Rankings/List

After undergoing Tommy John surgery in late 2011 and logging only 28.1 innings last season in the minor leagues last year, Twins right-hander Kyle Gibson is on pace to make his major league debut before the All-Star break.

The 22nd overall draft pick in 2009, Gibson has pitched extremely well recently for Triple-A Rochester in the International League and has now thrown a complete game shutout in two of his last three starts.

After Ryan Vogelsong fractured his pitching hand on Monday night, the San Francisco Giants are faced with the decision of who will replace him in the starting rotation.

Despite the suddenness of the injury, it is likely that the leading candidates to fill Vogelsong’s spot have already been placed under the microscope.

In Major League Baseball, how a free agent-to-be finishes the season is much more important than how he starts. The player's agent can chalk it up to a mechanical adjustment or a player getting back to full health or just finally "figuring it out" to explain why things didn't click until the second half.

In any case, agents will try to sell interested teams on the player that ended the season on a roll as opposed to the player who struggled early on. The other way around would be a much tougher sell. 

The American League Central is one of the most interesting divisions in all of baseball this season.

The Detroit Tigers once again entered the year as runaway favorites to take the division crown, and are once again struggling at the first quarter mark, trailing the Cleveland Indians by 2.5 games.

Even though the San Francisco Giants sit near the top of the National League West, they have been presented with some unpleasant surprises to begin the 2013 season.

The starting pitching has been among the worst in the league.

The defense has been porous, committing 35 errors (second-most in the league) through 45 games.

Still, mostly because of an impressive offense and a spectacular bullpen, the club has held its own in a tough division.

Last week, the case was made for WAR as baseball's best statistic. Now it's time to dig a little deeper to find out if some of the early-season leaders in Wins Above Replacement are for real.

Most teams are paying their big-name starting pitchers a fortune to provide 200 innings this season. But for a few of those pitchers, their performance is crippling teams that hope to contend, and that brings their job security into question.

Some of these pitchers have long track records that afford them a longer leash. They may not lose their jobs based on a bad first month, but if the struggles continue into June, teams may begin looking for alternatives.

The joys of signing a brand-spanking new contract can quickly subside due to a luke-warm start to the season. 

A lucrative contract is only worthwhile when the on-the-field production is present, and for some newly signed players, the transition to a new team has come with a price. 

Whatever the reason may be—a new park, a new hitting coach, the pressure to perform or simply an early season slump—the thought of winning over hundreds of thousands of loyal fans can weigh heavily on a player's psyche.

It’s hard to believe that we’ve already reached the one-quarter mark for the 2013 season.

However, with most teams having played around 40 games, league standings and stats are now relevant and based on something other than a small sample size.