Kuzul

San Francisco Giants pitcher Jake Peavy hit a home run off Cincinnati Reds pitcher Collin Balester during the fourth inning of Wednesday’s game, becoming the fifth different Giants pitcher to homer this season, which ties an MLB record, per MLB Stat of the Day.

Peavy was an unlikely candidate to help San Fransisco match the record, as he only had two career home runs before Wednesday’s game, with both of those coming back in 2006 as a member of the San Diego Padres.

He does now have a .226 batting average for the season, but his career batting line of .168/.205/.226 is only somewhat above average for a pitcher.

Teammate Madison Bumgarner, who has been the best-hitting pitcher in all of baseball the past two seasons, unsurprisingly accounts for five of the nine home runs hit by San Francisco hurlers, with Tim Hudson, Ryan Vogelsong and Mike Leake each chipping in one.

Leake is also unusually good in the batter’s box for a pitcher, but Vogelsong and Hudson are closer to Peavy’s level.

With one current member of the starting rotation (rookie Chris Heston) yet to go deep this year, the Giants have a reasonable chance to be the first team ever with six different pitchers to homer in a season.

Heston doesn’t have any home runs in his 49 career at-bats, but he does have a pair of doubles, along with a strong (for a pitcher) .204/.204/.245 batting line.

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There was a time when Yasiel Puig was the hot topic du jour on a seemingly, um, jourly basis. That went double during October, a month when Puig’s every action was best observed through a microscope. And the more subatomic, the better.

But this year? Not as much. And the way things are looking now, it’s time to wonder if we’ll even be discussing Puig at all come the postseason.

Oh, don’t worry. The Los Angeles Dodgers will be there. They’ve caught fire and opened up a big lead in the NL West over the defending world champion San Francisco Giants. With less than 20 games to go before the end of the regular season, the Dodgers can plan on a third straight NL West title and begin pondering their postseason roster.

To this end, what to do with Puig could be their most difficult decision.

The star 24-year-old right fielder has had trouble staying on the field in 2015, participating in only 77 games due to assorted injuries. The latest of those is a right hamstring strain that has kept him out of action since Aug. 27, and which isn’t close to being 100 percent healed.

“We’ve got about a month and Yas has been out a few days, a week, maybe,” Dodgers skipper Don Mattingly said earlier this month, via Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times. “If it is a month, we’re pretty much right at the end of the year.”

This is to say Puig may not be healthy until the postseason arrives. At that point, it’ll have been over a month since his last major league game, leaving the Dodgers little to go off of regarding whether he’s worthy of a spot on their postseason roster.

It’s no wonder that Mattingly’s uncertainty about the situation comes across even in print: “I think we’d have to see a little bit. We just cross those bridges as we get there. I guess it would depend on what he’s able to do at that point.”

Of course, it is possible the Dodgers’ decision will turn out to be an easy one. If Puig makes it obvious that he’s not healthy yet, putting him on the postseason roster anyway would be folly. Those roster spots are too precious to waste on guys who can’t give it their all.

But then again, what to do with Puig and the postseason roster won’t necessarily be a no-brainer, even if he does show the Dodgers he’s healthy. Looking healed in drills isn’t the same as being 100 percent in games, after all.

And then there’s the possibility that the Dodgers could conclude that they don’t really need Puig anyway.

The notion of Puig being an expendable part of the Dodgers’ plans would have been absurd in either of the last two seasons. In notching a .925 OPS with 19 homers, he was arguably their best position player in 2013. Even as his numbers fell to an .863 OPS and 16 homers, you could still make the same argument last year. Puig was good. Really good.

But 2015 has brought a Wild Horse of a different color. When he hasn’t been injured, Puig has registered an OPS of just .764 with 11 homers and put up a 1.1 WAR, which puts him well short of the ranks of the Dodgers’ best players. Rather than great, he’s been merely solid.

That’s made it a wee bit easier for the Dodgers to make do without him. To their credit, they’ve done precisely that.

With Puig on the field, the Dodgers have gone a solid 42-35. Without Puig on the field, however, they’ve done a bit better at 41-26. Part of the reason for this is that the Dodgers offense hasn’t skipped a beat without Puig in the lineup. 

You can take it from the slash lines, which show no notable difference in the Dodgers’ offensive production if Puig’s contributions were erased entirely:

• Dodgers with Puig: .253/.329/.418
• Dodgers minus Puig: .252/.329/.416

Now, this could be read as the latest entry in the “Look How Overrated Yasiel Puig Is!” journal. But don’t do that. That’s a bad reading. Talk of Puig being overrated is in itself overrated.

Rather, this is more so a compliment to the depth the Dodgers have enjoyed this season. And where they’ve been deepest just so happens to be the outfield. Despite Puig’s extended absences, the Dodgers outfield has still managed to be one of the most productive in baseball.

Joc Pederson and Andre Ethier are mainly to thank for that, and Carl Crawford has also been solid when his own shaky health has allowed him to play. Elsewhere, role players like Kike Hernandez, Scott Van Slyke, Alex Guerrero and, most recently, Justin Ruggiano have also lent a hand.

And with the postseason fast approaching, it’s certainly not hard to imagine the Dodgers being willing to move forward with a combination of these players, rather than shoehorn Puig into the mix.

Because Crawford, Pederson and Ethier have been hitting well recently, they look like a solid starting trio. In light of their track records as lefty killers, Van Slyke and Ruggiano could be used as right-handed platoon partners for Crawford and Ethier. If he recovers well enough from his own hamstring strain, Hernandez would be the do-it-all utility guy and another right-handed bat to use in a pinch.

Of course, going with a crew like this would put pressure on Mattingly to push the right buttons in October. But as J.P. Hoornstra of the Los Angeles Daily News pointed out, Mattingly has been forced to do quite a bit of mixing and matching this month. He’s been getting his platoon practice, and the club’s .761 OPS this month says it’s working.

Bottom line: The Dodgers haven’t needed Puig’s presence to enjoy a productive outfield in 2015, and the pieces are there for them if they want to try to continue that trend into October.

…Or, they could just decide to roll the dice on a healthy (or healthy enough) Puig anyway. And as much as all of the above wouldn’t be the worst idea, this, too, wouldn’t be the worst idea.

Though Puig hasn’t been himself this year, he’s at least been better than average. That’s reflected best in how his .764 OPS translates to a safely above-average 110 OPS+. That’s notably better than Crawford’s 96 OPS+. And given that Crawford is also currently banged up after struggling with injuries for much of the year, one could argue for the Dodgers holding right field for Puig and projecting Ethier to start over Crawford in left field.

There’s also the notion that Puig is the best emergency center field option the Dodgers have, a rather important distinction given what’s known about Pederson. If he happens to go into another deep slump in October, the Dodgers would be happy they have Puig’s athleticism to plug into center field.

Lastly, there’s the notion that rolling the dice on Puig could result in a huge payout. He can be frustratingly inconsistent, but he’s also shown at times in 2015—including right before his latest injury—that he can be an absolute terror when he finds his rhythm at the plate. If he were to do so in October, he could put the entire Dodgers offense on his back.

So, while the Dodgers theoretically could tackle the postseason without Puig, even if he shows them he’s good to go, it’s a lot harder to say with any conviction that they should.

Which, if nothing else, is to say it’ll be interesting to see what the Dodgers do. The signs say Puig’s recovery is going to leave them with a tough decision to make: the allure of Puig’s talent, or the depth that’s allowed them to survive just fine without it?

Like Mattingly said, the Dodgers will cross this bridge when they get to it. But for now, it doesn’t hurt to send along the appropriate message.

Good luck with that.

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

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The San Francisco Giants‘ chances of making the postseason are slim enough as is, and they won’t improve with news of an injury to Joe Panik.

Continue for updates.

Bruce Bochy Will ‘Be Surprised’ if Panik Plays Again in 2015

Monday, Sept. 14

Amy Gutierrez of CSN Bay Area reported manager Bruce Bochy’s comments on how the Giants may be without their All-Star second baseman for the remainder of the season as he deals with an injured back. Last week, CSN Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic shed some light on the severity of the issue:        

There’s no question San Francisco will miss Panik in the lineup. His .312 batting average and .378 on-base percentage are both second on the team, while his 4.1 WAR would be third among MLB second basemen if he had the at-bats to qualify, per FanGraphs.   

With that said, the Giants only have a 1.5 percent chance of making the playoffs on Baseball Prospectus, and they’re only a 0.9 percent favorite on FanGraphs.

Whether or not Panik plays, San Francisco will in all likelihood miss the postseason. Since that’s the case, the team might as well let Panik rest now and allow his back to fully heal.

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If Zack Greinke hasn’t cleared space in his trophy case yet, he’d better get busy. Because, while the race for the National League Cy Young Award isn’t over, the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ right-hander looks more like the prohibitive front-runner with each superlative start.

Greinke twirled his latest gem on Sunday, shutting out the Arizona Diamondbacks for eight innings while racking up eight strikeouts and issuing no walks. (The bullpen nearly coughed it up, as closer Kenley Jansen surrendered a three-run homer to Jarrod Saltalamacchia in the ninth, but the Dodgers prevailed, 4-3.)

With his ERA now sitting at a minuscule 1.61 and an imposing 17-3 record (even if you spit on pitching wins, that’s eye-opening), it’s difficult to imagine anyone else taking home the NL’s top pitching prize.

And really, it’s been that way all season.

Greinke opened his 2015 campaign by tossing six innings of two-hit, one-run ball against the San Diego Padres on April 7.

That six-inning mark would prove meaningful, because it’s the minimum number of frames Greinke has thrown in every start this season. 

He’s also allowed three earned runs or fewer in all but two of his 29 outings, and he’s kept his ERA constantly under 2.00.

There’s steady, and then there’s dominant. What Greinke is doing is some freakish combination of the two. Call it “stominant,” for lack of an actual word.

“You get spoiled when you see it every day. ‘Oh, he went six or seven innings again, gave up one run,'” Greinke’s rotation-mate, Clayton Kershaw, said, per Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register. “That’s the sign of a great season, when your teammates are, ‘Ho hum, another great start.'”

Speaking of Kershaw, I said up there that it was difficult to imagine anyone else winning the NL Cy Young—difficult, but not impossible.

As transcendent as Greinke has been, Kershaw—the reigning NL Cy Young and MVP winner—is right there with him. And so is Jake Arrieta of the Chicago Cubs.

Here, let’s just lay the three studs’ stats on the table:

Greinke has the otherworldly ERA, but Arrieta has nudged his under 2.00 as well. And Kershaw owns the gaudy strikeout total.

Plus, all three hurlers pitch for clubs that appear ticketed for October, so voters who factor that in won’t be able to use team success as a tiebreaker.

One variable that could tip the scales toward Arrieta is that he pitches in the NL Central. Not only is the division full of hitter-happy yards, it features the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates, both of whom are on track to join the Cubs in the postseason.

The NL West, meanwhile, where Greinke and Kershaw toil, boasts only one above-.500 team besides LA (the San Francisco Giants) and three pitcher-friendly yards in Dodger Stadium, San Francisco’s AT&T Park and San Diego’s Petco Park.

It’s no surprise, as MLB.com’s Phil Rogers recently pointed out, that the NL West has produced 12 of the Senior Circuit’s last 16 Cy Young winners.

It’s a fair point. Greinke, though, has dominated on almost every mound he’s climbed.

In fact, in 20.2 combined innings at Wrigley Field, Milwaukee‘s Miller Park and Cincinnati‘s Great American Ball Park (the three NL Central stadiums in which Greinke has pitched this year) he has allowed nine hits and exactly zero earned runs.

One of the only places he’s endured what might be called a bad start was Colorado‘s Coors Field, where he yielded five runs and 10 hits in six innings. But, you know, it’s Coors Field.

There’s still a little time for Greinke to falter, and for Kershaw and Arrieta to push themselves over the top. What if Arrieta, say, threw another no-hitter to add to the one he tossed Aug. 30 against the Dodgers? Or what if Kershaw authored a masterpiece like his 15-strikeout no-no from 2014? 

In a race this close, those kind of indelible moments could be the difference. 

Of course, Greinke’s more than capable of doing something historic, like the 45.2 scoreless-innings streak he logged this season, the fourth-longest in MLB since 1960.

But if Greinke wins his second career Cy Young, it’ll likely be on the strength of his ludicrously low ERA (assuming it remains ludicrously low). ESPN’s Jayson Stark expanded on this point:

To make the case that anyone other than Greinke should win this award, you’re essentially arguing that ERA doesn’t matter. And boy, is there an irony to going down that road to build a case AGAINST Zack Greinke.

That’s because in 2009, when Greinke won his first Cy Young, it was his glittering ERA (2.16) that was the single biggest reason he won. And at the time, we actually looked at that as a breakthrough. Remember? It felt like the first time voters had looked past a guy’s win total (16, in his case) and voted for the man who had—shocker—pitched the best. Quite a concept.

Stats keep advancing, and ERA has its flaws, no argument there.

For his part, however, Greinke has been virtually flawless. You don’t have to love ERA to appreciate what he’s accomplished. You just have to love baseball.

It’s entertaining and good for the game for there to be a legitimate debate about the NL Cy Young. The next few weeks should be exceedingly interesting as Greinke, Arrieta and Kershaw make their closing arguments.

Right now, though, if I’m casting a ballot, I’m voting for Greinke and not thinking twice. He’s simply been that good. No, wait, good isn’t the right word. How about…stominant.

All stats current as of Sept. 13 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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OK, now we can stick a fork in the San Francisco Giants.

We weren’t quite ready to do that a week ago after the defending champs were swept by the NL West-leading Los Angeles Dodgers. Things looked bad, but not doomed. With key players due back from injury and their schedule set to lighten up, the Giants stood a strong chance of getting hot.

Well, they haven’t.

In the wake of last week’s sweep, the Giants lost four out of seven against the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks. They’re now just 13-20 in their last 33 games and staring up at big deficits in the two playoff races they’re in. They trail the Dodgers by 8.5 games in the NL West race and the Chicago Cubs by nine games in the National League wild-card race.

The good news, such as it is, is the Giants still have an easy remaining schedule. But the bad news is that they no longer look like they’re going to be tackling it at full strength.

As John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle highlighted after the Giants’ 2-1 defeat in Arizona on Wednesday night, the club’s hopes for a full squad have been derailed by lingering injuries to Joe Panik, Brandon Crawford and Nori Aoki and also by Hunter Pence’s slow healing from a bad oblique. 

“It’s just nonstop right now,” skipper Bruce Bochy said of his club’s injuries. “It’s really unbelievable.”

So, behold the reality of the situation. FanGraphs now gives the Giants a 0.3 percent chance of making it back to October to defend their title. And in light of their recent losing streak, their huge deficits and their rapidly decaying roster, even that may be generous.

There’s only one thing to do in times like these, and that’s look forward to what the offseason may hold. And this, mercifully, is where Giants fans will come face-to-face with a great big bundle of optimism. Provided the club is up to being bold, this winter should be a big one.

In case you’re thinking it, no, the Giants aren’t in line for big, sweeping changes this winter. There’s just no need for that.

Most of the 2015 band is set to return in 2016, and that’s largely a good thing.

Buster Posey, unquestionably the best catcher in baseball, isn’t going anywhere. The same goes for staff ace Madison Bumgarner and every member—Panik, Crawford, Matt Duffy and Brandon Belt—of an infield that Jonah Keri of Grantland and Craig Edwards of FanGraphs have deemed the “best in baseball.” The Giants are also set to retain their entire starting outfield and most of their bullpen.

All this means the Giants will be returning the key pieces of an offense that ranks fifth in the National League in runs and most of the key pieces of a bullpen that ranks sixth in MLB in ERA. In other words, they’re going to be returning virtually all the key players who have formed their biggest strengths.

There is, however, no question the Giants will have to address what’s been their big weakness in 2015: starting pitching.

Giants starters entered Friday tied for 12th in MLB in ERA at 4.06, but things look even worse if you subtract the strong work of Bumgarner and (surprisingly) solid rookie Chris Heston, as the remaining starters boast an ugly 4.63 ERA.

That should surprise precisely nobody. Outside of Bumgarner and Heston, the Giants have relied on the services of four over-the-hill pitchers in Tim Hudson, Ryan Vogelsong, Tim Lincecum and Jake Peavy and also on a seemingly permanently broken Matt Cain. 

This always was the risk heading into the season, and the Giants were bitten by it. But fortunately, they’ll soon be in a position to fix this mistake in a big way rather than continue to live with it.

Hudson announced this week that he’ll be retiring at season’s end, and Lincecum and Vogelsong are both due for free agency. The three of them alone represent $34 million set to come off the books, and there’s more where that came from. Marco Scutaro’s contract is finally up at the end of the year, and also heading for free agency are Jeremy Affeldt and trade acquisitions Mike Leake, Marlon Byrd and Alejandro De Aza. 

Now, the catch is that some of the money coming off the books will be needed for various pay raises. Posey, Peavy, Bumgarner and Romo are all due for higher salaries in 2016, and Crawford and Belt are due for pay hikes in arbitration.

But even with all this taken into account, the Giants still have only about $154 million in projected payouts on the books for 2016. That’s $20 million below this year’s $173 million Opening Day payroll, and that figure could be the club’s payroll floor rather than its payroll ceiling.

Bottom line: Starting pitching is really the only thing the Giants need to pursue this winter, and they’re going to have enough money to do so. And given the nature of this particular winter, they’ll be in the right place at the right time.

Between David Price, Johnny Cueto, Jordan Zimmermann, Scott Kazmir and—if he opts out of his contract with the Dodgers—Zack Greinke, this winter’s market is going to be loaded with front-line starters. And regarding that, at least one Giant is thinking big.

“I’d be surprised if we weren’t in the market for more front-line pitching,” said Peavy recently, via Barry M. Bloom of MLB.com. “This way, when you go into next year, you know what you’ve got.”

Peavy’s wish should be granted. Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports recently reported that the Giants are at least likely to consider Zimmermann, and Grant Brisbee of McCovey Chronicles nailed it in writing this in response to that report:

The Zimmermann whisper is more than just a stray rumor, though. It’s the blueprint of the offseason…If it’s not Zimmermann, it will be Johnny Cueto. If it’s not Cueto, It’ll be Zack Greinke. If it’s not Greinke, it’ll be David Price. If it’s not Price, It’ll be Scott Kazmir. There’s a tier below this, too, and the Giants will be kicking tires and kicking tires and kicking tires on every single starting pitcher.

He’s right. And with the market indeed being so saturated with front-line pitching, it’s reasonable to expect that prices for these guys won’t far exceed San Francisco’s grasp. Especially if Zimmermann is indeed their main target, as he’s unlikely due for an overly ridiculous payout.

Heck, signing Zimmermann might even leave money to spare for another free-agent starter from the second tier, which is set to include names such as Brett Anderson, Wei-Yin Chen, Yovani Gallardo, Jeff Samardzija and Doug Fister.

Also, Mike Leake. His ground-ball style makes him an ideal fit for the Giants’ terrific infield defense, and Andrew Baggarly of the Bay Area News Group reports that selling Leake on re-signing may be easy:

If the Giants can sign an ace starter and one of the market’s second-tier starters this winter, what’s been their biggest weakness in 2015 will have gotten a major face-lift. And with that done, all that will be left are secondary concerns.

Of those, the only one that resembles a real priority is finding an upgrade over Angel Pagan, who’s been the worst center fielder in baseball when he hasn’t been injured.

This could mean signing somebody like Austin Jackson for cheap or seeing if there’s a trade to be made for someone more permanent. For example, perhaps the catcher-needy Minnesota Twins would be interested in clearing the way for Byron Buxton by swapping Aaron Hicks for Andrew Susac.

What we’re hearing from the Giants right now is their slow and sullen march to a disappointing end to a once-promising season. But make no mistake, we’re not hearing the death knell of the dynasty they’ve built over the last six years. 

The Giants are going to head into the winter built upon a remarkably strong foundation and with what looks like enough resources to fund needed upgrades. If they play their cards right, they’ll be right back at it in 2016.

From there, it would just be a matter of letting their strange even-year magic do its thing.

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

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Tim Lincecum was never supposed to last this long. But he was never supposed to go away so soon.

He was too small and too funky, and he was never going to endure. Then he was a two-time Cy Young winner and a World Series champion, and he was going to be a San Francisco Giant forever.

He scared away so many scouts that five college pitchers were drafted ahead of him in 2006 (Greg Reynolds? Brad Lincoln? Brandon Morrow?). But he convinced the Giants to the point that they offered him $100 million for five years (he said no).

Lincecum never fit into any standard model, and he always defied every prediction.

And that’s why I’m still not convinced that the hip surgery that ended Lincecum’s 2015 season will also end his Giants career.

There’s every reason to believe that it will. Lincecum will be a free agent at season’s end, and while the reports Thursday were that he’ll fully recover by spring training, there’s no way the Giants can sign him for anything close to the $18 million he made this season in the last campaign of a two-year, $35 million contract.

No one else will, either, but it’s often harder for a player to stay in the same place with a drastically reduced salary.

Giants general manager Bobby Evans wouldn’t even discuss the issue when he spoke to reporters Thursday, according to Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News.

“The timing to discuss that will have to come later,” Evans said.

In one way, you could hardly blame the Giants for saying goodbye now. As much of a bargain as Lincecum was at the start of his career, the Giants have paid him $75 million for a 39-42 record and a 4.68 ERA over the last four years (if you prefer modern stats, they’ve paid the same money for minus-2.7 WAR, per Baseball-Reference.com).

It’s hard to know how much that lack of success was related to the health issues that eventually led to Thursday’s surgery. Way back in April 2012, I wrote about “whispers around the game” that Lincecum’s hip was bothering him, and that he couldn’t drive toward the plate with his usual strength.

Lincecum denied it then, and Baggarly wrote Thursday that any issues before this year were more stiffness than pain. While Lincecum’s overall numbers haven’t come close to matching what he did from 2007 to 2011, he did throw no-hitters in both 2013 and 2014.

And when the Giants moved him to the bullpen in the 2012 postseason, Lincecum pitched effectively and helped the Giants to their second World Series crown.

He barely pitched in the 2014 playoffs (1.2 innings in one World Series game), but Lincecum will still go down as one of the most recognizable and most significant figures from the best times the Giants franchise has ever had.

Maybe it’s over for him now, at least in San Francisco. I’m not convinced.

Lincecum is still just 31. Hip surgeries are serious, but they don’t need to be career-ending, as Alex Rodriguez and Troy Tulowitzki are proving. Dr. Marc Philippon, who did their surgeries, also did Lincecum’s.

He told the Giants that the surgery was successful, with a five-month recovery timetable, per Baggarly. Giants athletic trainer Dave Groeschner told reporters that Lincecum will begin the rehab process Friday.

“Nobody wants to have surgery,” Groeschner said. “He did everything he could to try to avoid it. It’s just, he wants to get back to being Tim Lincecum.”

I can see it. I can see him in that same Giants uniform, perhaps with the hair grown all the way out again. I can see him on that same mound, defying every prediction one more time.

I can see it, and it turns out I’m not alone. When Baggarly and other reporters approached Buster Posey on Thursday to ask about Lincecum’s time as a Giant, Posey refused to describe it in the past tense.

“It’s hard to sit here and share memories because I fully expect him to be back,” Posey told them.

I’m not as confident as that, but I can see it.

Or maybe I just want to see it.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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Major League Baseball’s richest somehow got even richer Thursday, as the Los Angeles Dodgers called up shortstop Corey Seager, one of the top prospects in the sport.

Jon Heyman of CBS Sports reported the news.

Seager, 21, ascended to No. 1 in Baseball America‘s midseason prospect rankings and ranked fourth in Sporting News‘ similar June checkup.

Selected No. 18 overall in 2012, Seager has ascended quickly through the Dodgers system. He has split 2015 between Double-A and Triple-A, hitting .292/.343/.486 with 18 home runs and 74 RBI overall. While his numbers have dipped a bit in Triple-A compared to his scorching start in Double-A, Seager’s arrival should come with as much fanfare as that of Dodgers center fielder Joc Pederson, if not more.

The Dodgers have spent the entirety of 2015 relying on 36-year-old Jimmy Rollins at shortstop. Rollins has responded by hitting .222/.276/.358 with 13 home runs and 41 RBI while playing below-average defense. He is on pace for his first negative WAR season since a 14-game cup of coffee in 2000, according to FanGraphs‘ formula.

Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports said the Dodgers plan on playing Seager, noting it may be related to third baseman Justin Turner’s taking a pitch off his hand Wednesday:

While Seager has spent the bulk of his career at shortstop, he’s also put in time at third base.

Of course, it’s entirely unclear how much time Seager will get and how it will affect Rollins. The Dodgers are still in the midst of a pennant race. Managers tend to err on the side of caution when a World Series is involved; it’s possible Rollins continues to get playing time well into October despite his poor performance.

Seager might not have a Yasiel Puig-like debut either. As his numbers in Triple-A show, Seager took some time to acclimate to the increased competition. That will only be more difficult as teams try their best to keep baseball’s highest payroll away from the sport’s pinnacle.

Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter.

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A young San Francisco Giants fan was shocked he didn’t grab a foul ball that came his way during the team’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday. 

In the bottom of the fourth inning, Gregor Blanco of the Giants smacked a foul ball into the stands. The young fan failed to make the catch, leaving the group behind him grabbing for the souvenir. The kid couldn’t believe it, putting his hands over his head in disbelief like his mom had told him they ran out of Bagel Bites. 

Worse yet, the Giants went on to lose, 6-0.

[MLB]

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Madison Bumgarner channeled his inner dancer in the third inning of Thursday’s 9-1 win over the Chicago Cubs, performing a pirouette-like move to make a play at first base.

San Francisco Giants first baseman Brandon Belt fielded Kyle Schwarber’s ground ball, tossing it to Bumgarner, who reached across his shoulders to make the catch while spinning to land with his foot on the bag.

The lefty limited the Cubs to two hits and one run in six innings at AT&T Park.

[Major League Baseball]

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The San Diego Padres‘ dreams faded rather quickly this summer.

The offseason was an incredibly aggressive one for first-year general manager A.J. Preller, who brought in no fewer than seven new players to upgrade a team that had not finished higher than third place in the previous four seasons.

With those moves came gargantuan expectations within a division that already housed a club with three World Series titles in the past five years (the San Francisco Giants) and another with a record-breaking payroll (the Los Angeles Dodgers).

For a short time, the Padres lived up to the hype, winning 10 of their first 15 games. Then came a reality check in the form of seven losses in their next eight contests. They never realistically sniffed the top of the National League West again. 

With that kind of letdown comes consequences, including a fired manager (Bud Black) and the expectation to sell at the trade deadlines, both in July and August. But even though the Padres were virtually silent in July and most of the subsequent month, they still have a valuable trade chip in starter James Shields.

He has already cleared waivers, meaning he can be traded to any team until the August 31 deadline. And the Padres would probably like to get rid of his contract before it gets too heavy for their payroll.

Shields cleared waivers because his four-year, $75 million contract turns huge next season.

The Padres are paying him $10 million this year, of which less than $2 million is left, and his salary dramatically jumps to $21 million in each of the next three campaigns with a $16 million team option for a fifth or a $2 million buyout in 2019. Shields can opt out after next season, but given the way the entirety of this year has gone, he’s unlikely to do so.

Understandably, no team was going to take a chance at claiming the 33-year-old right-hander and risk being stuck with him and that contract.

Despite the money, Shields has a certain appeal to teams pushing for playoff spots with dreams of World Series appearances floating in their heads.

Since July 1, Shields has taken the ball 10 times and produced a 2.95 ERA in 61 innings. Despite that, the Padres are 3-7 in those starts and currently sit 6.5 games out of first place in their division and 11.5 out of the second wild-card spot with four teams ahead of them.

All of this gives the Padres incentive to move the postseason-tested Shields, and it gives a contender something to think about heading into the final days of the August trade deadline.

The Padres are under no mandate to cut their franchise-record $108 million payroll, nor to trade Shields, but one option could be a swapping of hugely disappointing contracts. For example, the Padres could pursue a trade for Pablo Sandoval, whom they sought in free agency last offseason, from the Boston Red Sox along with another player or cash in exchange for Shields, a trade suggested by the Boston Globe‘s Nick Cafardo.

The Padres are unlikely to eat too much of Shields’ deal, so this kind of option might be their best bet to put him on his fourth team in four seasons.

“It makes too much sense, so it won’t happen,” a scout told Cafardo of the possibility earlier this month.

Some of the reasons Shields did not sign with the Padres until February undoubtedly included that he was at an advanced age and the mileage on his arm was already great, which kept teams away. Leading into this season, he had thrown over 200 innings in eight of the past nine years, and the only one in which he failed to do so was his rookie season, when he made only 21 starts for the Tampa Bay Rays.

Decline seemed inevitable, and no club wanted to flirt with the disastrous possibility that Shields would completely fall off a cliff without warning. And over his first 16 starts that certainly seemed to be the case as he compiled a 4.24 ERA and allowed 16 home runs despite making his new home in cavernous Petco Park, a stadium that in 2014 allowed among the fewest long balls in the majors.

However, he’s at 158.2 innings pitched with a 3.74 ERA—right in line with his career averages. He’s also at 9.9 strikeouts per nine innings (though his walk rate is dramatically up from 1.7 last year to 3.2), his highest mark yet.

A day before last month’s non-waiver deadline, Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune detailed Shields’ decline, ending his piece with this: “None of this is to say that Shields can’t be a productive pitcher moving forward. He clearly can, but the Padres might be out of luck if they were hoping to get someone else to pay him to be a $21 million pitcher over the next three years.”

That may still be true, and the Padres, if they want to move him, might have to eat some of that money. But things have changed since that examination of Shields’ fall. He’s gotten much better over the last two months.

And in a time of need, that might be enough for some contender to take the bait.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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