New York Yankees prospect Jasson Dominguez stars in a bold new world of sports card prospecting
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Dan Hajducky
CloseESPN- Hajducky is a reporter/researcher for ESPN. He has an MFA in creative writing from Fairfield University and played on the men’s soccer teams at Fordham and Southern Connecticut State universities.
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Anthony Olivieri
TWO WEEKS AFTER New Year’s, there was a bidding war over a baseball card at collectibles marketplace Goldin. Bidding opened at $30,000 and rose to $101,000 by the next day, accruing 14 bids by midnight. A high-end collector, who goes by Shyne150, had unloaded $474,000 on a 2020 Bowman Chrome Prospect Autographs Superfractor, a literal one-of-a-kind rookie card, of a minor league prospect — believed to be the most ever for a card featuring a player yet to appear in Double-A.
“That’s extreme interest,” Ken Goldin, the marketplace’s namesake founder and executive chairman, says. “That’s Fernando Tatis Jr., Ronald Acuna Jr., Juan Soto interest.”
The prospect was years from The Show. The card was serial numbered one-of-one featuring Jasson Dominguez, the New York Yankees‘ then-Low-A switch-hitting teenager who had played 57 games of minor league ball at the time of the sale.
The card collecting world was stunned: by the total, the name on the card and the brazenness of Shyne’s prospecting — a term for investing in cards of unproven players before they bloom or bust. The practice had become de rigueur, but the investment is usually more conservative.
Shyne didn’t see Dominguez as inexperienced or his investment risky; he saw potential waiting to be fulfilled and a profit margin to be reckoned with. After all, baseball provides a lengthier runway for prospects to succeed than football or basketball.
“Even if you tried to buy the Dominguez from me for $200,000 more than I paid for it,” Shyne, 40, says now, “I wouldn’t even consider it. … Dominguez is not mature yet, like a bond. You just gotta wait.”
The expectations surrounding Dominguez have been near-unprecedented (“He’s like Mike Trout,” one general manager told ESPN’s Jeff Passan when he was signed in 2019); the comparisons equally high (a skill set “like Mickey Mantle,” an international scouting director told Passan) and the nickname (“The Martian,” or El Marciano, coined in his native Dominican Republic) unforgettable. The Yankees gave him a franchise-record-setting $5.1 million signing bonus, using 95% of their international bonus pool for 2019-20 on the 16-year-old free agent.
Dominguez’s debut in 2021 — after COVID canceled the 2020 minor league season — was lukewarm. In those 57 games, between Rookie ball and Low-A, he hit .252 with five homers. He was no longer the Yankees’ top prospect. Still, Dominguez was promoted to High-A ahead of the 2022 MLB Futures Game (his second appearance) and emerged as the focal point of hypothetical trades for superstar outfielder Soto or ace Luis Castillo.
The promise of stardom — his MLB debut is projected in 2024 — was apparent in his trade value, but Dominguez’s team won’t reap the rewards for years, if at all.
Big league teams have long taken on that risk. But to sports card collectors investing hundreds of thousands — even with the hobby’s shocking unpredictability and a recession looming — was something new. Dominguez, who doesn’t turn 20 until February, would need to become, at least, a multiple-time MLB All-Star for Shyne’s bet to pay off. That’s a big gamble.
Could it actually happen?
“Timing is everything,” PWCC Marketplace director of business development Jesse Craig says. “Some people prospect as short-term gambling, some long-term …
“And some really think their guy’s going to be the next big thing.”
SHYNE’S REAL NAME is Matt Allen, but that’s not something you’ll see on his manicured social media. About four years ago, Allen invested money he made from private equity into cards. (“That’s something I really don’t want to get into,” Allen says when asked about his background. “A lot of people want to know the story.”) “I parlayed my profits into my passion,” he says now, wielding a sports card collection, by his own estimate, worth more than $100 million.
He sold a Luka Doncic rookie patch autograph (called an RPA, which includes an embedded piece of a jersey) reportedly for $4.6 million, which briefly held the record for most expensive basketball card of all time. On Instagram last December, he showed off a LeBron James RPA he says he ponied up $2.4 million for. His one-of-one Justin Herbert rookie card, for which he says he paid $550,000, just sold for $1.8 million at a Goldin auction. Allen says he bought a red Bowman Chrome refractor (numbered out of five) of Julio Rodriguez’s for $50,000 a year and a half ago; it just sold at auction in early August for $276,000.
He also owns a Triple Logoman boasting James, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, which one industry headliner told ESPN is the greatest modern card in existence.
Allen, who began collecting at 7, is a tentpole of the hobby’s entrepreneurial evolution — one that has allowed him to rub elbows with some of the world’s most famous people. He breaks boxes with Drake, can tell you where the bathroom is at a Kardashian’s house (OK, it’s Rob’s) and is friends with Logan Paul.
The perpetually aviator-clad Allen is known for his big bets and bigger splashes. So when industry experts say that a half-million on Dominguez is a prospecting outlier and not the new normal, Allen demurs.
“What seems expensive today seems cheap tomorrow,” he says. “… I’m not even paying attention to [the card’s day-to-day worth]. I’m so long on it that it doesn’t even matter. If you said, ‘Hey, I’ll give you X for the card right now,’ it’s not even an option.
“I’m not trying to make money now.”
Instead of waiting to see if Dominguez is the second coming of Mickey Mantle — or Roy White … or Kevin Maas, for that matter — Allen overpaid now rather than risk not being able to acquire it when (or if) Dominguez starts launching moonshots into Monument Park.
“[Other collectors] wouldn’t pay $120,000 today for a card that sold for $100,000 yesterday; they would feel foolish,” Allen says. But according to Goldin, there’s a growing group of collectors who, armed with better-than-average sports knowledge, are taking a calculated risk — for better or worse.
“It’s common that people are prospecting, but the Dominguez case is prospecting — and I know this is a bad word — on steroids,” Goldin says. “He’s a Yankee, Yankee fans and collectors are clamoring for a young draft pick to be their next superstar. If he is, the card’s going to be in the millions.”
Bob Means, who oversees eBay’s sports card category, says, “At these initial stages, I don’t know if [prospectors are] thinking about the downside. I think it’s part of the hunt.”
Allen says that while others in the hobby were deciding whether paying future prices was a good strategy, he was actually doing it. “I pushed the private market in the past 3½ years greatly,” he says. “Myself and Ken [Goldin].”
Craig notes that, pre-pandemic, margins for success weren’t so thin. “Prices on prospecting are way more expensive than three years ago because everybody already understands what could potentially be the finish line.”
Recent multimillion-dollar sales, high demand from an influx of collectors and the uber-rarity of a one-of-one card justifies Allen betting big on Dominguez. Despite that, he admits that the sale was met with wide eyes. (One shocked hobby mainstay called Allen after the sale finalized, saying: “Bit of stretch, Matt?”)
Sure, Allen says he paid $100,000 for a Wander Franco Superfractor in 2019, two years before the former top prospect debuted with the Tampa Bay Rays. But Dominguez was far riskier; there was less of a sample size to work off. Allen could try to capitalize on that unrealized potential any time but, if Dominguez is as good as billed, that return-on-investment could soar.
“Then later on, [flippers, or prospectors who cash in at the earliest opportunity] are kicking themselves because it’s worth $1,000,000,” says Allen, who claims to have rejected a $1.8 million offer for the aforementioned Franco recently. “So it’s the people who just make that small percent margin … or people who can afford to hold it. I’ve spent like $9 million on cards in the past three weeks and I haven’t even released any of this stuff.”
Craig notes an example: A friend has an autographed one-of-one Superfractor of Seattle Mariners rookie sensation Julio Rodriguez, a 2022 MLB All-Star and likely AL Rookie of the Year. Following his Home Run Derby heroics, he was offered $1,000,000 for it. He turned it down.
“Prospecting, in general, is gambling,” Craig says. “Some people can actually look at a player, see he’s a five-tool guy, in the right organization and situation, and make an educated bet that he’s going to be a superstar.”
When Mike Trout’s 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft Prospects Superfractor sold for $3.94 million in August of 2020, he was already a three-time AL MVP. Goldin rattled off names of the supposed next big things of yesteryear, all hyped before their first MLB Opening Day. There was Bryce Harper and Ichiro on one hand, and Stephen Strasburg and Gregg Jefferies on the other.
Then he stopped.
“Oh, actually,” he said. “This is the single most obvious one …”
A light went off in his head.
“’89 Ken Griffey Jr.”
COMPARING DOMINGUEZ TO Ken Griffey Jr. is, at once, astounding and fitting. Within the hobby, Griffey’s iconic Upper Deck rookie card — the first card in its 1989 debut release — is the most famous example of prospecting, both from a manufacturing and collecting standpoint.
It’s the reason that modern prospecting is what it is. It also nearly killed the hobby.
In the late 1980s, sports cards were a billion-dollar business. A hobby shop called The Upper Deck partnered with businessmen breaking into the industry, with lofty aspirations: Start creating superior baseball cards.
Topps’ half-century monopoly on baseball cards ended in 1980, allowing new companies to compete in the space. But card technology was rudimentary and Upper Deck knew collectors wanted upscale products: higher quality cardstock, foil pack wrappers instead of wax, hologram technology dissuading fraud, all which would motivate consumers to devour a product that cost double, per pack, what Topps cost. Even their credo was decades ahead of its time: “Upper Deck: For the kid on the street and the Wall Street investor.”
But they wanted their debut release to kick off with a wunderkind, rather than the conventional established star.
In 1988, Griffey was raking at High-A San Bernardino, which played home games 7 miles from the school attended by an Upper Deck employee; he’d eventually choose him as the debut set’s face. Junior finished the season at Double-A Vermont and had never been photographed in a Seattle Mariners uniform, so Upper Deck superimposed Seattle regalia over a Sports Illustrated photo of him in San Bernardino garb, despite even bullish estimates pegging him as a midseason call-up.
When “The Kid” hit .397 in spring training and made the Opening Day roster, collectors went hunting for Griffey’s rookie en masse, which is where things went awry.
Unbeknownst to collectors at the time, Upper Deck reportedly printed more than two million Junior rookie cards. To date, it’s one of the two most often graded cards of all-time. It was an era without transparency of how many of each card manufacturers produced. Baseball, always the hobby’s most popular sport, was propping up the entire industry. And overproduction, coupled with the 1994 MLB strike, nearly sank it — Junior’s smiling visage the scapegoat.
Serial numbering was introduced in the early 1990s and one-of-ones debuted around 1997. Card collecting largely remained niche for the next decade, but as the economic recession of the late 2000s wreaked havoc, those with expendable income looked for investments outside the volatile stock market. Investing in cards from 2008 to 2018 proved more stable and lucrative (from a return-on-investment standpoint) than the S&P 500; the card industry was reborn as portfolio diversification.
“Chase” cards (cards collectors hunt and capitalize on) are most often one-of-one signed rookie cards. One-of-ones don’t exist without that Griffey rookie.
Allen’s $474,000 gamble on Dominguez — the rarest card of a prospect billed to rewrite record books under the MLB’s brightest, most famous lights — isn’t just a natural progression of the industry, but has direct lineage from Junior. It’s also a perfect storm of collecting’s evolution since the late 2000s.
But in 1989, with Upper Deck boxes running consumers $35, prospecting on “The Kid” wasn’t a mortgage-leveraging endeavor. In 2022, with a high-end card market producing boxes costing thousands, risky prospecting could decimate a savings account, another temptation as legalized gambling trickles about the United States.
But prospecting successfully, now more than ever, could also mean early retirement. For those who can afford it, that’s a risk worth taking.
“Cards were never considered an alternate asset class [until the last five years],” Goldin says. “People are looking at [cards] kind of like the next big biotech company.”
ANTHONY GIORDANO RESISTED getting his 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card graded and sold for decades, despite repeatedly being offered millions. When he finally relented and sold it for an all-time sports collectible record $12.6 million in late August, it was what a generation — of his family and those in the industry — had been waiting for: The first eight-figure card sale.
It’s also the pie-in-the-sky denouement for Allen’s Dominguez card.
But Mantle and his hallowed 1952 Topps card have long been inked into lore. Dominguez’s story is not only still being written; the pen has barely touched paper.
So when Dominguez dropped a fly ball in the second inning of the 2022 Futures Game, laughed it off, then hit a prodigious home run into the bleachers at Dodger Stadium in the next half-inning, it was a reminder of the risk-reward of prospecting.
“Look, Dominguez in five years could be washed up and [prospectors] are onto the next new thing,” Allen says. “Most of it is hype.”
But that didn’t stop him from joyfully reading Dominguez’s stats as if, quite literally, off the back of his baseball card. He was watching the Futures Game when Dominguez’s ferocious swing, punctuated with a helicopter finish, deposited a round-tripper in the seats at Chavez Ravine, perhaps portending his future.
Allen’s first thought?
“Man,” he chuckled, “Everybody’s going to be going crazy for Dominguez now.”
Bryce Harper, who landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated at 16, was labeled a prodigy. Since arriving in the majors in 2012, he has won Rookie of the Year, collected two MVPs and was named to seven All-Star games. Pretty good, right? Several industry experts unanimously cite Harper as a hobby disappointment — “He was supposed to catapult a franchise, be the next Mickey Mantle,” says Craig — relative to expectations.
“Modern cards are more naturally volatile. There’s risk when a player’s active,” says Craig. “I’m a risk-averse guy, so if I were investing half a million dollars into a card, I’m going vintage.”
Means also thinks vintage is more reliable: “When you’re looking at Willie Mays, there’s no new story — Willie Mays is Willie Mays. It’s done. … [But] we’ve seen people stumble, where someone lays an egg during a playoff series. People can have slumps.
“Next thing you know, you’re seeing 20%, 30%, 50% drops in their card values.”
With all eyes on Dominguez in the Futures Game, Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge was set to play in the same stadium, in the All-Star Game itself, three days later. Judge, amid one of the best seasons in baseball history, was chasing the American League single-season home run record. And yet, in May, his 2013 rookie Superfractor sold for $150,000 less than what Allen paid for Dominguez’s.
What about reigning AL MVP and two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani, doing things in professional baseball not seen since Babe Ruth? His autographed 2018 Superfractor went for roughly 39% of Dominguez’s sum.
Dominguez, for his part, wasn’t yet challenging hallowed records or making an MVP push. He had been playing for the Hudson Valley Renegades. He debuted July 22 by hitting a game-tying, ninth-inning blast against the Wilmington Blue Rocks, sending shockwaves through social media. Two days later, as the MLB trade deadline closed in, Twitter nearly combusted when Renegades manager Tyson Blaser removed Dominguez from a game after six innings.
Was Dominguez getting traded? Nope. His Renegades had a comfortable lead, and Blaser felt his star had earned a rest. The deadline passed, too, and Dominguez remained unmoved.
The Yankees did make several moves — but they weren’t for Soto, who went to the San Diego Padres, or Castillo, who was dealt to the Mariners.
Time will tell if that’s a good thing for the Yankees — and for Allen. One thing’s certain: The value of Dominguez’s card is higher with him in pinstripes.
“The market matters and the Yankees are the epicenter of baseball markets,” says Craig. Allen says that epicenter is why he bought the card.
He knows Dominguez is a work in progress. But he also oozes rare five-tool talent that made him a scout darling through grainy YouTube clips of batting practice.
As Dominguez’s competition improved, so did his play; he had 16 extra-base hits and 17 steals, while hitting .306 with an on-base percentage at nearly .400, in his 40 games with the Renegades. In his last game in High-A, he hit two home runs, one from each side of the plate.
Allen was ecstatic when Dominguez graduated in September to Double-A Somerset — his second promotion in 61 days — following his South Atlantic League Player of the Week honor. After some growing pains — he went 2-for-23 in his first six games as a Patriot — he racked up a .563 batting average and a 1.838 OPS in his last four.
Better yet? He slugged two homers in Somerset’s final game of the season, a series-clinching win to vault the Patriots to their first Eastern League title, and first title since becoming the Double-A Yankees affiliate.
“I’m getting phone calls,” Allen says cheekily, “saying he’s more or less the hottest Yankee in their farm system.”
In fact, Allen said, one of his buddies wants the card, an interest symbolic of the market’s ever-evolving clientele. He’s a minority owner of an MLB team, who texted Allen from his yacht, off the Amalfi Coast.
Though Allen says he’s not concerned with the ebbs and flows of it all, he estimates he could get at least $600,000 for the Dominguez card if he wanted to. But he’s holding out for more.
“That card can break a million dollars,” he says, “before he even makes it to the major leagues.”
Hard-throwing rookie Jacob Misiorowski is a National League All-Star replacement, giving the Milwaukee Brewers right-hander a chance to break Paul Skenes‘ record for the fewest big league appearances before playing in the Midsummer Classic.
Misiorowski was named Friday night to replace Chicago Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd, who will be unavailable for the All-Star Game on Tuesday night in Atlanta because he is scheduled to start Saturday at the New York Yankees.
The 23-year-old Misiorowski has made just five starts for the Brewers, going 4-1 with a 2.81 ERA while averaging 99.3 mph on his fastball, with 89 pitches that have reached 100 mph.
If he pitches at Truist Park, Misiorowski will make it consecutive years for a player to set the mark for fewest big league games before an All-Star showing.
Skenes, the Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander getting ready for his second All-Star appearance, had made 11 starts in the majors when he was chosen as the NL starter for last year’s All-Star Game at Texas. He pitched a scoreless inning.
“I’m speechless,” said a teary-eyed Misiorowski, who said he was given the news a few minutes before the Brewers’ 8-3 victory over Washington. “It’s awesome. It’s very unexpected and it’s an honor.”
Misiorowski is the 30th first-time All-Star and 16th replacement this year. There are now 80 total All-Stars.
“He’s impressive. He’s got some of the best stuff in the game right now, even though he’s a young pitcher,” said Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, who is a starting AL outfielder for his seventh All-Star nod. “He’s going to be a special pitcher in this game for a long time so I think he deserved it and it’s going be pretty cool for him and his family.”
Carlos Rodón, Carlos Estévez and Casey Mize were named replacement pitchers on the AL roster.
The New York Yankees‘ Rodón, an All-Star for the third time in five seasons, will replace teammate Max Fried for Tuesday’s game in Atlanta. Fried will be unavailable because he is scheduled to start Saturday against the Chicago Cubs.
In his final start before the All-Star game, Rodón allowed four hits and struck out eight in eight innings in an 11-0 victory over the Cubs.
“This one’s a little special for me,” said Rodón, an All-Star in 2021 and ’22 who was 3-8 in his first season with the Yankees two years ago before rebounding. “I wasn’t good when I first got here, and I just wanted to prove that I wasn’t to going to give up and just put my best foot forward and try to win as many games as I can.”
The Kansas City Royals‘ Estévez replaces Texas’ Jacob deGrom, who is scheduled to start at Houston on Saturday night. Estévez was a 2023 All-Star when he was with the Los Angeles Angels.
Mize takes the spot held by Boston‘s Garrett Crochet, who is scheduled to start Saturday against Tampa Bay. Mize gives the Tigers six All-Stars, most of any team and tied for the franchise record.
Royals third baseman Maikel Garcia will replace Tampa Bay‘s Brandon Lowe, who went on the injured list with left oblique tightness. The additions of Estévez and Garcia give the Royals four All-Stars, matching their 2024 total.
The Seattle Mariners announced center fielder Julio Rodríguez will not participate, and he was replaced by teammate Randy Arozarena. Rodríguez had been voted onto the AL roster via the players’ ballot. The Mariners, who have five All-Stars, said Rodríguez will use the break to “recuperate, rest and prepare for the second half.”
Arozarena is an All-Star for the second time. He started in left field for the AL two years ago, when he was with Tampa Bay. Arozarena was the runner-up to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the 2023 Home Run Derby.
Rays right-hander Drew Rasmussen, a first-time All-Star, is replacing Angels left-hander Yusei Kikuchi, who is scheduled to start Saturday night at Arizona. Rasmussen is 7-5 with a 2.82 ERA in 18 starts.
San Diego added a third NL All-Star reliever in lefty Adrián Morejón, who replaces Philadelphia starter Zack Wheeler. The Phillies’ right-hander is scheduled to start at San Diego on Saturday night. Morejón entered the weekend with a 1.71 ERA in 45 appearances.
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David Schoenfield
We’re past due to hand out some midseason grades, so let’s hand out some midseason grades.
As we pass the 90-game mark in the 2025 MLB season, my team of the first half isn’t the well-rounded Detroit Tigers, who do get our highest grade for owning MLB’s best record, or the explosive Chicago Cubs or Shohei Ohtani‘s Los Angeles Dodgers, but a team most baseball fans love to hate: the Houston Astros. They lost their two best players from last season and their best hitter has been injured — and they’re playing their best baseball since they won the 2022 World Series.
Let’s get to the grades. As always, we’re grading off preseason expectations, factoring in win-loss record and quality of performance, while looking at other positive performances and injuries.
Jump to a team:
AL East: BAL | BOS | NYY | TB | TOR
AL Central: CHW | CLE | DET | KC | MIN
AL West: ATH | HOU | LAA | SEA | TEX
NL East: ATL | MIA | NYM | PHI | WSH
NL Central: CHC | CIN | MIL | PIT | STL
NL West: ARI | COL | LAD | SD | SF
Tarik Skubal is obviously the headline act, but the Tigers are winning with impressive depth across the entire roster.
Javier Baez is putting together a remarkable comeback season after a couple of abysmal years and will become the first player to start an All-Star Game at both shortstop and in the outfield. Former No. 1 overall picks Casey Mize and Spencer Torkelson have put together their own comeback stories, while Riley Greene has matured into one of the game’s top power hitters.
Given their deep well of prospects and contributors at the MLB level, no team is better positioned than the Tigers to add significant help at the trade deadline.
I heard someone refer to them as the Zombie Astros, which feels apropos. Alex Bregman left as a free agent, they traded Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez has been injured and has just three home runs, and the Jose Altuve experiment in left field predictably fizzled.
But here they are, fighting for the best record in the majors and holding a comfortable lead in the AL West. They’re getting star turns from Hunter Brown, Framber Valdez and Jeremy Pena, while the risky decision to start Cam Smith in the majors with very little minor league experience has paid off, as he has now become their cleanup hitter.
If we ignore the COVID-19 season, the Astros look on their way to an eighth straight division title.
This could be at least a half-grade higher based on everything that has gone right: Pete Crow-Armstrong‘s attention-grabbing breakout, Tucker doing everything expected after the big trade, Seiya Suzuki‘s monster power numbers and Matthew Boyd‘s All-Star turn in the rotation. The Cubs are on pace for their most wins since their World Series title season in 2016.
There have been a few hiccups, however, especially in the rotation with Justin Steele‘s season-ending injury and Ben Brown‘s inconsistency, plus rookie third baseman Matt Shaw has scuffled, and the bench has been weak aside from their backup catchers.
Still, this is a powerhouse lineup, and the Cubs will seek to improve their rotation at the deadline.
They just keep winning of late, going from 25-27 and seven games behind the Yankees on May 25 to taking over first place from the slumping Bronx Bombers, a remarkable turnaround over just 36 games. They went 27-9 over a 36-game stretch ending with their eighth win in a row on Sunday.
George Springer‘s recent surge has been fun to watch, a reminder of how good he was at his peak, and Addison Barger has been mashing over the past two months.
Some of the stats don’t add up to the Blue Jays being this good — they’ve barely outscored their opponents — but there might be more offense in the tank from the likes of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a healthy Anthony Santander, and the bullpen, a soft spot, is the easiest area to upgrade.
Their success is best summed up by the fact that Freddy Peralta is their lone All-Star, but they have a whole bunch of players who have contributed between 1 and 2 WAR.
Brandon Woodruff looked good Sunday in his first start in nearly two years, so that could be a huge boost for the second half.
I’m curious to see how Jackson Chourio performs as well. While his counting stats — extra-base hits, RBIs — are fine, his triple-slash line remains below last season, especially his OBP. He had a huge second half in 2024 (.310/.363/.552), and if he does that again, the Brewers could find themselves back in the postseason for the seventh time in eight seasons.
The Rays started off slow, with a losing record through the end of April, but then went 33-22 in May and June to claw back into the AL East race — as the Rays usually do, last year being the recent exception.
Two key performers have been All-Star third baseman Junior Caminero, who has a chance to become just the third player to hit 40 home runs in his age-21 season, and All-Star first baseman Jonathan Aranda.
Due to the league wanting the Rays to play more home games early in the season, the July and August slate will be very road-heavy, so we’ll see how the Rays adapt to a difficult two-month stretch, especially since their pitching isn’t quite as deep as it has been in other seasons.
No, they’re not going to be the greatest team of all time. But they might win 100 games — even though Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki, their huge offseason acquisitions, have combined for just two wins in 10 starts.
The lineup, of course, has been terrific, with Ohtani leading the NL in several categories and Will Smith leading the batting race. By wRC+, it’s been the best offense in Dodgers history.
If they can get some combo of Snell, Sasaki and Tyler Glasnow healthy, plus Ohtani eventually ramped up to a bigger workload on the mound, the Dodgers still loom as World Series favorites.
They are on pace for 95 wins, mainly on the strength of Zack Wheeler, Ranger Suarez and Cristopher Sanchez, who are a combined 23-7 with 11.8 WAR. Jesus Luzardo‘s ERA is bloated due to that two-start stretch when he allowed 20 runs, but he has otherwise been solid as well.
But, overall, it hasn’t always been the smoothest of treks. The bullpen has imploded a few times and the offense has lacked power aside from Kyle Schwarber. Bryce Harper is back after missing three weeks, and they need to get his bat going. Look for some bullpen additions at the trade deadline — and perhaps an outfielder as well.
The Cardinals have been a minor surprise — perhaps even to the Cardinals themselves. St. Louis was viewing this as a rebuilding year of sorts — not that the Cardinals ever hit rock bottom and start completely over. They had a hot May, winning 12 of 13 at one point, but the offense has been fading of late, with those three straight shutout losses to Pittsburgh and six shutout losses since June 25.
The starting rotation doesn’t generate a lot of swing and miss, with both Erick Fedde and Miles Mikolas seeing their ERAs starting to climb. Brendan Donovan is the team’s only All-Star rep, and that kind of sums up this team: solid but without any star power. That might foretell a second-half fade.
All-Star starting pitchers Logan Webb and Robbie Ray, plus a dominant bullpen, have led the way, although after starting 12-4, the Giants have basically been a .500 team for close to three months now. Rafael Devers hasn’t yet ignited the offense since coming over from Boston, and the Giants have lost four 1-0 games.
These final three games at home against the Dodgers before the All-Star break will be a crucial series, as Los Angeles has slowly pulled away in the NL West.
This was an “A-plus” through June 12, when the Mets were 45-24 and owned the best record in baseball, even though Juan Soto hadn’t gotten hot. Soto finally got going in June, but the pitching collapsed, and the Mets went through a disastrous 1-10 stretch.
The rotation injuries have piled up, exacerbating the lack of bullpen depth. Recent games have been started by Justin Hagenman (who had a 6.21 ERA in Triple-A), journeyman reliever Chris Devenski, Paul Blackburn (7.71 ERA) and Frankie Montas, who has had to start even though he’s clearly not throwing the ball well. The Mets need to get the rotation healthy, but also could use more offense from Mark Vientos and their catchers (Francisco Alvarez was demoted to Triple-A).
At times it has felt like Cal Raleigh has been a one-man team with his record-breaking first half. But he will be joined on the All-Star squad by starting pitcher Bryan Woo, closer Andres Munoz and center fielder Julio Rodriguez, who made it on the strength of his defense, as his offense has been a disappointment.
The offense has been one of the best in the majors on the road, but the rotation has been nowhere near as effective as the past couple of seasons, with George Kirby, Logan Gilbert and Bryce Miller all missing time with injuries. They just shut out the Pirates three games in a row, so maybe that will get the rotation on a roll.
They’re just out of the wild-card picture while hanging around .500, so we give them a decent grade since that exceeds preseason expectations. It feels like a little bit of a mirage given their run differential — their record in one-run games (good) versus their record in blowout games (not good) — and various holes across the lineup and pitching staff.
But they’ve done two things to keep them in the race. One, they hit a lot of home runs. Two, they’re the only team in the majors to use just five starting pitchers. The rotation hasn’t been stellar, but it’s been stable.
The Padres are probably fortunate to be where they are, given some of their issues. As expected, the offensive depth has been a problem.
Not as expected, Dylan Cease has struggled while Michael King‘s injury after a strong start has left them without last year’s dynamic 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation (although Nick Pivetta has been one of the best signings of the offseason). Yu Darvish just made his season debut Monday, so hopefully he’ll provide a lift.
The Padres haven’t played well against the better teams, including a 2-5 record against the Dodgers, but they did clean up against the Athletics, Rockies and Pirates, going 16-2 against those three teams.
For now, the Reds are stuck in neutral. Leave out 2022, when they lost 100 games, and it’s otherwise been a string of .500-ish seasons: 31-29 in 2020, 83-79 in 2021, 82-80 in 2023, 77-85 in 2024 and now a similar record so far in 2025.
The hope was that Terry Francona would be a difference-maker. Maybe that will play out down the stretch, but the best hope is to get the rotation clicking on all cylinders at the same time. That means Andrew Abbott continuing his breakout performance, plus getting Hunter Greene healthy again and rookie Chase Burns to live up to the hype after a couple of shaky outings following an impressive MLB debut.
Throw in Nick Lodolo and solid Nick Martinez and Brady Singer, and this group can be good enough to pitch the Reds to their first full-season playoff appearance since 2013.
The Yankees have hit their annual midseason swoon — which has been subject to much intense analysis from their disgruntled fans — and that opening weekend sweep of the Brewers, when the Yankees’ torpedo bats were the big story in baseball, now seems long ago.
Going from seven up to three back in such a short time is a disaster — but not disastrous. Nonetheless, the Yankees will have to do some hard-core self-evaluation heading to the trade deadline.
The offense wasn’t going to be as good as it was in April, when Paul Goldschmidt, Trent Grisham and Ben Rice were all playing over their heads. So, do they need a hitter? Or with Clarke Schmidt now likely joining Gerrit Cole as a Tommy John casualty, do they need a starting pitcher? Or both?
From the book of “things we didn’t expect,” page 547: The Marlins are averaging more runs per game than the Orioles, Padres, Braves and Rangers, to name a few teams. They’re averaging almost as many runs per game as the Mets, and last time we checked, the Marlins weren’t the team to give Soto $765 million.
An eight-game winning streak at the end of June has the Marlins going toe-to-toe with the Braves for third place in the NL East even though the starting rotation has been a mess, with Sandy Alcantara on track to become just the fourth qualified pitcher with an ERA over 7.00.
Heading into the season, I thought that if any team was going to challenge the Dodgers in the NL West, it would be the Diamondbacks. The offense has once again been one of the best in the majors, but the pitching issues have been painful.
After the aggressive move to sign Corbin Burnes, he went down with Tommy John surgery after 11 starts. Meanwhile, Zac Gallen, Eduardo Rodriguez and Brandon Pfaadt each have an ERA on the wrong side of 5.00. Rodriguez was better in June before a shellacking on July 4, while Gallen remains homer-prone, so it’s hard to tell if improvement is on the horizon. Their playoff odds are hovering just under 20%, so there’s a chance, but they need to get red-hot like they did last July and August.
It feels like it has been more soap opera than baseball season in Boston, with the Devers drama finally ending with the shocking trade with the Giants.
If you give added weight that this is the Red Sox, a team that should be operating with the big boys in both budget and aspirations and instead seemed to only want to dump Devers’ contract, then feel free to lower this grade a couple of notches, even if the Red Sox are close in the wild-card standings.
On the field, the heralded rookie trio of Kristian Campbell, Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer hasn’t exactly clicked, with Campbell returning to the minors after posting a .902 OPS in April. A big test will come out of the All-Star break, when they play the Cubs, Phillies, Dodgers, Twins and Astros in a tough 15-game stretch.
After last season’s surprise playoff appearance, it’s been a frustrating 2025 — although I’m not sure this result is necessarily a surprise.
There were concerns about the offense heading into the season and those concerns have proven correct. They were getting no production from their outfield, so they rushed Jac Caglianone to the majors to much hype, but he has struggled and might need a reset back in Triple-A. Even Bobby Witt Jr., as good as he has been (on pace for 7.5 WAR), has seen his OPS drop 140 points.
On the bright side, Kris Bubic emerged as an All-Star starter and Noah Cameron has filled in nicely for the injured Cole Ragans, so maybe they trade a starter for some offense.
Coming off a catastrophic 2024 season, nobody was expecting anything from the White Sox. Indeed, another 121-loss season loomed as a possibility. While they’re on pace to lose 100 again, they’ve at least played more competitive baseball thanks to their pitching.
Rookie starters Shane Smith and Sean Burke have shown promise, while rookie position players Kyle Teel, Edgar Quero and now Colson Montgomery are getting their initial taste of the majors.
There has been the mix of calamity: Luis Robert Jr. has been unproductive and is probably now untradable, and former No. 3 overall pick Andrew Vaughn hit .189 and was traded to the Brewers.
The Twins are one organization that might like a do-over of the past five seasons. It feels like they’ve had the most talent in the division, but all they’ve done is squeeze out one soft division title in 2023. Now, the Tigers have passed them in talent and other factors, such as payroll flexibility.
There’s still time for the Twins to turn things around in 2025, but outside of that wonderful 13-game winning streak, they haven’t played winning baseball.
Overall, it’s been yet another bad season, despite Paul Skenes‘ brilliance. Really, do we talk enough about him? Yes, we do talk about him, but he has a 1.95 ERA through his first 42 career starts. Incredible.
Here’s an amazing thing about baseball. The Pirates are not a good team, but they recently put together one of the best six-game stretches in history. That’s not stretching the description. First, they swept the Mets — a good team — by scores of 9-1, 9-2 and 12-1. Then they swept the Cardinals — a good team — with three shutouts, 7-0, 1-0 and 5-0. They became the first team since at least 1901 to score 43 runs or more and allow four runs or fewer in a six-game stretch. And then they promptly got shut out three games in a row, making them the first to win three straight shutouts and then lose three straight shutouts.
Eighteen of our 28 voters picked them to win the AL West before the season, but it’s looking more and more like the 2023 World Series might be a stone-cold fluke in the middle of a string of losing seasons. That year, nearly everyone in the lineup had a career year at the plate, and the pitching got hot at the right time.
This year’s Rangers, though, have struggled to score runs, and while some have pointed to the offensive environment at Globe Life Field, they’re near the bottom in road OPS as well. It’s been fun seeing Jacob deGrom back at a dominating level, and Nathan Eovaldi should have been an All-Star.
Put it this way: If the Rangers can somehow squeeze into the postseason, you don’t want to face the Rangers in a short series. Indeed, if any team looms as an October upset special, it might be the Rangers.
The Nationals received superlative first-half performances from James Wood and MacKenzie Gore, while CJ Abrams is on the way to his best season. But there remains a lack of overall organizational progress, which finally led to the firings on Sunday of longtime GM Mike Rizzo and longtime manager Dave Martinez. A 7-19 record in June sealed their fate, as the rotation has been bad and the bullpen arguably the worst in baseball.
Until the Nationals figure out how to improve their pitching — or, better yet, find an owner who wants to win — they will be stuck going nowhere.
That fell apart in a hurry. Sunday’s loss was Cleveland’s 10th in a row, a stretch that remarkably included five shutouts. Indeed, the Guardians have now been shut out 11 times; the franchise record in the post-dead-ball-era (since 1920) is 20 shutouts in 1968.
There’s nothing worse than watching a team that can’t score runs, so that tells you how exciting the Guardians have been. Last year, the Guardians hit exceptionally well with runners in scoring position, keeping afloat what was otherwise a mediocre offense. That hasn’t happened in 2025 (trading Josh Naylor didn’t help either). Throw in some predictable regression from the bullpen, and this season looks lost.
We can’t give this a complete failing grade due to the emergence of All-Star shortstop Jacob Wilson (the Athletics’ first All-Star starter since Josh Donaldson in 2014) and slugging first baseman Nick Kurtz, who have a chance to finish 1-2 in the Rookie of the Year voting. Plus, we have Denzel Clarke‘s circus catches in center field.
But otherwise? Ugh. The Sacramento gamble already looks like a disaster, three months into a three-year stay. The team is drawing well below Sutter Health Park’s 14,000-seat capacity, with many recent games drawing under 10,000 fans. Luis Severino bashed the small crowds and the lack of air-conditioning.
The A’s had a groundbreaking ceremony for their new park in Vegas, renting heavy construction equipment as background props. Maybe they should have spent that money on more pitching help.
Based on preseason expectations, the Braves have clearly been the biggest disappointment in the National League — fighting the Orioles for most disappointing overall.
What’s gone wrong? They haven’t scored runs, as the offense continues its remarkable fade from a record-setting performance just two seasons ago. The collapses of Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies lead the way, with lack of production at shortstop and left field playing a big role as well. Closer Raisel Iglesias has struggled, and the team is 11-22 in one-run games. Spencer Strider hasn’t yet reached his pre-injury level and Reynaldo Lopez made just one start before going down.
The Braves haven’t missed the playoffs since 2017, but that run is clearly in jeopardy.
The Orioles have a similar record to the Braves but have played much worse, including losses of 24-2, 19-5, 15-3 and two separate 9-0 shutouts.
They will spend the trade deadline dealing away as many of their impending free agents as possible, and then do a lot of soul-searching heading into the offseason. After making the playoffs in 2023 and 2024, will this season just be a blip? While the pitching struggles aren’t necessarily a big surprise, what has happened to the offense? Are some of their young players prospects or suspects?
After two months of Cleveland Spiders-level baseball, it would be easy to make fun of the Rockies. Especially since they recently announced Walker Monfort — son of the owner — was promoted to executive VP and will replace outgoing president and COO Greg Feasel.
On the other hand, the Rockies are doing something right: They just drew 121,000 for a three-game series against the White Sox.
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Jesse Rogers
CHICAGO — Former White Sox lefty Mark Buehrle was forever immortalized inside Rate Field as the team unveiled a statue in his honor Friday.
Buehrle, 46, played 16 years in the majors, including the first 12 with the White Sox, who he helped win a World Series in 2005. He won 214 games and pitched 200 innings or more in 14 consecutive seasons from 2001 to 2014.
“I can’t put it into words,” Buehrle said after the unveiling. “You don’t play the game for any of this. You never think of number retirements or statues. I can’t even wrap my head around it. It doesn’t make sense.”
The statue is an action shot of him throwing a pitch.
His wife and kids were in attendance and helped pull off the cover to unveil the statue while his 2005 teammates looked on. The event kicked off a weekend reunion for the World Series team which went 11-1 in the postseason, beating the Houston Astros in four games to take home the title.
Buehrle was a five-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove winner, finishing fifth in Cy Young voting in 2005.
“Well-deserved,” former right fielder Jermaine Dye said of the statue. “Great teammate. Great leader. Definitely someone you want on a ballclub to lead a pitching staff.”
The White Sox rotation — led by Buehrle — threw four complete games in the ALCS against the Boston Red Sox in 2005, missing a fifth complete game by two-thirds of an inning. It’s an unheard of accomplishment in today’s game since starters infrequently go the distance.
Besides being an innings-eater on the mound, Buehrle was a fast worker — a favorite trait of his catcher, A.J Pierzynski. And he wasn’t someone who threw a lot of different pitches. He caught it and threw it without much input from behind the plate.
“He was fast,” Pierzynski said. “We had Jermaine Dye calling pitches from right field some games. We did come crazy things you wouldn’t recommend to people to do nowadays.”
Buehrle is a notoriously low-key guy who hates the spotlight but even he was moved by the team’s decision to honor him with a statue, which joins former slugger Harold Baines in the right-field concourse.
“I joked with him when I saw him,” Dye said. “I told him ‘Man it takes you getting a statue to get you out of the house.'”
Buehrle added: “I was literally nervous as can be today. This is not my comfort zone but by no means am I taking it lightly. This is incredible.”
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