How do we fix MLB’s offense? Plus Ken’s All-Star picks and the Baseball Card of the Week

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We conclude our Missing Bats series today with a search for a solution. Plus: Ken has his All-Star picks, the knuckleball returns to Fenway Park and the Baseball Card of the Week. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to The Windup!

Missing Bats: So, how do we fix offense?

Today marks the end of The Athletic’s Missing Bats series on MLB’s pitchers overpowering batters. You can catch up here if you’ve missed anything.

Stephen J. Nesbitt, Zack Meisel and Cody Stavenhagen conclude with a question: How does baseball solve that problem? It’s not like the league hasn’t tried. Think of all the rule changes we’ve seen in the last few years. None of it has been the silver bullet. The three true outcomes — home run, strikeout, walk — are still dominating a game that is frankly much more fun for fans when there’s a bit more action on the field.

So, what can the league do to avoid death by efficiency?

There are drastic options — moving the mound back or banning certain pitches — but our crew suggests that perhaps the fix has already begun. We’re starting to see a few teams succeed by constructing their rosters to maximize contact and speed. Much like Houston and Cleveland truly ushered in the missing-bats era by proving it was a fast track to October success, all it will take is a Milwaukee or Cincinnati or Kansas City proving that contact and speed are the keys to exploiting the new rules.

• If you have questions on the topic, feel free to chime in on our Missing Bats mailbag.
• Tyler Kepner’s “Sliders” column this week focuses on the pitcher bucking the trends: Ryan Yarbrough of the Dodgers, whose fastball is the slowest in baseball.
• Eno Sarris asks the question: What pitch speed is the upper limit for the human body, anyway?

Ken’s Notebook: Injuries won’t ruin All-Star Game

From today’s column:

Not to bum anyone out, but here is a partial list of injured players who will not participate in the All-Star Game: Ronald Acuña Jr., Mookie Betts, Clayton Kershaw, J.T. Realmuto, Blake Snell, Spencer Strider, Mike Trout and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

And here is a partial list of players who, due to their limited playing time and/or subpar performance, are also unlikely to be All-Stars: Nolan Arenado, Bo Bichette, Corbin Carroll, Gerrit Cole, Zac Gallen, Paul Goldschmidt, Julio Rodríguez, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.

But here’s the good news: Even with all of those stars missing, the sport is so full of outstanding players, I still struggled to pick my 64 All-Stars. And my selections are sure to elicit the usual howls of injustice from the ready-to-erupt citizens of Angry America.

When it comes to my selections, I’m something of an Entertainment Truther. Yes, I try to honor first-half performance. But let’s not forget, this game is a promotional vehicle, not a declaration of WAR. I want the biggest names, the rising stars, the players most likely to evoke oohs and aahs.

As always, I’m adhering to the rule that every club must be represented and that each All-Star team must feature 20 position players and 12 pitchers, at least three of whom are relievers. My selections can be found here.

Outliers: Knuckleball returns to Wakefield’s old ballpark

Who doesn’t love a good knuckleball? Aside from hitters, I mean. Maybe catchers, too. Bob Uecker (who was a catcher before he was a legendary broadcaster) once famously said that the easiest way to catch a knuckleball was to “wait until it stops rolling, and then pick it up.”

But it’s a dwindling tradition. The last two knuckleballers to find extended success were R.A. Dickey (final year: 2017) and Tim Wakefield (2011). If you’ve seen the documentary “Knuckleball!”, it should come as no surprise that the guy reviving the pitch — Matt Waldron of the Padres — was mentored by Wakefield. It’s kind of a weird brotherhood, the flutterball fraternity.

This year, Waldron has found success with the pitch, posting a 3.43 ERA in 16 starts for San Diego. And this weekend, Waldron will make his first start in Fenway Park, where Wakefield pitched for 17 of his 19 big-league seasons. Wakefield, you might remember, passed away last October, the result of brain cancer.

It will be a special moment for Waldron, and perhaps even a little emotional for Red Sox fans as well, seeing the pitch return to Fenway for the first time since Wakefield’s passing.

Baseball Card of the Week: 1981 Topps Greg Luzinski

Possessive apostrophe on “RBI’s” aside, I like this card because it just seems to capture the essence of an era when so many players looked like Bob From Sales.

Luzinski finished his career with 307 home runs (and 1,495 strikeouts) in 15 years, the last four of which he spent with the White Sox. Look at those stats from 1975-1978. Those were his four All-Star years, and the four in which he finished in the top 10 in MVP voting — finishing second in both 1975 and 1977.

That’s a per-162 average of 34 home runs, 118 RBIs, and 141 strikeouts. Basically, despite looking like the generic personification of the year 1981, Luzinski was playing modern baseball about 40 years ahead of the curve.

Handshakes and High Fives

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(Photo: Brandon Sloter / Image Of Sport / Getty Images)