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  • Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior WriterSep 20, 2024, 07:00 AM ET

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    • Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com
    • 2-time Sports Emmy winner
    • 2010, 2014 NMPA Writer of the Year

“The Do The Flop Guy liked to dance all the time
But he couldn’t do it right no matter how hard he tried
He had two left feet from an accident at birth
And every time he danced, he always flops face first
Then one day as he jumped in the air
Everybody turned and looked and they pointed and they stared
He had a bright idea, right before he hit the floor
He shouted: “Everybody do the flop!”
A new dance craze was born!

Do, do, do the flop!
Do, do, do the flop!
Everybody do the flop!”

“Everybody do the Flop” — LilDeuceDeuce

Alonza Barnett III wasn’t trying to break the internet over Labor Day weekend. The James Madison quarterback was trying to convince everyone that he had broken something — Arm? Sternum? Spirit? Who cares? — in the Dukes’ season opener against Charlotte. Whatever kind of break it might take to draw an unsportsmanlike penalty against the 49ers defender who’d just given him a two-handed shove in the chest.

Yes, there was a flag on the play. And yes, the first, thrown by the center judge who saw Barnett fall the ground, was tossed in the direction of Niners defensive lineman Dre Butler, the pusher. Then there were two flags on the play, as another yellow was shown to the pushee: JMU’s No. 14 and new No. 1 thespian. Why?

“I think maybe one roll and one little thing would be good,” JMU head coach Bob Chesney said of his signal-caller’s fall.

Yeah, Barnett did way more than that.

The clip has more than 10 million views on the ESPN College Football X account alone. Barnett said his phone went wild and stayed that way for days, as friends and strangers alike kept tagging him on their reposts and kept texting him about it, as if he hadn’t seen it. As he settled down into midweek presentational speech class, the professor threw the clip up on the classroom video screen as an example of unnecessarily overdramatizing one’s presentation.

Barnett told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that was when he realized: “Oh man. This is going to stick for a while.”

So, it would seem, is flopping. Every weekend of this still-young 2024 college football season has produced at least one social media sensation of a flop, whether to draw flags against their opponents or to slow those same opponents down during this age of hammer-down offenses.

play

0:36

‘That’s bad acting’: UNLV player appears to fake injury before 3rd-down play

Antonio Doyle Jr. appears to fake an injury and gets right back up before a third-down play vs. Kansas.

The latter is still relatively new; it was just one year ago that the NCAA implemented review and appeal rules designed to curb choreographed collapses by perfectly healthy, young athletes seeking nothing more than to stop the clock and disrupt the rhythm of a quick-moving march toward the end zone.

“That is an integrity issue,” Steve Shaw, the NCAA national coordinator of officials, said. He said the review regulations have certainly decreased the bog-them-down fabricated falls, but they’re still far from being eliminated. “It’s not really the kind of teaching lesson we want from this sport we all love. Even if it looks funny, the motivation behind it, certainly in those cases, is not. The process is new and it can be difficult to enforce, but the effort is happening now. It has to.”

Everyone hates that stuff. Everyone. Even those who have had players do it. See: Kiffin, Lane.

“There has to be some sort of consequence,” said the Ole Miss coach, who has made a career out of engineering high-powered offenses.

Even as he clamors for discipline, Kiffin has admitted to having a few players take a dive in the same manner that has frustrated him over the years.

“We have the opportunity to review film now and file an appeal for review from the conference,” Kiffin said. “If coaches are really willing to go through with that and it is really enforced and ruled to be an obvious faking of an injury, and then there’s a real penalty or fine, I can guarantee you it will go away just like it showed up.”

The former — the OG plop, the timeless self-toss, the conscious collapse in search of acting one’s way into a favorable flag — has been around as long as leather oblong spheres have been carried up and down football fields. Or soccer balls have been kicked down the pitch. Or as long as LeBron James has been playing hoops.

Flopping, as a verb, officially means “to fall or plump down suddenly, especially with noise; drop or turn with a sudden bump or thud (The puppy flopped down on the couch.)” But a deep dive into the bottom half of Dictionary.com’s “flop” page reveals the sports meaning, found as the fifth iteration of the noun: “An exaggerated or dramatic fall intended to persuade officials to penalize the opposing team for a foul. (His comically oversold flop didn’t fool the referees at all.)”

Even the dictionary isn’t falling for the faux falling? So, why keep doing it?

“Why wouldn’t you?” replied Roman Harper, the former Alabama All-SEC safety-turned-Super Bowl champ-turned SEC Network analyst. Standing in the Gainesville, Florida, airport and watching the Barnett flop for the first time, he can’t stop laughing. Then he can’t stop critiquing.

“People are going to focus on the flop, and they should. But the issue is that the defensive lineman let himself get suckered into that shove,” Harper said. “That’s the true talent, to get that guy to do that. It’s probably the second hit of the altercation and it happens just as the ref is looking. The QB did his job. That was done. Then he did too much after. Way too much.”

How much of too much? Let’s take it to the experts not on the field, but in the fields of related expertise.

Ricky Morton, WWE Hall of Famer as one half of the legendary Rock ‘n’ Roll Express tag team, was so great at selling pain to audiences that it became known through the industry as “playing Ricky Morton.” His text: “That flop is a 10/10.”

Well, maybe for Starrcade or the Great American Bash. But what about football? Let’s take it to someone who knows both: Brock Anderson, former coveted high school linebacker, East Carolina Pirate, Major League Wrestling star and son of another WWE Hall of Famer in Arn Anderson. “That was gratuitous even by pro wrestling standards. If he would have just snapped off a bump right off the shove, he would’ve gotten the 15-yard penalty and maybe even [gotten] the guy ejected, which would have been diabolical,” he said.

But then, as any wrestler will tell you, the supporting cast can either raise you up or sink you. “After his lineman hit ’em with the CPR, should’ve been offsetting penalties.”

And it was.

For those of you who have never spent time in a unitard atop a pulled square of canvas or glued to a Sunday night pay-per-view, a snap bump is the chef’s kiss of rasslin’, a quick fall straight back into the shoulders with just enough bent legs into the air to convince the viewer that one clearly has just been unwittingly chopped down like a sequoia.

“That’s the key, right there. Landing on the meat of the upper back, between the shoulder blades, and then having their butt hit the ground… “

This explanation/addition/coaching is coming not from a football player or wrestler. No, she’s a hell of lot tougher than that. This is Jane Austin, co-founder of Hollywood Stunt Works, a stunt coordinator and performer with a list of credits that spans more than four decades, from 1980s TV staples “Airwolf” and “China Beach” to “Thor: Love and Thunder” and the “Avatar” sequels.

Remember “Terry Tate: Office Linebacker,” aka the greatest football-themed TV ad campaign of all time? Remember the woman who had her clock cleaned as she stood in the office hallway holding a stack of files? That was Austin, and she suffered a concussion. So, yeah, she knows how to sell the taking of a staged football hit.

After receiving the Barnett JMU video, Austin spent an entire 24 hours examining the moment. Once she was done laughing, she did a nuanced breakdown his artificial affliction.

“My coaching advice would be, just go down hard,” Austin said. “Go down as hard as you can, and just don’t do any dramatics. Lay there. Then give it a beat. Or, if you have to move, roll to your side. Stay down, no matter what, if you really want to take advantage and try to get a flag out of it. You have to give your audience, in this case the referee, a moment to think, ‘Oh man, that was horrible.’ So, all this other stuff, the jump up, the second roll, the lineman giving CPR, in my business I’d compare this to a stair fall, where you have a landing on the stairs. You do all this action and when you get to the landing, your momentum ends, but you’ve got to make yourself go down the rest of the stairs, right? Turn the corner and go down. Keep it going. Force yourself to do, like, exactly what this guy just did, don’t stop at the landing. Just keep it on the ground, man.”

When Austin is asked about the finer points of taking fake punches, sometimes a swing from a fellow actor that never comes closer than 4 or 5 inches to the face, she refers to “John Wick”, “Indiana Jones” and watching fake fight film the same way that football players watch game film. She says it’s about body reaction more than facial expression, which is helpful advice when you’re wearing helmet. And it’s about exaggerated body movement, but not overly quick movements. Instead, she explains, great stunt performers actually move a tiny bit slower than they would in a real-life fight. And one should always know where the camera is. Or, in this case, the people dressed in black-and-white stripes with whistles around their necks and yellow flags on their belts.

Honestly, it sounds like a lot. It seems very difficult to master. So, Austin — who just spent her summer perilously hanging from aircraft somewhere high above Pandora — how in the wide, wide world of flops is a non-classically trained college football player supposed to pull off penalty-pulling pratfalls with the greatest of ease?

The same way anyone makes it to Carnegie Hall. Or the College Football Playoff.

“Practice, practice, practice,” she said chuckling, but also sort of serious. “Film yourself, just like football practice, or look in the mirror. Get some crash pads or a mattress, some pillows from the couch, and have somebody shove you over and over. Land on your side, land on that meat of your back. Find what looks best. And study the pros. Watch the NFL guys flop. Watch good football movies. Imitate that. “The Longest Yard.” “Varsity Blues.” Those are professional stunts or stunt falls that look very real in a football setting.”

In other words, watch Austin’s people. Watch Morton’s people. Watch Anderson’s people. With some proper training, perhaps we might see Barnett walking from the Armed Forces Bowl red carpet to the Emmys, Oscars or Golden Globes to accept an acting award. Hey, football people have been teaching Hollywood folks how to properly throw and catch passes since Harold Lloyd starred in “The Freshman” in 1925. Is it time to flip — and flop — the script?

“Who knows?” Austin said. “Maybe if I get tired of crashing into stuff for a living, there’s a future in this for me as a football flop coach. They need it.”

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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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