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The Oakland A’s record is disappointing two months in, so naturally, there’s already chatter about the team trading stars.

Stephen Vogt and Josh Reddick are in the top 20 in weighted runs created plus (wRC+). Sonny Gray, Jesse Chavez and Scott Kazmir—the first two of which are in the top 11 in fielding independent pitching (FIP)—have pitched incredibly well and could certainly help any rotation.

Ben Zobrist is a consistent hitter who can play outfield and infield positions.

Teams in need of relievers could even inquire about Tyler Clippard or Evan Scribner, two of the team’s better relievers this season. If brave enough to deal with Sean Doolittle’s shoulder, a team could have interest in the All-Star closer as well.

If they’re sellers, the A’s have plenty of options to move.

Here are the rumors surrounding each guy in the news along with a brief case for what the team should do.

Ben Zobrist

The loudest noise being made involves one Ben Zobrist.

According to Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Cubs have set their sights on the versatile veteran.

“Zobrist, a Joe Maddon favorite who played for the Cubs manager for nine years in Tampa Bay, would dramatically alter the look of a Cubs bench in shambles and allow Maddon to rotate days off for at least five starters he’s been forced to play almost every inning,” Wittenmyer wrote.

Wittenmyer goes on to say that sources tell him A’s general manager Billy Beane is not open to trading Zobrist or other top players away yet.

The A’s are 12 games back of the division-leading Houston Astros and nine games back from a wild-card spot. It’s worth noting that on May 30, 2012, the A’s were nine games back in the division and finished in first place on the last day of the season. So a major comeback is not out of the question.

Perhaps it’s overly simplistic to say, but four good months outweigh two poor months.

Beane isn’t wrong to hold out hope.

To this point, the A’s are 3-15 in one-run games. An error here, a poor bullpen performance there, and the team loses a close game. Iron out the errors (the A’s brought in Ron Washington to work with shortstop Marcus Semien) and the bullpen woes, and those one-run losses could easily turn in the A’s favor.

It’s not like the team is being blown out night after night. It’s been shut out five times. It’s shut an opponent out seven times.

And when it comes to hitting, Zobrist has been one of the best.

He hits left-handed pitching well, and he’s hitting well with runners on base (.314 batting average, .359 on-base percentage, .303 BABIP).

As for defense, there isn’t anyone more important than Zobrist.

His versatility allows him to play the middle infield and both corner outfield positions. This allows a team like the A’s—who mix, match and platoon like mad men—the ability to utilize Zobrist‘s bat and keep him on the field when others rest or are injured.

Adam Kadourhe of the Gold Jersey Dynasty Talk Radio podcast believes that because of Zobrist‘s talents and impending free agency, Beane should deal him now regardless of the win-loss record.

Zobrist is obviously coveted, and for good reason. But it’s for that reason Beane should consider holding on to him above most of the other options. He’s too valuable to lose in a postseason push.

Scott Kazmir

The Boston Globe‘s Nick Cafardo speculated the A’s could be one of the first to become sellers assuming they don’t turn things around. Cafardo calls Kazmir “the prize” of the bunch.

Cafardo is correct from a business standpoint.

Though it could be argued Chavez is still somewhat unproven as a starter, as of right now, he has the sixth-best FIP in all of baseball, better than notable pitchers like Gray, Felix Hernandez and Matt Harvey. So the cost could be higher. Also, for what it’s worth, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times believes the Los Angeles Dodgers may have interest in Chavez.

With Gray, there’s no doubt it’ll take a king’s ransom to net the 25-year-old ace.

At 31, Kazmir could simply be the most cost-friendly pitcher the A’s have in terms of the prospects it would take to net him. It’d take less to get him than Gray. It could take less to get him than Chavez, too, but even if it does take more, he’s pitched better overall on a longer timeline.

If there’s a guy the A’s could get away with dealing, it’s Kaz.

They’d lose the compensatory pick, sure, but they’d gain one if Zobrist leaves this winter. So it’d be a nice mix of comp picks plus acquired prospects. Drew Pomeranz or a returning A.J. Griffin could fill Kazmir’s rotation spot. (The hope would be they’re close to as effective.)

In fact, as Kadourhe argued above regarding Zobrist, I’d argue the same for Kazmir.

Cafardo believes the Dodgers, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays and San Francisco Giants would be interested in the pitcher.

Other Notables

Various other names have been whispered about as well.

The A’s would be foolish to trade Gray this soon due to his talent, age and affordability. Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports agrees with that sentiment and does not believe it will happen this year.

Due to his health, Coco Crisp is not going anywhere.

Doolittle began the season with a shoulder strain, returned, pitched one inning and landed back on the shelf. He has much to prove before teams inquire about him seriously.

Billy Butler’s contract could make him challenging to move, especially considering he’s trending downward. But if he gains steam, it could become an easier sell.

How about Vogt, who is in the thick of a career year? According to Peter Gammons, Beane told a fellow GM in late May, “I’m not trading Vogt. Period.”

With the way he’s hitting so far and a history of Gold Glove defense, you’d think Reddick is a quality candidate to be traded while he’s young, cheapish and controllable. Scouring the Internet, you’ll find his name mentioned in the same sentence as “trade,” but no one has definitively linked him to a team.

In fact, most have simply said, “He is good, therefore he could be traded.”

Obviously.

There are two sides to trading Reddick. One says keep him, let him continue to build on what we’re seeing this season and then flip him when his value is higher. The other may contend the team should swap him out now while his value is at its peak.

If at the end of June, the A’s are scuffling, trading Reddick isn’t a terrible option.

Of course, if that’s the case, then trading anyone not named Gray isn’t a terrible option.

Advanced statistics courtesy of FanGraphs.

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Obviously, you’re not surprised to see “Mike Trout” and “most valuable” in the same sentence. Trout was the runner-up in the American League MVP voting in 2012 and 2013 before winning the award in 2014. His name and “most valuable” have appeared together a lot over the last three years.

And yet all that now looks like little more than a prolonged warm-up for what Trout is doing in 2015.

Part of the equation is that the Los Angeles Angels‘ 23-year-old superstar is having yet another stupendous season. Maybe not his best season, mind you, but it’s at least his most balanced season since back in 2012. Like he was then, he’s truly doing it all.

For starters, Trout has been an on-base machine. He’s hitting .294 with a .381 on-base percentage. Neither is his best mark, but both are improvements over last year’s .287 average and .377 OBP. For this, he can thank his newly crafted aggressive approach and, as ESPN Stats & Info highlighted, turning his weakness against high pitches into a strength:

Trout is also hitting for power. His raw power production has taken only a slight downturn from where it was in 2014, and his 13 dingers put him on pace for a career-high 41. Considering that he entered the week making hard contact a career-best 41.5 percent of the time, he might actually get there.

But it’s not all about Trout’s bat. He’s also using his legs, as his eight stolen bases put him on a pace for 25. If he gets there, he’ll have reversed a trend that saw his steals fall from 49 in 2012 to 33 in 2013 to just 16 in 2014. 

Lastly, the advanced metrics have Trout back to playing quality defense in center field after down years in 2013 and 2014. Entering Monday, ultimate zone rating said Trout’s defense has saved three runs above average. Defensive runs saved disagreed, saying his defense had actually saved twice as many runs.

In so many words: After flirting with becoming a bat-only player in 2013 and 2014, Trout is actually living up to his reputation as the game’s best all-around player in 2015. Cue Bryce Harper to sum it up.

“Baseball is always, ‘What have you done for me lately?’ That’s just how the game works. I still believe Trout is the best player in the game, hands down,” the Washington Nationals superstar told ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick a week ago. 

It’s indeed hard to argue the point. And even if it doesn’t back it completely, wins above replacement once again strongly agrees with it.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, Trout began the week tied for third in the AL in WAR at 3.2. FanGraphs put him at only 2.9 WAR, but that was good enough for sole possession of third on its AL leaderboard.

All this is the long way around the barn of stating the obvious: Based on his play alone, yes, Trout is once again a leading candidate for the AL MVP award. 

However, remember that this is only part of the equation. The other part is more beneath the surface, and it’s where Trout is really demonstrating the whole “most valuable” thing like never before.

In the background of Trout’s latest awesome season is an Angels team that’s, well, not awesome. Before sweeping a four-game series against the Detroit Tigers over the weekend, they were just 23-24.

Of course, Trout’s awesomeness being wasted on not-so-awesome teams is nothing new. Before he took part in a 98-win season in 2014, his efforts were wasted on an 89-win team in 2012 and on a 78-win team in 2013. Like Ewan McGregor in the Star Wars prequels, he was a bright spot in a sea of “meh.”

But even on those teams, Trout had at least some help. It’s hard to say as much about his current situation, especially in his primary neck of the woods: on offense.

Because the Angels entered the week ranked 14th in the AL in OPS and runs scored, it’s not a secret that their offense has issues. But it’s still shocking, as what’s going on this year represents a huge drop-off from the prior three seasons:

The reasons for this are plentiful. Albert Pujols is back to looking old and over the hill. Howie Kendrick’s dependable bat is in Los Angeles proper. Matt Joyce has failed miserably at being a Plan B for Josh Hamilton. And speaking of Hamilton, the Angels’ pettiness put him back in Texas.

At any rate, all it takes is one glance at what Trout has done offensively and one glance at what the Angels as a whole have done offensively, and you can come to a conclusion that Trout has truly taken over the Atlas role for the Angels offense. That is, it all rests squarely on his shoulders.

But we can put some more numbers to the idea too, and what they say is straightforward: yup.

For this, we’ll turn to two useful but obscure stats: Bill James’ runs created (RC) formula and Tom Tango’s weighted runs created (wRC) formula. The two stats have different calculations, but they both measure a player’s offensive value in terms of how many of his teams runs he’s created.

Entering play Monday, Trout’s RC stood at 40. That’s out of the 192 runs the Angels have created—not the same as scored—so Trout is responsible for 20.8 percent of the team’s offense.

As for Trout’s wRC, that stands at 38 out of the Angels’ total of 180. That’s 21.1 percent.

Given how awesome Trout has been in an otherwise terrible lineup, his accounting for a fifth of the Angels’ offense sounds about right. It’s also, as these figures show, the biggest weight he’s ever carried:

In 2012, 2013 and 2014, Trout was most certainly a valuable member of the Angels offense. But in 2015, he’s become downright indispensable. Without him, the Angels offense might be the worst in baseball.

But of course, hitting isn’t what Trout is all about. He’s the complete package, and that’s where WAR can provide an additional perspective on what he’s meant to the Angels.

Ask FanGraphs, and it’ll tell you that Trout’s 2.9 WAR is out of the Angels’ total WAR of 10.7. That’s 27.1 percent. And while that doesn’t match the 28.0 percent of the Angels’ WAR he accounted for in 2013, it still borders on ridiculous to see a single player accounting for more than a quarter of his team’s value.

Baseball-Reference.com, meanwhile, has a slightly different opinion. It has Trout accounting for 3.2 of 9.1 total WAR, or 35.2 percent. That’s not just an even more ridiculous chunk of the team’s overall value but also a mark that blows his previous career best of 26.8 percent (also in 2013) out of the water.

So when Pujols said Monday night, via Pedro Moura of the Orange Country Register, that the Angels aren’t “the Mike Trout show,” he wasn’t entirely right. Because the thing is, they kinda are.

Bottom line: Just when you thought Trout couldn’t possibly be more worth raving about, he goes and does something like this. Albeit with a bit of help from the Angels, he’s found a way to go from being “most valuable” to “even more valuable.”

Of course, there’s no guarantee things are going to stay this way. Maybe Trout can keep up his end of the bargain, but his production won’t loom quite as large if some of the quality hitters in the Angels lineup wake up. 

Also, none of this is to say that we should go ahead and give Trout his second straight AL MVP and be done with it. It’s a wee bit soon for that, and Nelson Cruz and (naturally) Miguel Cabrera are just two of several worthy competitors. 

But if it so happens that the final two-thirds of the Angels’ season continues to resemble the first third of their season, by the end, they’ll be a team fighting hard for a wild-card spot thanks overwhelmingly to one guy. He’ll have his strongest case yet for an MVP award, which is saying something in his case.

Regardless of how things pan out, you can at least consider all this as the latest in a long line of reasons not to take Trout for granted. His excellence really should be ho-hum by now, but evidently, he’s just as good at self-one-upmanship as he is at baseball.

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

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In a time when power hitting is more of a scarce resource than ever, teams are starting to value it more than ever. As home run totals dwindle, the players who can hit for power stand out that much more.

Down in Arlington, the Texas Rangers have one of the sport’s most prolific power hitters. Joey Gallo, known for his prodigious homers and raw power, is currently playing at Double-A Frisco. He was second in all of professional baseball with 42 round-trippers last year, after 40 of his hits left the yard in 2013.

With the Rangers not anywhere close to contending this year or maybe in the next couple of seasons, deciding when to bring up Gallo to the big league club is a tough call.

Do you just bring him up as soon as possible so he can get reps at the highest level, or do you let him develop his skills in the minor leagues until the Rangers are ready to contend?

One important thing to note is that Gallo is currently facing a roadblock in Arlington in third baseman Adrian Beltre. That is why Gallo has been playing some left field of late, which might allow him to contribute to the major league squad sooner.

Whatever the Rangers decide and wherever Gallo ends up playing defensively, his best tool is hitting the ball as far as he can.

During the 2011 Perfect Game All-American Classic, an 18-year-old Gallo launched a 442-foot homer off of a 92 mph fastball from Lucas Sims, who was ultimately drafted in the first round by the Braves in the 2012 MLB draft.

In 2013, Gallo became the first teenager since 1968 to hit 40 home runs in a minor league season.

Then, in last year’s Futures Game, he launched a 419-foot homer that ended up being the difference in a 3-2 USA win. Earlier in the day, he hit a homer in batting practice that broke the windshield of a truck on display in the outfield stands.

In other words, Gallo can rake, no matter who is pitching. He has been hitting tape-measure shots since his days as a prep star at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, and he should continue to do so even when he reaches The Show.

After hitting a monster 42 homers last year, Gallo said that his goal in 2015 was not to match or exceed that total, but to become a better all-around player.

“I don’t really care if I hit five home runs or I hit 40 home runs,” Gallo told Anthony Andro of Fox Sports Southwest. “I’ve already proved I can hit home runs. I just want to prove I can be a better player, a more complete player. I’m just trying to take what people give me instead of what I tried to do last year, like yank balls through wind and that kind of stuff.”

Through May 29 stats, Gallo sports an impressive .313/.420/.626 slash line. He hit .271 last year, so his improved approach is already showing dividends early in the season.

Rangers senior director of player development Mike Daly was very complimentary of Gallo, as he talked to Andro about the stud third baseman.

“Joey continues to refine the offensive side of his game each season,” Daly said. “Big credit to Joey each year he improves his different areas such as plate discipline, approach, utilizing the entire field, and consistency of his at-bats as he continues toward his goal of becoming a multidimensional hitter at the plate.”

Ideally, Gallo will find a way to cut down on his strikeout total. He has 47 strikeouts in 115 at-bats this year at Frisco—he had a whopping 179 K’s last year—and it will be interesting to see if he can still be productive as he moves up to Triple-A (and eventually MLB) if he strikes out that much. 

Gallo comes from the Las Vegas area, which also happens to be the hometown of sluggers Bryce Harper, Kris Bryant and Chris Carter. A man who has seen them all play thinks Gallo could be even better than the other three.

“I seriously think Gallo could be the best out of all of them,” Nate Selby, who coached Carter at Sierra Vista High School, told Brian Deka of the Las Vegas Sun. “When he hits them, they just go different than the other guys.”

Gallo has also garnered praise from former MVP Jason Giambi, who has worked with Gallo on his swing in the past. Here is what Giambi told Ben Lindbergh of Grantland:

Joey Gallo’s ceiling is unlimited. I think (he) can be whoever he wants to be. He has the potential to be a .300 hitter. He has the potential to hit 50 homers. He has the potential to drive in 140. He runs really well for a big guy. He can play defense at third base. He’s a pretty special player; you don’t see players like this come along very often.

So Gallo certainly has the talent and the track record to crack the big league roster sometime in the near future. Whether it’s this year or next year, the Rangers have an elite power hitter on their hands. And as bad as the Rangers have been the past two seasons, their lineup could be somewhat potent with Gallo.

With Beltre, Prince Fielder, Josh Hamilton and Gallo hitting in the middle of the order, Texas has the capability to score boatloads of runs.

But, again, whatever the Rangers decide to do will likely turn out just fine. When you have such a talented player like Gallo, who possesses a ton of the game’s most precious commodities, it is almost a win-win situation no matter when the front office pulls the trigger on his promotion.

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How would you celebrate your 100th birthday?

Texas Rangers fan Jose chose to spend his at Globe Life Park with family and friends.

Unfortunately, the Rangers lost 5-1 to the Boston Red Sox, but it didn’t look like the loss would get Jose down.

When asked what his plans were after the game, he replied, “Going dancing.”

Good for you, Jose.

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When the Texas Rangers traded for Josh Hamilton in late April, it was easy to interpret the deal as a low-risk move that, at the least, would help generate interest in an otherwise uninteresting team.

But now, you can’t help but wonder if the Rangers will end up getting more than they bargained for.

It’s not because Hamilton’s 2015 debut went particularly well. In four plate appearances against the Cleveland Indians on Monday, the veteran left fielder went 0-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts. The only other time he reached base was in the seventh inning on an error by Tribe hurler Zach McAllister, who gathered a weak chopper and threw it into right field.

On the bright side, that error did allow the Rangers to score the go-ahead run in an eventual 10-8 victory. On an even brighter side, the Rangers have now won six in a row to push their record to 22-23.

That’s obviously not very good, but it at least counts as a passable record in this year’s American League. There are two elite teams in Kansas City and Houston—if you’ve traveled forward in time from April 2014, yes, that’s actually true—but mainly mediocrity elsewhere. Hence why the Rangers are only 3.5 games out of the AL wild-card race.

Or, to put it another way: on the opposite side of the spectrum from when they first acquired Hamilton.

The Rangers acquired (or re-acquired, if you prefer) the former MVP from the Los Angeles Angels on April 27. They were 7-12 at the time, and would soon be 7-15. That put them in last place in the AL West, a place they seemed destined to stay.

With that taken into account alongside Hamilton’s baggage—namely his two subpar years in Anaheim, surgery on his right shoulder and the latest in an unfortunate line of drug and alcohol relapses—the Rangers didn’t seem to be acquiring a missing piece for a contending season. With less than $7 million of Hamilton’s $80.2 million remaining contract on their hands, what they really seemed to be acquiring was a cheap nostalgia act who would help put butts in seats at Globe Life Park in Arlington.

But now that the Rangers have apparently decided that they’re going to be good this year, maybe Hamilton can be more than that. Maybe he can actually help.

Before any of us get too excited, let’s be real and remind ourselves that the odds of Hamilton actually being a useful player for the Rangers aren’t great. Or good. Or even OK, really.

It’s been three years since Hamilton’s last really good season, after all. Following a 2012 campaign that featured 43 homers and a .930 OPS, the lefty swinger OPS’d just .741 with 31 homers in two seasons in Anaheim. Factor in very little baserunning and defensive value, and Hamilton was worth barely 3.0 wins above replacement whether you ask Baseball-Reference.com or FanGraphs.

Furthermore, we have multiple examples (Adrian Gonzalez, Matt Kemp, Hanley Ramirez, etc.) that prove it takes time for a hitter to fully recover from surgery on his lead shoulder. With Hamilton having turned 34 just a couple of days ago, it’ll probably be even tougher for him to make a full recovery.

These are the things you could have been skeptical of coming into Hamilton’s 2015 debut, and he added to the list throughout the day.

At no point did Hamilton come close to a hit, as the dribbler thrown into right field was the only ball he put in play. And in swinging through several secondary pitches outside the strike zone, Hamilton effectively invited pitchers to continue feeding him the insanely fastball-light diet that Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs highlighted last year. Given how well it’s worked against him, that’s…not ideal.

So as far as first impressions go, Hamilton’s wasn’t great. As much as everyone would love to see him revert to his old MVP-caliber self, he hasn’t been that guy for years and didn’t give much of an indication on Monday that he could be that guy again.

And yet, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if there wasn’t any hope. 

As easy as it is to get lost in the “0-for-3” portion of Hamilton’s afternoon, he deserves some credit for the third-inning walk he worked against Shaun Marcum. He seemed to have Hamilton in the bag after he got him to whiff on consecutive down-and-away changeups to run the count to 2-2, but Hamilton took the next two changeups for the walk. Like that, he showed his plate discipline isn’t totally kaput just yet.

Hamilton also showed that his bat hasn’t lost all its old quickness. It’s not going to show up in the box score, but he hit a hard foul ball outside of first off of a Marcum cutter in the first inning that looked like this:

Sure, it was only a foul ball. But to hit a pitch like that at all, you have to have at least some bat speed left in your tank. 

Then there are the other reasons for optimism that Hamilton can be of use to the Rangers.

The ones that have been obvious all along are that he’s returning to a team that has a much, much more hitter-friendly ballpark than the one he left behind in Anaheim and also to a place where he was mostly comfortable between 2008 and 2012.

But another that’s become even more prevalent in recent days is the reality that there’s roughly zero pressure on Hamilton to perform. With the Rangers playing such good baseball, he can slide into the mix as just another contributor rather than as a potential savior.

“I told him, go be one of 25,” said Rangers manager Jeff Banister, via August Fagerstrom of MLB.com. “Enjoy today. Compete. Give us what you got. Don’t try to give us anything more than that. He’s ready to play. He’s excited. He feels good about being back. These guys are a great group, they welcomed him back. They’ve been looking forward to that.”

This might have been Banister’s advice either way, granted, but it must have been much easier for him to give it with the Rangers riding a five-game winning streak. And Hamilton had no problem accepting it, saying, “It’s easy to enter into something new when that something new is working and going well.”

What makes these sentiments ring even truer is that it’s the Rangers offense that Hamilton is joining.

This would be the same offense that’s leading all of MLB in runs scored in the month of May with 131. This is due mainly to the piping-hot hitting of Prince Fielder, but Adrian Beltre, Shin-Soo Choo and Mitch Moreland are three more hitters with strong track records who have come alive. Add in the exciting work of young speedster Delino DeShields Jr., and you get the makings of a dangerous offense.

If it turns out that Hamilton indeed has something left to give, the Rangers offense will only become more formidable. And in an AL postseason hunt that looks as wide open as any in recent memory, simply having a formidable offense could prove to be good enough.

In all, we have our latest reminder of just how much a month’s worth of baseball can change things. Thanks to a week of hot baseball on the team’s part and a debut that wasn’t without silver linings on his part, Hamilton has gone from looking like an obvious novelty act to more like a potential role player.

It may very well be true that the Rangers only wanted Hamilton so he could help them fill seats. But the way things are going now, he could be a reason the fans filling those seats are watching winning baseball in the coming months.

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

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With the 2015 first-year player draft approaching, let’s take a look back at how the last 10 Oakland A’s first-round draft picks have fared.

Because hindsight is a beautiful thing.

For purposes of a tidy list, we’ll stick with the first overall selection from each year dating back to 2005. There may be a better draft pick, a guy picked later who is playing better currently. If that’s the case, that player may get a brief mention, but again, this article will concentrate on the first pick.

Also worth noting, guys more recently drafted—2012 through 2014 for example—will get more leniency.

So how have the A’s done with their first picks? For ease, we’ll call each one a hit or a miss.

Let’s find out.

Begin Slideshow

In the bottom of the fifth inning of Saturday’s game against the Detroit Tigers, the Houston Astros spun the second triple play of the 2015 MLB season.

It was Houston’s first in a long while, per ESPN Stats & Info:

Ian Kinsler shot a grounder to third, but the Astros whipped it around the horn and got out of trouble in a hurry with Detroit threatening.

[MLB]

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A year ago, Prince Fielder looked finished. Finito. Spent. And any other synonym for the word “done.”

But as anybody who watched the Texas Rangers veteran first baseman in action on Friday night against the New York Yankees will tell you, rumors of Fielder’s demise were greatly exaggerated.

Fielder went into Texas’ tilt at Yankee Stadium in the midst of an outstanding comeback season, batting .340 with an .884 OPS and five home runs. He then made said comeback even more outstanding, leading the Rangers to a 10-9 victory with a pair of home runs and four RBI.

To the videos! This was Fielder’s first homer, a three-run, upper-deck shot off Michael Pineda in the third inning:

And this was his second, a long solo shot to center off Chasen Shreve in the seventh inning:

With these two home runs, Fielder now has 295 for his career. Five more, and he’ll become the 46th left-handed batter ever to reach the 300-home-run plateau.

He should have no trouble getting there. He’s now hitting .341 with a .918 OPS, and his seven homers give him a real shot at his first 30-homer season since back in 2012.

And after watching Fielder in 2013 and 2014, it’s hard to watch what he’s doing now without feeling at least a shred of disbelief.

In 2013, Fielder seemed to be sinking into a decline phase. His .819 OPS and 25 homers were the two worst full-season marks of his career, and he looked completely out of gas in the middle of the Detroit Tigers‘ playoff run.

The Tigers’ response was to get Fielder and as much of the money remaining on his nine-year, $214 million contract off their hands as they possibly could. The Rangers were the taker they found, and they didn’t exactly get a good return on their investment. Fielder OPS’d just .720 with three homers in 42 games for them in 2014, and then was lost for the season to neck surgery.

At that point, things looked bad. Fielder was a guy on the wrong side of 30 who already seemed to be declining and now had to come back from a serious operation. Any reasonable person could have guessed that his best days were squarely in the rearview mirror.

But now here we are in 2015, watching Fielder not only producing like his old self but looking like his old self, too.

How is Fielder looking like his old self? Well, it’s all right there in the two videos embedded above. Watch those, and you’ll see a classic Fielder swing: strong base, quick bat, explosive finish.

We didn’t get to see too many swings like that in 2013 and 2014. No doubt Fielder wanted to swing like that, but he couldn’t.

As in, he literally couldn’t. His health wouldn’t let him.

As Fielder told Bleacher Report’s Scott Miller this March, his bad neck would cause pain and numbness in his left arm. As a result, the light-tower power that made him one of the great young power hitters in MLB history during his time with the Milwaukee Brewers all but vanished.

“I couldn’t move,” Fielder told T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com. “I couldn’t move enough to get into any kind of habits. It wasn’t a bad swing. I just had no power. I got to the ball decently, there just wasn’t anything there. I wasn’t strong enough to complete my swing.”

Granted, there were times when Fielder seemed to find his old swing. Like that time he hit a second-decker at Globe Life Park in Arlington early last May. But for the most part, his swings looked like this:

There just wasn’t much there. Fielder’s bat speed was greatly diminished, and you can see him doing what Rangers hitting coach Dave Magadan calls “crashing into the ball.” That’s his way of saying Fielder was jumping on pitches rather than letting them travel.

Given the state of Fielder’s health, there wasn’t much else he could do. But he’s healthy now, and the difference doesn’t sneak by on the eye test. He once again has the goods to let the ball travel and to take good rips at it.

And it’s not hard to find where the return of his old swing is helping Fielder the most.

For one, he can hit fastballs again. As these figures from Baseball Savant can vouch, his average against the hard stuff was trending down for a while there, and now it’s back up:

• 2011: .334
• 2012: .337
• 2013: .273
• 2014: .271
• 2015: .321

That’s Fielder’s renewed bat speed at work, and his renewed ability to let the ball travel has granted him another gift: He can hit the ball with authority to the opposite field again.

That’s something he couldn’t do in 2013 and 2014, as FanGraphs put his Isolated Power (slugging percentage minus singles) to left field at .094 and .097. This year, he entered Friday’s contest with a .154 ISO to left field, which was backed up by his best opposite-field hard-hit rate (33.3) since 2007.

And overall, Fielder is making better contact than he has in years. Entering Friday, FanGraphs put his hard-hit rate at 36.4 percent. That’s his best mark since 2010. And as we noted recently, hard contact turns into hits about as often as you’d expect.

Throw in the fact that Fielder is once again living well below the league-average strikeout rate, and the only thing that’s missing is his old walk habit. He’s drawn only 11 walks all season. But given that pitchers can see what we can see, that could very well change as they realize it’s in their best interest to be more careful with how they pitch Fielder.

Really, nothing would be surprising at this point. Fielder has done enough over a large enough sample size to prove that he has plenty of good baseball left in him, and he’s looked good doing it.

Once again, it’s good to be the Prince.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.

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With Miguel Montero and David Ross both available at catcher for the Chicago Cubs, Welington Castillo became surplus to requirements, and the team traded him to the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday.

Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports first had the report:

The Cubs went on to confirm the deal via their Twitter account.

Castillo, 28, didn’t exactly make himself indispensable in Chicago, hitting just .163 with two home runs and five RBI in 24 games. In Seattle, he’ll battle with Jesus Sucre to back up starting catcher Mike Zunino, who has had his own struggles this year (.179 with five homers and 11 RBI). Zunino did hit 22 home runs last year and is considered the future at catcher for Seattle. 

Sucre is hitting just .067 on the year in six games, so Castillo appears to be an instant upgrade behind Zunino. While Castillo isn’t the best hitter, he hit 13 home runs and added 46 RBI last season for Chicago in 110 games. Seattle won’t need to rely on him that often, however, and it will be glad to upgrade its catching depth.

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It’s your first major league start. Your entire family is watching. All eyes are on you. Houston Astros pitcher Lance McCullers knew this would be a moment to remember for the rest of his life.

So, he came prepared.

During Monday night’s game against the Oakland Athletics, McCullers donned some sweet Batman cleats on the mound. They were all black with the Bat-Signal on the back and the Under Armour symbol on the front.

Here’s a closer look:

McCullers finished with five strikeouts and allowed one run on three hits in 4.2 innings. The Batman cleats weren’t enough to get the win, as the Athletics pulled out a 2-1 victory.

[MLB, MLB.com]

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