Horsehide Chronicles

On deck is the season finale of the thrilling new drama that's gripped the nation: "Puigmania: The Puigtastical Journey of Yasiel Puig."

Bud Selig has plenty of unfinished business to tackle before he retires after 2014.

Like the Red Sox, whose offseason free agent targets I previewed yesterday, the Braves are one of the best teams in baseball without too many weaknesses on their current roster. The difference is that the Sox have several key players headed for free agency while the Braves have just one—catcher Brian McCann. And they could choose to replace him internally. 

Clutch can go both ways.

Last week, we looked at the most clutch hitters in Major League Baseball, and this time around, we'll do the same for pitchers. After all, with playoff berths, positioning on the line and the postseason itself looming, this is when clutch really counts.

There are still games to be played, some very meaningful, but there's no question that front offices for all 30 teams have already started preparing their offseason game plans.

Which free agents will they target? Which of their own free agents will they try and retain? Which players should they target in a trade, and which of their own players are expendable? How much money will be available to spend? Which of their minor league players are ready to make an impact at the big league level.

Remember the big fight scene midway through Anchorman? You know, the one where Will Ferrell's news crew is poised to brawl with Vince Vaughn's news crew, and then Owen Wilson, Tim Robbins and Ben Stiller show up ready for battle with each of their news crews?

That's basically what the American League wild-card race is like right now.

The free-agent market won't be officially open for business for about another month-and-a-half (at the conclusion of the World Series), but most free agents-to-be are down to their last 12 to 15 games to either boost, maintain or lose value. 

While a majority of the group will be in the "maintain value" category, a handful of others are either playing good enough to bump that price tag up or bad enough to knock it down.

Here are eight players, four from each side, who have shifted the needle on their free-agent stock during the past week or two. 

With about two weeks left in the 2013 Major League Baseball season, the playoff pictures are starting to come into focus, but there's still a whole lot of jockeying for position going on, especially in the wild-card races.

From this Friday, the 13th, until the last day of the regular season on Sept. 29, teams that are already in the picture will be looking to fight for a better position in front of the camera, while those who are on the outside looking in will be hoping to elbow their way into the frame.

For the first time since 1992, the Pittsburgh Pirates can call themselves winners.

September baseball is about chases and races and teams fighting for their playoff lives as the season hurtles toward its end. But in 1998, September wasn't about the postseason hopes and dreams of any teams as much as it was the platform upon which two men staged an epic—yet tainted—drive for one of Major League Baseball's most hallowed marks.