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  • Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff WriterJun 26, 2024, 07:00 AM ET

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      ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.

The Los Angeles Angels trailed by a run halfway through their May 28 game against the New York Yankees, and Willie Calhoun figured he’d plan ahead. Calhoun, a journeyman outfielder, thought he might be used as a late-game pinch hitter. So he made his way to Angel Stadium’s indoor batting cage and turned on Trajekt Arc, the cutting-edge machine that has quickly become a go-to throughout the industry for its ability to replicate major league pitchers.

Calhoun cued up all of the Yankees’ high-leverage relievers, most of whom he’d never faced, tracking as many pitches as he could over the course of a couple of innings. When he was summoned to face Luke Weaver in the bottom of the eighth, he felt ready. Calhoun took back-to-back changeups for balls, then saw a 91-mph cutter on the inner half and lofted a base hit to right field, a leadoff single that ignited a two-run inning and ultimately gave the Angels a come-from-behind victory.

“I was able to see how it was looking before I got into the box,” Calhoun said. “That machine is nice.”

Trajekt — essentially a pitching robot that can play the video of any pitcher’s windup, then spit out all of his pitches from the appropriate arm angle based on the reams of data available — is now used by 19 major league teams, plus three others in Japan, despite not existing in any form until 2021. This year, the league office has allowed Trajekt to be used in-game, a polarizing decision that has in some ways splintered the industry based on personal interest.

Some hitters, frustrated by an era in which pitchers throw harder and nastier than ever, have celebrated what they consider a rare advancement.

“This is the first piece of technology we’ve had that truly benefits us,” one position player said. “Before this we had nothing.”

Plenty of pitchers disagree, pointing to recent rule changes implemented to create a more hitter-friendly environment, and consider Trajekt an unfair advantage — particularly in-game.

“You wanna have it, fine,” a veteran pitcher said. “But three hours before game time, those machines need to be shut off.”

Trajekt previously required an Internet connection to operate, a violation of Major League Baseball’s sign-stealing policy. Modifying the device so that it could operate offline prompted the league to allow it for in-game use, according to an MLB official. Team executives were notified this past offseason.

“We already allow other pitching machines that replicate pitch characteristics,” Morgan Sword, MLB’s executive vice president of baseball operations, wrote in a statement to ESPN, alluding to another, less-involved pitch-replication device called iPitch.

“Once [Trajekt] moved the system offline during games, there was no longer a reason to stand in the way.”

The effects appear to be minimal thus far. Leaguewide batting average sits at .242, the third-lowest mark since 1900, behind only 1968 (the year before the mound was lowered) and 1908 (at the heart of the dead-ball era). But the strikeout rate against relievers is below 23% — 22.9%, to be exact — for the first time in eight years, a subtle decline some have at least partly attributed to the in-game use of Trajekt.

It’s why one of those relievers, Yankees lefty Caleb Ferguson, is adamantly against it.

“It’s impossible for a pitcher to mimic the at-bat,” he said. “We don’t even really get the chance at all to try to have that upper hand where you can come in and face a guy and read the result, see what’s gonna happen if I face whoever. But they could be hitting my fastball for the next three hours? That’s not fair.”

Hitters say they find it helpful, but they’ll also argue it’s not that simple. The machine — four feet deep, six feet wide and, all told, roughly 1,500 pounds — is too bulky to travel with, making it only an option for teams when they’re at home. Hitters largely don’t swing off it in-game, worried that it might make their hands sore by frequently getting jammed against high velocities. Some have said it’s also hard to pick up the baseball’s spin. And because the image it projects is basically a hologram, it’s much more difficult for hitters to time themselves off a pitcher’s arm slot than it would be in real life.

The Trajekt Arc sits on a track, allowing it to move left to right to spit out pitches.

Then there’s the situation at Arizona’s Chase Field, where the indoor batting cage is not big enough for the Trajekts to be stationed any more than 54 feet away from home plate, rendering the machine useless as a timing mechanism and leaving the Arizona Diamondbacks‘ Trajekt Arc to mostly collect dust.

“Ninety-nine [mph] feels like 120 for us,” D-backs outfielder Pavin Smith said near the end of May. “I don’t love it, to be honest. I liked it more in spring training. It was further back, so it felt more realistic. Now every guy looks like he’s twice as good.”

Trajekt, costing somewhere in the neighborhood of $15,000 a month and requiring a three-year commitment, is typically set up 56 to 57 feet away to account for pitchers’ average extension. Standard game balls can be used, but players have taken to a softer version of Rawlings’ baseball, the L10 Pro. Unlike iPitch, a stationary two- to three-wheel machine, Trajekt sits on a gantry, allowing it to spit baseballs anywhere from four to seven feet off the ground, and can move left to right along a track.

Teams can input Hawkeye data, which MLB uses to collect in-game metrics, and they can implement information from Rapsodo and Trackman devices, which also catalog metrics, from players’ training sessions. Videos of pitchers’ windups come from the cameras that are stationed behind home plate at every major league ballpark, with teams capable of uploading the videos that correspond to each pitch to project the precise arm slot. Teams only have access to their own data. The more the machine is used, the more accurate it becomes at replicating pitches.

What it’s like to face New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole (well, at least a holographic version of him).

Often, though, hitters are seeing what they believe is the best version of each pitch.

“It really varies,” Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Jason Heyward said. “Some look similar, some don’t. You’re seeing them throw the ball, but I still think it’s completely different in the game because there’s room for error. Pitchers mean to throw a ball here, and they throw it here. They mean to throw it here, and they throw it here, all that kind of stuff. So I think that’s where it’s not very realistic. It’s like video game pinpoint every time. But still — just getting a visual, an idea, of what someone has and how that may come out is cool. It’s helpful, for sure.”

Ten years ago, a teenager named Joshua Pope came up with the concept behind Trajekt while debating his high school friends about how many pitches it would take to get a hit off Marcus Stroman, then the ace of his hometown Toronto Blue Jays. Pope, now 28, wondered why there wasn’t a physical manifestation of all the publicly available pitching data. He attended the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, in part to learn from the mechanical engineering professor, Dr. John McPhee, who developed a hockey slapshot robot. Pope then received a grant of $60,000 Canadian dollars, raised additional financing, built a mock-up and launched the company Trajekt Sports in 2019, becoming its CEO.

During a tutorial at the 2019 winter meetings, Chicago Cubs director of innovation Bobby Basham became intrigued by the ball-inserter technology that allows for gyro spin, a revolutionary advancement that separated Trajekt from any pitching machine that came before it. Basham ultimately became Pope’s first customer, bringing it to the Cubs in the spring of 2021. By 2022, seven teams had it. A year later, it had grown to 12. Now it has spread to nearly two-thirds of the industry.

Pope’s company — co-founded by one-time classmate and current chief technology officer Rowan Ferrabee — now has 15 full-time employees and produces 20 machines a year. Forty of them are in use within MLB, with some teams having as many as six — one on the major league side and one at every minor league affiliate. Some are considering renting additional ones to use out of their academies in the Dominican Republic.

Pope said approximately half the machines are used at regular-season ballparks and the other half are used in the minors. He has heard of Triple-A catchers who use it to get a feel for the stuff thrown by the major league pitchers they’ll catch after getting promoted; pitchers who look at the shape of their own pitches to get a better feel for how they’re seen from the batter’s box; and, notably, teams shuttling prospects through reps against major league pitchers at their spring training complexes to get a baseline for performance.

“Obviously the most exciting ones are when a big-name player is facing a starting pitcher that day and in the first inning they hit a home run because they predicted a slider coming and they leveraged that off Trajekt and got a result,” Pope said. “We have countless anecdotes like that. But I think the more nuanced one, of evaluation and preparing for the game even prior to making it to the big leagues, is also something that we find really exciting, because it gives more opportunity to more people to have a chance at extreme, high-level practice, which is hard to get.

“Players can only throw full speed so often, and their reps are limited in training. And therefore it’s very tough to develop to that next level.”

A spring training ACL tear prevented Rhys Hoskins from playing for the Philadelphia Phillies in 2023. But when the Phillies made a playoff run late into that season, Hoskins held on to faint hopes that he might contribute. His month of October was spent at the team’s spring training facility in Clearwater, Florida, hitting off the Trajekt machine in hopes of getting as acclimated to major league pitching as possible if summoned at a moment’s notice. He began by holding a clicker instead of a bat, pressing a button to indicate swing decisions to help him distinguish balls from strikes, then progressed to full-on hitting, seeing up to 200 pitches a day.

“I felt pretty ready in terms of being in the box from a hitting standpoint in order to join those guys if that’s what the organization decided, mostly because you’re just able to replicate some of the speed of the game,” said Hoskins, now a member of the Milwaukee Brewers. “It’s hard to do that with a BP arm or even a normal machine.”

Hoskins, who ultimately wasn’t activated for last year’s World Series run, now regularly uses Trajekt to track pitches between at-bats when he serves as the designated hitter for home games. He has implored the Brewers’ pitchers to use it themselves to “remind them how nasty they are.” Angels pitching coach Barry Enright recently did that with his starters, bringing them all in to watch their pitches from behind home plate as something of a confidence boost to encourage strike-throwing.

Within the next two years, Pope’s goal is for every major league team to deploy at least one Trajekt Arc. He thinks more pitchers will realize its benefits, but it’s still very much a hitters’ tool. High-speed cameras are used to dissect their mechanics, weighted bats have helped to increase their bat speed, Blast Motion (a sensor placed on the knob of bats) became popular for its instant swing metrics. But a hitter’s best chance of keeping up with contemporary velocity and break, coaches say, is training the eyes by seeing those pitches as often as possible.

Virtual-reality hitting machines developed out of that concept, helping to spawn physical pitch-replicators like iPitch. Trajekt has taken it to another level — adding the visual of an opposing pitcher and the freedom of movement that has made it feel more lifelike.

“Some really high-tech machines, tools, toys, don’t really exist on the hitting side,” Hoskins said. “For this to kind of be the first big thing obviously means there’s more coming. There’s always ideas coming; it’s just, ‘How do you execute them?’ But this is a great start.”

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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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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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