Kuzul

Since baseball is played nearly every day from April through October, there’s nothing the sport holds in higher regard than its streaks.

There have been streaks of all kind this year—the team variety and those more individual in nature—but arguably the most impressive string of the 2016 season came to a close this week.

Baltimore Orioles closer Zach Britton saw his streak of 43 straight games without giving up an earned run snapped Wednesday.

Read on to find out about everyone else in baseball who went streaking this week.

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For MLB teams in the thick of a pennant race, it’s better to be healthy than good.

Several squads competing for a postseason bid have suffered debilitating injuries over the season. Giancarlo Stanton, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz, Chris Tillman, Matt Holliday, Aledmys Diaz, Michael Wacha, Wade Davis and practically the entire Los Angeles Dodgers rotation are watching a playoff race unfold on the disabled list. Others (Jose Bautista) are just coming back from the shelf.

Whoever heals the most in September could determine who sneaks into the playoffs. Although four division leaders have established a comfortable lead, the wild card lives up to its moniker in both leagues. Thirteen teams are within five games of participating in a winner-take-all showdown.

That means more than half the league harbors hope with August winding down. Along with the health of household names, some unexpected players have emerged as make-or-break contributors.

Let’s take a look at some of the biggest X-factors looming over the late-season playoff hunt.

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The July trade deadline and the August waiver period are not the only ways that teams can add to their rosters for the stretch run. September also brings an influx of new players when the active rosters expand from 25 to 40.

Generally, this is a time when teams promote the guys who have bounced between the minors and majors for most of the season, adding a few arms to the bullpen and bats to the bench in the process.

However, at least a handful of top prospects get the chance to show what they can do during this time as well.

Last season, Corey Seager (LAD), Jarrett Parker (SF), Zack Davies (MIL), Max Kepler (MIN), Miguel Castro (COL), Rob Refsnyder (NYY), Carl Edwards Jr. (CHC) and Tom Murphy (COL) headlined the crop of September prospect promotions.

So who could get the call this year?

What follows is my best guess at the top 25 prospects likely to be promoted when Sept. 1 rolls around.

A few things to consider before we begin:

• Prospects are ranked based on their overall ceiling and future upside, not necessarily on the impact they are expected to make over the final month of the season.

• To be considered for inclusion, a player must still have rookie eligibility (130 AB, 50 IP).

Hopefully, that clarifies what we were looking for when we put these rankings together and we’ll see in a few days how many of these guys actually get the call.

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With little more than a month remaining in the 2016 MLB regular season, plenty still needs to be figured out before the postseason begins.

For the second consecutive week, the top five spots in these rankings went to the same five teams, as the Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, Washington Nationals, Toronto Blue Jays and Cleveland Indians continue to represent the cream of the crop. 

A bit further down, the Seattle Mariners maintained their strong play to push into the top 10, and the Kansas City Royals are suddenly back in the playoff picture thanks to an eight-game winning streak.

Meanwhile, the Baltimore Orioles and San Francisco Giants continued to struggle. As a result, they no longer have the privilege of calling themselves division leaders.

As always, one thing remains true: These rankings are a fluid process, with teams moving up or down based on where they ranked the previous week. If a club keeps winning, it will keep climbing—it’s as simple as that.

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One of the great baseball scenes ever put to film comes courtesy of the Leslie Nielsen classic The Naked Gun, with Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” providing the background music.

Apparently, Josh Reddick isn’t in agreement with that sentiment, as the Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder and soon-to-be free agent is one of the headliners on this week’s All-Dud team.

We’ve picked 10 players—one per position, including a designated hitter and starting pitcher—who put together disastrous performances over the past seven days. Spoiler alert: Reddick isn’t the only player who changed teams at the non-waiver trade deadline to make the cut.

Who else, besides Reddick, is coming off a week to forget? Let’s take a look.

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The Washington Nationals lead the NL East largely because second baseman Daniel Murphy is having an MVP-caliber year.

It’s overshadowed the contributions of Jayson Werth, who extend his on-base streak to 46 games on Thursday, as valuable a streak as it is impressive.

But Werth wasn’t the only player this week to hit a major milestone. Who were the others?

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Who are MLB‘s best players at every position at the quarter pole of the 2016 season?

This updated version of our position-by-position player rankings takes into account players’ all-around offensive abilities, their defensive contributions and what they have meant to the success of their respective teams.

To put it simply, this is an overview of the top 10 players at each spot based solely on what they have done during the 2016 season.

On top of naming the top 10 overall players at each position, we’ve included a quick look at the top rookie performers to shine light on future stars at each spot.

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To achieve the sustainable success every MLB team is searching for, a front office needs to have an eye on the future.

Whether a team is a contender in 2016 or focused on 2017, it’s never too early to look ahead at how it is lining up future success.

That was the idea behind our Future MLB Power Rankings last week, taking a look at how all 30 franchises might stack up three years down the line.

This time around, we’ll focus on the individual level.

A handful of players have provided their teams with encouraging signs for the future in 2016, whether it’s a veteran who’s returning to form or exceeding expectations or a young player who’s emerging as a key piece of the present and future puzzle.

The idea here is to highlight things we’ve learned since the start of the regular season.

For example, the continued production of the Chicago Cubs’ young core is a promising sign for their long-term outlook, but we knew that going into the year.

On the other hand, healthy seasons from Dylan Bundy in Baltimore and Jameson Taillon in Pittsburgh were far from a given.

Those two have given their teams a huge boost in 2016 and improved their long-term outlook in the process, as they are finally living up to their top prospect billing.

Ahead is a look at 10 teams with promising indications for future seasons.

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We’ve arrived at the quarter-pole mark of the 2016 MLB season, as we’re now just a month-and-a-half away from the conclusion of the regular season and the start of another exciting slate of postseason baseball.

However, before the playoffs begin, there’s still an awful lot to be sorted out.

The top teams took care of business last week, and the Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, Washington Nationals, Toronto Blue Jays and Cleveland Indians once again fill the top five spots in our rankings.

There was a good deal of shuffling in the spots below them, though.

The Seattle Mariners are making a strong push on the American League side of things, and the Pittsburgh Pirates are on their way back up after looking all but out of it a few weeks ago.

Meanwhile, the offensively challenged New York Mets are heading in the wrong direction, and the Miami Marlins will be without slugger Giancarlo Stanton the rest of the way, per Joe Frisaro of MLB.com. 

It might not take more than 85 wins to claim the final National League wild-card spot, though, so those two teams are still in the hunt.

As always, one thing remains true: These rankings are a fluid process, with teams moving up or down based on where they ranked the previous week. If a club keeps winning, it will keep climbing—it’s as simple as that.

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“Pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever.” That was one of the many memorable lines uttered by Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves) in The Replacements, an underrated movie that also starred Jon Favreau and Gene Hackman, among others.

While that was a flick about replacement football players, you’d think the MLB players that occupy this week’s All-Dud team were, in fact, replacements for the game’s regular stars who had decided to go on strike.

After you see some of the numbers this week’s squad put up, you’ll question just how quickly pain truly heals—and whether this week’s crop of disappointing duds will spend the rest of the season nursing the mental scars from a forgettable week of action.

We’ve picked 10 players—one per position, including a designated hitter and starting pitcher—who put together disastrous performances over the past seven days—one of whom is walking around with a self-inflicted shiner.

Who made the cut alongside the San Francisco Giants’ Hunter Pence? Let’s take a look.

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