At the break, three teams have hit sixty or more wins and they all reside in the American League. The Boston Red Sox lead the charge with 68, followed by the New York Yankees with 63, and last but not least the Houston Astros with 64 victories. Just by looking at the standings in the American League in the first half, things look, at least at the top of the divisions, the way they ended last year. Both the Red Sox and Yankees are playing up to snuff, as are the Cleveland Indians and Houston Astros. One of the big surprises so far has been the play of the Seattle Mariners. Seattle finished last year in 3rd place in the AL West with 78 wins. Now they sit in 2nd place in the division with 58 wins at the break, and the M's are trying to do something they haven't done in 17 years, make the playoffs. You would have thought that the M's would have started slipping when Robinson Cano got suspended for steroids and missed time with a broken hand. Nope, the M;s keep right no moving along. As a matter of fact, the Mariners, a second place team in the AL West, have a better record then the ENTIRE NATIONAL LEAGUE. Let that fact sink in for a second. Kyle Seager, Jean Segura, Mitch Hanniger and Nelson Cruz have all been stepping their games up and are playing at a very high level. This is also a team that has Felix Hernandez, who's one of the best pitchers in the game, is having an average year at best. For a guy of his talent level, I had higher expectations.
Another team in the American League that's been a surprise is the Oakland Athletics. Oakland is 13 games over .500 at the break. They aren't setting the world on fire, but for a team that finished in last place a season ago with 75 wins, it comes as a bit of a surprise. Kris Davis, Jed Lowery and Matt Olsen have been killing the ball this year that's been helping power Oakland to where they sit right now in the AL West. If they can, somehow, keep this pace up, the A's may stay in contention for a wild card team. While the A's have managed to hang around, the Minnesota Twins have to be viewed as a disappointment so far in the American League. Minnesota won 85 games a season ago, which came as a big shock, and made the Wild Card game, before blowing a lead and losing to the Yankees. Now, they've fallen back down to earth and look like the Twins teams that everybody was expecting them to be. Eddie Rosario has been the lone real bright spot for this Twins team and they are going to want to try and build around him for the future if the Twins want to get back to picking up any real success in the future.
As far as the National League is concerned, you can put four of the five teams in the East on notice. Both the Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Philles have come off as major surprises. Both teams were looking at serious rebuilds and they have come here faster then a lot of fans and baseball people expected. With the Braves, look at a guy like Ronald Acuna Jr, who's been a huge bright spot since his call up early in the year. Cap him with Ozzie Albies and Ender Inciarte as leading the young core. While that core is developing, Freddie Freeman and Nick Markakis are killing it to lead the charge. Markakis is having a career year and is hitting the cover off the ball. Same thing with Freeman, who leads the team in RBI's again this season. All that thrown together has the Braves sitting on top of the division. Same argument can be made with the Phillies. Mikal Franco has really started to emerge as the leader on this Phillies club. Rhys Hoskins has been jumping on that bandwagon too and is starting to really come into his own. They've also gotten resurgance from Carlos Santana and Jake Arrieta.
While those two teams have been a surprise, the two teams behind them, the Washington Nationals and New York Mets have been a major disappointments. In Washington, Bryce Harper, who's in a contract year, has been playing like an average guy. Sure, the power numbers are there for Harper, no doubt about that, but I'm just getting this vibe that he isn't really having that break out big kind of year that you would expect from a guy who's going to possibly have a big payday when he hits the market this winter. Juan Soto has been a very nice addition to this Nationals team since his call up, but the rest of the team, outside of Max Scherzer, feels as if they've been underachieving. Same thing with the Mets, but its a little different with them. Injuries have killed things for New York, along with subpar play in Queens. It feels like that 11-2 start that the Mets got off to at the beginning of the year is almost a forgotten thought.
As for the rest of the National League, the Milwaukee Brewers have come on as a big surprise this season. They have the same number of wins, with 55, as the Chicago Cubs, but sit two and a half games back in the Central. Still, with guys like Jesus Aguliar, Travis Shaw, Christian Yelich, and Lorenzo Cain. Josh Hader has been a nice surprise for this Brewers team, being one of the better relief pitchers in the game today. And as much of a surprise as the Brewers have been, you can make the same argument that the Colorado Rockies are coming in as a bit of a disappointment. Nolan Arenado has been keeping up the numbers you'd expect for him, but the rest of the Rockies offense has seemed to come back down to earth. There was a lot of hope for the Rockies to try and keep push with both the Diamondbacks and the Dodgers out West. Colorado is still kind of in it, they sit in 3rd place with 51 wins, but they don't have that vibe that they had from a year ago.
Through the first three and a half months of the baseball season, there have been some players that have hit major milestones. From a pitching perspective, we have had three no hitters thrown. The first was on May 4th as Sean Manaea of the Oakland A's tossed a no hitter against Boston. The second one came on May 4th when Walker Buehler, Tony Cingrani, Yimi Garcia, and Adam Liberatore of the Dodgers no hit the Padres. Finally, on May 8th as James Paxton of the Mariners tossed a no-no against the Blue Jays. On June 18th, Bartolo Colon became the winningest pitcher in Major League history from the Dominican Republic. His 244th career win passed Hall of Famer Juan Marichal. The biggest mark set by hitters came on May 4th when Albert Pujols became the 32nd player in baseball history to reach the 3,000 hit club, joining Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Alex Rodriguez as the only players in history to reach both 3,000 hits and 600 home runs.
Lets hand out the hardware. Here's who I got for midseason award winners.
NL Best Manager: Brian Snitker (Atlanta Braves)
What Snitker has been able to do with this young Braves team and have them sitting on top of the NL East at this point in this season say a lot about the first year manager. He's got an impressive collection of young talent and veteran leaders. They're all clicking at the right time and playing grate baseball.
AL Best Manager: Scott Servais (Seattle Mariners)
Argument can be made here with Servais because he was able to rally the team together and keep Seattle at least within striking distance of the Astros. He's been able to get Mitch Haniger, Nelson Cruz, and Jean Segura all to play at a high level and helped keep the team moving without Robinson Cano.
NL Top Rookie: Brian Anderson (Miami Marlins)
Hey the guy has been the top bright spot for the worst team in the National League in the Marlins. He leads all NL rookies with 49 RBI's, six ahead of Christian Vilanueva of the Padres. You could make the argument for Ronald Acuna or Juan Soto, both of whom would be deserving, but Anderson has really made an impact as a rookie in a poor Marlins lineup.
AL Top Rookie: Gleyber Torres (New York Yankees)
He has the 2nd highest slugging percentage in all of baseball among second baseman, behind only Javy Baez of the Cubs. He's also hit more home runs (15) and driven in more runs (42) then any other rookie in the AL. Would have been at the all star game tomorrow had he not gotten hurt.
AL Top Pitcher: Louis Sevireno (New York Yankees)
A lot of times in this category, the award goes out based on wins and losses. Well Sevireno leads the AL with 14 wins and has a pretty decent 2.31 ERA. You could argue that it should go to Just Verlander of the Astros or Chris Sale of the Red Sox because of their lower ERA numbers and lower opposing batting averages. But Sevireno has really been the best pitcher in the Yankees staff and has kept them at the top of the divisional race.
NL Top Pitcher: Max Scherzer (Washington Nationals)
Again, like in the American League, you can argue that win totals play a factor here. Mad Max is tied with Aaron Nola of the Phillies and and John Lester of the Cubs with 12 wins each. But Mad Max is doing it on an underachieving Nationals team. Most would also argue that another guy worth of consideration should be Jacob deGrom of the Mets, who does have the lowest ERA in all of baseball at 1.68. Only thing is, he only has five wins, which is sad considering how good a talent he is and how poor at the moment a team he plays on.
AL MVP: JD Martinez (Boston Red Sox)
Mike Trout of the Angels is usually at the top of the discussion for this trophy but JD has the best bet at the moment for the award. He is tied for the baseball lead with 29 home runs and leads baseball with 80 RBI's. Boston is still good with Mookie Betts in the lineup. They are playing at another level with JD in the lineup. He's playing at a level above all others this year as well, which is kind of bad news for the rest of the American League heading down the stretch.
NL MVP: Freddie Freeman (Atlanta Braves)
Freddie has been hitting at a different level. He's in the top ten in the triple crown categories in the National League. As a matter of fact, Freeman is ranked in the top 10 in the NL in average, OBP, slugging percentage, total bases, doubles, home runs, RBI, and runs scored. His 100 hits rank third behind teammate Nick Markakis and Scooter Gennett. Sure, there are some people who are going to place the fact that he isn't leading the league in some of these categories as the reason to snub him, but consider this. If you take him, with the way he's been hitting and playing overall, out of the Braves lineup, they aren't as good of a baseball team over the long haul. He's one of the best players in the game and is having a first half of the season that is dictating it.
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