Kuzul

One quarter of the 2016 MLB season is in the books, but there’s still a ton of baseball ahead.

The Chicago Cubs stumbled a bit with a series loss to the San Diego Padres, but they’re still comfortably looking down on the other 29 teams from the No. 1 spot in these rankings.

Things continue to shuffle within the top 10, though.

The Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles both climbed with strong showings, and the Philadelphia Phillies are officially inside the top 10 for the first time this year.

What a world.

The NL East as a whole is as close as it gets right now with four teams currently over .500. There will no doubt be plenty of shuffling among that group in particular as they square off in-division.

We’re still dealing with a relatively small sample size at this point, so one particularly good or bad week of play can often result in a significant climb or drop in the rankings with so many teams clustered together with similar records.

One thing remains true: These rankings are a fluid process, with teams rising and falling based on where they were ranked the previous week. If a team keeps winning, it will keep climbing—it’s as simple as that.

Here’s a look at where all 30 MLB teams stand.

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While some of baseball’s most highly touted prospects, such as the Atlanta Braves’ Dansby Swanson and Washington Nationals’ Lucas Giolito, have yet to make their regular-season debuts, a slew of rookies have taken the field in 2016—to mixed results.

Some, like the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Corey Seager, have been up to the challenge, while others, like the Minnesota Twins’ Byron Buxton, have not. The wide range of outcomes is nothing new, as it sometimes takes time for players to figure out how to succeed at the game’s highest level.

As we approach the quarter-season mark, let’s take stock of the youngsters we’ve seen thus far by naming the All-Rookie team. To qualify, a player must have come into the season as rookie-eligible, which means no more than 130 career at-bats, 50 innings pitched or 45 days on a team’s active roster.

A player’s individual performance was the key factor in deciding who got a starting spot and who wound up as an honorable mention.

You’ll notice two things as we get into our squad: Some positions have far more young talent than others, and it pays for a youngster to be as versatile as possible.

Who made the cut? Let’s take a look.

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Arms stole the headlines in baseball this week. We’re talking arms of all sorts, that is—left, right, starters and relievers.

The value of those arms was topical. Questions were asked about where some ranked among the greatest. Then there were debates about how much some arms were worth.

The past week of MLB action was filled with stellar pitching performances that sparked all sorts of debate.

So as we look back upon the sixth week of baseball’s 2016 season, here’s an attempt to recap some of the takeaways from some historic pitching performances.

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Youngsters making an impact in baseball is nothing new. They step into key roles on a yearly basis and make a significant impact for their respective teams and a name for themselves. But not all youngsters are created equal.

For every highly touted prospect, like Carlos Correa and Noah Syndergaard last year, there’s a Randal Grichuk and Kyle Hendricks—less lauded young talent that takes the next step in development and solidifies a place on a team’s roster.

And there’s no reason to believe that 2016 will be any different.

What follows is a look at 10 players, all 26 years old or younger, who are on the verge of following in the footsteps of prospects like Trevor Story, Steven Matz and Corey Seager, who have all become integral parts of their respective club’s core.

Some of these players have already gotten a taste of life in the big leagues, while others are drawing closer to making their major league debuts. None of them have made a major impact at the game’s highest level—at least not yet—but their times are quickly approaching.

How quickly? It wouldn’t be at all surprising to see many—if not all—of these players in the big leagues over the next few weeks.

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It’s no secret how the Chicago Cubs have raced out to the best record in the majors.

The National League Central club, who OddsShark.com pegs as the early Fall Classic favorites, has scored the most runs in baseball and given up the fewest.

Thanks to that potent offense and stingy pitching staff, the Cubs own a 24-6 mark after sweeping aside the Pittsburgh Pirates and Washington Nationals. As ESPN’s Baseball Tonight noted via Twitter, the last time the Cubs owned such a record was 1907, when the team won the World Series.

So, just what exactly does this year’s squad need to match the accomplishments of the 1907 club? Naturally, it all starts with Jake Arrieta, but the staff ace is far from the only pitcher who the club will have to rely heavily on in the upcoming months.

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Five weeks’ worth of the 2016 MLB season is in the books, but there’s still a ton of baseball ahead.

The Chicago Cubs continued their torrid start with an undefeated week, and at this point, they’re still looking down on the other 29 teams from the No. 1 spot in these rankings.

Things continue to shuffle within the top 10, though.

The Seattle Mariners were the biggest risers in last week’s rankings, and they continued their climb this week into the top 10.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Detroit Tigers plummeted down the rankings with a 0-6 week and a starting rotation that’s an absolute mess.

We’re still dealing with a relatively small sample size at this point, so one particularly good or bad week of play can often result in a significant climb or drop in the rankings with so many teams clustered together with similar records.

One thing remains true: These rankings are a fluid process, with teams rising and falling based on where they were ranked the previous week. If a team keeps winning, it will keep climbing—it’s as simple as that.

Here’s a look at where all 30 MLB teams stand.

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The only good duds are Milk Duds—and we’re all out of those.

Instead of filling our bellies with that delicious treat, we’re forced to try to stomach some awful performances on the field in the first week of May, the fifth of baseball’s regular season. 

Taking traditional and advanced statistics into consideration, here’s a look at those who aren’t buying into the idiom that April showers bring May flowers.

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Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper, the arguable face of the league, feels like he should be older than 23. New York Mets starting pitcher Bartolo Colon, who owns a 2.56 ERA, feels like he should be younger than 42.

Suspensions for performance-enhancing drugs feel like they should be longer than 80 games. And it seems like an eternity could pass and Nationals manager Dusty Baker will always have to answer for how he handled the 2003 Chicago Cubs.

If there’s one big thing to take away from this week’s MLB action—you’ll get five here, just for the record—it’s that age and time are the most useless numbers in a sport obsessed with them.

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Like unicorns, leprechauns and Mark Trumbo’s plate discipline, underrated stars are supposed to be a myth. The term itself is contradictory—if someone is a star, they’re both well-known and lauded for their talent in whatever field they’re in. That hardly meets the criteria for the underrated label.

While I can’t speak to horned horses galloping through the forest (or wherever unicorns are supposed to hang out) or tiny men guarding pots of gold at the end of the rainbow, underrated stars—like a selective Trumbo—exist.

They’re not perennial All-Stars—though some should (and hopefully will) make an appearance in San Diego at this year’s Midsummer Classic—and odds are they’re not future Hall of Fame inductees, either.

These are just good baseball players who deserve more attention and adulation than they’re currently getting.

While a player’s current performance matters, we’re also looking for past success as well. This will help to eliminate any one-year wonders (anyone remember Kevin Maas?), but it also eliminates hotshot rookies—like Aledmys Diaz and Trevor Story—from entering the conversation.

Additionally, while we typically include a designated hitter on these teams, that’s not the case here. Why? Because designated hitters tend to be past-their-prime stars like Alex Rodriguez, hardly the kind of player we’d call underrated.

That said, let’s take a look at the 10 players who are deserving of a bigger piece of the spotlight.

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Contrary to the knee-jerk reactions we see after every half-inning, much less every game, one month does not guarantee success or failure in Major League Baseball. Sure, teams would rather sprint out to an early division lead than try and dig their way out of a hole, but there’s a lot of baseball yet to be played.

Still, we can only judge a team based on the games they’ve already played. Actually, that’s not entirely true. We can judge a team based on the games they’ve already played—and compare those results to the expectations surrounding the team heading into the regular season.

That’s exactly how we’ll come up with our approval ratings, where what works for one team will fall flat with another.

Seeing as how nobody is ever fully satisfied, we’ll cap our approval ratings at 85 percent. There’s always room for improvement.

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