.3 infield-fly-ball percentage and a career-worst 21.4 soft-hit percentage.

It’s not ability Puig is lacking. He’s still an otherworldly combination of power and speed. Rather, his challenge is still how to get his approach on par with his athletic gifts. As Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs outlined in May, Puig is easily beaten when pitchers execute a hard-in, soft-away pattern against him. That’s nothing revolutionary, and that’s the problem.

Meanwhile, Puig the Good Soldier hasn’t been entirely capable of keeping Puig the Problem Child under wraps. Case in point, this incident in May:

Not hustling on that almost-dinger got Puig benched, with Roberts telling the media: “We talk about playing the game the right way. We’ve got to be accountable.”

All the ingredients for a fresh start in 2016 were there for Puig. But instead of a reborn player, at best he’s a slightly less controversial bad player. And if his current snapping-out-of-it moment doesn’t have life beyond the present, it’s easy to imagine the Dodgers trolling the trade waters for takers this winter.

This is assuming Puig doesn’t complicate things by forgoing the final two years of his seven-year, $42 million contract and opts into arbitration instead. But the way he’s going, doing so would activate the risk of him being nontendered. It would be wise for him to stick to his contract, in which case the Dodgers would only be tasked with moving about $17.5 million.

Any trade partner agreeing to take on all or some of that would only be getting a reclamation project. But with the free-agent market due to be light on talented hitters, taking such a chance on a player who’s still young and hypertalented wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

It’ll either be this, or the Dodgers will hold on to Puig and hope for the same kind of rebirth they were anticipating this season. But this notion doesn’t mesh with how the club’s Andrew Friedman- and Farhan Zaidi-led front office has operated. In purging guys like Matt Kemp and Hanley Ramirez, they’ve shown they’re not afraid to part ways with unwanted pieces from the previous regime.

Puig is in line to be next in line. If he wants to stick around in Los Angeles, he should finish 2016 with a bang reminiscent of his early years. Otherwise, his time with the Dodgers may end with a whimper.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked. Contract details courtesy of Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Kris Bryant was the College Player of the Year in 2013, the Minor League Player of the Year in 2014 and the National League Rookie of the Year in 2015.

Clearly, the guy likes to outdo himself. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised about what he’s doing in 2016.

The Chicago Cubs entered Monday in a funk, having lost six out of seven. But their young third baseman helped them snap out of it in a big way with an 11-8 win over the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park. Bryant went 5-for-5 with not one but two doubles and not one, not two but three home runs.

You are now formally invited to slack your jaw and gawk at all three of Bryant’s dingers, each of which was a mighty clout:

Immediately after Bryant sent that third baseball into the Cincinnati night, the tidbits started rolling in. Here’s a sampling:

• Per ESPN Stats and Info, Bryant’s 16 total bases were four more than any other hitter has accumulated in a game this season.
• Also per ESPN Stats and Info, Bryant was the first Cub to tally 16 total bases in the modern era.
• Per MLB, Bryant was the first player since 1913 to hit three homers and two doubles in a game.

“It’s the best game of my whole life,” the 24-year-old said, via Jesse Rogers of ESPN.com.

And with it now over, it’s apparent the general awesomeness of Bryant’s 2016 season is well ahead of his star turn as a rookie in 2015:

Bryant isn’t just outpacing his 2015 self. As of this moment, FanGraphs has him leading all National League position players in WAR. After coming into the year as one of the league’s best everyday players, he’s now arguably the best.

Granted, you could have seen that as the next logical step for him. And if it’s a step he was going to take, it would certainly be his bat that would help him take it. This is, after all, the same guy who hit 10 more homers than any other player in the country during his final collegiate season and slashed .327/.426/.667 in the minors before getting the call to the majors. Hitting is kinda-sorta Bryant’s thing.

However, the big upgrade we’re seeing hasn’t come simply from gaining experience in 2015 and then showing up for 2016. Bryant wasn’t content with the swing he had last year, so he got a new one.

“I feel [my swing is] a little flatter, and that’s what I wanted to be,” Bryant said in February, per Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune. “It was at too steep of an angle at times. That was my downfall last year, but I think it can only get better from here.”

By the logic of the ol’ “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” argument, Bryant risked much by tinkering with his swing. But he had a good excuse to give it a whirl.

His big weakness as a rookie was a tendency to swing and miss. A flatter swing would hypothetically allow him to be more direct to the ball, and thus better at making contact. And sure enough, Bryant’s strikeout percentage has dropped from 30.6 to 22.6.

That’s Benefit No. 1 of his new swing, but Benefit No. 2 is just as important: better contact. Courtesy of Baseball Savant, here’s how Bryant’s average launch angle, exit velocity and batted ball distance compared to last year entering Monday’s game:

A slight downward shift in Bryant’s average launch angle has translated to a higher rate of batted balls in the 25- to 30-degree sweet spot for power highlighted by FiveThirtyEight’s Rob Arthur in April. As such, it makes sense that Bryant’s exit velocity and distance have improved.

And remember, this was before Monday’s outburst. On Tuesday, those numbers will look even better.

Fewer strikeouts and better batted balls may not be the only benefits of Bryant’s new swing. More plate coverage could be yet another, as his batting average against pitches in the outer third of the strike zone and beyond has improved like so:

• 2015: .181
• 2016: .239

Pitchers seemed to have noticed this, as Bryant told Gonzales last week that they’ve taken to “pounding me in.” It can’t be said they’ve found a solution in doing so, however. Bryant’s slugging percentage against pitches in the inner third of the zone and beyond is yet another thing that’s improved:

• 2015: .577
• 2016: .676

This doesn’t mean Bryant is completely devoid of shortcomings. His strikeout rate is low by his own standards, but not by everyone else’s. And per Brooks Baseball, any pitcher who can make Bryant reach for an offering stands a pretty good chance of getting him out.

But relative to what Bryant did in his debut season, these are mere nitpicks. His list of weaknesses at the plate has shrunk considerably. So, too, has the list of ways to contain him.

It may just have been a matter of time before a team failed to stop him at least once on a given night. The Reds were the ones to fall on that sword, which leaves just one question going forward:

How will Bryant outdo himself next?

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

There’s a shortstop in the American League who has all the qualities of a superstar. He’s very young, very charismatic and very skilled at hitting, baserunning and fielding.

Carlos Correa? Good guess. Xander Bogaerts? Another good guess. Manny Machado when he’s not playing third base? Yet another good guess. 

But if you guessed Francisco Lindor, congratulations! That might mean you can read a headline. Either that, or you’re giving Lindor the kind of attention that seemingly few others are giving him.

He’s been as big a reason as any for why the Cleveland Indians find themselves atop the AL Central, and he continued the trend in the club’s eighth straight win Saturday. As Carlos Carrasco spearheaded a 6-0 win over the Detroit Tigers with a four-hit shutout, Lindor led the Tribe’s offense with a pair of home runs. 

Feast thine eyes on his second, a solo shot in the eighth that effectively put the game out of reach:

“I think it’s my first multi-homer game ever,” Lindor said afterward, per Kyle Beery of MLB.com. “I don’t think I even did it in the minor leagues.”

Whatever the case, the 22-year-old now has 10 home runs on the season. That goes with a .306 average, an .837 OPS and 12 stolen bases on one side of the ball. On the other side, Lindor’s glove and arm have already made his personal highlight reel a feature-length spectacle.

All this looks similar to a rookie breakthrough that nearly won Lindor the AL Rookie of the Year in 2015. If that was Lindor’s star turn, what we’re seeing this year deserves to be called his superstar turn.

And yet, you’d never know it from looking at the people’s favorite American League shortstops. If the latest All-Star voting update is any indication, the masses prefer:

1. Xander Bogaerts: 2,116,020 votes
2. Alcides Escobar: 1,150,576 votes
3. Troy Tulowitzki: 814,544 votes
4. Elvis Andrus: 642,180 votes
5. Carlos Correa: 552,670 votes

It’s not surprising to see Bogaerts on top, as that’s where you’d expect to find a Boston Red Sox player with a league-leading .349 batting average. After winning the AL Rookie of the Year in 2015 and entering the year amid a whole lot of hype, it’s more surprising that Correa isn’t near the top.

But nothing is as surprising as Lindor not being in the top five. He’s up there with Bogaerts among the AL’s best players this season. And according to FanGraphs WAR, Lindor entered Saturday as one of the best everyday players in baseball, period, over the last calendar year:

Of course, WAR isn’t a perfect measure of value. The idea that Lindor has been the third-best position player in baseball over the last 365 days is less of a fact and more of a theory. 

But as far as theories go, this is a darn good one.

One thing WAR recognizes is that defense is more important at shortstop than it is at other positions, so it’s naturally going to fawn over any shortstop who excels with the leather. The metrics say Lindor has done that, as he ranks as by far the AL’s best shortstop in both defensive runs saved and ultimate zone rating over the last two seasons.

Former Cleveland great Omar Vizquel has basically the same opinion as the metrics, telling Zack Meisel of the Plain Dealer: “Ever since last year, when I first got the chance to see him, it’s like, ‘Wow. This kid has a lot going on.'” Which brings us to an obligatory highlight to further prove the point:

Baseball America seemed to speak for everyone in rating Lindor as a 70-grade defender going into last season, so the quality of his glovework in the majors is no big shock. Because he also stole 90 bases in parts of five minor league seasons, the same can be said of his 24 career stolen bases.

What’s more shocking is what Lindor has done at the plate. The switch-hitter only had a .279 average in the minors, and he socked just 21 home runs. In light of that, his .309 career average and 22 home runs in the majors look out of place.

But as Lindor told me in October, his offensive surge in the majors has a lot do with how he’s soaked up information from the people around him.

“Michael Brantley. Jason Kipnis. Carlos Santana. They backed me up a lot,” he said. “There was also the work. The coaching staff makes you put in the work, day in and day out. That helped me as well.”

Nowadays, Lindor is taking all of his good work last year and pushing the envelope. He’s walking more, upping his BB percent from 6.2 to 8.6. He’s striking out less, dropping his K percent from 15.8 to 12.8. But somehow, he hasn’t sacrificed any power to make these improvements. His isolated power has only dropped from .169 to .165.

The only thing that’s not holding strong is Lindor’s batting average on balls in play, which has dropped from .348 to .322. That’s still well above average, though, and things should stay that way. As August Fagerstrom of FanGraphs wrote last month, Lindor’s speed, ability to use the whole field and ability to avoid easy outs all add up to a high-BABIP hitter.

And remember, Lindor is doing this at a position where offensive standards are pretty low. This makes him a rare breed: a Gold Glove-caliber shortstop who is also an advanced hitter. There may be shortstops with individual skills—Bogaerts’ bat, Correa’s power, Andrelton Simmons’ glove, etc.—better than his, but no other shortstop in baseball today is the total package like Lindor.

For the Indians, this means they have a legit AL MVP candidate on their hands. If Lindor doesn’t get the kind of attention he deserves before then, that would probably do the trick.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Miami Marlins have virtually the same winning percentage as the New York Mets. They’ve been flying, er, swimming under the radar, but they have some swagger going.

And now it looks like they may finally have their slugger going too.

Giancarlo Stanton, known to all as a very muscly man who mashes many homers, has spent most of the 2016 season in the kind of slump that could crush a less muscly man. It was only about a week ago that he was hitting just .193 through his first 55 games.

But now, things are looking up. Stanton found his bearings in a recent four-game set against the Colorado Rockies at Marlins Park, and he kept the good times rolling in a 4-2 win over the Chicago Cubs on Thursday. 

The Marlins’ right fielder began his day by clouting a mighty clout, his 14th, off lefty ace Jon Lester in the fourth inning, knotting the score at 1-1:

Later, in the eighth inning, Stanton finished his day by poking an RBI single to right field that gave the Marlins a 3-2 lead. They wouldn’t have won without him, which is basically saying the Marlins got a taste of the way things are supposed to be in Thursday’s game.

The way Stanton is going, there could be more of that on the way. He’s hit .400 with a couple of home runs over his last six games. That’s a small sample size, of course, but it’s a reminder this is the same guy who OPS’d .921 and averaged 32 homers a season over the previous five years.

By contrast, the Stanton the Marlins were seeing over the previous few weeks looked like a hitter who was completely lost. In addition to struggling to reach the Mendoza Line, he was striking out in 34.8 percent of his plate appearances. For a couple of weeks in May, he was mired in a 4-for-48 slump.

“I have to keep working at it,” Stanton told George Richards of the Miami Herald late last month. “I have to keep moving, progress. Don’t worry about the [numbers], worry about the work you’re doing and the process of that.”

One thing Stanton was powerless to control, though, was how he was being pitched. Dayn Perry of CBS Sports noticed the 26-year-old was seeing an unusually high number of sliders in 2016. As Brooks Baseball can show, his percentage of all breaking balls has shot up:

With this being the case, it’s hard to blame Stanton either for making contact on only a third of his swings at pitches outside the strike zone or, in a related story, his career-high 16.5 percent swinging-strike rate.

On the bright side, it never hurts to have one of the most dominant hitters of all time in your corner. And in this case, he was more than happy to help.

“He wanted to get out and work on some things, just tracking the ball and doing some little things,” Marlins hitting coach/legendary slugger of yore Barry Bonds said last month of his work with Stanton, per the Associated Press, via ESPN. “I just stepped in there to give him couple of breaks.”

It’s hard to tell if Stanton’s work with Bonds has resulted in any mechanical changes. But working on tracking the ball could translate into trying to see the ball longer. And the deeper a hitter lets the ball get into the hitting zone, the more likely he is to whack it to the opposite field.

Lo and behold, check out the righty swinger’s before and after usage of right field:

• First 55 G: 17.8%
• Next 5 G: 31.3%

In knocking both his home run and his go-ahead single to right field, Stanton continued this trend Thursday. This isn’t likely to be his M.O. the rest of the year, but it could be just what he needs to get comfortable again and ultimately find himself back atop baseball’s list of most feared sluggers.

For the Marlins, there’s no overstating how huge that would be.

They’re already good, as their 39-34 record puts them a mere percentage point behind the New York Mets (38-33) in the NL East standings. They are where they are partially because of a pitching staff that owns one of the 10 best ERAs in baseball, and partially because their collective .737 OPS arguably underrates their offense.

When the Marlins awoke Thursday morning, their cast of regulars included just two hitters who weren’t rating as above-average players in the eyes of adjusted OPS, where an even 100 denotes league average. Look toward the bottom here, and you’ll see one was Adeiny Hechavarria and the other was you-know-who:

It’s impressive that Stanton was rating as a league-average hitter despite all his struggles with consistency. Behold, the powerful effect that lots of power can have.

It’s even more impressive, however, that the Marlins pushed their record above .500 despite the fact the guy who should be their best hitter has been one of their worst. If they could get that far basically without him, the prospect of how far they might get with him is obviously enticing.

Because Stanton’s awakening has taken place over such a small sample size, there’s a limit to how much it can be trusted. Indeed, we’ve already had a similar discussion about Stanton this year. He fell into a slump soon after, which now feels strangely like a warning. 

But after all the Marlins have been through with Stanton this year, even subtle signs of progress are welcome. And in the last week or so, his signs haven’t been subtle.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

It’s the decision the Los Angeles Angels don’t want to make. And by golly, it’s the kind of decision no team should ever have to make.

But whether the Angels like it or not, trading Mike Trout continues to look less like the nuclear option and more like the only option.

Trout is still the Angels’ best player. The 24-year-old has a .929 OPS, 14 home runs and 10 stolen bases, and has garnished it with solid defense in center field. Both Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs put him among baseball’s best position players.

By now, noting as much is like noting water is wet or Brad Pitt is handsome. Trout has rarely not been stupendous since emerging as a perennial MVP candidate in 2012. It can’t be said enough that we’re watching possibly the best young player in baseball history.

That’s not the kind of guy whose name should ever come close to the trading block. And for now, the party line is that it won’t.

“We have no intent or desire to consider moving Mike Trout,” Angels general manager Billy Eppler told Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports last month. “He’s not moving. He’s an impact player, a huge piece in a championship core.”

Eppler could also have pointed out that nothing is threatening to take Trout away, as his contract runs through 2020. The hole in Eppler‘s logic, however, has to do with the “championship core” thing. 

The Angels have dug themselves a hole with a 31-41 record, and there’s not going to be any climbing out of it. Trout and Kole Calhoun are the only impact hitters in an offense that ranks 11th in the American League in OPS. And with Garrett Richards, Andrew Heaney, C.J. Wilson and Tyler Skaggs all sidelined with arm and shoulder injuries, it’ll be tough to fix a pitching staff that ranks 12th in the AL in ERA.

This makes 2016 a lost year, but the worry now should be whether it’ll be a one-off or something worse. It’s easy to see how screwed the Angels are now, but it says a lot that it’s just as easy to see how screwed they are later.

A championship core usually consists of young, talented and healthy players who are in their prime and controlled for the long haul. On the Angels, that’s a small club. There’s Trout and the 28-year-old Calhoun, but who else? Albert Pujols, 36, is old and worse than ever. Andrelton Simmons can only field the ball. Matt Shoemaker has been on a nice run, but he’ll be 30 before the year is out.

The only way the Angels will acquire a championship core in the near future is by buying one or making their own. In the remaining years of Trout’s contract, they’ll be in a position to do neither.

The Angels have Wilson and Jered Weaver and their $40 million in salaries coming off the books this winter. But with the free-agent class due to be one of the worst in recent memory, there won’t be any good places to put that money.

The best chance the Angels will get to reload in free agency is after 2018. That’s when Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Jose Fernandez and Matt Harvey are due to headline possibly the best class of free agents in history.

But starting in 2019, the Angels will be on the hook to pay $75.1 million to Trout, Pujols and Simmons alone. Factor in Calhoun’s arbitration payday, and they’ll have close to $100 million invested in only four players. That doesn’t leave much room for big spending.

Meanwhile, the cavalry will not be coming from the farm.

This is the second year out of three that Baseball America rated the Angels’ system as the worst in baseball. Keith Law of ESPN.com concurred and provided the apparent origin of this conversation: “[The Angels] need a big draft this year to start to restock the system or we’re going to start talking about whether it’s time to trade Mike Trout.”

A big draft did not happen. The Angels only had two picks on Day 1, and they reached with the first of those when they chose Virginia catcher Matt Thaiss at No. 16. That landed them on my list of draft losers.

When a team is damaged both up top and underneath as badly as the Angels are, breaking up the whole damn thing and starting from scratch is the only way forward. To this end, trading Trout would be one hell of a first step.

The fact that Trout is owed a little over $120 million over the next four seasons complicates his trade value somewhat, but not too much. That’s going to be a significant underpay if he continues to perform like the best player in baseball, as his talent and youth suggest he should.

In theory, the Angels could look to unload Trout’s remaining contract while also demanding a big haul of young talent. One general manager suggested a likely asking price of “three to five potential impact players” to Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. That sounds about right.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that a haul of “potential impact players” will equal one Trout. Shaikin pointed to the infamous Miguel Cabrera trade as an example of what can go wrong. He also noted that, in general, prized prospects don’t always turn out to be prized major leaguers.

However, skepticism like this has become dated.

If it feels like young players rule the modern baseball world, it’s because they do. Rob Arthur noted at FiveThirtyEight last year that the average age of baseball’s biggest stars has been trending downward for years. Trout has done his part, and he’s not alone.

Besides, who says the Angels need to get only prospects in a Trout trade? He’s good enough for L.A. to demand an established young star to take his place. Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe floated names like Mookie Betts, Corey Seager, George Springer, Nomar Mazara and Kyle Schwarber as he was pondering potential deals for Trout. None of those are preposterous suggestions.

After landing a player like that, the Angels could still demand a couple of top prospects on the side. Getting them would help put their farm system on the right track.

And though there may be no guarantee of a strong farm system leading to long-term success at the major league level, the Chicago Cubs, Kansas City Royals, Houston Astros and New York Mets can all vouch for the value of a strong system. Before long, the Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves should be able to as well. 

If anything, the more pressing question is how many teams can and would pull off such a huge trade. In all likelihood, the list is too short for a deal to happen this summer, when contenders will mostly be looking to fill holes rather than overhaul their depth charts.

The winter could be a different story, though. Contenders and rebuilders alike will be in better positions to focus on their long-term goals, increasing the number of teams that could turn to Trout. And with little impact talent available on the open market, Trout’s sticker price could look more reasonable over time.

Nobody thought we’d be having this discussion as recently as 2014, a year in which the Angels extended Trout in the spring and then rode 98 wins into October. But courtesy of their assorted failures and bad breaks, here we are. And courtesy of those same failures and bad breaks, it’s a discussion that isn’t likely to go away if they ignore it.

The Angels won’t soon forget their time with Trout. But before long, it’ll be time to move on.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Hello and welcome to Bleacher Report’s Future 50.

This project aims to identify the 50 most promising prospects in Major League Baseball. Players must have rookie eligibility to qualify for consideration, so anyone with more than 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched in the majors isn’t on the radar.

Aside from that, it’s up to how each prospect fares in a scoring system that assesses his upside.

For position players, this means looking at hitting, power, speed, arm and defense tools. The individual point allotments vary depending on position. But in keeping with the traditional 20-80 scouting scale, they all add up to 80 possible points.

The same goes for pitchers, who are graded based on their fastballs, breaking balls, changeups and command tools. In case anyone is expecting to see them, no relief prospects made the cut. This is a starters-only list.

When all the points are tallied, some players end up with the same score. That turns the rankings into a judgment call, in which case upside is the deciding factor.

Read on for more detailed breakdowns on how the scoring works, and then the list itself.

Begin Slideshow