Scott Miller's Starting 9: Generation Next's Wave of Young Talent 'Special'

1. Generation Next Now Stepping into the Box

Bryce Harper looked around the National League clubhouse last week, suddenly not as young as he once was.

OK, so the kid is still just 22. But at his third All-Star Game, the age gap between him and his teammates wasn't so vast. And it was more their fault than his.

A total of 20 All-Stars were age 25 or younger this summer, and as ESPN.com's Jayson Stark points out, in 85 previous All-Star Games, that has never happened.

As in, never. Ever.

Just one year ago, at the All-Star Game in Minnesota, everyone was dabbing at their eyes with tissue paper, wishing Derek Jeter a fond farewell and wondering whoever in the world might replace the Captain as the face of baseball.   

Let's see, there was Mike Trout...and Harper…and maybe Andrew McCutchen.

Now? Before you can spit out the word "precocious," we've got breakout rookie stars in the Dodgers' Joc Pederson, the Cubs' Kris Bryant, the Astros' Carlos Correa. There's the Orioles' Manny Machado, the Giants' Madison Bumgarner, the Astros' Jose Altuve, the Royals' Salvador Perez, the Pirates' Gerrit Cole.

Pat Sullivan/Associated Press

"It's exciting for baseball, exciting for the game," Harper was saying, surrounded by more young talent than an attendee at the MTV Awards show. "It's a lot of fun to be a part of that group."

Funny thing about narratives, like last year with Jeter: They get the oxygen sucked out of them quickly, then everybody moves on to what's next.

As the late, great Sparky Anderson used to point out, Babe Ruth died and baseball kept getting bigger and bigger anyway. Meaning: Always, the sport is bigger than any one superstar. As ever, we will miss Anderson at this weekend's Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Cooperstown, New York. But we will remember him and his words of wisdom.

So as the days drain away toward Jeter's eventual enshrinement (2020), the spotlight wasted no time in finding the Next Great Thing. Even Trout, at 23 and with two All-Star Game MVPs already on his resume, suddenly seems a little long in the tooth, comparatively.

"Trout is a baby still," said his Angels teammate, Albert Pujols. "Just to see so many young guys here, that's what the game is giving us right now. There is so much young talent and ability.

"It's special. Every year, it's getting younger."

Where Generation Next is concerned, Bryant has become the poster boy for the kids snapping at the heels of Harper and Trout. And he's got plenty of company, starting with Correa, who is the heavy favorite to win the American League Rookie of the Year award despite the fact that he didn't even debut until June 8.

"It's pretty cool to come up and do our part," Bryant said.

Said Harper: "The game is evolving into a younger sport, everybody can see that. Everybody knows that."

Brace Hemmelgarn/Getty Images

Post-performance-enhancing-drug rules and amphetamines, players age as they have for years, naturally. The freak show in which 38 was the new 28 is long gone. Mix in the age of specialization, where flame-throwing relief pitchers pop up in the late innings like minefields, along with the ever-growing internationalization of the game, and there is more emphasis than ever on youth.

"I definitely respect the way the game was played back in the day," Harper says. "I always have.…But now, you go from college ball to Double-A to the big leagues. That's just how it is. And every organization has so much young talent, like what we have [in Washington] with Joe Ross. He's 20 years old with a 90 mph fastball, curve, slider. He's a lot of fun to watch."

And Harper pointed to young hitters like Bryant, Rizzo, Trout and McCutchen, who are offering hints that maybe this pitching-dominant era is starting to turn.

"There are so many guys you can name who are truly impressive," Harper said. "But the game wouldn't be where it is now without the guys who came before us.

"You've got to respect the guys who came before us."

2. Zack Attack, History on Notice

Alex Brandon/Associated Press

For the better part of the past month, Dodgers ace Zack Greinke has been saying his stretch of gems during his 2009 Cy Young Award season in Kansas City was better than what he's doing this year.

But after Sunday's eight-inning whitewashing of the Nationals extended his scoreless streak to 43.2 innings, the longest in the majors since R.A. Dickey's 44.2 consecutive scoreless innings in 2012, per Baseball Almanac, forget that nonsense.

Nobody in the game is pitching better than Greinke right now, which increases the pressure on the Dodgers to acquire another starting pitcher, because this may be their best chance to win a World Series since '88.

And it almost certainly guarantees Greinke will invoke his opt-out clause and become a free agent this winter, because he is earning gobs of potential cash with each brilliant outing.

When B/R asked Greinke in Cincinnati about the opt-out, he declined to discuss it.

"I said in spring training that I was talking about it one time [this year] and that was the last I was going to talk about it this year, so I'm not going to comment on it," Greinke said.

Asked if he privately has already made the decision, Greinke said: "No response."

Says co-ace Clayton Kershaw: "I think he's comfortable [in Los Angeles]. I like him there, obviously. He's put himself in a really good spot."

Greinke acknowledges his time in Los Angeles has been everything he hoped for.

"I thought it was going to be great and it has been great," he said. "It's been about as good as you could ask for."

What, specifically?

DOUG PIZAC/Associated Press

"The clubhouse facility is the best one I've ever been in," Greinke said. "It's amazing. We've got the best coaches and trainers that you could get. Fans, I think we're No. 1 in attendance ever since I've been there. And we win. It's a pretty darn good combination.

"If you get rid of the traffic, it would be perfect. Or, get closer to the beach. One of the two."

His case of social anxiety has been well-documented, and though Greinke doesn't talk often, when he does, he's one of the most honest and intelligent players in the game. Asked how many places in the majors he could find a package like he currently has in Los Angeles, Greinke acknowledged that pool is limited.

"If you take out the beach part, there's probably a couple," he said. "But only a couple."

He also acknowledged that with a record $270 million payroll, this season will be a disappointment if it does not end in a World Series victory.

"Yeah, probably," Greinke said. "I don't view it as any pressure, but that's our goal every year, to win the World Series, like most places. But in L.A., it really is if you don't win the World Series, you would say you didn't do what you wanted to do.

"In Milwaukee, we weren't happy with just making it to that final game to get to the World Series (in 2011). And in Kansas City, most times I think if we made it to the playoffs, we would have been happy. Our team wasn't that good."

3. Greinke as Armchair GM

Is this year's Dodgers club better equipped to win the World Series than last year's team that fell short?

"I think both teams have their strengths," Greinke said. "Having [Hyun-Jin] Ryu healthy is big difference. He was such a good pitcher. There were three elite pitchers [last year]. Brett [Anderson] has done a terrific job, but Ryu was a different level."

Which brings the Dodgers to Cole Hamels, or Johnny Cueto, or some other elite starting pitcher that they clearly need not only to improve their chances to win this year's World Series, but potentially as insurance for if Greinke opts out.

"If it makes sense, then I'm sure we will," Greinke says of the possibility of adding an elite pitcher before the July 31 trade deadline. "We could bring in anyone we want, but is it going to be worth the cost?

"They've gotta be smart about it because it's not like this is the last season the Dodgers are ever going to play. So they have to think about beyond just who they could bring in just for this year."

4. Brewing a Big One for Scherzer

Max Scherzer's near-miss of a perfect game against Pittsburgh on June 20 got the most attention of his three-start stretch against the Brewers, Pirates and Phillies in June in which he was nearly unhittable, fanning 33 batters and walking one in 26 innings.

Alex Brandon/Associated Press

But it was the Milwaukee start on June 14, a complete-game 4-0 win, in which Scherzer had his best stuff from start to finish.

"That's the one of the three, to me," Scherzer told B/R in Cincinnati last week. "Milwaukee was the best one.

"I didn't give up any hard contact at all. Jose Lobaton and I were on the same page. I executed every pitch. I made some mistakes in the Pittsburgh game."

In that Milwaukee game, Scherzer punched out 16 Brewers and walked only one. He allowed just one hit. He obtained six groundouts, allowing only Carlos Gomez's soft single to right to lead off the seventh inning.

5. Chris Archer, A Star Is Born

John Minchillo/Associated Press

One person's project is another person's genius, and that is illustrated over and over again as players are drafted and developed in the majors.

Take the case of Tampa Bay's Chris Archer, who is 9-7 with a sparkling 2.73 ERA and an astounding 153 strikeouts against only 31 walks in 128.2 innings this season.

"When I watched him pitch against us, his slider knocked my eyes out," says Royals manager Ned Yost, who, technically speaking, does still have his eyes in their proper place in his skull.

In the dugout that day, Yost says, his conversation with Kansas City hitting coach Dale Sveum went something like this:

"Man, what was that?"

"That's a slider."

"That's a slider?"

"Yep, best one in the league."

"So tremendous," Yost says.

Now, get this: Archer was drafted by the Cleveland Indians in the fifth round of the 2006 draft and, shortly thereafter, a Cleveland minor league pitching coach suggested he dump the slider in favor of his curve, because the Cleveland coach thought it was better.

"In my young, naive, 17-year-old mind, I was like, 'OK, I have to listen to everything this coach says because he's a professional coach,'" Archer says.

So for the next few seasons, he didn't throw a slider.

Then, before the 2009 season, he was dealt to the Cubs in the Mark DeRosa trade.

"And they didn't exactly know what I was throwing, so I started bringing it back," Archer says.

Now, it very well might be the most devastating pitch in baseball. Lessons: Don't be afraid to stand up for yourself, and don't be so quick to give up on something if you think it is working well.

6. Yo, Ho, Ho, the Pirates' Life

Keith Srakocic/Associated Press

Do you dig chase scenes? Then do we have an NL Central race for you set up over these final two-and-a-half months.

The Pirates would be leading four of baseball's six divisions at the moment. Only Kansas City in the AL Central has a better record than Pittsburgh and, of course, St. Louis in the NL Central.

That's why the way the season's first half ended, with Pittsburgh taking three of four against the Cardinals, including two epic extra-inning wins, could lift the Buccos in the season's second half.

"When you get in games like that and you've got to grind out four-and-a-half, five hours, you definitely want to come out on top of those kind of games," Pirates All-Star Gerrit Cole says. "The effort and the type of focus you have to put into that kind of time can really wear you out. Being on wrong side of the win on those can suck."

Then again, nobody is expecting St. Louis to fold.

"The Cardinals probably shower off losses just as well as we do," Cole says. "That's how they've won 50-something games to this point. But it's one game. One game at a time. It doesn't matter who you're playing. You've got to take care of your business."

7. Weekly Power Rankings

1. Greinke vs. Scherzer: What a day Sunday was. Best duel since Todd Frazier vs. Joc Pederson in the Home Run Derby.

2. Orel Hershiser: The Bulldog's 59-inning scoreless inning streak is under siege from Dodgers ace Zack Greinke. Does this mean Greinke has a future as a Dodgers television analyst, too?

3. Trade Deadline: Tick, tick, tick until Cole Hamels is fitted for a new uniform.

Elsa/Getty Images

4. Cooperstown: Induction weekend on deck, Pete Rose still in the hole.

5. El Nino 1, Mike Trout 0: Angels suffer first rainout Sunday since June 16, 1995. National League looking into making El Nino starting pitcher for next summer's All-Star Game.

8. Shortening the Schedule

Don't book it yet, but baseball very much is quietly discussing the prospect of returning to a 154-game schedule from the current 162-game schedule.

With doubleheaders a relic of the past because owners do not want to give up gates due to financial pressures, the grind of the current schedule will be a topic of discussion during labor negotiations on the next Basic Agreement. The current one expires in December 2016.

"It's a huge economic issue," MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said last week during a meeting with the Baseball Writers' Association of America, noting that "we sell out in a lot of markets in terms of gates" and "we have television commitments and there are game guarantees that could be affected by a shortened season."

So, how would the game make up for lost gate revenues? Well….

"When you're giving up revenue, you've got to figure out something that is offsetting in the other direction," Manfred said. "The one obvious possibility is that you make a change in terms of playoff format."

Manfred said he likes the one-game wild-card playoff the way it is. Whether the Division Series would go to best-of-seven instead of best-of-five is hard to say. But rest assured that baseball will look at all of the options in the next year or so.   

"In looking back from the time I played to now that I'm watching what these guys are doing, I don't know how they do it," players' union boss Tony Clark told the BBWAA during last week's meeting. "What these guys are being asked to do with respect to games' start times, with respect to the travel distances themselves, with respect to performing at an elite level with three days off a month is a challenge."

9. Quirky Stat of the Week

After taking down the Mariners' Felix Hernandez on Sunday…

9a. Rock 'n' Roll Lyric of the Week

The great Jason Isbell's new record, Something More Than Free, dropped last week to outstanding reviews. In tribute, here's a bit from the big Braves fan's past disc, Here We Rest….

"Driving to a baseball game on a Friday afternoon

"Hotter than hell in Atlanta, Georgia.

"I guess it's been 15 years since I came through here

"Probably should have called to warn you.

"But I'm stopping by, I'm stopping by"

—Jason Isbell, "Stopping By"

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.