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There are just two weeks to go in the 2021 MLB regular season and we are pumped.

There’s a thrilling National League West race raging between baseball’s two best teams, the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The wild-card races are crowded in both leagues, with three American League East teams — the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays — front and center. And then there are the players looking to put the finishing touches on — or make a late push for — each of the postseason awards, from MVP to Cy Young and Rookie of the Year.

So what has us most excited about these final 14 days? Which teams have the most at stake? Which end-of-season storylines aren’t getting as much attention as they deserve? In short: How will it all shake out as September turns into October?

We asked ESPN MLB experts Bradford Doolittle, Alden Gonzalez, Jesse Rogers and David Schoenfield to answer those questions and more as we get set for some of the biggest baseball games of the year so far. Next stop: the playoffs!


What are you most excited about in the final two weeks of the regular season?

Doolittle: There are some fun races for playoff slots and seeds, but I’m actually more amped for the stretch run on the AL hitting leaderboards than anything. Can Salvador Perez become the first primary catcher and Kansas City Royal to hit 50 homers? Can Vladimir Guerrero Jr. catch Perez and Jose Abreu in the RBI column and win the Triple Crown? Can Shohei Ohtani become the first true two-way player to lead a league in homers since Babe Ruth? I find these are the things I keep checking in on as each night’s games play out.

Gonzalez: The AL wild-card race. This was basically a three-way tie between the Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays when Friday began, and a couple of critical head-to-head matches remain. The Red Sox face the Yankees this weekend and the Blue Jays play the Yankees next week, but every game these teams play moving forward will feature high stakes. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Aaron Judge, Xander Bogaerts, Chris Sale, Gerrit Cole, Robbie Ray and so many other stars that make up these supremely talented rosters will be playing in pressure-packed moments down the stretch, and nothing is more fun than that. The AL East is a juggernaut, and it’s only fitting that three of its teams will advance into the postseason. The question is: Which one will not?

Rogers: The NL wild-card race. If the St. Louis Cardinals beat out both the San Diego Padres and Cincinnati Reds, that will be quite something. And it should cost Jayce Tingler his job. The Cardinals had as many injuries to their starting staff as the Padres did but held the line while getting healthy. The way to do that, with a less talented roster due to injuries, is to beat the bad teams. Entering the weekend, the Padres were just 40-39 against minus-.500 teams. The Cardinals were 50-31. Those numbers have nothing to do with the difference between the two divisions the teams reside in.

Schoenfield: The Phillies’ four-game winning streak ended Sunday and the Braves’ four-game losing streak did, too, but Atlanta’s five-game lead has suddenly shrunk to a two-game lead. That’s exciting, but my preference remains the NL West race, where the Giants and Dodgers keep playing at an unbelievably high level. They’re done playing one another, so this is a classic scoreboard-watching race. Yes, the loser still gets the wild card, but both teams want to avoid that play-in game. Everybody has an opinion on whether they like or hate the wild card, but this is a reminder of why finishing in first is so important and why a great division race is still the best baseball has to offer.

Which team has the most at stake?

Doolittle: The Yankees. It’s a combination of factors: title drought, payroll, aggressiveness at the trade deadline, preseason expectation and the glare of New York itself. Even though it would be a wild-card berth, playing on into the postseason would stave off a lot of grief for that organization. Given that missing out on a wild-card slot likely means a fourth-place finish in this year’s AL East, the calls for sweeping change would be blaring if that happens.

Gonzalez: The Yankees, a team with the second-highest payroll in the sport and consistently the highest expectations. They doubled down in July, parting with prospects to acquire Anthony Rizzo in his final months before free agency. Missing out on the postseason wouldn’t just be a disappointment; it would trigger serious questions about the makeup of this roster and how it needs to evolve in order to seriously contend again. And there are no easy answers there.

Rogers: The Padres. Jayce Tingler and his players have been too focused on reeling off a big win streak instead of taking it one game at a time. Perhaps they got down on themselves once the division became out of reach. They should really be down if they’re sitting at home while the Dodgers play the Reds or Cardinals in the wild-card game. The latter team was ready to pack in the season when it traded for starters Jon Lester and J.A. Happ, but time was on the Cardinals’ side and they have taken advantage. Heads should roll in San Diego if the Padres don’t make it. You can’t say the same about Cincinnati or St. Louis. The Yankees have to be 1a in this discussion.

Schoenfield: Another vote for the Yankees. There are kids who just finished their Little League careers who have never seen the Yankees in a World Series. Given the preseason expectations and the recent run of crushing playoff disappointments — the Game 5 American League Division Series loss to the Rays in 2020 with Gerrit Cole on the mound, the Jose Altuve home run in the 2019 American League Championship Series, the 4-0 shutout loss in Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS — a World Series-less season, let alone one without a playoff appearance, could lead to Brian Cashman rejiggering the roster, the manager, and the coaching staff.

Which storyline isn’t getting as much attention as it should?

Doolittle: I wouldn’t say that this hasn’t gotten any attention, but however much it’s garnered, it’s not enough: What Max Scherzer has done for the Dodgers is beyond unreal. With his seven shutout innings at Cincinnati on Sept. 18, Max Scherzer owns a 0.78 ERA over nine starts with the Dodgers. That is the best nine-start stretch of his big-league career, besting a run he had in 2019 for the Nationals that ended on July 6 of that season. Scherzer was a first-ballot Hall of Famer before the trade — an assertion that I don’t think many would dispute. Despite that fact, he dropped into a high-stakes division race and launched the most dominant stretch of pitching in his career. He’s been so good that it’s almost frightening to watch him work. He is just that dominant.

Gonzalez: Bryce Harper and Fernando Tatis Jr. are seemingly hashing it out for the NL MVP, but Juan Soto has been amazing for a flailing Nationals team. He has an absurd .525 on-base percentage since the All-Star break and owns a .990 OPS for the season, trailing only Harper and Guerrero. He’s doing this in his age-22 season, after batting .351/.490/.695 through the shortened 2020 season. Those Ted Williams comps don’t seem so farfetched.

Rogers: Houston’s dominance. As great as the Rays are, and as hot as the Blue Jays have been, it’s the Astros who have the best run differential in the American League. They’ve been in first place seemingly forever and every time Oakland or even Seattle has made a run, the Astros have done the same. Here’s the scariest stat for playoff opponents: Entering the weekend, Houston was 43-31 against plus-.500 teams. That’s a better win percentage than the Rays, Giants and Dodgers have.

Schoenfield: The Brewers have been so far out in front of the NL Central for so long that, perhaps aside from Corbin Burnes, they haven’t received much attention as they deserve. No, their run differential isn’t as impressive as that of the Giants/Dodgers/Astros/Rays/Blue Jays, but this is a team built for October, with the terrific trio of Burnes, Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta, possibly the most dominant closer in the game in Josh Hader plus the ability to mix and match Eric Lauer, Adrian Houser and a deep bullpen. They need to get Willy Adames back and healthy for the postseason, but this team can win the first World Series in franchise history behind its pitching-and-defense formula.

Will any races be decided on the final day? Will there be any ties?

Doolittle: Both seem like strong possibilities, if only because of the cluster of teams competing for wild-card spots in both leagues, not to mention the neck-and-neck division title race between the Giants and Dodgers plus the suddenly hot race in the NL East with the Phillies and Braves. In the AL, you’ve got a five-team cluster for two spots in the wild-card race — all five are within four games of each other in the loss column. In the NL, you’ve got four teams within four games of each other competing for one spot. The Cardinals showed this weekend how quickly a team can create some separation, but even in the last two weeks, the outlook in all of these races could transmogrify over the course of a few days.

Gonzalez: I think the Giants and Dodgers are destined to go until the final day, possibly even beyond that. There have been more than 20 instances since the start of August when the Dodgers have won and have not been able to gain any ground on the Giants. It’s only fitting that these two longtime rivals settle it in Game 163.

Rogers: The AL wild card might be decided the day after the final day. So yes, it will come down to that final Sunday — at least.

Schoenfield: Yes, with four races in play — three teams (and maybe the A’s) for two AL wild cards, the second wild card, plus the NL East and NL West — I think there is a 50/50 chance we get some sort of tiebreaker on Monday. If you really want chaos, we get the Braves, Phillies, Cardinals, Reds and Padres all finishing with the same record, creating a five-way tie for the NL East and the second wild card (and maybe an NL West tiebreaker to boot!). Come on, baseball gods, we need this.

Which team is going to win the NL West?

Doolittle: While I remain steadfast that the Dodgers are better than the Giants, and everyone else for that matter, the simple fact remains that San Francisco has the current edge and has shown zero inclination of regressing to preseason expectations. There are no remaining head-to-head meetings between them, so at this point, the math very slightly favors the Giants. Who am I to argue with math? But… with the lead down to one game, if I think the Dodgers are the better team, then I kind of have to pick them.

Gonzalez: I still say the Dodgers, even though the Giants have led for so long and actually won the season series (just barely). The Dodgers are rolling with a rotation of Max Scherzer, Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw and Julio Urias for these final two weeks; a lineup featuring Mookie Betts, Trea Turner, Max Muncy, Corey Seager, Justin Turner and Will Smith; and a bullpen with Kenley Jansen, Blake Treinen, Joe Kelly and Corey Knebel. From a pure talent perspective, they are impossible to match. And I’ll roll with talent.

Rogers: It’ll be the Dodgers. San Francisco held out as long as they could but L.A. is a machine right now. Championship hangovers usually end during the second half and the Dodgers are no different.

Schoenfield: We keep waiting for the Giants to at least bend, but their second-best month was August (19-9) and their best month has been September (13-5 so far). Those six remaining games against the Padres suddenly don’t look so tough with the Padres self-destructing — and in public, as we saw Saturday night with Manny Machado yelling at Tatis. The Giants hold off the Dodgers, 106 wins to 105.

Who are your wild-card picks and why?

Doolittle: The Dodgers … and three other teams. Want more? Ugh. Fine. In the NL, I still think the Padres are the most talented of the five teams angling for the second wild-card slot, even with their improv rotation. But the Cardinals are the only one of those teams playing winning baseball in September and they just gut-punched the Padres all weekend. Right now, I am taking them. In the AL, geesh, it’s like eating soup with a fork. Every time you think the race is starting to clarify, someone gets hot and someone else goes into the tank. The Yankees are wavering after getting pounded in two home games against Cleveland over the weekend, but they have series left against both Toronto and Boston to make up the gap. I’m going with the Yankees and Blue Jays.

Gonzalez: I’ll pick the Yankees and Blue Jays in the AL, and I have the Reds winning the second wild-card spot in the NL. The Padres’ remaining schedule is just too difficult, and their rotation is banged up at the wrong time. If the Reds continue to get what they got from Luis Castillo on Friday, they’re a dangerous team.

Rogers: St. Louis will prevail in the NL. Its final 13 games will come against a Brewers team that’s clinched and a Cubs team that is bad. Counting on wins against teams with less to play for is always dangerous, as the Reds proved by barely winning 1 of 3 against the Pirates recently, but the Cardinals are the Cardinals. They usually prevail when it’s close. Somehow, someway, the Yankees will squeak in with the Blue Jays. And somehow, someway, the Red Sox won’t.

Schoenfield: The Yankees finish with a six-game road trip to Boston and Toronto and then three at home against the Rays. They have no games left against the Orioles. The Red Sox finish with six games against the Orioles and Nationals. The Blue Jays have a four-game series against the Twins and finish with three games at home against the Orioles. I’ll go with Boston and Toronto. In the NL, I’m eliminating the Padres. If the Braves, Phillies, Cardinals and Reds all end up tied, the formula is simple: The Braves play the Phillies for the NL East title while the Cardinals and Reds play to stay in the race. The loser of Braves/Phillies plays the winner of Cardinals/Reds for the wild card. There is no current formula if the Padres are also in that mix. My head hurts.

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Red Sox activate 3B Bregman from 10-day IL

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Red Sox activate 3B Bregman from 10-day IL

BOSTON — The Red Sox activated All-Star third baseman Alex Bregman from the 10-day injured list before Friday’s game against Tampa Bay.

Bregman, who has been sidelined since May 24 with a right quad strain, returned to his customary spot in the field and was slotted in the No. 2 spot of Boston’s lineup for the second of a four-game series against the Rays. He sustained the injury when he rounded first base and felt his quad tighten up.

A two-time World Series winner who spent the first nine seasons of his big league career with the Houston Astros, Bregman signed a $120 million, three-year contract in February. At the time of the injury, he was hitting .299 with 11 homers and 35 RBI. Those numbers led to him being named to the American League’s All-Star team for the third time since breaking into the majors with the Astros in 2016.

Bregman missed 43 games with the quad strain. Earlier this week, he told reporters that he was trending in a direction where he didn’t believe he would require a minor league rehab assignment. With three games left before the All-Star break, the Red Sox agreed the time was right to reinstate a player to a team that entered Friday in possession of one of the AL’s three wild-card berths.

“He’s going to do his part,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said before Friday’s game. “Obviously, the timing, we’ll see where he’s at, but he’s been working hard on the swing … visualizing and watching video.”

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How Jim Abbott changed the world

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How Jim Abbott changed the world

JIM ABBOTT IS sitting at his kitchen table, with his old friend Tim Mead. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they were partners in an extraordinary exercise — and now, for the first time in decades, they are looking at a stack of letters and photographs from that period of their lives.

The letters are mostly handwritten, by children, from all over the United States and Canada, and beyond.

“Dear Mr. Abbott …”

“I have one hand too. … I don’t know any one with one hand. How do you feel about having one hand? Sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I feel okay about it. Most of the time I feel happy.”

“I am a seventh grader with a leg that is turned inwards. How do you feel about your arm? I would also like to know how you handle your problem? I would like to know, if you don’t mind, what have you been called?”

“I can’t use my right hand and most of my right side is paralyzed. … I want to become a doctor and seeing you makes me think I can be what I want to be.”

For 40 years, Mead worked in communications for the California Angels, eventually becoming vice president of media relations. His position in this department became a job like no other after the Angels drafted Abbott out of the University of Michigan in 1988.

There was a deluge of media requests. Reporters from around the world descended on Anaheim, most hoping to get one-on-one time with the young left-handed pitcher with the scorching fastball. Every Abbott start was a major event — “like the World Series,” Angels scout Bob Fontaine Jr. remembers. Abbott, with his impressive amateur résumé (he won the James E. Sullivan Award for the nation’s best amateur athlete in 1997 and an Olympic gold medal in 1988) and his boyish good looks, had star power.

That spring, he had become only the 16th player to go straight from the draft to the majors without appearing in a single minor league game. And then there was the factor that made him unique. His limb difference, although no one called it that back then. Abbott was born without a right hand, yet had developed into one of the most promising pitchers of his generation. He would go on to play in the majors for ten years, including a stint in the mid ’90s with the Yankees highlighted by a no-hitter in 1993.

Abbott, and Mead, too, knew the media would swarm. That was no surprise. There had been swarms in college, and at the Olympics, wherever and whenever Abbott pitched. Who could resist such an inspirational story? But what they hadn’t anticipated were the letters.

The steady stream of letters. Thousands of letters. So many from kids who, like Abbott, were different. Letters from their parents and grandparents. The kids hoping to connect with someone who reminded them of themselves, the first celebrity they knew of who could understand and appreciate what it was like to be them, someone who had experienced the bullying and the feelings of otherness. The parents and grandparents searching for hope and direction.

“I know you don’t consider yourself limited in what you can do … but you are still an inspiration to my wife and I as parents. Your success helps us when talking to Andy at those times when he’s a little frustrated. I’m able to point to you and assure him there’s no limit to what he can accomplish.”

In his six seasons with the Angels, Abbott was assisted by Mead in the process of organizing his responses to the letters, mailing them, and arranging face-to-face meetings with the families who had written to him. There were scores of such meetings. It was practically a full-time job for both of them.

“Thinking back on these meetings with families — and that’s the way I’d put it, it’s families, not just kids — there was every challenge imaginable,” Abbott, now 57, says. “Some accidents. Some birth defects. Some mental challenges that aren’t always visible to people when you first come across somebody. … They saw something in playing baseball with one hand that related to their own experience. I think the families coming to the ballparks were looking for hopefulness. I think they were looking for what it had been that my parents had told me, what it had been that my coaches had told me. … [With the kids] it was an interaction. It was catch. It was smiling. It was an autograph. It was a picture. With the parents, it ran deeper. With the parents, it was what had your parents said to you? What coaches made a difference? What can we expect? Most of all, I think, what can we expect?”

“It wasn’t asking for autographs,” Mead says of all those letters. “They weren’t asking for pictures. They were asking for his time. He and I had to have a conversation because this was going to be unique. You know, you could set up another player to come down and sign 15 autographs for this group or whatever. But it was people, parents, that had kids, maybe babies, just newborn babies, almost looking for an assurance that this is going to turn out all right, you know. ‘What did your parents do? How did your parents handle this?'”

One of the letters Abbott received came from an 8-year-old girl in Windsor, Ontario.

She wrote, “Dear Jim, My name is Tracey Holgate. I am age 8. I have one hand too. My grandpa gave me a picture of you today. I saw you on TV. I don’t know anyone with one hand. How do you feel about having one hand? Sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I feel okay about it. Most of the time I feel happy. I hope to see you play in Detroit and maybe meet you. Could you please send me a picture of you in uniform? Could you write back please? Here is a picture of me. Love, Tracey.”

Holgate’s letter is one of those that has remained preserved in a folder — and now Abbott is reading it again, at his kitchen table, half a lifetime after receiving it. Time has not diminished the power of the letter, and Abbott is wiping away tears.

Today, Holgate is 44 and goes by her married name, Dupuis. She is married with four children of her own. She is a teacher. When she thinks about the meaning of Jim Abbott in her life, it is about much more than the letter he wrote back to her. Or the autographed picture he sent her. It was Abbott, all those years ago, who made it possible for Tracey to dream.

“There was such a camaraderie there,” she says, “an ability to connect with somebody so far away doing something totally different than my 8-year-old self was doing, but he really allowed me to just feel that connection, to feel that I’m not alone, there’s other people that have differences and have overcome them and been successful and we all have our own crosses, we all have our own things that we’re carrying and it’s important to continue to focus on the gifts that we have, the beauty of it.

“I think sometimes differences, disabilities, all those things can be a gift in a package we would never have wanted, because they allow us to be people that have an empathetic heart, an understanding heart, and to see the pain in the people around us.”

Now, years after Abbott’s career ended, he continues to inspire.

Among those he influenced, there are professional athletes, such as Shaquem Griffin, who in 2018 became the first NFL player with one hand. Griffin, now 29, played three seasons at linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks.

Growing up in Florida, he would watch videos of Abbott pitching and fielding, over and over, on YouTube.

“The only person I really looked up to was Jim Abbott at the time,” Griffin says, “which is crazy, because I didn’t know anybody else to look up to. I didn’t know anybody else who was kind of like me. And it’s funny, because when I was really little, I used to be like, ‘Why me? Why this happen to me?’ And I used to be in my room thinking about that. And I used to think to myself, ‘I wonder if Jim Abbott had that same thought.'”

Carson Pickett was born on Sept. 15, 1993 — 11 days after Abbott’s no-hitter. Missing most of her left arm below the elbow, she became, in 2022, the first player with a limb difference to appear for the U.S. women’s national soccer team.

She, too, says that Abbott made things that others told her were impossible seem attainable.

“I knew I wanted to be a professional soccer player,” says Pickett, who is currently playing for the NWSL’s Orlando Pride. “To be able to see him compete at the highest level it gave me hope, and I think that that kind of helped me throughout my journey. … I think ‘pioneer’ would be the best word for him.”

Longtime professional MMA fighter Nick Newell is 39, old enough to have seen Abbott pitch for the Yankees. In fact, when Newell was a child he met Abbott twice, first at a fan event at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan and then on a game day at Yankee Stadium. Newell was one of those kids with a limb difference — like Griffin and Pickett, due to amniotic band syndrome — who idolized Abbott.

“And I didn’t really understand the gravity of what he was doing,” Newell says now, “but for me, I saw someone out there on TV that looked like I did. And I was the only other person I knew that had one hand. And I saw this guy out here playing baseball and it was good to see somebody that looked like me, and I saw him in front of the world.

“He was out there like me and he was just living his life and I think that I owe a lot of my attitude and the success that I have to Jim just going out there and being the example of, ‘Hey, you can do this. Who’s to say you can’t be a professional athlete?’ He’s out there throwing no-hitters against the best baseball players in the world. So, as I got older, ‘Why can’t I wrestle? Why can’t I fight? Why can’t I do this?’ And then it wasn’t until the internet that I heard people tell me I can’t do these things. But by then I had already been doing those things.”

Griffin.

Pickett.

Newell.

Just three of the countless kids who were inspired by Jim Abbott.

When asked if it ever felt like too much, being a role model and a hero, all the letters and face-to-face meetings, Abbott says no — but it wasn’t always easy.

“I had incredible people who helped me send the letters,” he says. “I got a lot more credit sometimes than I deserved for these interactions, to be honest with you. And that happened on every team, particularly with my friend Tim Mead. There was a nice balance to it. There really was. There was a heaviness to it. There’s no denying. There were times I didn’t want to go [to the meetings]. I didn’t want to walk out there. I didn’t want to separate from my teammates. I didn’t want to get up from the card game. I didn’t want to put my book down. I liked where I was at. I was in my environment. I was where I always wanted to be. In a big league clubhouse surrounded by big league teammates. In a big league stadium. And those reminders of being different, I slowly came to realize were never going to go away.”

But being different was the thing that made Abbott more than merely a baseball star. For many people, he has been more than a role model, more than an idol. He is the embodiment of hope and belonging.

“I think more people need to realize and understand the gift of a difference,” Dupuis says. “I think we have to just not box everybody in and allow everybody’s innate light to shine, and for whatever reasons we’ve been created to be here, [let] that light shine in a way that it touches everybody else. Because I think that’s what Jim did. He allowed his light to permeate and that light, in turn, lit all these little children’s lights all over the world, so you have this boom of brightness that’s happening and that’s uncontrollable, that’s beautiful.”

“Southpaw – The Life and Legacy of Jim Abbott,” a new edition of ESPN’s “E60,” debuts Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN; extended version streaming afterward on ESPN+.

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Cubs’ PCA on track for $1.1M from bonus pool

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Cubs' PCA on track for .1M from bonus pool

NEW YORK — Chicago Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong is projected to receive the largest amount from this season’s $50 million pre-arbitration bonus pool based on his regular-season statistics.

Crow-Armstrong is on track to get $1,091,102, according to WAR calculations through July 8 that Major League Baseball sent to teams, players and agents in a memo Friday that was obtained by The Associated Press.

He earned $342,128 from the pool in 2024.

“I was aware of it after last year, but I have no clue of the numbers,” he said Friday. “I haven’t looked at it one time.”

Pittsburgh pitcher Paul Skenes is second at $961,256, followed by Washington outfielder James Wood ($863,835), Arizona outfielder Corbin Carroll ($798,397), Houston pitcher Hunter Brown ($786,838), Philadelphia pitcher Cristopher Sánchez ($764,854), Cincinnati shortstop Elly De La Cruz ($717,479), Boston catcher Carlos Narváez ($703,007), Red Sox outfielder Ceddanne Rafaela ($685,366) and Detroit outfielder Riley Greene ($665,470).

Crow-Armstrong, Skenes, Wood, Carroll, Brown, De La Cruz and Greene have been picked for Tuesday’s All-Star Game.

A total of 100 players will receive the payments, established as part of the 2022 collective bargaining agreement and aimed to get more money to players without sufficient service time for salary arbitration eligibility. The cutoff for 2025 was 2 years, 132 days of major league service.

Players who signed as foreign professionals are excluded.

Most young players have salaries just above this year’s major league minimum of $760,000. Crow-Armstrong has a $771,000 salary this year, Skenes $875,000, Wood $764,400 and Brown $807,400.

Carroll is in the third season of a $111 million, eight-year contract.

As part of the labor agreement, a management-union committee was established that determined the WAR formula used to allocate the bonuses after awards. (A player may receive only one award bonus per year, the highest one he is eligible for.) The agreement calls for an interim report to be distributed the week before the All-Star Game.

Distribution for awards was $9.85 million last year, down from $11.25 million in 2022 and $9.25 million in 2023.

A player earns $2.5 million for winning an MVP or Cy Young award, $1.75 million for finishing second, $1.5 million for third, $1 million for fourth or fifth or for making the All-MLB first team. A player can get $750,000 for winning Rookie of the Year, $500,000 for second or for making the All-MLB second team, $350,000 for third in the rookie race, $250,000 for fourth or $150,000 for fifth.

Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. topped last year’s pre-arbitration bonus pool at $3,077,595, and Skenes was second at $2,152,057 despite not making his big league debut until May 11. Baltimore shortstop Gunnar Henderson was third at $2,007,178.

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