A little over a week ago, we discussed Felix Hernandez as a candidate for the American League’s Most Valuable Player award. We can make this pretty simple: if you have a pitcher who might indeed qualify as the league’s MVP, that guy’s going to be your Cy Young frontrunner, because the MVP voting includes everybody and the Cy Young voting includes only pitchers. Absolutely, if the voting were to take place right now, Felix would claim the Cy Young, because he’s having one of the better seasons in a hell of a long time. He just concluded an impressive consecutive-starts streak that set a new baseball record.

But the season isn’t over yet, and because the season isn’t over yet, Felix doesn’t have the award locked up. Plenty can happen in the weeks ahead, and Corey Kluber has been making a charge that’s drawn him more and more attention. Over Kluber’s last five starts, stretching back to July 24, he’s allowed a total of three runs, without a single dinger. In three of those starts he’s struck out ten batters. Kluber’s the Cy Young frontrunner in a league in which Felix isn’t the Cy Young frontrunner, so it seems worthwhile to spend a little time talking about Kluber’s award case and his chances. As impossible as it seems, Kluber could emerge looking like the best starter in the league.

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In an unexpected turn of events, the Royals are fighting with the Tigers to try to win the AL Central, which hasn’t escaped your attention. The Tigers have been hurt by Justin Verlander being replaced by Chris Volstad, and by Joe Nathan being also replaced by Chris Volstad. The Royals, meanwhile, have been helped by an overall clutch team performance and an amazing defensive outfield. At this point, the division is almost a toss-up, where as recently as a few weeks ago it looked like the Tigers would advance without breaking a sweat.

Looking up at both of those teams, not quite out of the race but not quite in the middle of it, are the Indians. Though the Indians haven’t been markedly worse than the Royals, they have, in several ways, been the anti-Royals. The Royals have been clutch, and the Indians haven’t. The Royals have outplayed their BaseRuns, and the Indians haven’t. The Royals haven’t hit well, and the Indians have. The Royals haven’t had a strong rotation, and the Indians have. And then you get to the fielding. There is no greater difference between the two teams than there is in the field, where the Royals have been great and where the Indians have been less than that.

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If you check out the FanGraphs leaderboard of the best pitchers so far, you’ve got a lot of awfully familiar names. Felix Hernandez and Clayton Kershaw are obvious. Chris Sale? Jon Lester? No shock. The guy that stands out — the guy currently in third place in Wins Above Replacement — is Corey Kluber.

People are gradually coming to terms with the reality of Kluber being a rotation ace, but there’s still the question of how. It’s uncommon to have an ace come completely out of nowhere, and a few years ago Kluber was a little-thought-of trade return for Ryan Ludwick. Even the Indians couldn’t have seen all this coming.

The Corey Kluber story is complicated, as all of them are. He’s extremely dedicated and focused off the field. He’s changed the fastball that he throws. He’s made all kinds of little tweaks and adjustments, and he’s benefiting now from just having gotten an opportunity in the majors. But there is this one little signature of his that’s never been as good as it is today. Recently, Baseball America polled big-league managers on the best tools in the league. One of the prompts concerned the owner of the best curveball in the American League. Justin Verlander came in third, and, yeah, his curveball is really good. Dellin Betances came in first, and he’s really gotten comfortable in the bullpen. Corey Kluber came in second. That is, according to people who coach at the highest level, Kluber has one of baseball’s true elite curveballs.

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Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

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For some time, it’s been evident that the Cardinals could use some help in the starting rotation. They matched up well for all the big names, with the only question concerning the organization’s willingness to part with a major prospect. Word is, the Cardinals might still part with a major prospect for a big name, but midday Wednesday the Cardinals zigged and dealt for a guy who was good a year ago, a guy with a 5+ ERA.

Justin Masterson, who’s still on the disabled list, is going to St. Louis, and going to Cleveland is prospect James Ramsey. The Indians aren’t giving up, but they no longer had room for Masterson, and they turned him into actual value. Meanwhile, the Cardinals have at least addressed a short-term hole, improving without dealing from the top of the farm. At best, Masterson is an impact splash. At least, even the somewhat troubled version is a better fit with the Cardinals than with the Indians.

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In a series of three GIFs from Friday night’s baseballing match between the Indians of Cleveland and the Royals of Kansas City, I’ll attempt to visually encapsulate Carlos Santana’s 2014 season to date:
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Last night was about the pitchers. Nearly every game had at least one good starting pitcher performance, and many of them we’re not even going to talk about today. Max Scherzer’s 11 strikeouts? Nope. What about Tyson Ross‘ 11 strikeouts? Nope, not them either. We’re not even going to talk about Jeff Samardzija and Wei-Yin Chen, who combined to allow one run across 16 innings. No, we’re going to talk about the five pitchers who posted a Game Score of 75 or better last night — Corey Kluber, Marcus Stroman, Danny Duffy, Matt Garza and Cole Hamels.
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Because of  interleague play, many of this season’s All-Stars have already seen who’s on the other side. But there’s a unique opportunity to see the best of the other league on one field in Minnesota. So I asked some All-Stars if they were looking forward to a particular matchup today.

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Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona had this to say before Wednesday’s home game against the New York Yankees:

“Early in the year, there’s always some inconsistencies that take a while to kind of play themselves out. That’s just the way a year is. It happens with every team. Then, once guys get settled in and get on a roll, then you see how good you can be. For whatever reason, sometimes it takes a while.”

Carlos Santana started this game at first base for the Indians. Lonnie Chisenhall played third. Nick Swisher served as the designated hitter.

There’s a reason I’ve presented those three facts to you immediately following that quote. The reason is because the “inconsistencies” Francona spoke of relate to an experiment the Indians underwent to begin the season, concerning those three players and those three positions.

Well, the experiment really had just one subject, Santana, but it ended up effecting all three players. The experiment was a big deal when it was first announced. Quietly, nearly two months ago, the experiment came to an end without an official announcement or much fanfare.
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Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

In this installment, I’ll discuss three pitchers I’ve come across in A-ball who boast more polish than most at their level.

Summary
Plutko gained plenty of prospect helium with a dominant run at Low-A early in the season, but he’s found the going tougher after a promotion to the Carolina League.

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