Rankings/List

What a difference a year has made for David Ortiz and the Boston Red Sox.

In 2015, the club landed in the cellar in the American League East—15 games behind the division-winning Toronto Blue Jays. This year, as the third month of the season rolls along, the Red Sox own the second-best winning percentage in the circuit.

The AL East heavyweights are the most improved team of 2016, but they're far from the only rejuvenated squad this year.

In order to rank the most improved teams of 2016, we zeroed in on three key factors:

Roughly one-third of the 2016 MLB season has been played, and at this point everyone is still chasing the Chicago Cubs.

The No. 1 team in our weekly power rankings for 10 straight weeks dating back to Opening Day, the Cubs have been nothing short of dominant aside from a brief hiccup in the middle of May where they went 4-8 over a 12-game stretch.

Meanwhile, teams continue to jostle for position in the rankings behind them, and for the fourth straight week we have a new No. 2 team.

We're now officially two months into baseball's regular season, past the time when we can point at a player's lack of production and call it "early-season struggles," "rust" or whatever other excuse you can think of.

For some, Week 9 represents their first time on our All-Dud team, while others are making an unfortunate repeat appearance, whether it be as a starter or a dishonorable mention. This week's roster is full of star power, as members of this group have a combined 30 All-Star Game appearances between them.

This week we said goodbye to some big MLB names, albeit some for a longer stretch of time than others. But none were more publicized than that of Cleveland Indians outfielder Marlon Byrd.

Wednesday, the league announced that Byrd would be suspended 162 games after his second positive test for performance-enhancing drugs.

His was not the first positive test for PEDs this season. So yet again, it sparked debate as to whether MLB’s policies and punishments are successfully legislating PED use out of the game.

It'd be easy to rattle off names like Jose Fernandez, Bryce Harper and Mike Trout as the biggest trade chips in baseball. It'd be just as easy to include top prospects like Washington's Lucas Giolito, Pittsburgh's Tyler Glasnow and Philadelphia's J.P. Crawford on the pages that follow.

But to do so would be pointless, for there's a better chance of Derek Jeter coming out of retirement than there is of any of those players getting moved anytime soon.

You don't have to be a professional athlete to be considered overpaid. Sadly, there are plenty of people across a wide spectrum of fields who aren't good at their jobs, much less worthy of the gaudy salaries they collect.

It's easier to pick out those people when they are professional athletes—like baseball players—with multimillion-dollar contracts  and single paychecks that dwarf what many people take home in a year.

As we honor the men and women who have given their lives for the United States this Memorial Day, the 2016 MLB season continues chugging along.

The Chicago Cubs appeared to be in danger of losing their stranglehold on the No. 1 spot in our MLB power rankings with a 4-7 stretch of games heading into last week, but they got back on track with a big series win against the rival St. Louis Cardinals.

The rest of the top 10 remains in flux, though.

Aside from a few failed fireworks here and there, Memorial Day Weekend tends to be devoid of duds.

It's a time for family and friends to gather for the first official barbecues of the season, some frosty adult beverages and, of course, baseball. It is the unofficial start of the summer, and nothing says summer quite like a ballgame does.

That said, not all of the players who take the field share our enthusiasm, as some are mired in month-long funks that they'd gladly surrender chunks of their salaries to get out of.

At their core, sports provide us with a stage of competition. We typically associate that with the competition between two teams.

But it extends to teammates, too, vying for at-bats. And also to a competitor’s drive to chase a record. That was the case with Boston Red Sox outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr., who was pursuing Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak.

Bradley fell short. The streak ended at 29 games, which again proved that DiMaggio’s hit streak is one of baseball’s toughest records to break.

Predictions are a lot like trades. Sometimes they work out, sometimes they don't.

But that doesn't stop teams from swinging deals or pundits and statisticians from predicting the future, so you can be sure it's not going to stop us, either. And what better prediction to make than which players will be traded between Memorial Day weekend and baseball's Aug. 1 trade deadline.

That's will be traded, not might be traded.