Kuzul

One month of the 2016 MLB season is in the books, but there’s still a lot of baseball to be played.

April was dominated by the city of Chicago, as the Cubs and White Sox have separated themselves from the pack here in the early going.

The Washington Nationals and New York Mets appear ready for a tight battle in the NL East, while the Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners have been two of the hottest teams on the American League side of things as they battle for AL West supremacy.

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

The same goes for a rough week sending a team falling down the rankings, but 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.

So with April officially in the rearview, here is a look at where all 30 MLB teams stand.

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Baseball’s regular season might be a marathon and not a sprint, but it seemed like we blew through April in record time, doesn’t it?

The players in this list might disagree with that sentiment. All of them are struggling badly out of the gate and eager to leave the season’s opening month firmly in the past. While there’s plenty of time for them to turn things around, it doesn’t make their struggles any less frustrating.

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The is-this-for-real conversation begins to happen after the first month of the Major League Baseball season like a young actor enjoying the first taste of celebrity.

What we try to take away from April’s baseball action is what is fact and what is fiction. One month provides us little that is definitive in a six-month MLB season.

But, of course, we want our answers. And we want them now.

Overreaction tends to be the general theme of baseball’s first month. It goes both ways, too. A struggling team might watch its fanbase unnecessarily panic. The Kool-Aid of a surprisingly good team or player tastes like a fine wine.

Until we hit May.

Everything could change with the weather in the eastern part of the country. So before we hit baseball’s second month, on this final day of April, here is what we can draw from the first month of the 2016 MLB season.

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As the Major League Baseball season moves from April into May, the 2016 awards season gets one step closer.

It’s still too early to pick who’s going to win the big races, of course. It’s not too early, however, to check in on who’s in the lead.

Ahead are our picks for the early leaders for the Manager of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards in the American League and National League. Managers were chosen based on who’s done the most for their team, and players were chosen based on all-around performance and general impact.

We’ll begin with the Manager of the Year awards. Step into the box when you’re ready.

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The first semester of the 2016 regular season has come to an end, and report cards are heading home to each of baseball’s 30 teams. Some managers and front office executives will try to get into work early to intercept the mail, while others will simply lean back and wait for a pat on the back from ownership.

While it’s far too early to make declarative statements about the ultimate fate of most teams after only a month of action, it’s enough of a sample size for us to look at areas that are strengths for each club and, conversely, areas that are in need of improvement.

A team’s record certainly plays a part in our evaluation, but we’ll look specifically at four areas: hitting, defense, starting pitching and relief pitching. Spoiler alert: We’re notoriously tough graders.

Before we get into things, here’s a brief explanation of a few advanced statistics that you’ll see either directly or indirectly referenced on the pages that follow. Click on the link for a more detailed explanation, courtesy of FanGraphs:

• Defensive Runs Saved (DRS): Tells us how many runs, better or worse, a player has been compared to the average player at his position.

• Ultimate Zone Rating/150 (UZR/150): Calculated differently than DRS but similar in that it tells us how many runs, better or worse, a player has been compared to the average player at his position over 150 games.

• Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+): Aims to present a more accurate representation of offensive value than batting average and OPS.

Traditionalists need not worry, however, as there will be plenty of references to batting average, errors and all the old-school statistics that have been a part of the game for more than a century.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at which teams made the grade and which clubs need to stay after class for a bit of extra help.

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We know what you’re thinking: Here comes another prospects piece that’s going to rehash the same old stuff about the same old prospects that we’ve been hearing about for way too long. In some regards, you’re right—Julio Urias is absolutely going to make an appearance here.

But the criteria we’ve come up with for inclusion on this list opens the door for some lesser-known prospects to have a light shined on them for once.

Aside from the obvious—performance—there are only two boxes a prospect had to check off in order to be considered: That they’ve not yet reached the big leagues and that they appear on MLB.com’s top 100 prospects list.

That first part disqualifies players like Byron Buxton and Joey Gallo, but really, what could we possibly say about them that hasn’t already been said? Both have had success in the minors but struggled mightily in the majors. Nothing aside from sustained big league success is going to change anyone’s opinion of them.

Two things you’re apt to notice on the pages that follow: There’s a whole lot of talent working its way toward the big leagues besides the Buxtons and Gallos of the world—and the Carolina League (High-A) is absolutely stacked with much of that talent.

As far as the actual rankings go, a number of factors were taken into consideration, including but not limited to a player’s performance and the level at which they’re currently playing. But ultimately, these are completely subjective. What stands out for us may not do the same for you.

That said, let’s take a look at the most impressive prospects thus far in 2016.

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Three weeks are now in the books here in the 2016 MLB season, and a few teams are starting to separate themselves from the pack here in the early going.

The Chicago Cubs and Washington Nationals have gotten off to terrific starts on the National League side of things, while the defending champion Kansas City Royals still look like the team to beat in the American League.

The Chicago White Sox have impressed early, though, and were the biggest risers in this week’s edition of our MLB power rankings.

As we dive into another week of analyzing how all 30 teams stack up, it’s important to remember this exercise is not meant to simply be a mirror of the current standings.

Instead, it’s 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.

This early in the season, preseason expectations and long-term outlook still play a role in where a team falls, though the farther we get into the season, the less of a factor that becomes.

So three weeks into the 2016 season, here is a look at where all 30 MLB teams stand.

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The funk doesn’t care about a player’s salary, track record of success or stat line on the season. At some point over the course of a 162-game regular season, the funk pays a visit to every player in baseball.

With no surefire way to get rid of the funk—what works for one player won’t necessarily work for another—players take different approaches in their attempts to get back on track. Some get to the ballpark earlier for extra work, while others may choose to grind it out, hoping that the passing of time is all they need.

Regardless of what method players take, they all generally find a way to leave the funk behind. 

Taking both traditional and advanced statistics into consideration, let’s look at the players who can’t wait to leave April behind and, they hope, move on to bigger and better things in May.

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The third week of the 2016 MLB season is in the books, and it’s time for a quick look back at the biggest takeaways from around the league.

Jake Arrieta of the Chicago Cubs provided the big highlight of the week with his second career no-hitter, and in the process he’s continued to close the gap on Clayton Kershaw for the title of best pitcher in the game.

Meanwhile, a pair of under-the-radar offseason additions in Drew Pomeranz (San Diego Padres) and Jarrod Saltalamacchia (Detroit Tigers) continue to impress despite their low cost in terms of talent given up in the case of Pomeranz and salary in the case of Saltalamacchia.

The term “low cost” won’t be anywhere near Stephen Strasburg if he continues to dominate in his contract year, as he could be the next $200 million man in a thin free-agent class next winter.

That’s a quick sampling of what you’ll find in the article that follows. Take a look at all seven of the biggest takeaways from Week 3 of MLB action.

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When it comes to trendsetting technological advancements, no sport does it better than Major League Baseball.

Much of the credit for the sport’s tech savvy approach goes to the vision of commissioner Rob Manfred. The boss of baseball fully grasps just how critical embracing technology is to the long term health of the game.

“I think that the next big question for us, is how we make sure that baseball is passed on to the next generation,” Manfred said, per R.J. Anderson of CBS Sports. “I think that technology issues … are a huge part of that. We’re making very extensive efforts to use technology.”

From the introduction of virtual reality goggles to the rise of the burgeoning MLB Advanced Media empire, these tech initiatives have not only made baseball far more accessible for fans but have also fundamentally changed the landscape of the sport.

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