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Earlier in the season, Tim Dierkes looked at the hardest throwers in this year's free agent class. A lot has changed since that list, and with just over a month of the season remaining, the current numbers should serve as a good indicator as to who the market's top flamethrowers will be. Using the 2014 Free Agent Leaderboards that I created using Fangraphs, here's an updated look at the hardest-throwing starters and relievers…

Starting Pitchers

1. Josh Johnson and Matt Garza— 92.8 mph
2. Jason Hammel — 92.7 mph
3. Jon Lester — 92.6 mph ($13MM club option)
4. Phil Hughes, Ervin Santana and A.J. Burnett — 92.4 mph
5. Edinson Volquez and Scott Kazmir — 92.3 mph
6. Mike Pelfrey — 92.2 mph
7. James Shields — 92.1 mph ($12MM club option)
8. Roberto Hernandez — 91.6 mph
9. Ubaldo Jimenez and Roy Oswalt — 91.5 mph
10. Hiroki Kuroda — 91.3 mph

Relief Pitchers

1. Fernando Rodney — 96.3 mph
2. Matt Lindstrom — 95.0 mph ($4MM club option)
3. Joba Chamberlain — 94.8 mph
4. Jesse Crain — 94.5 mph
5. Matt Thornton — 94.2 mph
6. Joaquin Benoit and Chad Qualls — 94.0 mph
7. Boone Logan — 93.6 mph
8. Grant Balfour, Jose Veras and Matt Albers — 93.4 mph ($3.25MM club option for Veras)
9. Carlos Marmol and Manny Parra — 93.3 mph
10. Mark Lowe — 92.9 mph

I didn't include Joel Hanrahan's 96.6 mph heater with the relievers, as it remains to be seen when he will be able to pitch in 2014 following Tommy John and flexor tendon surgeries. Major League starters are currently averaging 91.2 mph on their fastballs, while relievers average 92.5 mph.

For those who are interested, I also updated the list of free agents with the highest ground-ball rates last week. Pitchers who appear on both lists are Burnett, Hernandez, Volquez, Kuroda, Santana, Qualls, Lindstrom and Rodney.

If you're a regular MLBTR reader, you'll be familiar with our chats, Week In Review posts and Baseball Blogs Weigh In feature. Here's some more detail on when you'll see our weekly features and exactly what to expect from them:

• MLBTR Chats - Join Tim Dierkes every Tuesday at 2pm CDT to chat about the latest trades, signings and rumblings around the Major Leagues.
• Baseball Blogs Weigh In - Every Friday, I feature some of the best writing from baseball blogs around the web. Whether it's opinion, stats or something else entirely, you can connect to the best of the blogosphere once a week on MLBTR. If you want to submit a post of yours, you can reach me at zachbbwi@gmail.com.
• Week In Review - It's remarkable how much happens in seven days. Every Sunday night, MLBTR summarizes the week's biggest stories in our Week In Review posts.
• MLBTR Originals - Edward Creech gathers all our original analysis and reporting in one place every Sunday night.

Earlier in the season, I took a look at the highest ground-ball rates among free agent pitchers. That came several months ago, and over the course of the season the numbers have changed a bit. With nearly a full season under their belts, let's see which qualified pitchers out of this year's crop of free agents has done the best at keeping the ball on the ground (keeping in mind that the league-average ground-ball rate is currently 44.6 percent)…

Starting Pitchers

1. A.J. Burnett — 56.3 percent
2. Tim Hudson — 55.8 percent
3. Roberto Hernandez — 52.9 percent
4. Joe Saunders — 49.9 percent
5. Scott Feldman — 49.4 percent
6. Edinson Volquez — 48.2 percent
7. Hiroki Kuroda — 48 percent
8. Ervin Santana — 47.7 percent
9. Jorge De La Rosa — 47.4 percent
10. Andy Pettitte — 46.4 percent

Relief Pitchers

1. Chad Qualls — 66 percent
2. Matt Albers — 62.8 percent
3. J.P. Howell — 57.4 percent
4. Matt Lindstrom — 54.7 percent ($4MM club option)
5. Jamey Wright — 52.7 percent
6. Matt Belisle — 51.4 percent ($4.25MM mutual option)
7. LaTroy Hawkins — 49.7 percent
8. Fernando Rodney — 49.6 percent
9. Darren Oliver — 48.7 percent
10. Jason Frasor — 48.5 percent

Pitchers with strong ground-ball rates will often appeal to teams in smaller ballparks, and oftentimes a lofty ground-ball rate can get a pitcher paid in spite of mediocre strikeout rates. Santana figures to sign the biggest contract of this bunch due to his age and performance, but De La Rosa has quietly enjoyed a 3.1 fWAR season and should be in line for a solid payday as well as he enters his age-33 season.

Jake Westbrook (56.1 percent), Jason Marquis (52.3 percent) and Paul Maholm (50.7 percent) all deserve mention as well, but they don't have enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. Marquis also has little free agent value, as he recently underwent Tommy John surgery.

MLB players are designated for assignment regularly.  The transaction, often abbreviated DFA, removes the player from the team's 40-man roster, giving the club ten days to trade, release, or outright him to the minors.  Players who are designated for assignment can be placed on waivers within the first seven days, and the best ones are traded or claimed and added to another team's 40-man roster.

Today we're happy to introduce a new way to monitor these players: MLBTR's DFA Tracker.  The tracker, which will be updated moving forward, lists the player's name, team, date designated, and the date by which a resolution is expected.  A player is assigned one of five statuses: DFA Limbo, Claimed, Outrighted, Released, or Optioned.  Designated players all begin in what we like to call DFA Limbo, where they're off the 40-man roster and awaiting a resolution.  All players will have their status updated from DFA Limbo to one of the other four when appropriate.  Within the tracker, the player name is linked to his original MLBTR DFA post.  You can search for players, filter by teams and/or status, and search within date ranges.

You can find the DFA Tracker here, and the link has also been added to the righthand sidebar under MLBTR Features.  Speaking of which, check out our list of players who have cleared waivers, reverse standings, 2014 free agent list, transaction tracker, and agency database as well.

We're now two weeks removed from a quiet July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. As it became clear that there wasn't going to be much activity, many commentators suggested that the second Wild Card was to blame. A few writers, including FOX Sports' Jon Morosi, proposed that MLB move its non-waiver deadline, perhaps to August 10 or August 15.

Of course, it may be that quiet trading deadlines aren't a bad thing, and therefore aren't a problem that needs to be solved. Maybe it's better for the game if non-contending teams act like they care for the entire year, not just through July. Maybe we don't want guns-for-hire changing teams right before the home stretch, rendering successful teams unfamiliar and unsuccessful teams irrelevant. Perhaps what happened this year is just fine.

Now that August 15 has come and gone, though, it's worth revisiting Morosi's suggestion. What we find is that it's far from clear that the second Wild Card had any more than a minor impact this year, and that it's unlikely that moving the non-waiver deadline would have had much of an effect on this year's lack of activity. 

Here are the standings as of July 31. In the National League, the Braves, Pirates and Dodgers led their respective divisions, just as they do now. The Cardinals and Reds remained safely ahead of all other teams in the Wild Card race, just as they are now. And the only other team with a significant shot at the playoffs was the Diamondbacks. That's still the case.

In the American League, the Red Sox and Tigers led their divisions and still hold those positions. In the AL West, the Athletics and Rangers have switched positions, but both remain in strong contention for playoff spots. The Rays remain in line for a Wild card spot, just as they did two weeks ago. The Orioles and Indians remain on the fringes of the Wild Card race, and the Yankees aren't any further out of it now than they were then. And despite their much-ballyhooed surge, the Royals are now 5.5 games out of the last playoff spot, only a half a game closer than they were two weeks ago.

In other words, in the last two weeks, there have been few changes in the playoff picture that would suggest a large impact on teams' willingness to trade. Also, the second Wild Card doesn't appear to be much of a factor — it didn't matter much at the deadline, and it wouldn't have if the deadline had been August 15. Since no team is currently running away with the top Wild Card spot in either league, and no team was running away with either of those spots as of July 31, it's hard to imagine the extra Wild Card had much impact on teams' thinking, particularly given that many of the outside-looking-in teams, both then and now, were or are in the running for division titles as well as Wild Card berths. A one-Wild-Card playoff system would have altered the playoff hopes of the Orioles, Rangers, Yankees and Indians to varying degrees at different times, but probably not enough to make any of them sellers, and it would have had virtually no impact on teams' playoff chances in the National League.

This isn't to say that Morosi's proposal was a bad one. It's possible that, in some future season, the second Wild Card really will cloud the playoff picture, and a later deadline really might provide clarity. But those things did not, or would not have, mattered much this season.

So what was the real explanation for the lack of activity at the deadline this year? Shortly before the deadline, MLBTR outlined some reasons why sellers weren't motivated, including the proliferation of long-term contracts for young players and changes to rules governing compensation draft picks. Perhaps the most compelling, though, is that, for business reasons, it didn't make much sense for some non-contenders to give up on their seasons, particularly when the likely reward for trading was minimal.

The Phillies provide a good case study. In prior seasons, a team like the Phils might have sold, but this year, they didn't. In the past few weeks, the Phillies have attempted to make a splash, signing Chase Utley to an extension and reaching a deal with Cuban righty Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez (an agreement that now appears to be in jeopardy). The merit of the Phillies' decision to hold on to their players is, perhaps, somewhat debatable, but based on their trade chips' contracts (Cliff Lee, Jimmy Rollins, Jonathan Papelbon) or performance (Michael Young, Carlos Ruiz) or both, it would have been hard for the Phillies to get much in return. If you're a big-market team with lots of money, there isn't that much value in trading veterans for prospects who might top out as average players.That's especially true if, as in the cases of Lee, Rollins and Utley, the players you have to offer are big-name stars.

The Phillies' situation typified much of what happened at the trade deadline this year. The issue was that they were a big-market team given the unappetizing choice of trading big-name players for what would amount to very little.

Throughout baseball, teams merely shrugged at the deadline, not because of playoff races, but because being active really didn't benefit them. Two of the Giants' main trade chips, for example, were Tim Lincecum and Hunter Pence. Both those players are candidates to receive qualifying offers after the season, but they would lose that staus if they were traded. And so the Giants, who won the World Series last year and stood to benefit, from a P.R. perspective, from basking in its glow as long as possible, stood pat.

The Mariners, too, might have been sellers, but most of their tradable veterans (Kendrys Morales, Mike Morse, Raul Ibanez) had little defensive value and didn't fit well with other contenders. So, with little to gain from trading, they too stood pat. The Royals should benefit from pursuing their first winning season since 2003, and so they actively became buyers despite their playoff chances at the deadline being dubious at best.

Since the non-waiver deadline, there have been several trades, the highest-profile of which was the Rangers' deal for Alex Rios. But buyers have been remained circumspect, as shown in Jeff Todd's list of players who have cleared waivers. The list includes players like Dan Haren, Justin Morneau and Matt Lindstrom, who are in the last years of their contracts and would appear to offer at least some chance of helping a contender down the stretch. Haren and Morneau aren't nearly the players they once were, but to claim them and assume the remainder of their contracts would only have cost contending teams only a few million dollars per player. No team bit. That Lindstrom passed through waivers might be even more surprising, since he's owed less than $1MM for the rest of the year, plus a $500K buyout. While he isn't having his best year, he's a perfectly functional big-league reliever who gets ground balls and throws in the mid-90s. And yet no one wanted him.

So what's going on here? This year, teams that traditionally would have been sellers had other priorities — keeping the team together, pursuing a winning season, and so on. Teams that traditionally might be buyers were circumspect, guarding their prospects and, in some cases, their wallets. Maybe the conditions that shape the market will change next year. Having so many bigger-market teams, like the Phillies, Giants, Mets and Mariners, out of the running probably didn't help this season, for example. But the second Wild Card wasn't much of a factor in 2013, and moving the deadline to mid-August probably wouldn't have changed much, either. It doesn't matter when you schedule the dance if no one wants to go.

Are you an avid MLB Trade Rumors reader with experience developing mobile websites?  With an increasing percentage of readers coming to MLBTR via mobile devices, we're looking to improve the experience with a new mobile site.

The developer will be paid on a flat fee for this project, which may include a similar mobile website for Hoops Rumors.  If you or your company is interested in creating MLBTR's new mobile website, please send an email to mlbtrmobile@gmail.com with your qualifications and examples of mobile websites you've created.  

Readers: if you have suggestions on what the perfect MLBTR mobile site needs, please leave them in the comments.

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It's still possible to trade for relief help in August, as we've seen Matt Lindstrom, Jose Mijares, Pat Neshek, and Mike Gonzalez moved in the last few years.  Some trade candidates to consider this month, listed by team:

• Blue Jays: Darren Oliver (L)
• Twins: Brian Duensing (L)
• White Sox: Matt Lindstrom (R)
• Mariners: Oliver Perez (L)
• Angels: Joe Blanton (R)
• Astros: Wesley Wright (L), Travis Blackley (L)
• Phillies: Jonathan Papelbon (R)
• Mets: David Aardsma (R), Scott Atchison (R), Pedro Feliciano (L), LaTroy Hawkins (R)
• Marlins: Chad Qualls (R), Ryan Webb (R)
• Cubs: Kevin Gregg (R), Matt Guerrier (R), James Russell (L)
• Brewers: John Axford (R), Burke Badenhop (R), Mike Gonzalez (L)
• Padres: Huston Street (R), Tim Stauffer (R)
• Rockies: Matt Belisle (R), Manny Corpas (R), Wilton Lopez (R), Josh Outman (L), Rafael Betancourt (R)
• Giants: Javier Lopez (L)

Keep in mind that availability varies by player – the Padres may not be open to moving Street, even though he could clear waivers.  Relievers who are under control cheaply beyond this year stand a good chance of being pulled back if claimed.  Papelbon, the biggest name here, would clear waivers but would prove difficult to trade.  I haven't listed relievers from the Yankees or Nationals in this post, but if those teams slip further, they could be willing to make a few deals later this month.