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Even though a majority of the game’s top prospects have already received promotions, teams will receive an infusion of fresh, young talent on Sept. 1 when the active roster expands from 25 to 40 players.

With roughly five weeks remaining in the regular season, expanding rosters will allow teams to address their needs at the major league level by essentially plucking specific talent from within their farm systems. In general, it’s an opportunity for every organization to add bench and bullpen depth by utilizing its full 40-man roster.

In anticipation of what should be a flurry of promotions starting next Monday, we’ve got you covered with a look at the top prospects ticketed for the major leagues for the season’s final month. The rankings for this article are based primarily on Prospect Pipeline’s midseason top 50 update, though factors such as 2014 performances, 40-man roster status and teams’ specific needs at the major league level were also considered.

Here are the top 25 prospects most likely to be called up on Sept. 1.

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The 2013 playoff races were defined by strong rookie performances.

There was Michael Wacha, who went from first-round draft pick in 2012 to No. 2 starter for the St. Louis Cardinals down the stretch and well into the postseason. Gerrit Cole and Sonny Gray had similar impacts on their respective teams, as both right-handers reached the major leagues in the middle of the season and ultimately shined in their first tastes of playoff baseball.

Meanwhile, Billy Hamilton literally stole the show on the other side of the ball. The infamous speedster was called up in September and blew past all reasonable expectations by batting .368 with nine runs and 13 stolen bases over 13 games.

This season, there should be just as many, if not more, big-name prospects who influence their team’s quest for a playoff berth.

With that being said, here are four prospects who could impact the 2014 MLB postseason races.

*All stats courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball Reference or FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

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The Los Angeles Angels suffered a potentially crushing blow Wednesday night when they lost ace Garrett Richards for the next six to nine months with a torn patellar tendon in his left knee.

Richards’ injury couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Angels, who currently hold a two-game lead over the Oakland A’s in the American League West with an MLB-best 76-50 overall record. With the right-hander sidelined for the rest of the season, the Angels’ rotation suddenly is much less threatening, especially in the context of a five- or seven-game playoff series.

However, rookie Matt Shoemaker did his best to ease those concerns Thursday night, guiding the Angels to a 2-0 victory and four-game road sweep of the Boston Red Sox.

The outing arguably was Shoemaker’s best of the season, as he no-hit the Red Sox through 6.2 innings before finishing with one hit allowed over 7.2 scoreless frames. The 27-year-old right-hander struck out nine batters and walked one in the game, throwing 79 of 116 pitches for strikes.

Manager Mike Scioscia offered high praise for Shoemaker following the game (via Alden Gonzalez of MLB.com):

He goes out there with his stuff, and he thinks his stuff will get hitters out. And he really has the confidence that it is. With that composure he has, and that poise, it gives him a sense of confidence where he’s not going to be intimidated. He’s not afraid to fail. He trusts what he can do, and he’s having a terrific season for us.

After picking up his 12th win of the season, Shoemaker, who signed for $10,000 in 2008 after going undrafted out of Eastern Michigan University, is now tied with Masahiro Tanaka for the major league lead among rookies, and he also sports an impressive 3.56 ERA and 102-19 strikeout-to-walk ratio through 103.2 innings.

Specifically, Shoemaker has been rolling since the All-Star break, with a 5-2 record, 2.25 ERA, 0.78 WHIP and 40-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio over his last 40 innings. He’s allowed just four home runs during that span while holding opposing hitters to a .190 batting average.

Furthermore, a deeper dive into the right-hander’s numbers this season, particularly his 3.43 FIP and 3.13 xFIP compared to his 3.56 ERA, reveals that his success is for real rather than rooted in luck.

Shoemaker’s 1.1 HR/9 is right in line with the 1.1 HR/9 he posted over seven seasons in the minor leagues, and neither his BABIP (.297) nor strand rate (74.4 percent) suggests he’ll endure a significant regression. His 1.65 BB/9 may seem unsustainable compared to his 2.3 BB/9 in the minor leagues, but it’s worth noting that Shoemaker posted a 1.4 BB/9 over 184.1 innings at Triple-A Salt Lake in 2013.

So what’s made Shoemaker so successful this season?

For starters, the right-hander boasts three major league-quality pitches in a four-seam fastball, slider and splitter, and he’s thrown each of them between 22 and 25 percent of the time this season.

Shoemaker averages 91.43 mph with his fastball, which is roughly league-average velocity, but the pitch features 10.46 inches of vertical movement, which ranks 28th among all starters who’ve thrown at least 200 four-seamers this season, per Baseball Prospectus’ PITCHf/x leaderboard. Meanwhile, opposing hitters generally have struggled against the pitch, as they’re batting just .240 with a .230 BABIP.

At the same time, Shoemaker’s fastball is arguably his least effective pitch, as he’s posted a rough 39.6 percent ball rate—compared to a 27.57 percent strike rate—this season while allowing opposing hitters to slug .453 with four home runs.

Shoemaker’s slider represents his second-best offering, registering in the 81-82 mph range with good depth (2.31 inches of vertical movement, to be exact). He’s throwing it 28 percent of the time to right-handed batters this season, who are collectively batting .222 with one home run and a 38.75 percent whiff/swing rate, per the PITCHf/x leaderboard.

That brings us to Shoemaker’s splitter, which is regarded as one of the best in the major leagues and undoubtedly the right-hander’s best offering.

Shoemaker’s splitter averages 6.03 inches of horizontal movement, tying him with Charlie Morton for the 13th-best among big league starters. However, it’s the pitch’s additional 3.74 inches of vertical movement, which ranks eighth in the major leagues, that make it special.

While Shoemaker’s fastball command can vary, he has proved to be adept at consistently locating his splitter down in the zone. It’s the reason why opposing hitters are swinging at it 63.35 percent of the time this season, the third-highest swing rate behind Tanaka and Alex Cobb, and whiffing on 46.75 percent of those swings.

Unsurprisingly, Shoemaker’s splitter is his go-to pitch with two strikes, as he’s throwing it 54 percent and 44 percent of the time to right- and left-handed batters, respectively. Overall, opposing hitters are batting just .147 with 60 strikeouts against the pitch.

Shoemaker’s inconsistent command of an underwhelming fastball normally would be disconcerting. However, with a pair of standout off-speed pitches—the splitter is nearly a double-plus—that break in different directions within the same velocity band, the right-hander has been able to offset some of those fastball-related issues. More importantly, both offerings have helped him to turn over lineups multiple times in a given outing, which in turn has allowed him to work deeper into games.

None of the Angels’ pitchers can fill Richards’ shoes in terms of his stuff and success. But with a playoff berth on the line, it goes without saying that the club will need its remaining starters to step up in his absence.

While Shoemaker certainly has pitched like an ace over the last two months, it’s still unreasonable to think that the 27-year-old rookie can be the savior of the Angels’ rotation—at least any more than he has been.

However, with continued success, Shoemaker should help take some of the pressure off the team’s other starters, specifically veterans Jered Weaver and C.J. Wilson, over the remainder of the regular season.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Twitter erupted Saturday night following news that Kris Bryant was pulled during the middle of Triple-A Iowa’s game. He didn’t appear to suffer an injury in the game, which only fueled speculation that the 22-year-old slugger was headed for The Show.

Unfortunately, it was learned soon thereafter that Bryant departed the game after aggravating a left-foot injury suffered earlier in the week, when he fouled a ball of his big toe, and would undergo an MRI the following day.

And just like that, the excitement regarding Bryant’s potential call-up shifted to concern about the injury. With less than a month left in the minor league regular season, any injury requiring a trip to the disabled list would likely kill his chances of receiving a September promotion.

Thankfully, the MRI revealed no structural damage to Bryant’s foot. The Cubs’ top prospect returned to the lineup Tuesday.

With youngsters Arismendy Alcantara, Javier Baez and Kyle Hendricks now in the major leagues, and outfielder Jorge Soler likely to join them in September, news of the Cubs calling up Bryant over the weekend wouldn’t have been a complete shock.

Team president Theo Epstein previously stated, via ESPNChicago.com’s Jesse Rogers (on Twitter), that he doesn’t “foresee” Bryant playing in the major leagues this season—which is what any wise front-office official would say when trying to temper expectations with a potential generational slugger such as Bryant.

But let’s say the Cubs ultimately decide to reward Bryant with a promotion in September. If that were the case, then what should be expected from the promising slugger?

When Bryant hit a two-run, walk-off homer against Lehigh Valley last Thursday, he became the first professional player to hit 40 home runs this season, and he did it in just his 122nd game. The home run was also his 18th in 56 games since joining Triple-A Iowa.

However, Bryant is far from a one-dimensional power hitter; he can’t help it he’s 6’5”, 215 pounds with a swing that enables him to loft the ball out of the park with ease to all fields.

Though he’s currently batting just .306 at Iowa, Bryant has hit for a high average at every minor league level—not including his two games in Rookie ball after signing—during his brief career.

However, as you can see in the above table, those averages repeatedly have been aided by high batting averages on balls in play (BABIP). In Bryant’s case, his knack for consistently working deep counts produces a high number of walks and even more strikeouts, both of which will always be elements of his game, along with hitting home runs. When Bryant does put the ball in play, he’s getting a hit roughly 40 percent of the time.  

That being said, the fact that he has established such a high baseline BABIP during his career means his actual batting average inevitably will come down against more advanced pitching, just as it’s done in Triple-A.

In theory, at least based on his batting average/BABIP regression with Iowa, Bryant’s batting average would drop to .260-.270 should his BABIP fall to .330. There’s obviously nothing wrong with that, especially when a majority of his hits will be for extra bases. I just wouldn’t count on Bryant sustaining his current .334/.429/.680 career batting line at the highest level.

Bryant homered in his first career spring training at-bat this year, effortlessly blasting a two-run home run to center field. After that, he went one for his next 17 (.111 overall) with 11 strikeouts, one walk and, you guessed it, a home run. Honestly, that could be the type of performance we see from Bryant if he’s promoted in September. He’ll inevitably show off his ginormous power—especially over roughly 30 games compared to 11 in spring training—and I wouldn’t be surprised if he hits 5-7 home runs, but it’s basically a guarantee that there also will be strikeouts.

The only way Bryant will hit for a high average this September is if he draws more walks than expected. With a 12.7 percent walk rate over 678 career plate appearances, Bryant has proved to be a patient hitter that sees lots of pitches each trip to the plate. However, major league pitchers won’t be afraid to challenge his strengths as a hitter while at the same time working to exploit his weaknesses.

Once Bryant is fully developed and an established big leaguer, he has the potential to be a .270-plus hitter with 35-plus home runs in a given season. But it wouldn’t be surprising to see him struggle in the average department over one month in the major leagues.

A low batting average in his highly anticipated debut may look bad on paper, but it won’t be enough to overshadow the baseballs he destroys along the way.

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Apparently 10 is the magic number for Corey Kluber.

The Cleveland Indians ace was brilliant on Friday night against the Baltimore Orioles, allowing one run on five hits and two walks while striking out 10 batters over 7.2 innings.

The outing marked Kluber’s second 10-strikeout performance in the past week, and he’s now fanned exactly 10 batters in four of his last six starts. Overall, it was Kluber’s eighth start this season with double-digit strikeouts.

Kluber, 28, has been nothing short of dominant since the All-Star break, pacing all starting pitchers with a 0.76 ERA, 0.69 WHIP and 55 strikeouts over 47.2 innings. On top of that, the right-hander has allowed just 27 hits, none of which have left the park, and six walks during that span.

Though he was already enjoying the best season of his four-year career, Kluber’s second-half success has thrust him into the discussion as one of baseball’s elite starting pitchers.

“He’s getting an air about him like a Nolan Ryan or a Roger Clemens,” pitching coach Mickey Callaway said to Jordan Bastian of MLB.com. “That’s what I feel like when he’s on the mound. I feel like one of those guys is pitching right now.”

Take one look at the AL pitching leaderboard and you’ll see what Callaway means.

Kluber’s 2.41 ERA is the third lowest among qualified starting pitchers this season, behind Felix Hernandez and Chris Sale, respectively, while his 197 strikeouts rank second to David Price’s 205.

More importantly, Kluber’s 5.2 fWAR entering Friday ranked third across starters in both leagues over a slew of Cy Young candidates including Clayton Kershaw (5.0), Sale (4.7), Max Scherzer (4.6) and David Price (4.0). The only pitchers with a better WAR than Kluber this season are Hernandez (6.2) and Jon Lester (5.4).

So, what exactly has made the Indians right-hander so dominant this year?

For starters, Kluber has mastered the feel for his sinker, a pitch he first started to mess around with in 2011 at Triple-A Columbus.

“I’d never really thrown it much on a consistent basis,” Kluber said, per Bastian’s MLB.com report. “I’d throw my four-seam and, here and there, I’d mix in a two-seam. After I threw it over and over and over and over, and it kind of clicked. It was like, ‘This feels a lot better.'”

Kluber has thrown his sinker 49.53 percent of the time this season, according to Brooks Baseball, which is consistent with his use of the pitch from 2013 (49.89 percent).

However, he’s throwing it harder this season—his velocity has steadily increased in each of the past four seasons—sitting above 94 mph (94.39 mph to be exact) for the first time in his career.

The uptick in velocity has reduced the vertical action on his sinker, but it’s also allowed him to more effectively command the pitch to both sides of the plate. As a result, Kluber is inducing whiffs at a career-best rate this season (4.76 percent) and generating significantly fewer fly balls.

Kluber’s sinker also has done wonders for his secondary pitches, which are nasty offerings to begin with.

Just how nasty? FoxSports.com’s Gabe Kapler feels they’re so good that command is of secondary importance: “His stuff is so nasty, with such devastating late movement, that he can miss badly over and over and get away with it.”

Hitters are now aware that Kluber can pitch to both corners with his sinker, and it has in turn made them more susceptible to his cutter and slider. The result has been roughly a four percent increase in his whiff-per-swing rate with both pitches.

Kluber’s 34.38 percent whiff-per-swing rate with his cutter—developed in 2011 along with his sinker—currently ranks first among all starting pitchers (who have thrown the pitch at least 200 times this season), and he checks in 10th for his slider at 43.52 percent, per Baseball Prospectus’ PITCHf/x leaderboards.

Meanwhile, hitters have posted a .072 average and .098 slugging percentage against Kluber’s slider this season, which are the lowest opponents’ averages for that specific pitch in the major leagues among qualified starters.

What Kluber has done this year has nothing to do with luck; over the last four years, the right-hander has steadily evolved into the pitcher he is today—an elite one. 

If his performance over the rest of the season is anything close to what he’s accomplished so far, Kluber should challenge King Felix and Chris Sale for the AL Cy Young.

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While there already has been a large influx of prospects promoted to the major leagues this season, there are even more set to arrive when active rosters expand from 25 to 40 players on September 1.

For teams still vying for a postseason berth, the timely promotion of an impact prospect for the stretch run can provide a much-needed boost to their lineup, starting rotation or bullpen. Meanwhile, teams already out of the playoff hunt use the final month of the regular season to audition some of their top prospects.

Last year’s wave of September call-ups marked the arrival of some of baseball’s most exciting prospects such as speedster Billy Hamilton and the flame-throwing Yordano Ventura.

This year there are even more high-profile talents seemingly in line for a promotion in September, with slugger Kris Bryant, defensive wunderkind Francisco Lindor and toolsy outfielder Joc Pederson each knocking on the door of the major leagues.

With two weeks remaining until the rosters expand, here’s a look at each team’s most exciting potential September call-up.

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Felix Hernandez is having a historically good season, arguably the best of his 10-year career with the Seattle Mariners.

Unfortunately, with Clayton Kershaw having another Cy Young-caliber year for the large-market Los Angeles Dodgers, King Felix hasn’t received the league-wide attention he deserves.

Felix’s assault on baseball’s record books continued Monday night, as the 28-year-old right-hander allowed one run on three hits over seven innings at home against the Toronto Blue Jays, striking out eight batters without issuing a walk. The performance extended his major-league-record streak to 16 games in which he’s logged seven or more innings and allowed two or fewer runs.

On the season, Hernandez owns a 13-3 record with a 1.95 ERA and 194-32 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 180.1 innings, and he’s held opposing hitters to a .191 batting average and .505 OPS.

His seven innings pitched in the game gave Hernandez 2,005 for his career, making him the youngest pitcher since 28-year-old Dwight Gooden in 1993 to reach the 2,000-inning mark, per Greg Johns of MLB.com.

Catcher Mike Zunino spoke about the Mariners ace after the game, via Johns:

“It’s something else,” Zunino said of the streak. “But he is something else. That’s all you can say. He’s got the best stuff right now and he’s pitching, too. When you have a combination of both, it’s pretty hard to score multiple runs off him.”

During his impressive streak, Hernandez has been virtually untouchable, posting a 9-2 record to go along with a 1.41 ERA and 134 strikeouts in 121 innings. Opposing hitters are batting a paltry .165/.203/.233 during that span.

Furthermore, Hernandez would set new career highs in several categories if the season ended today, including strikeouts (9.68), walks (1.60) and home runs (0.35) per nine innings, ERA (1.95) and FIP (2.07).

So, why aren’t people talking about King Felix’s incredible season like they are Kershaw’s?

On paper, Felix’s numbers admittedly aren’t quite as impressive as Kershaw’s, but they’re also not far behind.

The first thing that stands out is Hernandez’s 180.1 innings pitched compared to Kershaw’s 136.1, which highlights the right-hander’s durability and that he’s sustained his overall success over a longer period of time. And not to detract from Kershaw’s remarkable season, but his numbers, specifically his strikeout and walk rates, might be slightly inflated due to the smaller sample size.

That being said, Hernandez ranks second behind Kershaw (among all qualified pitchers) in several categories, including ERA and FIP.

Compared to other American League hurlers, however, it’s clear that nobody has been better than the Mariners ace. And if the remainder of the regular season unfolds as expected, the right-hander should take home his second Cy Young Award.

Hernandez’s impact also extends well beyond his impressive numbers; when he’s the on the mound, the Mariners are simply a better team.

The M’s offense has scored three or more runs in 19 of Hernandez’s 25 starts this season, and the right-hander owns a 13-0 record and 2.04 ERA in those games. Overall, the team is 17-8 with Felix on the bump, per Baseball Reference.

Seattle’s win over the Blue Jays on Monday puts it one game back of the Detroit Tigers for the second Wild Card spot with a 63-55 overall record, with a 38.2 percent chance of reaching the postseason, per Baseball Prospectus’ calculations, via MLB.com.

Hopefully it doesn’t take a playoff berth to make people realize how insanely good King Felix has been this season.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Where would the Yankees be right now if not for Brandon McCarthy?

With CC Sabathia and Ivan Nova out for the season with injuries, and Masahiro Tanaka on the disabled list attempting to stave off Tommy John surgery, the Yankees decided to acquire McCarthy from the Arizona Diamondbacks on July 6 in exchange for left-hander Vidal Nuno.

Since then, McCarthy, 31, has provided much-needed stability to a depleted Yankees rotation, going 4-1 with a 2.21 ERA and 36-6 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 36.2 innings over six starts. Meanwhile, his performance has allowed the team to stay in the postseason hunt, as they’re currently 61-57 overall and chasing the Tigers for a Wild Card by only three games.

At face value, the right-hander’s season isn’t particularly impressive; he’s lost 11 of his 24 starts, allowed 171 hits in 146.1 innings and owns an overall ERA of 4.31. However, a deeper look McCarthy’s numbers this year tells a much different story.

For example, though McCarthy sports a 4.31 ERA, his FIP (fielding-independent pitching) currently sits at 3.54, while his xFIP (expected FIP) is an even more impressive 2.84. Meanwhile, the right-hander’s 7.93 strikeouts-per-nine-innings rate and 55.9 percent ground-ball rate represent career highs, and his 1.60 walks-per-nine-innings rate is well below his career average of 2.29.

So, what’s made McCarthy so successful this season?

To put it simply, the veteran right-hander has re-invented himself.

McCarthy is throwing his four-seam fastball the most he has since 2009 (10.54 percent) and has increased his sinker (or two-seam fastball) usage to over 50 percent (50.53 percent, to be exact) for the first time in his career, per Brooks Baseball.

McCarthy is also throwing harder than he has at any point in his nine-year career and not just with his fastballs:

The right-hander’s four-seam fastball is averaging 94.46 mph this year, up nearly 1 mph compared to his 2013 average, while his sinker is registering more than 2 mph hotter at 93.92 mph. Overall, he’s had far more success this season with the four-seamer, as opposing hitters are batting an embarrassing .105 against the pitch and slugging just .164.

McCarthy also is using his curveball 23.6 percent of the time this season, which also marks a career high, and he’s throwing it more than 3 mph harder than he did last year.

Furthermore, McCarthy has moved away from his cutter since the start of the 2012 season, throwing it just 13.6 percent of the time this season compared to 44.81 percent just two years ago. Meanwhile, he’s totally abandoned his splitter, a pitch that was featured prominently in his arsenal in previous years.

The results have been staggering.

If the season ended today, McCarthy would finish with the highest whiff rates of his career with his four-seam fastball (15.55 percent), sinker (7.8) and curveball (11.26). And according to FanGraphs, the right-hander’s 8.2 percent swinging-strike rate is his highest since 2006, when he was still a member of the Rangers.

Personally, I think the Brandon McCarthy we’ve seen with the Yankees over the last month is the same pitcher we’ll see over the remainder of the regular season. I say this because the scouting reports teams have on McCarthy from the first half of the season (and previous seasons) no longer apply. The right-hander is a different pitcher this year with better velocity and therefore a different approach to his pitch selections.

The Yankees need the 31-year-old McCarthy to keep anchoring the starting rotation if they plan on reaching the playoffs this year. However, even if the rest of his season doesn’t unfold as expected, the soon-to-be free agent will at least have boosted his stock headed into the offseason.

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While it will be several years until most of the 2014 draft picks are ready for the major leagues, that doesn’t mean we can’t get excited about the early returns from some of baseball’s brightest young players.

Thanks to an accelerated signing deadline in mid-July that was ushered in in 2012 as part of the new collective bargaining agreement—it used to be mid-August—draft picks are now encouraged to quickly begin their professional careers.

For some prospects, that could result in an ahead-of-schedule debut in the major leagues; for others, it may simply improve their chances of earning aggressive promotions to begin the following season.

Here’s a look at 10 breakout prospects from the 2014 draft class who are destroying the minor leagues in their professional debuts.

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Things were looking up for Stephen Strasburg headed into his start on Friday night against the Atlanta Braves. At least that’s how it seemed.

After posting a 3.18 ERA with 44 strikeouts over 39.2 innings in July, Strasburg kicked off August with his best start of the season, striking out 10 batters and scattering three hits over seven shutout innings versus the Phillies.

And considering he was scheduled to face a Braves squad mired in an eight-game losing streak, all signs pointed to the 26-year-old right-hander having another strong outing.

However, Strasburg was anything but dominant Friday night, allowing seven runs on seven hits in five innings. The Nats mounted a valiant comeback late in the game, but ultimately fell to the Braves 7-6.

It was the second time this season and third time in his career that he gave up seven earned runs in a start. To make matters worse, four of the seven hits against Strasburg were home runs, which represents the most he’s allowed in a game over 100 starts in the major leagues. Basically, the only good news to emerge from the outing was Strasburg struck out nine batters.

Overall, Strasburg’s season has been as inconsistent as his past two starts suggest, with his performance varying from month to month and start to start.

Strasburg has shown glimpses of putting everything together all year, but the reality is that he’s posted an ERA above 5.00 twice (June and so far August) and has one month with a sub-3.00 ERA (May).

So what’s to make of Strasburg’s inconsistent season?

Here are some possible explanations for the right-hander’s struggles.

Early-Inning Woes

One of Strasburg’s biggest issues this season has been his pitch execution early in games, as he has a tendency to struggle through the first few innings before finally settling in around the third or fourth.

Unfortunately, Strasburg’s struggles were on full display Friday, as he yielded a pair of runs with two outs in the first inning on a home run by Justin Upton. He also had trouble getting the third out in the second inning too, as he surrendered two more two-run shots to B.J. Upton and Freddie Freeman, respectively.

However, after a disastrous first two innings, Strasburg bounced back to retire the next seven batters, five via strikeout, before Tommy La Stella opened the fifth inning with a solo home run, his first big league homer. Strasburg went on to finish the inning and outing with swinging strikeouts of Justin Upton and Evan Gattis.

Though frustrating, Strasburg’s struggles during the first and second innings aren’t overly concerning in terms of his performance over the duration of the regular season; the right-hander has proved he can still miss bats and hang around for at least five innings when he’s at his worst, which is still better than 90 percent of all big league starters.

That being said, Strasburg’s situation will be discussed more and more leading up the postseason, as a rough start in game one or two of a five- or seven-game series could potentially crush the Nats’ World Series dreams in a hurry.

Home/Road Splits

Strasburg really, really likes pitching at Nationals Park.

In his 13 home starts this season, Strasburg has pitched to a 7-2 record, 2.41 ERA and 112/14 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 86 innings while also holding opposing hitters to a .234 batting average

In general, the 26-year-old has always pitched better at home, though he’s also never struggled as badly on the road than he is this season. However, that’s not completely his fault.

Opposing hitters have an unsustainable .361 batting average on balls put in play against Strasburg this year over his 12 road starts, meaning that his unattractive stat line is at least partially driven by poor luck.

Yet, Strasburg’s road walk rate this year is actually better than his career average, but he’s striking out roughly two less batters per nine innings and getting hit around more often.

Fastball Velocity and Effectiveness

Strasburg’s fastball velocity has been declining over the last three seasons, as he’s averaging 95.59 mph with the pitch this year after sitting at 96.32 mph in 2013 and 96.77 mph in 2012. It’s not a significant or particularly concerning dip in velocity, but still a dip nonetheless.

However, part of that simply could be Strasburg sacrificing power for command, which makes sense considering the right-hander also has spent time this season adjusting his setup on the rubber.

Via Adam Kilgore the Washington Post:

“It just kind of dawned on me,” Strasburg said. “I was talking to [pitching coach Steve McCatty] about it. I was like, ‘I’ve done this for such a long time. It was like, will this help things if I make the adjustment?’ I’m seeing a bunch of other great pitchers do that. A lot of the control pitchers and a lot of the elite pitchers in the game — I’d say the majority of them — don’t have their foot on top of the rubber.”

[…]

“It’s just little things like that,” Strasburg said. “I noticed a lot of the command pitchers, they’re able to control their delivery down the hill, and they get to a better balance point. In the past, for the longest time, when my foot’s on the rubber, it’s harder for me to control the delivery and have the same tempo.”

While it’s hard to say with any sense of certainty whether Strasburg’s mechanical and/or philosophical adjustments have affected his fastball, it is clear that his heater has become increasingly hittable over the last year, and more and more players are driving the pitch for extra bases.

Final Thoughts

The only reason we scrutinize Stephen Strasburg’s every pitch is because we all recognize his potential to be the best pitcher in baseball. It might seem like he’s having a down season—if only because his career-worst outing on Friday is still fresh on everyone’s minds—but Strasburg actually ranks among the MLB leaders in numerous categories.

Per FanGraphs, the right-hander’s 10.71 K/9 ranks third among all qualified starters behind Yu Darvish and Clayton Kershaw; his 2.53 xFIP ranks third behind Kershaw and Felix Hernandez; and his .341 BABIP is the highest among all starting pitchers with at least 150 IP.

Additionally, Strasburg’s 23 percent K%-BB% is the highest rate of his career and ranks fifth in all of baseball, per FanGraphs, while his 36 percent OSwing% (pitches swung at outside the strike zone) and 11.9 percent SwSTR% (swinging strike rate) rank fifth and seventh, respectively.

And I’d be remiss not to mention that Strasburg has 11 outings this season with nine-plus strikeouts, and he’s yet to unintentionally walk more than three batters in a game.

Strasburg already has put together a great season, but the next two months will determine whether he’s a front-of-the-rotation arm or a legitimate ace.

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