Lineouts! 08/03/13: A-Rod, hot teams, and the Bucs

Good morning everyone. Welcome back to Lineouts! Today we have a whole arrangement of exciting topics that are happening around the league this weekend. Ryan Raburn could be the most valuable bench piece in the league, Biogenesis suspensions coming Monday, and are the Marlins really excited about the future?

MLB Hot Topics

A-Rod homers with drug penalties likely Monday by Ronald Blum -- The Associated Press

Trenton was home to the A-Rod carousel Friday night where Rodriguez hit a two run home run in the third inning to spice things up even more. Rodriguez seems to be oblivious about the suspension he is facing, quoted as saying he still has a good five more years left in him, and he expects to be in the lineup Monday in Chicago against the White Sox, where the suspensions are supposed to be handed down that day.

Biogenesis suspensions likely to be announced on Monday by Mike Axisa -- CBS Sports

Sunday seems to be the deadline for those in the Biogenesis saga to accept their suspensions, with players like Nelson Cruz, Everth Cabrera, and Jhonny Peralta having their suspension fate decided Monday. This more than likely will be the headline news for Baseball over the weekend since most people just want this all to be over.

Reminder: please do not make a big deal out of reports of players being placed on waivers
by Craig Calcaterra -- Hardball Talk

This article reminds all of us Baseball fans who refresh are twitter's by the second to calm are expectations when a player is put on waivers around this time. More times than not it is just to put a player through the waivers so then he can be traded like it was the July 31st deadline all over again.

The Sabermetrics Community

2013′s Valuable Bench Pieces by Matt Klaassen -- FanGraphs

Eric Chavez, Mike Carp, and Ryan Raburn are all examined thoroughly to try to find how these guys are helping their teams off of the bench. Raburn seems to be the cream of the crop of this list as his wRC+ was on the decline for 4 years coming in as low as 28 wRC+ last season. This year he is at a staggering 168 wRC+ with only a .321 BABIP and a 11.6 walk rate. All three players seasons have seen power surges but Carp has a .419 BABIP and a 30.8 K rate which should temper Carps expectations going forward.

Hotter than hot: Which of these six streaking teams will keep it up? by Jay Jaffe -- Sports Illustrated's The Strike Zone

Jaffe here looks at which of the streaking teams out of the Dodgers, Braves, Tigers, Royals, Indians, and Rays are built to sustain these streaks they are on. The Dodgers, who just tied a franchise record 12 straight road wins, are up to 89% chance of making the playoffs now, 16 percentage points over the last week. The Indians odds are at about 50% which should make an exciting finish if they can continue to play this good of Baseball. Jaffe goes more in depth with the other teams, while showing some Pythagorean records along the way.

New at SBNation MLB

How the Pittsburgh Pirates were built by Grant Brisbee -- SB Nation

Brisbee here looks at how the Pirates roster was built through the draft, international signings, free agent signings, etc. An interesting look at how arguably the best team in Baseball right now was constructed.

Miami Marlins silent at trade deadline, excited about club future by Scott Gelman -- Fish Stripes

Larry Beinfest, and Jeffrey Loria seem to be excited about what they have down in South Beach with young talents such as Stanton, and Jose Fernandez. There are reports that they received multiple calls on Stanton, and others say there were none at all, but at this point it looks like he is going to stay put for the time being, and could be the center point of the Franchise for a long time coming.

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All statistics courtesy of Fangraphs.

Anthony Bauer is a writer at Beyond The Box Score. You can follow him on Twitter at @skipbauer22.

More from Beyond the Box Score:

• Why the 2013 Trade Deadline Was Such a Dud
• Bud Norris: More of a risk than we realize for the Orioles?
• Homer Bailey: Carving out a solid career post-hype
• The Smallest Sample Size 8/2/2013: One percent is still a chance