It is often said that the MLB season is a marathon. Using that analogy, that means we are at about the 16-mile marker in the 26.2-mile race. Time to start kicking it into high gear, especially if you aren’t in playoff position. The second half of the season begins today and here is a snapshot of story lines to watch.
1. Two Weeks To Trade Deadline
July 31 is just less than two weeks away. Which teams will decide to buy and sell is a hotly debated topic, even in front offices of those teams on the bubble. Last year’s run by the Detroit Tigers, who were sellers at the deadline and then not only made the playoffs but won a series, will sway some.
One team that should retool on the fly is the Minnesota Twins. They have no shot at the AL Central and, at 47-49, are four games out of the last AL wild-card spot. Right-handed starter Joe Ryan, right-handed closer Jhoan Duran and right-handed reliever Griffin Jax would are prominent candidates to move, with all three still having three more years of club control, thus bringing back prime prospects and still being able to compete in 2026. The Philadelphia Phillies are one contender with a glaring need for bullpen help.
Other bubble teams include the Texas Rangers, St. Louis Cardinals and two AL East combatants — the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays. The Red Sox begin the second half as the hottest team in MLB with 10 straight victories and currently occupy the No. 2 AL wild-card spot, while the Rays have lost four in a row and sit just outside the AL wild-card chase. These two weeks could sway some of these teams or others in similar situations. There is also always a surprising team that goes all-in at the deadline.
Injuries could also play a role, both in who is coming back and who suddenly goes down.
The Arizona Diamondbacks could be active with third baseman Eugenio Suárez in the final year of his deal (earning $15 million in 2025), while right-handed starters Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly and first baseman Josh Naylor have exhausted their arbitration eligibility and will hit the open market for the first time this offseason. The Red Sox will likely dangle at least one of their young outfielders in any potential deals. Other well-known trade candidates include Chicago White Sox center fielder Luis Robert Jr., Miami Marlins right-handed starter Sandy Alcantara, St. Louis Cardinals right-handed closer Ryan Helsley and Colorado Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon.
2. Three (or Four) Key Division Races
Three of the six divisions are pretty tight, with a fourth one that could get more interesting. The AL Central is being dominated by the Detroit Tigers, while the Los Angeles Dodgers still have a 5½-game lead in the NL West despite a seven-game losing streak just before the break. More scuffling by the Dodgers or runs by either the San Diego Padres or San Francisco Giants could tighten the West.
AL East: The Toronto Blue Jays timed their surge to match a slide by the New York Yankees to take over the AL East penthouse by two games. Now, the Red Sox have made their move with a 10-game winning streak and the Rays are lurking. All four teams are within 5½ games and the jockeying not only for division superiority but wild-card berths will be fascinating to watch. You could see all three wild cards coming out of the East or maybe just one, depending on what transpires in the AL West and AL Central. The East battle royale will take place with the last-place Baltimore Orioles trying to play spoiler in an otherwise frustrating season. The closing schedule favors the Yankees, who finish with the Twins, Orioles, White Sox and Orioles again. The Jays, meanwhile, have the Rays twice, the Kansas City Royals and the Red Sox, while the Red Sox take on the Athletics, Rays, Jays and Tigers and the Rays have the Red Sox and Orioles in addition to the two series vs. the Jays.
AL West: This is the division that is a borderline race at the moment, but could certainly heat up beginning with this weekend. The Houston Astros have won the last seven AL West titles during a full 162-game schedule (the Athletics won in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season) and are again in first place. This run seems a bit more surprising because of the offseason moves that were made (trading Kyle Tucker and Ryan Pressly) and not getting the expected production from free-agent signing Christian Waker and an injured Yordan Alvarez. Yet the Astros lead the West by five games over the Seattle Mariners as the two teams are set to square off for three games in Seattle this weekend. That is just one of two three-game sets the teams have in the second half, with the other coming on the next-to-last weekend of the season. So the urgency for the Mariners is pretty huge.
NL East: Surprisingly, this has been a two-team race since Opening Day. That is thanks to Atlanta’s 0-7 start and underwhelming performance since then. But that only clears the decks for titanic back-and-forth between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets as both teams loaded with star power. The Phillies ended Atlanta’s six-year run as East champs last year, winning by six games, but then fell to the Mets in the NL Division Series. Now, the teams are separated by a half-game entering the second half, with the Phillies currently on top. Both teams are in the middle of the MLB pack in runs per game while also being in the top seven in staff ERA (Mets are fourth and Phillies tied for seventh). Both teams could use a little fortification, especially the aforementioned Phillies bullpen and its 23rd-ranked ERA. Moves at the deadline could help determine the champion as these two teams don’t face each other over the final 2½ weeks following a four-game set in Philadelphia.
NL Central: It only makes sense that the Chicago Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers are battling for supremacy in the Central this year. Sure, the St. Louis Cardinals would be a cute story to add to the equation — and they certainly can play a role — but these two rivals have been intertwined ever since a certain manager bolted from Milwaukee for the Windy City shortly after the 2023 season. The Brewers won the inaugural Counsell Cup by taking the 2024 season series 8-5 en route to easily winning the division. This year, the Cubs lead the series 3-2, with a three-game series at the end of July and then a rainout-fattened five-gamer at Wrigley Field on Aug. 18-21. Then, that’s it. No September games between these foes. While that scheduling quirk sucks, it just feels like the Cubs and Brewers will go down to the final weekend. The Brewers have been the best team in MLB since May 18, going 35-15 to pull within one game of the first-place Cubs, who 30-20 in that same stretch.
3. Power Shows
Yankees slugger Aaron Judge already has more fWAR at the All-Star break than six of his previous nine MLB seasons. The only three that surpass his current 7.4 are the three in which he hit 52 or more homers (8.8 in 2017, 11.1 in 2022 and 11.3 last year). His 7.4 is also well above the 6.2 of second-place Cal Raleigh of the Mariners. No one else in MLB is at 5 fWAR.
That means we are seeing some special seasons from Judge and Raleigh. For Judge, he has posted a slash line of .355/.462/.733, all three marks being well in front of No. 2 in each category. And while his 35 homers are second to Raleigh’s MLB-leading 38, Judge is just the second player in MLB history to hit 30 homers before the break four times, joining Mark McGwire, and appears destined to win his third AL MVP. Judge has reached base in 85 of 95 games played and 258 total bases are the most before the break since 1933. That is augmented by his 69 walks, including an MLB-leading 24 intentional passes.
About the only drama in Judge’s season is whether there will be a duel with Raleigh for the home run title. Raleigh has hit 30 homers for the third straight season, but the big news is that he has already surpassed his previous career high of 34 with the second half just beginning. While Judge patrols the less-strenuous right field, Raleigh gets dinged up on a daily basis at catcher. That wear and tear will build up as the season goes and likely affect his offensive production, which has been instrumental in keeping the Mariners in the AL West race. Of Raleigh’s 38 homers, an MLB-best 17 have come in the seventh inning or later. Raleigh does hold a narrow edge over Judge in RBIs at 82-81, but has a much less impressive slash line at .259/.376/.634.
If that duo does get into an epic homer chase, what will that look like? Reaching 50 homers seems a given for both, so 60 is the next plateau, which would echo the 1998 PED-tainted battle between McGwire and Sammy Sosa.
The NL MVP race is much less exciting. Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani has a 4.7 fWAR, fifth-best in MLB and tops in the NL. While Ohtani isn’t having the record-breaking season he did a year ago in becoming the first 50-50 player in MLB history, he still has 32 homers and is slashing .276/.382/.605 with 12 steals ad 60 RBIs.
4. Pitching Prowess
There are a few interesting scenarios involving pitchers that have developed in the first half. The first has to deal with Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal, who blossomed in 2024 into the AL Cy Young Award winner and has been even better thus far in 2025. Skubal is on pace to surpass his ERA (2.23 in 2025, 2.39 in 2024), WHIP (0.826, 0.922), strikeouts per nine (11.4, 10.7), walks per nine (1.2, 1.6) and FIP (2.02, 2.49). No pitcher has ever led MLB in walks and strikeouts per nine. He hasn’t allowed a run in eight of his 19 starts and just one run in three others. Also, Skubal has six double-digit strikeout games thus far after having just three in 2024.
Skubal’s competition for this year’s AL Cy Young is likely to come from another left-hander in Garrett Crochet of the Red Sox. Both are at 10 wins, with Crochet matching Skubal’s 2.23 ERA while posting a 1.036 WHIP. Crochet pitched a career-high 146 innings in 2025 and is at 129⅓ in his first year with the Red Sox, who are making a playoff push as opposed to his days with the moribund Chicago White Sox. Crochet leads MLB with 160 strikeouts, slightly ahead of the Phillies’ Zack Wheeler (154 in 122 IP) and Skubal (153 in 121 IP).
Meanwhile, Pittsburgh Pirates right-handed Paul Skenes is making an untraditional case for the NL Cy Young. The 2024 NL Rookie of the Year and two-time All-Star Game starter leads MLB with a 2.01 ERA, but has just four wins in 20 starts because he plays for the last-place Pirates. His dominance with a lack of wins recalls the AL Cy Young season of Mariners right-hander Félix Hernández, who went 13-12 with a 2.27 ERA in 2010. Skenes has a 4.0 fWAR, the best among NL pitchers, with Wheeler next at 3.7. It figures to be a race between those two for the NL Cy Young, with Wheeler playing on a contending Phillies team and already with nine wins. Unless Skenes reverses his bad luck, it could come down to Wheeler pitching more important innings in the second half.
One other case to watch will be Brewers rookie phenom Jacob Misiorowski. A surprising All-Star replacement after just five MLB starts, Misiorowski figures to play a vital role during the Brewers’ battle with the Cubs for the NL Central title. The fireballer pitched a career-high 97⅓ innings in the minors in 2024 and is already and 89 between Triple-A and MLB this year. With a target of about 130-140 innings and about 12 starts, that would mean the Brewers will be watching The Miz’s innings closely, perhaps even employing a six-man rotation or having him act as an opener, going three innings max at points. FYI, Misiorowski has already matched Skenes with four wins to go along with a 2.81 ERA and 33 strikeouts in 25⅔ innings.
5. Rockies On Wrong Side Of History
We didn’t think it could get worse than watching the 2024 White Sox stumble to a 41-121 record, the most losses in the Modern Era (since 1901). The 2025 Colorado Rockies said “Hold my beer.”
The Rockies finished the first half 22-74, a winning percentage of .229. That White Sox team? Their winning percentage was .253. So there is a chance this Rockies team could be better, but based on the first half, there has been no indication they will. They would need to win 19 games, which undoubtedly another team will do in a month, just to tie the White Sox. Going 19-47 is just a .288 winning clip, a burden that will only get greater as August dog days hit and the cruel days of being playoff contenders’ fodder are realized. The White Sox won five of their final six games to avoid a bigger loss total. The Rockies, meanwhile, have had four eight-game losing streaks thus far and have to deal with NL West foes battling for a playoff spot. They have gone 5-20 vs. the West this year, with about the same number of games remaining.
Already, the Rockies fired longtime manager Bud Black, but that won’t stop their sprint toward an even lower level than any team in franchise history.
Bonus: Ohtani’s Impact
Does it feel like Shohei Ohtani isn’t quite living up to the hype? Well, maybe that is because the hype is so extreme for Ohtani that we always expect more. As mentioned above, Ohtani’s slash line this season is .276/.382/.605, which compares pretty favorably with his career mark of .281/.372/.578. His 32 homers at the break is already the fifth-highest season total in his eight seasons and just two shy of matching his 2022 season. So 50 homers is definitely within reach, but he isn’t likely to get 38 more steals the rest of the season as he has tuned down the running in order to protect his surgically repaired left shoulder.
But Ohtani’s ultimate value is as a two-way player. Ohtani had made five starts and was very good in his last outing, going three innings — his longest stint this season — striking out four. Conveniently, Ohtani has pitched nine innings, allowing five hits and one run, while walking two and striking out 10. Pretty good and a nice boost for the first-place Dodgers.
The Dodgers’ pattern thus far has been two outings of one inning and two outings of two innings, which should mean another three-inning start his next time on the mound. That means from early August on, Ohtani is likely available for five innings or more the rest of the season, which will take a little pressure off the bullpen. Sure, there is likely to be a bump in the road here or there, but Ohtani being at his two-way best during a pennant race is something that will quite the sight.
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