Kris Bryant was the unanimous choice for the National League Rookie of the Year last season. Carlos Correa edged out Francisco Lindor in a tight race for the same award in the American League. All three players were highly touted prospects and didn’t disappoint in their debut campaign. Yet they were just the cream of a strong crop of first-year major league players in 2015.

Red Sox slugger David Ortiz will begin his 20th and final season in Major League Baseball on April 4, when Boston takes on the Cleveland Indians on Opening Day at Progressive Field. Come October, Ortiz will bat flip into the sunset and begin the next chapter, whatever that may be. Ortiz is just the latest sports superstar to announce his retirement in advance of his final season.

The Kansas City Royals are back in the World Series after falling one run short in Game 7 of last year's Fall Classic. The Royals will take on the New York Mets. It's the first World Series between two teams from baseball’s Expansion Era. Game 1 is Tuesday night at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

The National League has been all about power starting pitching this season. Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Jake Arrieta of the Chicago Cubs, dominate the leaderboard for the league's Cy Young Award, separated by the slimmest margins of batting average against and runs allowed.

For the last decade, the American League has been dominated by a few powerhouse teams: the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox, and the Detroit Tigers. Only the Yankees will play in the postseason this year, and if they can't beat the upstart Houston Astros in the Wild Card Game Tuesday night, the postseason will proceed with a new slate of American League stars from the Astros, Toronto Blue Jays, Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers.

The Giants kick off the second half against the Diamondbacks Friday night in Phoenix. Manager Bruce Bochy has yet to announce how his rotation will line up after the break, so Friday’s starter remains a mystery. Madison Bumgarner would be the preferred choice, to give the Giants a good start out of the break and give Bumgarner the most chances to pitch down the stretch.

Baseball has seen many changes in the past 100 years. Some changes are significant enough, retrospectively, to define an era. There was the Deadball Era from roughly 1901 to 1919, characterized by an emphasis on pitching, defense, and a low run-scoring environment. The Liveball Era began in 1920, ushered in by Babe Ruth, cleaner baseballs that were easier for batters to see, and rule changes like banning the spitball.

Matt Duffy hit the leather off the ball Tuesday night in the Giants’ 8-1 victory over the Houston Astros. Duffy netted a double, two singles and five runs batted in, and played a clean third base. Casey McGehee will be back at third base tonight. By all accounts, manager Bruce Bochy plans to stick with McGehee as the regular third baseman, at least for the short term.

If you didn't fall in love with the Kansas City Royals last season, now's your chance. Don't mess it up this time. Kansas City came as close to a World Series championship as you can get in 2014. After beating the Oakland A's in the wild card game, the Royals swept away the Los Angeles Angels and the Baltimore Orioles to reach the World Series for the first time since 1985.

For the third time in five years, the San Francisco Giants open the season with the chance to repeat as World Series champions. The first two times, they failed. In fact, no team has won the World Series two consecutive years since the Yankees won three in row between 1998 and 2000. So even if the Giants were opening the 2015 season with the same roster that won the World Series in Game 7 in Kansas City last October, they’d face an uphill battle.

Actually, I didn't just quit: I walked away from my career at the very top of my game. I was a partner at one of the best trial firms in the country. I had interesting clients with challenging problems. I was on "top lawyer" lists. I was making obscene amounts of money. Not in any moral or ethical sense.

A federal appeals court in California ruled two weeks ago that MLB's antitrust exemption was alive and well, and broad enough to protect the league from charges by San Jose, Calif., that it violated federal antitrust law by refusing to allow the Oakland A's to move to San Jose. But across the country, a federal appeals court in New York has left in place a district court decision rejecting MLB's antitrust exemption in a case challenging the way MLB divvies up the U.S. into broadcast territories for each team.

Major League Baseball is breathing a huge sigh of relief after a federal appeals court upheld a broad scope of the league's exemption from federal antitrust law on Thursday. But the league's win comes at a high price for the Oakland A's—and adds to the literal shitstorm the A's are in at the old and dilapidated Oakland Coliseum.

He led the majors with a sub-2.00 ERA this season and last. He’s a near shoe-in for his third National League Cy Young Award in four years when the hardware is handed out next month. Dating back to the 2011 season, he’s struck out 27.3 percent of all batters he’s faced and walked only 5.8 percent in nearly 900 innings pitched.

Washington Nationals starter Jordan Zimmermann pitched a no-hitter against the Miami Marlins on Sunday. It was the first no-hitter in the history of the ten-year-old franchise. It was also the last day of the regular season. Those facts alone will keep the memory of Zimmermann’s effort alive for Nationals fans for years to come.

A run of competitiveness that’s come ahead of schedule pushed Billy Beane to be aggressive. Will his midseason gambles pay off in October? With four games remaining, the Oakland A’s are fighting just to make the postseason. After both the A’s and Kansas City Royals lost on Wednesday, the two clubs remain tied for the American League Wild Card lead at 86–72, three games ahead of the Seattle Mariners, who also lost (their fifth in a row).