Hey all, welcome to the back half of the baseball season that is technically already more than halfway over. It’s like when people save their midlife crisis for 50, which always strikes me as pretty optimistic.

We’ve seen a nice little bump in subscribers of late and I’d like to make a very direct request: if you haven’t already, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription.I think it’s worth it but much more importantly, the more people who pay for the newsletter, the more time we can afford to spend on making it worthwhile. That’s just the reality of this model.

That said, today’s issue is totally free! One bit or bob for all 30 teams. Do you know how many teams 30 teams is? It’s a lot of teams, as it turns out.

Surely there’s something fun to say about every team. Let’s find out.

Blue Jays: Despite most of their offseason moves going awry, Toronto is leading the AL East! One reason is a glow-up from Addison Barger, an infield prospect turned outfield masher who hits some absolute tanks.

Yankees: Recently called up starting pitching prospect Cam Schlittler has a cat, triple-digit heat, and one more L in his name than you initially think.

I (HK) have had to say his name on live television just once and that was a nerve wracking couple of seconds. Godspeed to all the broadcasters out there.

Red Sox: We covered Boston’s overwhelmingly positive run-up to the All-Star break so, sorry, going negative here because it was so eye-opening. By the overall performance measure wOBA, Walker Buehler has the two worst qualified pitches in baseball — his cutter and four-seam, which together account for about 45% of his arsenal. Through that lens, his 6.12 ERA doesn’t seem like the worst-case scenario. Everything seems to be snowballing, though. Since June 1, he has 21 strikeouts and 20 walks … and has still given up nine homers.

I thought Buehler was a great upside bet over the winter, so I’m right there with the Red Sox front office in being bitterly disappointed. If this push toward playoff contention continues, they have to at least consider replacing him in the rotation.

Rays: Oh yeah, we should probably acknowledge that there is a tentative agreement in place for Stuart Sternberg to sell the Rays to a group led by Jacksonville developer Patrick Zalupski for about $1.7 billion. Of course, owners’ intentions for new ballparks do not always go as planned, but the most interesting part of current reporting is that the preference of new ownership is to build a stadium in Tampa, not back in St. Petersburg where the Trop was/is/apparently they’ll be back there in 2026. The Rays in Tampa proper is a worthwhile endeavor. The product on the field is worthy of far better attendance than they’ve generally garnered. It’s time to find out if a more convenient location can solve that issue.

Orioles: Charlie Morton is a man who can relate to some baseball writers. The 41-year-old pitcher uses Jason Isbell’s “Palmetto Rose” as his walk-in music, which led to a great story by the Baltimore Banner’s Andy Kostka that allows Morton the space to get thoughtful about music, history and his life.

Tigers: Yeah the major-league team is great and all but the Tigers also have the new No. 1 prospect per the Baseball Prospectus Midseason Top 50. That’s Kevin McGonigle, a shortstop drafted out of high school in 2023 who has torched the lower minors with the combo of contact-making and contact-optimizing skills that make you a No. 1 prospect. He’s not a huge guy, but he packs punch in the swing without jumping at bad pitches. McGonigle only just got the promotion to Double-A, so there are boxes yet to check, but things are looking very, very good in Detroit.

Royals: The Royals, who maybe employ one outfielder that can hit, have gone full 2015 by using a roster spot on a pinch running specialist a la Terrance Gore. His name is Tyler Tolbert, and he has 14 plate appearances in 24 games played. This would be more fun if it were October.

Twins: I enjoy Byron Buxton providing a newsworthy and unambiguous response to an All-Star media day question about trade rumors: “I can’t be traded,” he said, “I got a no-trade clause. I’m a Minnesota Twin for the rest of my life.”

(if you click through on that post, you can watch the video of his answer)

Guardians: Let this Cleveland lineup that got no-hit back in 1993 remind you that almost every shortstop taken in the draft this week will not be a shortstop.

White Sox: Former No. 3 overall pick Andrew Vaughn, shipped out for Aaron Civale while running a .189 batting average, has whacked two homers and driven in 10 runs in his first five games with Milwaukee. Things aren’t great.

Astros: The Astros’ pitching staff leads MLB in strikeouts by so much that the difference between the ‘stros in first place (930) and the Braves in second (878) is the same as the difference between second place and what would be 11th place. How did they get there? The one-two punch(out) of Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez, who each have an ERA under 2.75.

Mariners: One particular Mariner has been pretty well represented in this space so now we’re going to … keeping on Dumper-ing. Sorry! The Mariners have an especially good internal video team — their Pride month video received well-deserved kudos around the internet — and one of the things they do is subject pairs of players to lie detector tests. Cal Raleigh and his batterymate/best friend on the team Logan Gilbert did one together and the results are, frankly, riveting.

Rangers: Like the Phillies did with Cristopher Sanchez, the Rangers paid out Nathan Eovaldi’s All-Star bonus despite him not making the team. The story about this gesture is how I learned that Eovaldi has a 1.58 ERA in 91 innings — the lowest of any starter minimum 90 innings and just six short of what would be qualified. His 3.0 fWAR at the break is already higher than his full season totals from the last three years and fifth in the American League. I see why he was considered a snub!!

Angels: As a team, the Angels are second in the American League in homers. First is the Yankees, duh. But second is the Angels! Fourth in all MLB. Their offense on the whole is below average. Their position player fWAR ranks 25th. So why weren’t they represented in the Home Run Derby or the spontaneous All-Star swing-off? Well, no one guy has more than 21 homers (Taylor Ward), but six players have double-digit dingers.

A’s: Only 11 hitters have more homers than Nick Kurtz’s 17 since the 6-foot-5 masher made his MLB debut on April 23.

Phillies: Have you all noticed that Bryce Harper is wearing a puka shell necklace? Cause I sure have.

I don’t think I’ll enjoy the explanation, but I do want someone to ask him about it. And to check if anyone had, I did a search that led me to a story from 11 years ago, about Harper posting a picture of himself from a decade before that wearing a puka shell necklace in high school. My guy is 32 years old. This is not a case of someone who missed them the first time around. He’s doing the early aughts style on purpose.

Mets: Next week (7/22), the best broadcast in baseball will welcome their annual kidcaster. It works because Gary, Keith, and Ron are so superlatively skilled that even the addition of a child doesn’t detract from the level of insights relayed and because the kids they find are up to the task. Meet this year’s guest broadcaster, Antonio, via the moment he found out he was going to be in the booth.

I mean, look at how excited he was just to find out that Steve Gelbs knows his name.

Marlins: The Marlins are in third place. That probably says more about the Braves (and Nats) the Fish, but I have to admit I did not see that coming. Since the start of June they’re 21-18. That’s not, like, amazing, but it’s a winning record and good for fifth-best in the NL.

Braves: Here’s a category where the Braves are the best at something: wRC+ by rookies. Granted, they haven’t given that many plate appearances to rookies — the Marlins, who have a lot of rookies, have given over 1,100 more plate appearances to first-year players — but even by fWAR, the Braves are still fourth in baseball. Overwhelmingly, that’s coming from catcher Drake Baldwin, who has an .830 OPS and, until the Miz, topped NL Rookie of the Year speculation. But looking into the Braves’ rookies also introduced me to Nacho Alvarez Jr., a recently called up infielder who ranks among their top prospects. His legal name is not actually “Nacho” (it’s Ignacio), but he is listed as Nacho in many official places. I wonder what the threshold is for having your listed name be your nickname.

Nationals: Now I wish James Wood had won the Home Run Derby.

Cubs: “I play with a lot of energy in a game that doesn’t always require it,” Pete Crow-Armstrong says in this interview with Genius, the music site, from April. That quote-plus-context does a pretty good job of capturing how distinctive PCA is as a baseball player, but especially as a baseball star. It inevitably ends up sounding a little corny or forced or how-do-you-do-fellow-kids to try to articulate when an athlete has an It quality about them. But trust us, if you haven’t noticed yet, PCA is cool.

Brewers: The great problem solvers of baseball, really, the Brewers are right there stalking the Cubs partially because they found a guy to stick in left field instead of Christian Yelich (whose bat is OK but whose defense has tanked). That guy is Isaac Collins, a 28-year-old infielder with solid plate discipline who converted on the fly.

Infield training has turned out to be something like an accidental life hack in his new role, as Matthew Trueblood pointed out in June. Collins does the little hop you see a lot of infielders do, timed up to each pitch so their feet react to what’s happening instead of leaning or guessing. It’s not common in the outfield, but it might be soon. Collins is posting elite defensive numbers pretty much entirely on the back of getting great jumps on line drives.

Cardinals: If you had the St. Louis Cardinals making a Coldplay concert joke (reference? very tame allusion?), collect your prize.

Reds: Elly De La Cruz really wants to play 162 games, part of his evolution into a central figure in the Reds clubhouse.

Pirates: Since June 27, the day Ken Rosenthal reported veteran starter Mitch Keller was a candidate to be traded, Keller has a 1.44 ERA in 25 innings across four starts. I can only assume his agent is furiously cutting highlight reels and anonymously shipping them to contending GMs.

Dodgers: Do you know which Dodgers hitter has the best slash line? It’s Will Smith. The catcher with a white bread name — currently overshadowed by Shohei Ohtani and his merry band of fellow MVPs in LA and by Cal Raleigh’s Barry Bonds in the realm of backstops — is putting up a spicy season. At .323/.425/.540, Smith’s wRC+ ranks third-best in baseball among batters with at least 300 plate appearances, a hair ahead of Ohtani.

Padres: I (ZC) went to my first game at Petco Park recently and it is not at all mysterious why they routinely sell this place out. It seems like an easy equation — San Diego weather + team with some stars = sellouts — but that’s shortchanging the really terrific work they have done to make this ballpark experience elite. The area behind center field is hopping hours before game time, an affordable hub of craft breweries and vendors and entertainment that wraps San Diego’s best qualities into one nice baseball-shaped package. That’s how you build a lasting chokehold on a city’s heart.

Giants: The Giants have played 97 games so far this season. Rafael Devers, their relatively new designated hitter, has played 98 games this season. His erstwhile Red Sox had played one more game than the Giants before he was traded which means he could end the season at 163 games played. That’s not directly relevant to the reputation he developed during the end of his tenure in Boston, but it’s surprising enough in that context that I’m rooting for it. Rafael Devers: true gamer?

Diamondbacks: You are about to hear a whoooole lot about the Diamondbacks over the next couple weeks, mainly about GM Mike Hazen’s assessment of their chances ahead of the trade deadline. Arizona could own the deadline if they choose to, all without signaling anything about their intentions beyond 2025.

They have four significant contributors who will be free agents at the end of the season: Bats Eugenio Suarez and Josh Naylor, plus pitchers Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly. FanGraphs gives them just a 10% chance at making the postseason, so watch for some fascinating win-not-quite-now-but-soon deals.

Rockies: Ethan Holliday, son of Matt, brother of Jackson, landed with Colorado at the No. 4 pick in the MLB draft. If any promising prospect is going to try to make it with the Rockies, it might as well be someone who was literally born into it.