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Rangers Designate Jared Walsh For Assignment

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The Rangers announced a series of roster moves this afternoon, led by the club designating first baseman Jared Walsh for assignment. Taking Walsh’s spot on the active roster will be first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, who the club has activate from the 10-day injured list. In addition, Texas announced that catcher Jonah Heim has been placed on the bereavement list, with catcher Sam Huff recalled from Triple-A to take his spot on the big league roster.

Walsh, 30, joined the Rangers on a minor league deal and his .250/.368/.458 slash line in 57 spring plate appearances impressed enough to earn the slugger a spot on Texas’s Opening Day roster when Lowe found himself sidelined by an oblique strain to open the season. It was a reasonable call for the Rangers to make at the time between Walsh’s solid showing this spring and his track record of past success for the Angels, as Walsh had posted an excellent 130 wRC+ in Anaheim across the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

Unfortunately, things haven’t gone well for Walsh since then. He hit a paltry .197/.258/.355 over his final two years with the Halos while battling thoracic outlet syndrome as well as a neurological illness that has caused him to suffer from persistent headaches and insomnia. Through 17 games with the Rangers, Walsh has looked better than he did when he posted a 33 wRC+ with the Angels last year but has nonetheless struggled to a lackluster .226/.317/.321 batting line across 60 trips to the plate in a Rangers uniform.

Of course, it’s difficult to draw significant conclusions from such a small sample size. On one hand, Walsh has posted a strong 11.7% walk rate so far this season and has an xwOBA of .324 that outstrips his .294 wOBA by 30 points, suggesting better days could be ahead for the veteran. On the other, however, Walsh’s 35% strikeout rate is nearing an untenable level and a far cry from the 24.1% rate he flashed during his peaks years with the Angels, and his meager 84 wRC+ is being floated by a .355 BABIP that clocks in more than 50 points above his career mark.

Perhaps most concerning about Walsh’s performance so far is his lack of power. Between the 2020 and ’21 seasons, Walsh hit 38 home runs in just 176 games with an excellent .251 ISO. So far this season, however, he’s managed to connect on just three extra-base hits with one home run. While that could certainly change if he can find more at-bats at the big league level, Walsh’s average exit velocity this year is just 84.2 mph per Statcast. That places him in the fifth percentile among all major league hitters, putting him line with relatively light-hitting players such as Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Gio Urshela.

Even so, Walsh’s max exit velocity of 112.5 mph indicates that his power potential is still there. An above-average 9.4% barrel rate also provides optimism that more power could be in the first baseman’s future, though first he’ll need to find playing time in the majors for that to come to fruition. Going forward, the Rangers will have seven days to either trade, release, or waive the veteran. Any club that claims Walsh off waivers would take on the remainder of his $1.25MM salary for the 2024 campaign, and if he goes unclaimed the Rangers will be able to assign Walsh outright to the minors. Walsh would have the right to reject that assignment in favor of free agency, though in doing so he would forfeit the remainder of his $1.25MM salary of this season.

Walsh’s departure from the active roster makes room for the return of Lowe, who has been the club’s regular first baseman in each of the past three seasons. That arrangement has gone quite well for the Rangers, with Lowe slashing a respectable .276/.359/.441 in 475 games with the club while picking up a Gold Glove award last year in addition to a Silver Slugger award the year prior. In addition to bumping Walsh from the club’s roster, Lowe’s return seems likely to cut into the playing time afforded to utility youngster Ezequiel Duran, who made seven starts at first in Lowe’s absence despite struggling to a 59 wRC+ so far in the young 2024 campaign.

Along with Lowe’s return, Texas announced that catcher Heim is headed to the bereavement list. The 2023 All Star and Gold Glove award winner has been a steady source of production for the club once again this year, impressing defensively behind the plate while posting a respectable 102 wRC+ on offense. The Rangers will be without their top option behind the plate for the next few days, however, and figure to rely on a tandem of Huff and Andrew Knizner while their primary backstop is away. Huff has posted solid numbers in limited playing time at the big league level to this point in his career, with a career .262/.314/.462 slash line in 75 games dating back to the 2020 season. Knizner, meanwhile, has gone 1-for-14 with four strikeouts in limited playing time with Texas to this point in the young 2024 campaign.

Julio Rodríguez Tops 2023 Pre-Arb Bonus Pool

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Mariners center fielder Julio Rodríguez will receive $1,865,349 from the $50MM bonus pool for pre-arbitration players, the highest of the 2023 recipients, per a report from Ronald Blum of the Associated Press. The AP later released a full list of bonus recipients.

A notable new element of the current collective bargaining agreement is that $50MM is to be taken from central revenues annually and distributed to players that have not yet qualified for arbitration. Certain portions of the money are to be based on awards voting:

  • Rookie of the Year: $750K for first place, $500K for second place
  • MVP and Cy Young: $2.5MM for first place, $1.75MM for second place, $1.5MM for third place, $1MM for fourth or fifth place
  • All-MLB: $1MM for being named “First Team,” $500K for being named “Second Team”

As Blum highlights today, a player is eligible to receive the bonus for one of those achievements per year, earning only the highest amount. Rodríguez finished fourth in American League MVP voting, meaning he got $1MM for that, which accounted for the majority of his payout. After the bonuses, the remainder of the pool is divided on a percentage basis among the top 100 players based on the joint MLB/MLBPA-created version of WAR.

Players are still eligible even if they have signed extensions, as long as they would have been pre-arb without signing such a deal. Rodríguez and the Mariners signed a convoluted extension towards the end of his rookie season in 2022 but he’s only at two years of service time now. Since he would have been pre-arb without that extension, he was able to top this year’s pool.

The following 10 players got more than $1MM:

Last year, Dylan Cease got the biggest slice of the 2022 pie, taking home $2,457,426.

Gold Glove Winners Announced

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Major League Baseball announced the Gold Glove winners tonight, as selected by a group of managers, coaches, and statistical analysis.  Twenty-five percent of the selection total was determined by SABR’s Defensive Index metrics, while the other 75 percent was determined by votes from all 30 managers and up to six coaches from each team.  Of the latter pool, managers and coaches were limited to voting on players in their own league, and they weren’t allowed to vote for any players on their own team.  The utility Gold Glove wasn’t determined with any votes, but rather via a defensive formula calculated by SABR and Rawlings.

The list of winners…

 

AL West Notes: Brantley, Heim, Ohtani

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It has been over a year since Michael Brantley underwent shoulder surgery and even longer (June 26, 2022) since the veteran slugger appeared in a big league game.  However, Brantley’s long recovery process may finally be nearing an end, as Astros GM Dana Brown told 790 AM’s Robert Ford in a radio interview today (hat tip to Danielle Lerner of the Houston Chronicle) that Brantley might begin a minor league rehab assignment within a week’s time.  “This was the time where we really started to grind [Brantley] a little bit where he got sore and the fact that he’s pushing through this, there’s no soreness,” Brown said.  “He’s feeling really good, this feels like a special moment to try get that left-handed bat back….So hopefully he continues to feel well.”

The Astros were confident enough in Brantley’s recovery to sign him to a one-year, $12MM free agent deal last winter, though an initial expectation of an Opening Day return was delayed a season-opening stint on the injured list.  Brantley was then expected back early in May except another setback shut down his rehab entirely, and he had to briefly shut things down again July after restarting his hitting work in June.  Brown’s comments today provide some fresh optimism, but considering Brantley has yet to face live pitching, it may still be a while before he is fully ramped up and ready for MLB competition.  Speculatively, Brantley might be on track for a September return if all goes well, which could provide the Astros with a nice boost for the stretch run and perhaps into the playoffs.

More from the AL West…

  • The Rangers activated catcher Jonah Heim from the 10-day injured list today, and optioned Sam Huff to Triple-A in the corresponding move.  After a left wrist tendon strain sent Heim to the IL on July 27, he returns within the 2-3 week recovery timeline that was initially projected at the time of his placement.  Heim’s outstanding performance in the first half earned an All-Star nod, though his absence hasn’t slowed the Rangers down at all, in part because Mitch Garver has also been hitting up a storm in a part-time catching role.  Even if Heim’s wrist problem limits him to being a left-handed batter rather than a switch-hitter, Garver’s presence should guard Texas against any sort of offensive dropoff behind the plate.
  • Shohei Ohtani will skip his next scheduled start due to arm fatigue, Angels manager Phil Nevin told the Associated Press and other media.  Ohtani was initially slated to face the Rangers on Wednesday, but due to what Nevin described as “some normal arm fatigue that happens at times,” the Halos will now hold Ohtani’s next start back until a series with the Reds that begins on August 21.  The arm issue won’t prevent Ohtani from his usual regular DH duty, and the two-way superstar underlined that point by hitting a home run (his 41st of the season) in the Angels’ 2-1 victory over the Astros today.

Injury Notes: Means, Neto, Treinen, Heim

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The Orioles are sending left-hander John Means on a minor league rehab stint on Thursday, tweets Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. He’ll take the ball for their Double-A club in Bowie.

It’ll be Means’ first game action since he underwent Tommy John surgery last April. The 16-month recovery timetable is towards the longer end of the typical TJS rehab, in part due to a back strain Means suffered this past May. The rehab outings represent his final steps as he builds back to MLB readiness. Pitchers are typically allotted 30 days on a stint, though players working back from Tommy John procedures can get a longer window with league approval.

If all goes well, it stands to reason Means will be back on the Camden Yards mound sometime next month. The 2019 All-Star will get to pitch in a pennant race for the first time in his career. After tonight’s dramatic loss at the hands of the Astros, Baltimore holds a two-game lead on Tampa Bay in the AL East.

A few other health situations around the game:

  • The Angels placed shortstop Zach Neto on the 10-day injured list on Friday due to lower back inflammation. A specific recovery timetable is unclear, though he’ll be out well past the minimal stay. Manager Phil Nevin informed reporters (including Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com) that Neto will be out for several weeks after recent imaging revealed increased inflammation. The club still expects the rookie infielder back before season’s end, but it’s another hurdle for a team that has been floundering since the deadline. Luis Rengifo has kicked over to shortstop with Neto out while Brandon Drury handles second base.
  • Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen has missed the entire season after undergoing shoulder surgery last November. The club announced a rough 10-month recovery timetable at the time of the operation. Almost exactly 10 months out, Treinen has yet to begin a rehab assignment. The veteran right-hander has been throwing bullpen sessions, however, and he told reporters this afternoon he remains hopeful of getting back to the majors this year (relayed by Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times). Treinen has barely pitched over the last two seasons because of shoulder woes but had a 1.99 ERA over 72 1/3 frames in 2021. The Dodgers hold an option for next year valued somewhere between $1MM and $7MM depending on his health status.
  • Rangers All-Star backstop Jonah Heim took batting practice and caught a bullpen session this afternoon, writes Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. It’s his first cage work since tearing a tendon sheath in his left wrist two weeks ago. The Rangers expressed initial concern that Heim would require season-ending surgery, though it seems he’ll be able to play through the discomfort (likely before an offseason surgery). Grant notes that Heim — normally a switch-hitter — may have to swing solely from the left side for the time being, as the wrist is in more pain when he hits right-handed. Heim has been excellent from both sides of the dish this season, and Texas has righty-swinging catchers Mitch Garver and Austin Hedges as their duo with Heim out. Even if skipper Bruce Bochy wanted to limit Heim’s looks against left-handed pitching, Garver — a career .272/.366/.523 hitter against southpaws — should be well equipped to step in.

Jonah Heim To Miss At Least 2-3 Weeks With Wrist Strain; Surgery Possible

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The Rangers announced that catcher Jonah Heim has been placed on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to July 27, with a left wrist tendon strain. Outfielder Bubba Thompson was recalled to take his place on the roster. The club also swapped a couple of pitchers, with righty Josh Sborz reinstated from the 15-day IL while righty Owen White was optioned to Triple-A. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News relays that Heim will rest for two to three weeks before seeing if he can play through the pain. If not, he may require season-ending surgery, or that could be pushed to the offseason.

Heim, 28, departed Wednesday’s game with wrist soreness and it appears the issue is serious enough that he’ll sit out a few weeks. There’s still hope of him returning, but being without Heim for any amount of time is surely unwelcome for the Rangers, as he’s been one of the best backstops in the majors this year. He’s already tallied 14 home runs and is slashing .280/.337/.479 for a wRC+ of 123. He’s also been graded as a strong defender, leading to a tally of 3.5 wins above replacement from FanGraphs this year, trailing only Sean Murphy’s 3.7 among all major league catchers.

In the meantime, the club will rely on a catching tandem of Sam Huff and Mitch Garver. The latter is an above-average hitter but frequent injuries have prevented him from ever playing 105 games in a season and he hasn’t reached 70 games since 2019. He missed two months this year due to a knee sprain and has played 33 games, only donning the tools of ignorance in 13 of those. Huff has only played nine major league games this year, spending most of his time in the minors. But he’s hit well down there, slashing .298/.389/.546 for a 121 wRC+.

The Rangers should be fine with that duo for a while but will likely look for reinforcements of some sort. There are no other catchers on the 40-man roster and Garver’s persistent health issues make him hard to bank on for extended playing time. The trade deadline is now just four days away and midseason trades of catchers are tricky given the challenges of learning a new pitching staff on the fly, but the Rangers might have to try.

Austin Hedges of the Pirates would be an obvious candidate as an impending free agent on a struggling Pirates club, and he has already reportedly drawn trade interest. He’s a poor hitter but is generally considered an excellent defender. The White Sox are busily selling and could move Yasmani Grandal, though he’s making $18.25MM this year. Joey Bart seems to have been leapfrogged by Patrick Bailey and Blake Sabol in San Francisco. He’s in his final option year and will be out of options next year, which perhaps makes him disposable to the Giants in the long-term but useful to the Rangers in the short-term. The Mets are rolling with rookie Francisco Álvarez and could perhaps part with Omar Narváez or Tomás Nido. Victor Caratini is stuck behind William Contreras in Milwaukee and has garnered trade interest. Iván Herrera seems to be blocked in St. Louis by Willson Contreras and Andrew Knizner.

The Rangers have had a big lead in the American League West for much of the season but have recently seen the Astros pull within two games while the Angels, six games back, are aggressively making upgrades. Losing a key player like Heim is a rough development for them but they still have a few days to address it.

MLB Announces 2023 All-Star Rosters

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The starters for the 2023 All-Star Game were already announced earlier this week, and today the league revealed the reserve selections and the pitching staffs for the National League and American League teams.  Fan balloting determined the game’s starters, while the reserves and pitchers were picked by a combination of the player ballot and selections from the league office.

This won’t be the final list of players involved, as some more substitutions will be announced later for players who are injured or who have opted not to participate.  Every team must have at least one player represented at the Midsummer Classic, and the starting pitchers for the game will be announced on July 10.

Of note, Shohei Ohtani will be in the game as both a DH and as a pitcher for the third consecutive season.  The Braves led all teams with eight All-Stars, while the Rangers weren’t far behind with six players chosen.  This year’s All-Star Game takes place in Seattle on July 11.

National League

American League

MLB Announces 2023 All-Star Starters

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Major League Baseball announced the starting lineups for the 2023 All-Star Game this evening. This year’s All-Star Game will take place at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park on July 11. The starting pitchers and reserves will be announced at a later date.

American League

National League

* Currently on injured list with sprained toe

The Rangers’ Quietly Excellent Catcher

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A five-player trade between the A’s and Rangers in February of 2021 grabbed immediate headlines due to the recognizable names at the top of the deal. Texas sent stalwart shortstop Elvis Andrus to the division-rival A’s in a swap that brought baseball’s most consistent .247-hitting, 40-homer slugging designated hitter, Khris Davis, to Arlington. It was an exchange of players who’d become lineup fixtures but also had seen their respective contract extensions turn sour for their organizations. The Rangers kicked in $13.5MM to make the trade happen. They also sent backup catcher Aramis Garcia to the A’s and received minor league righty Dane Acker and a catching prospect of their own.

Fast forward two years, and that prospect, Jonah Heim, has become a centerpiece of the Rangers’ roster.

Heim’s development certainly wasn’t immediate. A fourth-round pick by the Orioles back in 2013, the now-27-year-old backstop was traded twice — first for Steve Pearce, and second for Joey Wendle — before making his debut seven years later, during the shortened 2020 season. Heim hit .211/.268/.211 in 41 plate appearances as a rookie and was ranked between eighth and fifteenth in Oakland’s system at the time he was traded to Texas.

That shaky age-25 debut could certainly be attributed to a small sample and the general strangeness of the 2020 campaign, but Heim received a heftier 285 plate appearances with the Rangers in 2021 and turned in a dismal .196/.239/.358 batting line. He managed to swat 10 home runs, but Heim rarely walked and even though he struck out at a better-than-average 20.4% clip, he rarely made great contact (87.1 mph average exit velocity, 37.3% hard-hit rate). Defensively, he was excellent, but Heim’s lack of offense made him look like a backup or part-time option behind the dish.

The Rangers seemed to agree, as they entered the 2021-22 offseason in search of catching upgrades and, just after the lockout ended, swung a deal to acquire slugging catcher Mitch Garver from the Twins. Heim started 12 of the Rangers’ first 28 games behind the plate, but an injury to Garver opened up the door for a larger role. Even when Garver returned relatively quickly from a flexor strain, the Rangers kept him at designated hitter. Prospect Sam Huff came up from Triple-A and saw some of the workload at catcher, but Heim’s early performance at the plate and his excellent defense earned him the larger portion of playing time.

From May 9 through season’s end, Heim started 70% of the Rangers’ games behind the plate. He didn’t sustain the torrid .342/.457/.658 line he’d compiled through his first 12 games, of course, but he finished out the year with a .227/.298/.399 batting line and 16 home runs. His walk rate jumped from 5.3% to 9.1%, and he cut his strikeout rate by a percentage point (19.3%). Heim also upped his average exit velocity by more than two miles per hour and increased his hard-hit rate by two percentage points. It was a series of small gains, but when paired with Heim’s defense, it resulted in a highly valuable all-around player. Heim trailed only the Yankees’ Jose Trevino in pitch-framing value, per Statcast, and Defensive Runs Saved (which doesn’t include framing) credited him with a plus-8 mark. Baseball-Reference pegged him at 2.5 wins above replacement. FanGraphs had him at 2.8 WAR.

That’s enough to consider Heim a starting-caliber catcher in and of itself, but the switch-hitter is in the midst of an offensive breakout that’s further elevating his profile in 2023. Through his first 123 trips to the plate, Heim has turned in a ridiculous .318/.382/.555 batting line with six home runs — already 37.5% of the way to his 2022 total despite having accumulated just 27% as many plate appearances.

Heim has undoubtedly benefited from a .354 average on balls in play, but there’s more than just good fortune at play. Heim has upped his contact on pitches in the strike zone from 88% to 90.1%. His average exit velocity has jumped another 2.2 miles per hour, and he’s seemingly made a more concerted effort to elevate the ball. After posting a 40% grounder rate in 2021 and a 39.1% rate in 2022, he’s hitting the ball on the ground in just 29.5% of his plate appearances this season. Heim has improved his launch angle in each of his big league seasons, and he’s nearly doubled last year’s barrel rate. Statcast ranks him in the 94th percentile or better in “expected” batting average, slugging percentage and wOBA.

Whether Heim can sustain that pace is up for debate. He had similarly encouraging batted-ball metrics during last year’s hot start to the season, though that came in a smaller sample of plate appearances by virtue of the fact that he was playing less often. By the time Heim had reached his current number of plate appearances, he was sitting on roughly average exit velocity and hard-hit rates. At the very least, he’s maintained a high-caliber batted-ball profile over nearly double the sample of his hot start in ’22 — and he’s done so while again grading out as a premier defender at his position.

Dating back to the 2021 season, Heim is now a .246/.312/.426 hitter — about 12% better than league-average by measure of wRC+. The league-average catcher hit .226/.295/.367 in 2022 (89 wRC+) and is hitting .242/.314/.389 (94 wRC+) so far in 2023. Heim is comfortably ahead of that pace even if he reverts to a mirror image of his 2022 production for the remainder of the season, and if he can sustain any of his new flyball-oriented approach and hard-contact gains, he’ll cement himself as one of the best catchers in the league.

Heim isn’t even eligible for arbitration yet — that’ll come this offseason — and the Rangers control him all the way through the 2026 season. Three different organizations have felt comfortable trading him to this point in his career, and never in exchange for a marquee player. Heim never ranked among the game’s top 100 prospects and never climbed higher than 13th on any of his four organizations’ top-30 rankings at Baseball America.

Despite that lack of fanfare in the minors, Heim has emerged as an everyday option on an ascendent Rangers club and improbably looks like one of baseball’s best all-around catchers. Texas doesn’t have a catcher in its top-30 prospects at Baseball America or MLB.com right now. They control Heim for another four years, so there’s hardly any urgency to explore an extension, but if he’s willing to sign on for a team-friendly deal right now, it’d be worth looking into the possibility of securing a core piece whose affordable salaries could help balance out the huge sums they’ve paid to their recent free-agent signings.

On that note, critics of the Rangers often like to scoff at the team’s efforts to buy a championship. They spent more than half a billion dollars in the 2021-22 offseason when they signed Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Jon Gray. They followed up with nearly a quarter-billion more this past offseason when adding Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney in addition to re-signing Martin Perez (among other, smaller-scale moves).

There’s little denying that a large portion of the team’s core has been acquired via free agency, but that’s only been a piece of the puzzle. They hit the jackpot in simultaneously acquiring Heim and shedding some of the Andrus contract, and they’ve done well to land both breakout slugger Nathaniel Lowe and Brock Burke in separate trades with the Rays over the past four years. The Rangers haven’t drafted well — Josh Jung’s excellent start to the 2023 season notwithstanding. Perhaps that played a role in the team moving on from longtime president of baseball operations Jon Daniels, but several of Daniels’ trade acquisitions have panned out, and Heim’s breakout has been a large part of that.

AL Notes: Rizzo, Aguilar, Guardians, Pagan, Rangers, Heim, Huff

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Anthony Rizzo has been dealing with back problems for much of the season, and the Yankees first baseman received an epidural on Thursday that will sideline him for the next few games.  The plan is to have Rizzo in the lineup on Monday when the Yankees open a homestand against the Twins, manager Aaron Boone told reporters (including Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News).  “This is something that should give him a lot of relief the rest of the way this season,” Boone said, also noting that Rizzo received a clean MRI on his back earlier in August.

The lingering back problems are a likely cause of Rizzo’s slump in August, as the first baseman has hit only .200/.282/.371 in his last 78 plate appearances.  Rizzo still has a healthy 136 wRC+ for the season even despite these recent struggles, but the Yankees surely need him back at full production for both the playoffs and what has become a surprisingly competitive AL East race with the surging Rays.

More from around the American League…

  • The Guardians didn’t have interest in Jesus Aguilar before the first baseman signed with the Orioles, Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.  Aguilar spent his first three MLB seasons with Cleveland in 2014-16, playing in only 35 big league games before being claimed by the Brewers in February 2017.  While he has enjoyed some success in his career, Aguilar has struggled in 2022, with only a .232/.282/.382 slash line over 463 plate appearances.  While the Guards are lacking in offense and Aguilar makes some sense as a first base/DH platoon partner with Josh Naylor, there’s no guarantee that Aguilar would’ve suddenly turned things around in Cleveland.
  • Emilio Pagan drew some “mild interest” in trade talks before the deadline, The Athletic’s Aaron Gleeman reports.  Acquired as part of a notable four-player swap with the Padres before the season, Pagan’s first Twins season has difficult, with the reliever posting a 4.94 ERA over 51 innings.  Though Pagan has a very good 29.8% strikeout rate, he has been homer-prone, his 9.3% walk rate is well below average, and opposing batters are making tons of hard contact.  Pagan is arbitration-eligible this winter and might be a non-tender candidate, except the Twins feel they might still be able to deal the right-hander rather than let him go for nothing in a non-tender.
  • Rangers prospect Sam Huff has yet to receive a true extended look in the majors, with 10 games in 2020 and 30 games this season.  While Texas might call Huff up at some point before 2022 is over, the team will continue giving Huff regular work behind the plate at Triple-A while Jonah Heim continues as the regular catcher for the big league team, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News writes.  Heim still needs some seasoning in his own right, with interim manager Tony Beasley noting that Heim “needs to feel [an incresed workload] a little bit. That’s part of getting through the season, something that all everyday catchers have to feel.”  Heim has enjoyed a quality season on the whole, but his production has dropped off since the All-Star break, quite possibly because of his career-high number of MLB plate appearances and games played.
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