Rankings/List

The 2014 MLB draft is just over a week away, and two members of the 2013 draft class have already made their major league debuts: Cleveland's Kyle Crockett (fourth round) and Detroit's Corey Knebel (first round).

It's kind of a big deal to make it to The Show less than a year after being drafted, though it's far from unheard of.

By the time the 2013 draft rolled around, five members of the 2012 class had reached the major leagues, including St. Louis' Michael Wacha and Baltimore's Kevin Gausman.

The Chicago Cubs turned in a 3-3 performance last week, splitting series with the New York Yankees and San Diego Padres. However, that wasn't enough for them to climb out of the No.

It was another good week for Atlanta Braves prospects. The two hitters at Triple-A, Tommy La Stella and Christian Bethancourt, are really starting to swing the bat.

Meanwhile on the mound, the organization’s top prospect seems to have righted the ship, and several other pitchers on this list are doing better than the basic stats seem to indicate. We’ll use advanced stats to find the truth behind the numbers.

We're nearly two full months into the 2014 season and we've seen enough from many of the Boston Red Sox's top prospects to judge their developmental progress so far this year.

Many of their starting pitching prospects have made 10-plus starts. Many of their hitters are nearing 200 plate appearances. We're even seeing some players promoted on the backs of fast starts and organizational need. The sample sizes may be too small to hold predictive value, but they're no longer too small to tell us part of a story in many cases.

Everyone loves yard work.

That is, when it's referring to monster home runs. The following rundown provides a ranking of the 10 biggest shots of the 2014-15 MLB season. The types of home runs that make the cut fall into three general categories.

The 2014 MLB trade deadline is still two months away, but it's never too early to get the rumor mill churning. There is still a lot of baseball to be played, as most teams have not yet established themselves as buyers or sellers. But we can already start to paint a picture of who will be available at the July 31 non-waiver deadline.

Major League Baseball is a mercurial sport. And by that I mean the fortunes of an MLB player can turn on a dime.

Some players—who were of almost no use—will suddenly come alive and carry their team to several victories. Conversely, players who were performing at a high level can go through stretches where it seems each ball they hit hard goes right to someone. 

The Philadelphia Phillies have not been the most successful franchise. They were the first team in MLB history to reach 10,000 losses, their all-time record is below .500 and as one of the oldest teams in baseball, they only have two World Series titles to their name.

The Atlanta Braves will look to bolster their farm system and find future help at the MLB level in a few weeks when the 2014 MLB draft gets underway.

The Braves could go a number of different directions with the No. 32 overall pick in the compensation round acquired from the Brian McCann deal.

Finding a trade partner at this time of the season isn't easy.

Teams that have quickly fallen out of playoff contention, even if they are fairly certain that they're not good enough to bounce back, will typically wait until at least late June before throwing in the towel and trading away a player with value.

Why? Because they want to give the team that they assembled a chance before subtracting an integral part of that roster in a trade.