The “second half” is one of baseball’s biggest lies. Only 40.5% of the season remains starting Friday night. Urgency is upon us, especially with the trade deadline only 13 days away.
To get you ready as the baseball season goes into sprint mode, here is a baker’s dozen of the biggest storylines to follow in the (slightly less than) second half:
1. The Cal Raleigh vs. Aaron Judge AL MVP debate continues.
Judge has the clear edge right now, though Raleigh’s value as a catcher gives him a real shot. Raleigh’s challenge is the wear and tear of the position. Raleigh’s career second-half OPS is 60 points lower than the first. He’s hitting .153 in his past 17 games. Raleigh will have to bust through Salvador Perez’s record 48 home runs by a catcher and improve on his .225 average with runners in scoring position.
2. Shohei Ohtani is on track to be a postseason ace.
The Dodgers and Ohtani are slow-playing what amounts to a major league rehab. It’s all about having him ready to go 100 pitches by mid-September to be ready to dominate postseason games. His stuff looks fabulous.
Coming off his second elbow surgery, Ohtani is throwing harder than ever. He hit 101.7 mph June 28 in Kansas City, the fastest of his 7,823 pitches in MLB. He is averaging 98.2 mph on his four-seam fastball, up from 96.8 when he last pitched, in 2023.
Yes, his stuff plays up in these short outings. He has yet to throw more than 36 pitches in his five starts. But it’s the way he is throwing that is so encouraging. Ohtani is using his legs much more powerfully and efficiently. He has adopted a full windup in which he steps back with his left leg and then steps into his leg lift, generating momentum and power in the early phase of his delivery. He also is sinking more into his back leg as he takes the ball down, adding more stored power before he explodes toward the plate. In addition to his added fastball velocity, he has tightened the break on his sweeper and added 2 mph to his slider.
With 74 days left in the season, Ohtani probably will get nine more starts. It’s enough to get him postseason ready without any governors (other than having to pitch with five or six days of rest between starts) and to lock up another unanimous MVP.
3. The Arizona Diamondbacks hold the keys to the trade deadline.
The D-Backs are 47–50, 5 1/2 games out of the third wild card with four teams in front of them. Anything short of 4–2 on their six-game homestand against the Cardinals and Astros out of the break and it’s time to give up on their slim postseason chances. With Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suárez all in the play, Arizona can make a massive pivot.
4. The Red Sox will trade from positional depth.
Masataka Yoshida doesn’t have enough trade value to boost the roster. Jarren Duran is the key if Boston makes a big move. He is a terrific player who could be a home-grown building block for Boston. But the Red Sox have such a logjam of controllable position players that they can afford to move him without hurting their postseason chances—and probably improving them if they identify the right pitcher to get in return.
Duran turns 29 in September and has regressed a bit this year with more chase and a weakness against lefties (.210/.238/.326). But he has three years of control, which makes him attractive to teams such as Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Miami who are the inverse of Boston: they need to trade from a good supply of pitching to improve their offense. Boston should explore an old-fashioned challenge trade and see if they can turn Duran into Andrew Abbott, Nick Lodolo, Bubba Chandler or Edward Cabrera.
5. The Dodgers will trade for a back-end reliever.
Los Angeles has lost confidence in Tanner Scott, whose fastball doesn’t have the life it should have. Batters are slugging .472 against his heater, the highest since 2019. Kirby Yates is allowing a .500 slug, the worst of any season in his career with at least 25 innings. Michael Kopech, Blake Treinen and Evan Phillips are hurt; the first two may be coming back, but the Dodgers just can’t count on them to stay healthy. Right now, manager Dave Roberts doesn’t have enough bullpen depth to navigate three postseason series. It’s priority No. 1 for the Dodgers. Griffin Jax of Minnesota, Jhoan Durán of Minnesota and Félix Bautista of Baltimore are the kind of big additions the Dodgers seek.
6. Kodai Senga is the key to the New York Mets’ pennant hopes.
Senga is an ace—when he’s out there. Because of injuries, it has taken him 2 1/2 years to make 44 starts. But in those 44 starts, he has a sub 2.50 ERA, 20 wins and 285 strikeouts. Only three other pitchers started their career that way: Dwight Gooden, José Fernández and Jacob deGrom. The Mets are 28–16 (.636) when he starts. After missing a month with a hamstring injury, Senga looked good in a brief start before the break against Kansas City.
7. Several contenders are on the clock as the trade deadline nears.
The trade deadline is the last chance for gas for these contenders with the most obvious needs: Yankees (third base), Astros (left-handed bat), Phillies and Dodgers (bullpen), Cubs and Blue Jays (starting pitcher).
8. The shutout record watch continues.
The crazy rate of shutouts has slipped a bit. We are on pace for 356 shutouts, which is just three behind the record that has stood for 110 years.
9. The Tampa Bay Rays’ staying power.
The Little Engine That Could is starting to leak oil. The schedule could be catching up to them as they play a gerrymandered schedule to accommodate a gerrymandered home ballpark. The Rays are 2–8 at the start of a stretch in which they play 29 of 38 games on the road, including a 12-game trip to the West Coast.
If the Rays do make the postseason, they will continue to play their home games at George M. Steinbrenner Field, spring training home of the Yankees. The idea of playing the ALCS or World Series in a minor league ballpark is an invitation for derision. But MLB was in a bind. The team is being sold for $1.7 billion to developer Patrick Zalupski, who sees Tampa as the most viable long-term home of the Rays. While MLB did kick around the idea of playing the biggest postseason games in another venue, such as LoanDepot Park in Miami, the sale of the team ended any such ideas. How could you begin a new relationship between an owner and a region by taking the most important games out of town?
10. The NL East likely gets decided by the seven remaining Mets-Phillies games.
Philadelphia has great starting pitching, but it lacks other ways to win games. The Phillies are 25–27 against winning teams (the worst such record among division leaders), including 2–4 against the Mets.
The defense is below average (28th in Defensive Runs Saved). The offense lacks the slug we are accustomed to seeing from Phillies teams. They are 18th in home runs with their lowest slugging percentage since the Phillies were 80–82 in 2018.
Alec Bohm (99 OPS+), JT Realmuto (94), Brandon Marsh (93), Max Kepler (86) and Bryson Stott (76) are all below-average hitters who have taken 43% of the team’s plate appearances.
Phillies hitters chase too much (only Colorado and San Diego chase more in the NL) and they are vulnerable to spin. Philadelphia sees more breaking pitches than any team in MLB (34.7%) and does little with them (they slug .343, 23rd in MLB).
11. Paul Skenes could have a record-setting season.
The record in jeopardy is fewest wins by a starter to win the Cy Young Award. The record is 13 by Félix Hernández in 2010. Skenes is 4–8 with about 11 starts remaining. Skenes has allowed a total of nine earned runs in his past eight starts and did not win any of them, going 0–3 with a 1.77 ERA.
Skenes already has 13 winless starts in which he allowed no more than two earned runs, the most in baseball this year (no one else has more than 10) and already just two short of the Pirates’ record (Bob Friend in 1963 and Bob Veale in ‘68 had 15).
The Pirates tapered Skenes’ workload recently. He threw no more than 88 pitches in his past four starts. But now they can ramp him back up to full capacity, while Zack Wheeler’s workhorse reputation will be tough to beat.
12. The Tigers may stand pat.
The team with the best record in baseball (59–38) has no obvious need. The Tigers are sixth in MLB in runs per game and ninth in ERA and, despite a lack of team speed, are the best baserunning team in the AL.
Where can they improve? The Tigers are the third-worst team in baseball against breaking pitches (.199) and they strike out too much (eighth highest strikeout rate).
13. The Brewers are a sleeper World Series pick.
The promotion of Jacob Misiorowski and the return of Brandon Woodruff have Milwaukee looking like a nightmare postseason matchup for any opponent—just ask the Dodgers, who recently hit .163 while getting swept in Milwaukee. The Brewers are loaded with great stuff, the kind of shutdown stuff that plays in October. Freddy Peralta, Misiorowski, Woodruff, Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill have elite fastballs that as a group average 96.3 mph. The combined batting average against them is .193.
The Brewers have the uphill climb of trying to win without power; they are 23rd in home runs. But they are seventh in runs per game because they steal bases, drop bunts and play sound fundamental offensive baseball.
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