The start of All-Star festivities signals the end of the first half of the Major League Baseball season, and this season’s first half has been one for the history books.
In this week’s roundtable, FOX Sports’ MLB reporters Rowan Kavner and Deesha Thosar share their standout players, teams and moments from the first half of the season, and look ahead to the second half:
Among the first-half league leaders for home runs (Cal Raleigh, 35), batting average (Aaron Judge, .360), ERA (Hunter Brown, 1.82) and strikeouts (Garrett Crochet, 151), who do you see still having the lead at the end of the season? And who’s your most-likely pick to slip
Kavner: I think Judge ends up winning his first batting title. Jacob Wilson should continue to challenge him, but even after Judge looked somewhat mortal in June, he (.360) still has a commanding lead over Wilson (.335) and company. Let’s also remember that despite his high whiff rate, Judge still managed to hit .322 last year. So it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he can keep something like this up.As for the other standouts, I don’t forecast any of them still leading their respective category by season’s end. We’ve already seen Brown lose his grasp on the ERA lead after one blow-up outing, and I don’t expect Paul Skenes to surrender that advantage. Crochet is already getting close to his career high in innings, and Zack Wheeler and Tarik Skubal are at his heels. Raleigh’s lead might be the hardest to maintain as he gets chased by Judge and Shohei Ohtani. Considering Judge doesn’t have to catch every day, I expect him to take back the MLB home run lead by season’s end.
Thosar: I’ll go with Garrett Crochet as most likely to keep his strikeout lead at the end of the season, even though Zack Wheeler and Tarik Skubal are right on his heels. Wheeler should be lauded for once again being one of the most dominant pitchers in the National League, given how much more competitive the NL is compared to the weaker offenses in the American League. But that’s part of why I think Crochet and Skubal will have an easier time racking up strikeouts in the AL the rest of the way. Skubal got his Triple Crown moment last year. It’s Crochet’s time to shine this season. As far as who will slip, Mariners fans won’t like to hear it, but Cal Raleigh is due for some major regression in the second half after his scorching-hot start. The tax on his body will start to catch up to him and his slugging numbers will likely dip because of it. I think Aaron Judge will surpass Raleigh coming out of the All-Star break, and then hold onto that lead. History is on Judge’s side.
Which team has surprised you the most in the first half of the season, whether positively or negatively? And do you think we’ll see more of the same in the second half?
Kavner: The two biggest surprises are both negative ones, and it’s the Braves and the Orioles. If I had to pick one, it’s Atlanta. With the Orioles, there were at least questions about their rotation and their curious offseason decisions entering the year. With the Braves, a team most expected to again contend for an NL East crown, no one could’ve predicted this kind of disaster. We’re beyond the halfway mark, and they trail the Marlins. That is astonishing. Now, I don’t expect them to finish behind Miami by season’s end, but I also don’t project them to be a playoff team. They have no answer for the pitching injuries afflicting the group, and their offense right now is a bottom-10 unit in baseball. The latter, to me, is the most surprising part of their disastrous season. I expected a bounceback year from Michael Harris II. Instead, Harris and Ozzie Albies have been among the worst hitters in the sport at their respective positions.This feels like a lost year in Atlanta.
(Photo by Kelley L Cox/Getty Images)
Thosar: The Braves. They’re 40-51, 13 games behind the first-place Phillies, and 9.5 games back of a wild-card spot. Put another way, Atlanta has fewer wins than the Marlins (42) and just two more than the Pirates (38). That’s seriously shocking and terribly disappointing for Braves fans, who expected the club to, at the very least, make it a three-way dogfight with the Phillies and Mets for the division title. But they just continued spiraling after their 0-7 start to the season. The offense is underperforming. Their record-setting performance, when they recorded the highest team slugging percentage in baseball history, was just two years ago, and their core hasn’t changed. The rotation is in shambles after Chris Sale fractured his rib, so he’s out until late August, and Spencer Schwellenbach fractured his elbow, so he won’t return before September. Spencer Strider hasn’t reached his pre-injury dominance. Reynaldo Lopez went down after his first start of the season. At this point, it’s tough to envision the Braves climbing out of the hole they’ve dug themselves into, and it’s particularly bad timing as All-Star Game festivities take over Atlanta this weekend. The Braves look like they’re on the precipice of missing the playoffs for the first time in eight years.
Now, which player has surprised you the most in the first half? And will their season keep going the way it has the rest of the way?
Kavner: The Javier Báez resurgence is near the top of my list, but it has to be Cal Raleigh. For a switch-hitting catcher to lead MLB in home runs more than halfway through the season is remarkable. This didn’t exactly come out of nowhere — Raleigh did, after all, lead all catchers in homers each of the last three years — but what we’re seeing this year is something entirely different. He looks like a completely different force from the right side of the box, and we’re watching what will likely be the best season from a catcher in MLB history. Can’t say I saw that coming, even from the reigning American League Platinum Glove Award winner.Raleigh just passed Ken Griffey Jr. for the most home runs by a Mariners player before the All-Star break with his career-high 36th home run of the year and is only three away from tying Barry Bonds’ record for home runs before the break. Now, I can’t expect Raleigh to continue at this same pace all year, but he has demonstrated a special ability throughout his career to handle the rigors of his position without falling off in the second half. So, I do expect him to obliterate Salvador Perez’s record for the most home runs by a primary catcher in a single season. Raleigh is already just 12 home runs away from tying Perez’s mark.
(Photo by Evan Bernstein/Getty Images)
Thosar: Speaking of Cal Raleigh … it’s truly amazing how he’s inserted himself into the AL MVP conversation as a strong contender. He matched his home run total from last season on July 4. His 36 home runs have passed Ken Griffey Jr. for the most in franchise history before the All-Star break. Only Barry Bonds (39), Chris Davis, Mark McGwire, Reggie Jackson and Luis Gonzalez (37 each) have hit more home runs before baseball’s unofficial halfway point of the season, and Raleigh still has a few games remaining to add to his total. He’s been an elite hitting catcher these past couple of seasons, but his career OPS is .789. No one could’ve expected that OPS to rise to 1.017 this season, let alone leading Judge in the home run race. As previously mentioned, it will be tough (but not impossible) for Raleigh to keep this pace up in the second half. A regression is expected, but he’s already shattered expectations this deep into the season, so there’s no reason to count him out just yet.
Now that he’s back on the mound, we’re finally getting to see glimpses of the Shohei Ohtani the Dodgers signed to a then-record contract before 2024. What do you see from him in the rest of 2025, now that he’s a two-way player again?
Kavner: More of the same. He has demonstrated he still has triple-digit heat and filthy stuff on the mound coming off his second elbow reconstruction, but the Dodgers are going to be methodical and slow with Ohtani’s build-up as a pitcher. The most important thing for them, after all, is that he remains a healthy force in the box. They need his bat, especially with Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman struggling and with Max Muncy on the shelf. Ohtani was hitting .297 with a 1.034 OPS before he made his first appearance on the mound as a Dodger on June 16. Since then, he’s hitting .213 with an .851 OPS. Is the offensive drop-off correlated? It’s too early to say, but if it continues, I could see the Dodgers being even more careful about his pitching workload. I don’t expect him to be very active on the basepaths anymore — he has just one stolen base since he started pitching again — but another 50-homer season could be in the cards, and I expect him to win his fourth MVP trophy. After getting to finally watch him on the postseason stage for the first time last season, I’m looking forward to seeing him in his full form this October, even if his pitching outings remain somewhat abbreviated.
Thosar: I’m expecting the Dodgers to continue slowly ramping up Shohei Ohtani, with an emphasis on slowly, on the mound in the second half. They need him to be a two-way threat for a deep playoff push, so there’s little reason to push him before then. Coming back as a two-way player after his second major elbow surgery is all uncharted territory for Ohtani and the Dodgers, so they’ll continue to heavily rely on him to be up front about how he’s feeling both at the plate and on the mound. Still, that he has combined to allow just two hits, one earned run, and one walk across six innings (four starts) is pretty impressive, already. Fans are itching to see him go deeper into his outings, but the way that the Dodgers are handling it is for the greater good. Meanwhile from the dish, Ohtani is leading the NL with 31 home runs, which is the most in Dodgers franchise history before the All-Star break, and he entered Thursday with a .993 OPS that’s the third-best in the majors behind Judge and Raleigh. I’m expecting more of the same in the second half from the unicorn, who has barely slowed down since pitching again.
What has been your favorite moment of the 2025 season to this point
Kavner: This grab, from Denzel Clarke. I mean, just look at everyone’s face afterward. No one can comprehend what they saw. It’s one of the greatest catches in MLB history, and that’s not hyperbole. I’m still partial to the Gary Matthews Jr. catch, considering his back was to the ball when he made the ridiculous play, but the Clarke robbery is up there. From Pete Crow-Armstrong to Julio Rodriguez to Ceddanne Rafaela, there are some spectacular defensive center fielders in the game right now, but there’s no one more captivating to watch in the field than Clarke. He’s a walking highlight reel.
Thosar: As far as a moment I watched in person, has to be J.T. Realmuto and and Nick Castellanos sliding into home together against the Mets last month. I’ve never seen anything like it, when Realmuto was right on Castellanos’ heels as they rounded third, practically sliding home at the same exact moment. Almost topping the double slide was the home-plate umpire’s emphatic safe calls, one right after the other, followed by the standing ovation from Phillies fans at the sold-out Citizens Bank Park. Other than that, Judge and Ohtani trading home runs in the first inning of the highly-anticipated World Series rematch in Los Angeles back in May definitely stands out.
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.
Deesha Thosar is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.
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