5 Biggest Takeaways from MLB's Week 24
Another week of the 2015 MLB campaign is in the books, and we are now just two weeks from the end of the regular season and the start of what promises to be another exciting month of playoff baseball.
Playoff races, postseason rosters and end-of-the-year awards become the main talking points around the league this time of year, and that has been the case once again this September.
Can Johnny Cueto be the ace the Royals thought he was when they acquired him at the trade deadline? How big of an impact will September roster additions Marcus Stroman and Corey Seager have on their respective teams down the stretch and into the playoffs?
We'll tackle these storylines and a few others in the following article as we look at the five biggest takeaways from the latest week of action around the majors.
Shin-Soo Choo Deserves Some AL Comeback Player of the Year Love
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Shin-Soo Choo picked the right time to have the best season of his career in 2013, as he hit .285/.423/.462 with 34 doubles, 21 home runs and 20 stolen bases in what was his lone season with the Cincinnati Reds.
A free agent that following offseason, he wound up inking a seven-year, $130 million deal to join the Texas Rangers as they looked to reload their offensive attack.
Between nagging elbow and ankle injuries, Choo only wound up playing 123 games in his first season in Arlington, and the results were less than stellar as he hit .242/.340/.374 and was roughly a league-average player with a 0.1 WAR.
That big-money deal continued to look like a mistake with a mediocre first half this season that saw him hit .221/.305/.384 with 15 doubles and 11 home runs, but he's been a different player since the break.
The 33-year-old has caught fire, hitting .354/.469/.554 in the second half and serving as a terrific table-setter out of the No. 2 spot in the lineup.
He's been particularly brilliant over the past week, going 16-for-27 with five walks and scoring 10 runs in seven games.
Alex Rodriguez, Prince Fielder, Kendrys Morales and Chris Davis have been named among the AL Comeback Player of the Year favorites for much of the season, but Choo has worked his way into that conversation.
Given the Rangers' drastic second-half turnaround, you can make a case that Choo has been the MVP of the American League since the All-Star break.
Johnny Cueto Looks to Be Back on Track
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The Kansas City Royals went into the July trade season in need of a proven front-line arm to anchor what had been a shaky starting rotation, and they got their guy when they acquired Johnny Cueto from the Cincinnati Reds.
The early returns were as good as anyone could have hoped, as he went 2-1 with a 1.80 ERA in his first four starts with the team, including a four-hit shutout of the Detroit Tigers in his first home start.
Things went south pretty quickly from there, though.
Over his next five starts, Cueto was 0-5 with a 9.57 ERA and a horrible 1.975 WHIP as he simply wasn't missing very many bats.
With serious concerns about the postseason rotation again pushing to the forefront in Kansas City, Cueto took the mound on Friday looking to turn things around against the Tigers team he had shut out a little over a month prior.
It wasn't quite a four-hitter, but Cueto did finally deliver a quality start with eight hits and two runs allowed over seven innings of work in a no-decision.
So what was the problem in previous outings?
Ned Yost explained to Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com how the height of 6'3" catcher Salvador Perez may have played a part in his struggles.
"Basically, he thought that with Salvy being so tall, he was setting up a high target," Yost said. "Johnny is a guy who throws to the glove. So if the target is set up high, he's going to miss high...because Sal is an All-Star and a Gold Glover, he didn't want to insult him."
All signs still point to Cueto taking the ball in Game 1 of the Division Series for a Royals club that has had the AL Central locked up for months now, and another strong performance next time out would go a long way toward mitigating concerns.
Corey Seager Has to Be the Los Angeles Dodgers' Starting Shortstop in October
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In much the same way they were patient with outfielder Joc Pederson despite huge numbers in Triple-A last season, the Los Angeles Dodgers decided to wait until September to promote top prospect Corey Seager.
The 21-year-old shortstop hit .293/.344/.487 with 37 doubles, 18 home runs and 76 RBI in 501 at-bats between Double-A and Triple-A before finally making his big league debut on Sept. 3.
The assumption was that he would get a start here and there to give veteran Jimmy Rollins a rest down the stretch, but Rollins' jammed right index finger changed things.
Seager has been penciled into the starting lineup for the past 12 games, and over that span he's hit .386/.509/.614 with four doubles, two home runs and seven RBI in 44 at-bats.
Meanwhile, Rollins was suffering through a rough season prior to the injury, hitting just .220/.278/.354 in his first—and what figures to be his only—season with the Dodgers.
In just 15 games, Seager has already been a 1.4 WAR player, while Rollins was actually providing negative value with a minus-0.4 WAR in his 134 games of action.
In a recent Los Angeles Times poll, 79 percent of voters said they think Seager should remain the team's starting shortstop once Rollins returns.
Obviously, fan opinion is not going to play much of a role in manager Don Mattingly's decision, and the fanbase is always going to side with the young player and the hot hand, but it really seems like a no-brainer at this point.
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Marcus Stroman Is Back and Ready to Be a Huge Part of the Postseason Push
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Just six months removed from surgery on a torn ACL suffered during spring training, Marcus Stroman is back on the mound and looking like a big part of the Toronto Blue Jays' postseason plans.
"It's unbelievable, the time frame we did it in, but it's 100 percent," he told Gordon Edes of ESPN. "I did two-a-days six days a week, four months straight. The work that went into this was incredible. It was painful, it was tough, but I got through it."
The 24-year-old looked ready to step into the role of staff ace after going 11-6 with a 3.65 ERA in 26 games (20 starts) as a rookie in 2014.
Instead, he's spent much of the season watching from the sidelines as the Blue Jays emerged as perhaps the favorites in the American League.
The acquisition of David Price gave the team the ace it desperately needed, but the starting rotation was still lacking a consistent No. 2 starter to join him atop the playoff staff. And just two starts into his season, it's looking like Stroman could be that guy.
After allowing four hits and three runs in five innings of work in his first start back, Stroman was brilliant on Friday when he surrendered just six hits and one run over seven innings for his second win.
The Blue Jays have veteran options in R.A. Dickey, Mark Buehrle and a surprisingly good Marco Estrada to choose from when it comes to assembling their playoff rotation, but don't be surprised if it's Stroman who winds up toeing the rubber in Game 2.
The Chicago Cubs Are the Best Team in the NL Central Right Now
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When the 2015 season began, most around baseball would have called it a success if the Chicago Cubs could finish the year with a winning record and see their young core make some significant strides.
Five-plus months later, they have already clinched a winning record and appear to be a lock to secure one of the NL wild-card spots, but they're not finished.
After playing third fiddle to the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates for much of the season, the Cubs have flexed their muscles against those two teams in the past week.
They took three of four from the Pirates in Pittsburgh to kick things off, then won the first two games of a three-game series at home against the Cardinals to begin the weekend.
With that, the team is an MLB-best 13-5 in September with a plus-35 run differential, and it's pulled within one game of the Pirates for the right to host the Wild Card Round game.
During that same span, the Pirates (9-10) and Cardinals (7-10) have both trended in the opposite direction with losing records, so it's not out of line to say the Cubs are the best team in the NL Central right now.
With all signs pointing to a meeting with the Pirates in the Wild Card Round and the Cardinals likely awaiting the winner in the Division Series, that bodes well for the team's postseason outlook.
All stats courtesy of BaseballReference.com, unless otherwise noted.
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