Fan News

There is still an exciting month of playoff baseball separating us from what promises to be another busy offseason around the league, but it's never too early to start looking ahead at how free agency might play out.

This year's free-agent class is headlined by a number of notable bats.

There's a saying in baseball: "A team never wants to lead the league in meetings."

The implication being that when a club holds a meeting, it's almost universally to discuss what is going wrong and how to repair it. But teams rarely find themselves where the Chicago Cubs stand, having already clinched the NL Central and preparing for the playoffs.

The marathon MLB season has been reduced to a sprint. For the clubs still in the hunt, every game matters—a lot.

For Bleacher Report's MLB Team of the Week, on the other hand, all that matters is the recent past.

Here are 10 players—one per position, including a pitcher and designated hitter—who've busted box scores over the past seven days.

To qualify, a player needs to have made at least two starts at the position in question, or one start in the case of pitchers.

If the season ended Thursday, the Detroit Tigers would own the American League's second wild-card slot.

And they'd be one dangerous wild card.

Seattle Mariners catcher Steve Clevenger has been suspended for controversial tweets he posted regarding the civil unrest in Charlotte, North Carolina. The team announced the punishment on Friday. 

Jon Humbert of KOMO 4 shared a screen cap of two tweets from the catcher:

New York Yankees second baseman Starlin Castro has not appeared in a game since Sept. 17 because of a hamstring injury, but manager Joe Girardi said he could take the field again this season, per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com.

Continue for updates.

Castro Rode Stationary Bike

Thursday, Sept. 22

Hoch noted Castro was on the bike on Wednesday.

New York Yankees pitcher Masahiro Tanaka has suffered a flexor mass injury, Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News reported Thursday.

Continue for updates.

Following a report that a shoulder injury has hampered Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper, the reigning NL MVP reportedly denied any issues in a closed-door meeting with management Tuesday. 

When MLB added a second wild-card spot for each league in 2012, this is exactly what it wanted.

Less than two weeks remain before the 2016 regular season ends, but all four bids in the American League and National League Wild Card Games are still up for grabs. While three teams fight furiously for a shot at the NL play-in game, multiple teams still lurk in the AL picture.

Baseball doesn't get much better than this. With just over a week left in the MLB regular season, we have 12 teams within five games of a playoff berth—and a three-way tie in the National League wild-card race.

Tell us again how baseball is boring, haters.

For most of those teams, their destinies are in their own hands. Or rather, in the hands of their biggest X-factors, players who can change the course of a game—and the way the playoff race shakes out—with a single swing or pitch.