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  • Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Staff WriterJun 5, 2024, 07:00 AM ET

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    • Sports reporter, Kansas City Star, 2002-09
    • Writer, Baseball, Baseball Prospectus
    • Co-author, Pro Basketball Prospectus
    • Member, Baseball Writers Association of America
    • Member, Professional Basketball Writers Association

WHEN MLB ANNOUNCED last week that its official statistical record would be updated with the treasure trove of Negro Leagues data researchers have uncovered over the years, it was merely the next step in a story that was already in motion.

It was also a no-brainer.

Those at the highest levels of Black baseball in the decades before Jackie Robinson were playing at a major league level. The players in those games knew that. The white players who played against those players — and often lost to them — knew it. Anyone who has studied the history of Negro Leagues baseball with any kind of a clear mind has always known it.

For decades, though, history-inclined fans were able to ignore the numbers put up by segregation-era Black players because the statistical record was considered incomplete, murky and unverifiable. Up to a certain point, that was true — but no longer.

Thanks to the remarkable efforts of baseball statistical archaeologists, much of the record has been restored. It has been compiled with carefully thought-out procedures and methods. The numbers aren’t perfect, but that’s true of most numbers from baseball’s early history.

And their imperfections make the effect no less miraculous. These updates don’t make the likes of Bullet Rogan, Martin Dihigo or Cool Papa Bell any more major league than they already were. Instead, they give those legends new life by putting them in the same leaderboards as Lefty Grove, Shohei Ohtani and Rickey Henderson. The numbers link those players together, just as they always should have been.

The merger of those databases — that of the old official major league record and the new one — rekindles old stories and gives them a larger audience. It gives solid footing to the mythology that has always surrounded them, though the mythology itself will remain, just as it has for all of baseball’s early stars. In taking this next step in an ongoing project, baseball now has the most complete and accurate official record it has ever had.

They are numbers, just numbers, but in baseball, numbers have always meant so much. They mean even more now.

THE LEADING BASEBALL statistical sites — Baseball Reference and Fangraphs — started folding in Negro League data some time ago. MLB took more time, but after all, the league’s record is the record, and it had to get it right. Even now, some of the numbers among these leading sources vary. This has always been the case, but now there are a lot more discrepancies.

But it’s important to keep in mind the reality that the record has always been dynamic, ever since the first Baseball Encyclopedia was compiled in the late 1960s. (It, sadly, did not include the numbers from Black baseball that are now available.)

For example: For nearly 70 years, the all-time single-season RBI record was 190, set by Hack Wilson of the Cubs in 1930. In 1999, someone figured out that an RBI that should have gone to Wilson 69 years before had been inadvertently attributed to a teammate. Someone else signed off on that discovery, and suddenly the all-time single-season RBI record was 191. Good research changes the record.

Last week’s news meant that Josh Gibson, not Ty Cobb, is now the “official” all-time batting king, with his .372 surpassing Cobb’s .367. But .367 probably wasn’t right anyway. Research conducted a few years ago determined that Cobb’s 4,191 career hits, a number long recognized and the one that Pete Rose surpassed back in 1985, is at least two hits too high, which drops the rounded career average down to .366, the number you see at Baseball Reference. That site also has Gibson at .373 against major league competition, but doesn’t list him as the all-time batting champ (for now), likely because of qualification standards that differ from those on which MLB’s research committee landed.

No one can say for certain that Gibson should rank above Cobb in career batting average, nor should he outflank Ted Williams’ on-base percentage or Babe Ruth’s slugging percentage. The converse of these things is also true. Williams never played a regular-season game against a Negro League team, nor did he play one against a National League team. Likewise, Stan Musial’s remarkable record of breadth and consistency did not include any regular-season contests against AL pitchers. Until 1997, there simply was no such thing as interleague play.

The leagues were their own entities and when we contextualize statistics from those days, we adjust for AL context or NL context, not some imagined overall MLB context. The Negro Leagues deserve the same consideration.

After all, the argument that the Negro Leagues weren’t comparable in quality seems harder to make when you investigate the evidence. From the time that Robinson broke the color line, other standouts from Black baseball followed. And they weren’t just any major leaguers — they were among the very best players of their era and beyond. Phillip Lee, author of the essential “Black Stats Matter,” notes that among the first 20 Black players in the extant majors, beginning with Robinson, there were four Rookie of the Year winners, one Cy Young winner, seven MVP winners and eight Hall of Famers. Lee’s entire book is a convincing argument that statistics from the top Negro Leagues should very much be taken at face value.

Even in the years before Robinson, we have plenty of evidence of the strength of the Negro Leagues through an ever-growing database of exhibition encounters between Black and white teams. The authority on these games is researcher Todd Peterson, who has credited Negro Leagues teams with winning about 53% of the more than 600 contests against white teams between 1900 and 1948.

Do these numbers need to be understood in context? Of course. All numbers do.

And luckily, these days we have better tools for doing that than ever. Now we have a better and more complete dataset to work with than ever before, one that folds in crucial chapters of baseball history that have too long been ignored.

JOSH GIBSON’S JOURNEY to becoming MLB’s all-time batting champ is steeped in mythology. For decades what we heard about him was that, all told, he hit more than 800 homers — including exhibitions, league games, winter games, etc. — and perhaps as many as 1,000. This linked him not to Cobb, but Ruth. But that number was seen as a legend, taken no more seriously than the tales of Gibson hitting 700-foot bombs.

Yet stories of Gibson’s real, legit greatness only grew over time, as people shared their recollections, documentaries were made and books were written. Buck O’Neil connected Gibson to Ruth by the thundering clap he heard that they — and only they — made when making contact.

In the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, James called Gibson, “Probably the greatest catcher in baseball history, and probably the greatest right-handed power hitter.” In 1972, he became the third Negro Leagues player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, following Paige and Buck Leonard.

Now, Gibson’s Baseball Reference page takes on extra meaning. The term “black ink” has long been used to denote the boldface font a number gets when it leads a league. Great players tend to have records with a lot of black ink. Gibson’s table seemingly has more black ink than regular font.

Year after year, Gibson led the Negro National League in homers and RBIs, OPS and OPS+. For every 162 league games he played, he rolled up 217 hits, 36 doubles, 16 triples, 45 homers, 165 runs and an astounding 197 RBIs.

We have many good analytical tools for making sense of all that and for bringing those numbers into comparison with AL and NL players. Gibson doesn’t currently meet the qualifying standards at Baseball Reference, but if he did, his 214 OPS+ would outflank Ruth’s 206 for the best of all time. According to Fangraphs, his 202 wRC+ tops the charts, ahead of Ruth’s 194.

If you go to MLB’s all-time leaderboard — the one that matters most — all you have to do is sort the OPS column. Gibson’s 1.177 OPS leads Ruth (1.164), Williams (1.116), Lou Gehrig (1.079) and Charleston (1.061). That’s what an all-time leaderboard should look like.

We can debate from there about who should rank where. We can point out that Gibson’s number is based on many fewer games than Ruth or Williams. We can debate the relative strengths of the leagues, the AL vs. NL, the AL vs. the Negro National League, etc. We can measure the standard deviation of performance in the leagues to help make the comparisons from one circuit to the next that much sharper. But all of these debates will begin with a list of names that finally makes sense.

NO ONE IS more ensconced in mythology than Paige, someone who has had more stories told about him (real or not) than perhaps any player in history with the likely exception of Ruth. The stories are so rich and plentiful that it almost obscures just how good Paige was as a pitcher.

How good? James wrote, “Satchel deserves to rank with Cy Young, Lefty Grove and Walter Johnson as the guys you talk about when you’re trying to figure out who was the greatest that ever lived.” Hall of Fame pitcher Dizzy Dean, a contemporary of Paige and frequent loser to him in head-to-head exhibitions, said, “If Satch and I were pitching on the same team, we’d clinch the pennant by the Fourth of July and go fishing until World Series time.” Joe DiMaggio said that Paige was the best — and fastest — hurler he ever faced.

With the numbers to back up statements like those, we no longer have to settle for marveling at how Paige finally joined the major leagues at some indeterminate point after he turned 40 and proceeded to go 6-1 with a 165 ERA+ on what remains Cleveland’s last championship team. Well, we can still marvel at that, and his All-Star Game appearance in 1953, when his official age was 46, but we don’t have to stop there.

Now, we can marvel at all that black ink on Paige’s Baseball Reference page and the fact that Paige led the league in strikeout rate at age 20, then again at 38. We can pull up the leaderboard in ERA+ and see that Paige’s 150 lands him in the top 10, between Pedro Martinez and Grove.

And Paige isn’t even the highest-ranking pitcher by ERA+ from the Negro Leagues. Ahead of him are Bill Foster and Bullet Rogan, who are both always included in debates about who the best pitcher in Negro Leagues history was.

Paige’s total is tied with that of Jim Devlin, a pitcher from the years 1875 to 1877. The rules of the game then were wildly different than the ones we know now. But Devlin’s leagues, first the National Association and then the first seasons of the National League, were deemed major. He is there. Now Paige is too.

That’s what a leaderboard should look like.

YOU CAN GO through a similar exercise with so many Negro Leagues players, all in an effort to pull them from the realm of legend into the realm of the tangible. To give them the consideration they earned so long ago.

Oscar Charleston, who might have been the best player ever, is top-10 in average, on-base percentage, slugging and OPS. His OPS+ at Baseball Reference ranks third, between Williams and Bonds. The numbers back up what we thought about Charleston.

Turkey Stearnes, often overlooked in discussions about the greats, ranks sixth in OPS+. As a left-handed hitter with acuity in both average and power, James compared him to Williams and Mel Ott. The numbers back it up.

Bell has always been known as much for the awesome “Cool Papa” moniker, plus the story about him being so fast he could flip a light switch and be under the covers before the room went dark. But like Henderson, he played for 25 seasons (including a stretch in Mexico). Like Henderson, he annually led his leagues in steals. He scored 155 runs for every 162 games he played; Henderson’s comparable figure was 121.

When Ohtani joined the majors, it was Martín Dihigo, not Ruth, to whom he should have been compared. The bulk of Dihigo’s remarkable career unfolded in Cuba, but in the TK seasons he played in the Negro Leagues, he managed to post a 138 OPS+ over 1,617 plate appearances and a 141 ERA+ over 402 innings on the mound. Dihigo performed as a star-level hitter and pitcher at the same time over a number of seasons, which makes him the natural antecedent of Ohtani, who has a 151 OPS+ and 143 ERA+ during his MLB career.

Stories and myths are part of baseball, the best part in many ways, and we aren’t going to lose those. But for Negro Leaguers, myths and stories were all that we had for too long.

Now, we have hard numbers to back up those stories. And the farther we are removed from those days, the more the numbers will lead us back to the stories, not the other way around. That, more than anything, is why this change needed to happen.

THE PROCESS OF creating the best possible historical record is ongoing. Just this week, SABR recognized 43 independent teams from Black baseball as major and added the 1949 and 1950 Negro American League campaigns to the list, as well.

For now, this doesn’t change the official record. Still, MLB has pledged to continue considering new research in the future, and there is more than a little overlap of the names on the SABR committee and MLB’s Negro Leagues Statistical Review Committee. Stay tuned.

Among implications of new research is that the all-time leaderboards will continue to evolve. Cobb could even retake the all-time batting crown from Gibson, if some of the latter’s early seasons are added to the record.

All of this is great. Embracing research with open arms keeps history in the state that it should be — always in motion, always freshly understood and re-evaluated as new evidence comes to light and much-needed new perspectives are considered. Baseball is no different in that regard.

The addition of the still-emerging statistical record of the Negro Leagues doesn’t obscure the all-time major league leaderboards. It clarifies them.

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Who has the edge for MVP, Cy Young and more? MLB Awards Watch at the All-Star break

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July 16, 2025

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Who has the edge for MVP, Cy Young and more? MLB Awards Watch at the All-Star break

  • Bradford DoolittleJul 16, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

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      • MLB writer and analyst for ESPN.com
      • Former NBA writer and analyst for ESPN.com
      • Been with ESPN since 2013

Judge. Ohtani. Skubal. Wheeler.

A little more than halfway home, four of baseball’s titans have established themselves as the front-runners in the major awards races, at least according to ESPN BET. A lot can happen between now and the balloting late in the season, but when you have established stars and perennial awards favorites atop the leaderboard, their competitors can’t count on any kind of a drop-off.

In other words: Barring a major injury to Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Tarik Skubal or Zack Wheeler, it’s going to take a strong second half by anyone hoping to overtake them. It can happen, and if any of these races tighten up, it’ll be something to behold.

Awards Watch agrees with many of the assessments made by the betting markets, but if the season ended today, there would be a few disagreements, according to AXE. That doesn’t mean the voters would fall in line with the numbers, but the debate would be robust.

As we check in with our midseason Awards Watch, let’s see how things stack up for the favorites.

Most Valuable Player

American League

Front-runner: Aaron Judge, New York Yankees (162 AXE)

Next nine: 2. Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners (148); 3. Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City Royals (138); 4. Jeremy Pena, Houston Astros (134); 5. Byron Buxton, Minnesota Twins (133); 6. Jose Ramirez, Cleveland Guardians (130); 7. Ceddanne Rafaela, Boston Red Sox (129); 8. (tie) Randy Arozarena, Mariners, J.P. Crawford, Mariners (124); 10. Julio Rodriguez, Mariners (122).

Leader trend: Judge has retained a comfortable lead in this category all season. Raleigh drew fairly close in late June, but the gap has since widened again. That’s not Raleigh’s fault; it’s just Judge being Judge. At the time of our last Awards Watch, Judge had a 1.234 OPS. Since then, he has managed a meager 1.141. Yeah, that’s still pretty good.

The shape of Judge’s numbers has changed a bit. When we convened in late May, he was hitting .395, and he has posted a mortal .297 average since. But he has picked things up in the slugging category. Last time, he was mashing homers at the rate of 54 per 162 games. Since, that number is 66. Raleigh might be having the greatest catcher season of all time, and it’s possible that if there is any kind of Judge fatigue among the voters, that could impact the ballot. But what isn’t likely is any kind of prolonged drop-off by Judge.

Biggest mover: Buxton wasn’t in the top 10 last time out, but he has entered the top five based on several weeks of elite production and good health. During an 11-year career marked as much by injury as spectacular play, the first half featured Buxton at his best and most available, putting him on pace for his first 30/30 season at age 31. It keeps getting better: Since the last Awards Watch, Buxton has a 1.025 OPS with rates of 48 homers and 39 steals per 162 games.

Keep an eye on: Last time, there were two Red Sox in the top 10. Both have dropped out, with Alex Bregman hitting the IL and Rafael Devers hitting the airport for a flight to join his new team in San Francisco. But Boston is still represented by the overlooked Rafaela. No, he isn’t going to overtake Judge in the MVP race, but one of baseball’s most unique players deserves a little run.

After splitting time between shortstop and center field in 2024, Rafaela has played almost exclusively on the grass this season, and his defensive metrics have been off the charts. That’s driving this ranking, but Rafaela also has made tremendous strides at the plate. After entering the season with a career OPS+ of 83, he has upped that number to 118 in 2025 and is on pace for a 20/20 campaign.

National League

Front-runner: Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers (144 AXE)

Next nine: 2. Pete Crow-Armstrong, Chicago Cubs (143); 3. Fernando Tatis Jr., San Diego Padres (136); 4. Kyle Tucker, Cubs (135); 5. James Wood, Washington Nationals (134); 6. Will Smith, Dodgers (131); 7. (tie) Pete Alonso, New York Mets, Juan Soto, Mets (129); 9. Elly De La Cruz, Cincinnati Reds (128); 10. Francisco Lindor, Mets (127).

Leader trend: Crow-Armstrong just won’t go away. He has lurked behind Ohtani on the AXE leaderboard for most of the season, but a quiet series from Ohtani in Milwaukee paired with another outburst from Crow-Armstrong flipped the top spot. Ohtani is still the favorite — the leaderboard flipped again over the weekend and, besides, he’s Ohtani — but at this point, we have to come to grips with the reality that Crow-Armstrong can mount a legitimate challenge.

Like Rafaela, Crow-Armstrong’s defensive metrics are top of the charts and, in fact, those two are in a duel for the MLB lead in defensive runs saved metrics among outfielders. But Crow-Armstrong’s bat continues to fuel his rise to superstar status. He entered the break on pace for 42 homers and 46 steals.

Ironically, if the offensive numbers between Ohtani and Crow-Armstrong are tight, it could come down to very different forms of run prevention. Crow-Armstrong is at 15 defensive runs saved as a center fielder. Meanwhile, Ohtani is at three runs above average during his nine innings on the mound. As the pitching side of Ohtani’s record grows, that gap might narrow considerably.

If that happens and it comes down to a straight-up comparison at the plate, it’s going to be tough for Crow-Armstrong, whose 140 OPS+ currently is dwarfed by Ohtani’s 174.

Biggest mover: Wood continues to cement his arrival as a right-now star player, and his pace has been accelerating even after an excellent start. Despite a subdued week before the break, Wood has a .908 OPS and 162-game rates of 42 homers, 127 RBIs, 19 steals and 100 runs since the last Awards Watch. Overall, he has a .381 OBP and is on pace for 100 walks, so those numbers aren’t driven by a short-term power surge. At 22, Wood simply is already an all-around offensive force.

Keep an eye on: Tucker overtook Crow-Armstrong for the No. 2 slot (and the Cubs’ team lead) in AXE late in June, before Crow-Armstrong reasserted himself. But Tucker’s production is metronomic: His AXE at the last Awards Watch was 130, and he is now at 135. Tucker has an .839 OPS at Wrigley Field as compared to .905 on the road, where 12 of his 17 homers have been hit. But if warmer weather and outward-blowing winds become consistent in Chicago, a Tucker power surge could be in the offing. If that happens, look out.

Cy Young

American League

Front-runner: Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers (151 AXE)

Next nine: 2. Garrett Crochet, Red Sox (149); 3. (tie) Framber Valdez, Astros, Joe Ryan, Twins (138); 5. Hunter Brown, Astros (137); 6. Nathan Eovaldi, Texas Rangers (136); 7. Kris Bubic, Royals (134); 8. Max Fried, Yankees (133); 9. Jacob deGrom, Rangers (132); 10. Bryan Woo, Mariners (126).

Leader trend: Skubal was fourth in AXE among AL pitchers last time out, though he was still the clear front-runner to repeat as AL Cy Young. A few more weeks have brought AXE in line with reality, as Skubal has gone to that magical place few pitchers ever reach.

Skubal’s blastoff actually began when we posted the last Awards Watch, as he was coming off a complete-game, two-hit shutout against Cleveland. Perhaps the most impressive part of that outing is that he recorded 13 strikeouts on just 94 pitches. Well, since then, Skubal did the same thing to Minnesota: 13 whiffs on 93 pitches on June 29.

In eight outings following the last Watch, Skubal has gone 5-1 with a 1.89 ERA, thrown at least seven innings five times and posted an absurd ratio of 61 strikeouts to nine walks. This race isn’t over, but it’s clearly Skubal’s to win.

Biggest mover: DeGrom missed the top 10 last time, but since then, he has shown every indication of ramping back up to his historic level of stifling run prevention. He’s doing it a little differently than he did in his Mets heyday, emphasizing pitch efficiency to a greater extent.

DeGrom’s 26% strikeout rate is his lowest in nearly a decade, and he has reached double digits in whiffs just once this season. But he has a sparkling 2.32 ERA and has been at 2.20 over eight starts since the last Awards Watch. He had a string of five straight starts when he threw at least six innings, reaching seven twice, all without hitting the 90-pitch mark.

Keep an eye on: Crochet has been coming on like gangbusters, as has the team around him. He finished his first half with a complete-game, three-hit shutout of Tampa Bay, closing the AXE gap between him and Skubal. Crochet leads the AL in innings pitched (129⅓), strikeouts (160) and ERA+ (185). We’ve seen Skubal do this for a full season; now, it’s up to Crochet to prove he can match the reigning Cy Young winner start for start in what’s shaping up as a great race.

National League

Front-runner: Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh Pirates (150 AXE)

Next nine: 2. Zack Wheeler, Philadelphia Phillies (148); 3. Cristopher Sanchez, Phillies (143); 4. MacKenzie Gore, Nationals (135); 5. Nick Pivetta, Padres (133); 6. Ranger Suarez, Phillies (132); 7. (tie) Andrew Abbott, Reds, Freddy Peralta, Milwaukee Brewers (131); 9. Logan Webb, San Francisco Giants (130); 10. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dodgers (128)

Leader trend: The numbers between Wheeler and Skenes are so close, it’s hard not to fixate on the disparity in the win-loss columns: Wheeler is 9-3, while the criminally under-supported Skenes is 4-8. Recently, I re-pitched the notion of a revised win-loss record based on game scores, so that’s worth taking a fresh look at to see if the difference in the traditional records is misleading.

Well, it is and it isn’t. Skenes has suffered a string of hard-luck game score losses of late and now sits at 11-9 by that method. Wheeler, meanwhile, is an MLB-best 16-3. Wheeler also has a solid edge in average game score at 65.2, as compared to 63.2 for Skenes. For now, Wheeler has the edge.

Will it last? Consider another byproduct of that game score work: pitcher temperature. You win a game score matchup, the temp goes up. You lose, it goes down. Each starter begins his career at the average temperature of 72 degrees, and it goes back and forth from there. The hottest starter in baseball by this method: Wheeler, at 127.2 degrees. Because of his recent bad run, Skenes has cooled to 68.7 degrees.

Biggest mover: For now, Sanchez has seized the spot just behind Wheeler, which of course makes him a mere No. 2 in his own rotation. Sanchez was overlooked when the NL All-Star rosters were released, and it was a true oversight. Like Wheeler, Sanchez has been fiery hot, with a string of excellent outings since the last Awards Watch. Over nine starts during that span, Sanchez has 1.77 ERA and 2.11 FIP, while pitching seven innings or more six times.

Keep an eye on: Let’s just stick with our Phillies theme and keep our eyes on their whole rotation. Wheeler (second), Sanchez (third) and Suarez (sixth) are entrenched in the top 10. Meanwhile, Jesus Luzardo (126 AXE), who led this category last time out, just missed giving the Phillies four rotation members in the top 10. Philadelphia leads the majors in average game score and is second in the NL (behind Cincinnati) in game score win-loss percentage.

Rookie of the Year

American League

Front-runner: Jacob Wilson, Athletics (121 AXE)

Next nine: 2. Carlos Narvaez, Red Sox (120); 3. Cam Smith, Astros (116); 4. Noah Cameron, Royals (115); 5. Nick Kurtz, Athletics (108); 6. Jake Mangum, Tampa Bay Rays (107); 7. (tie) Mike Vasil, Chicago White Sox, Will Warren, Yankees, Jasson Dominguez, Yankees (106); 10. Roman Anthony, Red Sox (105)

Leader trend: Wilson has come back to the pack on the AXE leaderboard, perhaps inevitably after his remarkable start to the season. He was hitting .348 at the last Awards Watch then went out and pushed that number to .372 on June 8. Since then, Wilson has hit just .222 and has just three extra-base hits over 24 games. Wilson’s quick beginning turned enough heads to get him voted as the AL’s starting shortstop in the All-Star Game. But he has been replaced by Smith as the AL Rookie of the Year favorite at ESPN BET.

Biggest mover: Smith has mashed his way into prominence, but he’s proving to be a well-rounded young hitter despite just 32 games of minor league experience. Alas, his surprising .277 batting average is driven by a .378 BABIP that doesn’t seem likely to hold up. However, Smith has just seven homers, and if his game power starts to match his raw power, he can easily replace any loss in average with a gain in slugging.

Keep an eye on: Kurtz has been picking up the pace, especially in the power category, manifesting what was his calling card prior to reaching the majors. Kurtz hit the IL with a hip injury on the day the last Awards Watch went out. He had just started to drive the ball before getting hurt, and he has gone right on slugging since he came back. After homering just once over his first 23 games, Kurtz has since gone deep 16 times in 35 contests while slugging .713 in the process.

National League

Front-runner: Caleb Durbin, Brewers (113 AXE)

Next nine: 2. (tie) Chad Patrick, Brewers, Drake Baldwin, Atlanta Braves (112); 4. (tie) Hyeseong Kim, Dodgers, Isaac Collins, Brewers (109); 6. (tie) Jack Dreyer, Dodgers, Brad Lord, Nationals (105); 8. (tie) Liam Hicks, Miami Marlins, Lake Bachar, Marlins, Yohel Pozo, St. Louis Cardinals (104)

Leader trend: The race remains tepid. One of those players tied for second — Patrick, the leader in this category last time out — is back in Triple A, joining Logan Henderson (not listed here, but who ranks 11th) in the rotation at Nashville. It’s not because of failures on their part, though, it’s just because Milwaukee is so flush with starting pitching. Speaking of which …

Biggest mover: Jacob Misiorowski had yet to debut when we last convened, but he has since become a must-watch big league starter and, amazingly, an All-Star.

He won his first three starts while posting a 1.13 ERA, then put up his first stinker in a loss to the Mets. He followed that with a head-turning six innings of dominance against the defending champion Dodgers, whiffing 12 L.A. batters and beating future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw. The end result: Misiorowski has become ESPN BET’s new front-runner for top NL rookie.

Keep an eye on: Kim has been as good as advertised for the Dodgers, matching the elite defense and baserunning we knew he had with a surprising 137 OPS+ over 119 plate appearances. Now, in the wake of Max Muncy‘s knee injury, Kim should be more of a lineup fixture, at least for a few weeks.

Manager of the Year

American League

Front-runner: A.J. Hinch, Tigers (112 EARL)

Next four: 2. Joe Espada, Astros (109); 3. Ron Washington, Los Angeles Angels (108); 4. John Schneider, Toronto Blue Jays (107); 5. Dan Wilson, Mariners (103)

Overview: It’s bittersweet to see Washington on the leaderboard now that we know he won’t be back this season because of a health issue. That leaves a pretty good battle between Hinch and Espada, his bench coach with the Astros. The Tigers’ historic pace with such a young team has Hinch in front. But Houston’s surge despite injuries and underperformances is the kind of thing that will catch a voter’s eye.

National League

Front-runner: Pat Murphy, Brewers (108 EARL)

Next four: 2. (tie) Oliver Marmol, Cardinals; Bob Melvin, Giants (106); 4. (tie) Craig Counsell, Cubs; Clayton McCullough, Marlins (105)

Overview: This is a hard race to read. Marmol is a classic candidate, guiding a low-expectation team to a good record and playoff contention. But the Cardinals might be on the verge of dropping back. Meanwhile, the Brewers have become the NL’s hottest team, nudging Murphy, last year’s NL Manager of the Year, into the lead at the break. But in both manager categories, these stories are very far from being written.

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MLB betting: Top storylines for the season’s second half

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9 hours ago

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July 16, 2025

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MLB betting: Top storylines for the season's second half

Coming off his second American League MVP season in 2024, New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge opened as the favorite to repeat for the award. He has only helped his argument by posting the AL’s best average (.355) as well as its second-most home runs (35) and RBIs (81) at the All-Star break. However, as excellent as his season has been, a stunning breakout campaign from Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh is closing the gap in the odds.

Judge currently shows -600 odds to win the AL MVP in 2025, a major improvement from his leading +300 at the start of the season, according to ESPN BET lines. However, Raleigh now has the second-best odds +325, a remarkable shortening from his opening 100-1 price.

Judge’s short odds all season — which reached an incredible -1,000 in mid-May — dictated that he was never going to be an attractive option for bettors, with BetMGM reporting 5.2% of the bettors backing him for the award, fifth best in the market.

Raleigh, on the other hand, made a slow progression up the odds board, allowing bettors to take advantage of his long plus-pricing for some time. Caesars Sportsbook baseball lead Eric Biggio said many of the sportsbook’s customers grabbed the Mariners backstop at 90-1 back in early May. Judge’s excellence actually helped keep Raleigh at a long price, according to another bookmaker, since Judge’s extremely short price needed to be balanced.

BetMGM said Raleigh holds a leading 33% of the handle for AL MVP, the book’s largest liability in the market. His laidback attitude, Home Run Derby win and amusing nickname could continue to fuel his MVP narrative … and make trouble for sportsbooks.

“As much as I like him, as much as I enjoy rooting for the Big Dumper, he’s a pretty big liability for us,” Biggio told ESPN. “We’ve got some pretty big tickets on Raleigh to win the MVP and for the home run leader.”

The latter market is also an intriguing one: Even as Raleigh (38) holds a three-homer lead over Judge, the Yankees slugger is still the solid favorite to sock the most dingers this season, showing -140 odds to Raleigh’s +130 at ESPN BET. Los Angeles Dodgers DH Shohei Ohtani holds +800 odds to accompany his 32 home runs.

“If Raleigh wins either one of those two awards, we’re not going to be in as good of shape with him as we are with those other two guys,” DraftKings Sportsbook director Johnny Avello told ESPN.

Ohtani is also the solid favorite for National League MVP at -700, but Chicago Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong is putting some degree of pressure on him at +750. BetMGM reports PCA as its biggest liability in that market.

World Series favorites

Ahead of the 2025 season, the Dodgers were an astounding +160 to win the National League pennant and +275 to win the World Series, per ESPN BET lines — the shortest odds to win MLB’s championship since the 2003 Yankees. At the All-Star break, not a whole lot has changed, with L.A. now a +140 favorite to take the NL crown and a +240 favorite for the World Series.

Things have not gone as expected on the American League side, however. After opening the season at +1200 to win the AL and +3000 to take the World Series, the Detroit Tigers now display the best record in baseball, bringing their pennant odds to a favorite’s +250 and their championship odds to +700, tied with the Yankees for second best.

The underdog story resonated with the betting public, who began backing the Tigers at the first indications that they could make some noise not only in the AL Central, but in the league at large. Biggio said Detroit is Caesars’ second-largest liability, behind only the San Francisco Giants.

“We had some longer prices, and the public spotted it early that they’re a legit squad,” he said. “So some big prices on the Tigers to win it all, and they are for real.”

“They’ve become a popular futures selection, now our second-most bet World Series winner by total bets, and third-most popular pick by handle,” ESPN BET’s VP of sportsbook strategy and growth Adam Landeka said via email. “Given their relatively longer price earlier in the season, we already know we’ll be a fan of almost any team the Tigers face in the postseason.”

While Detroit’s concern will be coaching its relatively inexperienced core to a postseason run, L.A.’s will be staying healthy. Bookmakers remark that the Dodgers’ ability to keep winning games despite several significant injuries is a testament to their depth, thus keeping them a favorite in the long run.

Young arms

The eyes of the baseball world turned to Milwaukee for a seemingly random matinee game June 25. It was the first head-to-head matchup between Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes and Milwaukee Brewers rookie Jacob Misiorowski, two of the brightest future pitching stars in baseball. It would prove to be significant for at least one of them.

Prior to his MLB debut on June 12, Misirowski was +2500 to win NL Rookie of the Year. That day he moved to +1000, then to +175 after his second start, before finally becoming the odds-on favorite at -120 after getting the better of Skenes, according to ESPN BET’s Landeka. At the break, “The Miz” is -220 to take home the award. Sportsbooks were able to stay on top of his rapid ascendancy, limiting their liability.

“We were able to move this guy pretty quickly,” Avello said. “That’s one that didn’t get hit, could have had some good value there. We’re in pretty good shape with him actually.”

Skenes, meanwhile, is having another remarkable season after taking home ROY honors last year, but his disappointing record (4-8) for a dismal Pirates team could be keeping him from being the NL Cy Young favorite. He currently shows -105 odds at ESPN BET, trailing Philadelphia Phillies ace Zack Wheeler at -130.

It’s largely a two-man race — Wheeler’s teammate, Cristopher Sanchez, is next closest in the odds at +2000 — but sportsbooks aren’t too worried about liability given the short prices on Skenes and Wheeler all season.

“We’ve seen comparable action on both, but as it stands now Skenes would be a better result for us,” Landeka said.

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NHL schedule release: Bruins, Penguins, Maple Leafs and more lead top reveals

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July 16, 2025

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NHL schedule release: Bruins, Penguins, Maple Leafs and more lead top reveals

The 2025-26 NHL season is slowly approaching and teams checked another offseason box on Wednesday by revealing their schedules for the upcoming campaign.

Creativity abounded as squads looked to show off their upcoming calendar in distinctive ways. The Boston Bruins enlisted comedian Bill Burr to help unveil their schedule. The Pittsburgh Penguins went with a hospital theme. Dogs were brought in to help out the Toronto Maple Leafs with their reveal.

Headlined by those and more, here’s a look at the social media schedule release posts from each NHL team.

Boston Bruins

Pittsburgh Penguins

Toronto Maple Leafs

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