League Chat Box

Lead Story - 12/8/2025

Mid-Season Report

The Astros and Indians: Two Machines, One Crown
The Astros hit like they’ve seen the scouting report on history itself.

At 53–25, with a +138 run differential and 427 runs on the board, Houston has played the first half like it’s trying to end the debate early. Jeff Bagwell is not merely good; he’s imperial. A .345 average, 27 home runs, 80 runs driven in, and an OPS north of 1.140. He hits as if the pitcher has wronged him personally, then runs the bases with the cold efficiency of a first baseman who still moves like a catcher who never was.

Behind him, Yordan Alvarez at .291 with 19 homers and 66 RBI is the second hammer in a lineup built like a physics experiment. The rest of the order is thick with hard contact and just enough speed. And every night, Justin Verlander stalks the mound like a rebuttal to the idea of aging: 11–2, 2.21 ERA, 110 strikeouts, a WHIP that would have looked at home in 1968.

If there is such a thing as a favorite in a league that spans a full century, it is Houston.

But standing just a step behind, not cowed in the least, are the 1996 Indians at 51–27, with 456 runs scored and a +110 differential. Where Houston is clinical, Cleveland is baroque. The lineup is long and loud.

Albert Belle hits .316 with 21 home runs and 60 RBI; he does not so much swing as detonate. Manny Ramirez is at .306 with 25 homers and 64 RBI, a right-handed Ruth with slightly less whimsy and slightly more hair. Behind them, Brian Giles and Jeff Kent keep the pressure constant. The runs come not in drips but in flood.
On the mound, Luis Tiant is their anchor and their argument. At 12–4 with a 3.06 ERA and 117 strikeouts, he turns every start into a choreography of hesitation and late movement. His delivery shows the hitter his back; his stuff shows them the door. He is as much performance artist as pitcher, and for half a season, it has worked.

If the Astros are the league’s coldest machine, the Indians are its loudest engine. The standings say the two best teams might be destined to meet for everything, but baseball has never been much for destiny.

The Nationals and Yankees: Between Myth and Modernity

The 2019 Nationals, at 42–36, are a good team that sometimes looks like something better trying to remember itself. They’ve scored 386 and allowed 339; they haven’t quite found the terrifying peak their talent suggests, but at the season’s midpoint, they still sit in the third playoff position.

Juan Soto, 21 in the cards if not in this chronology, is at .292 with 27 home runs and 60 RBI. His OPS is over 1.000 and his at-bats feel less like confrontations and more like negotiations he has already won. Opposite him, Anthony Rendon hits .283 with 19 homers and 49 driven in, lining doubles into the gaps with an accountant’s calm.

On the mound, Max Scherzer is 10–5 with a 3.20 ERA and 99 strikeouts. Those numbers, excellent in any era, would look even better if he weren’t asked so often to carry the bullpen on his back. Scherzer’s genius has always been intensity; half a season in, he looks like a man prepared to drag a flawed club into October by sheer force of will.

Then there are the 1924 Yankees, who might be a story even if they were losing. They are not. At 40–38, they cling to the fourth and final playoff spot, powered by two bats that have refused to surrender their place in history.
Babe Ruth, age 25 and still in the act of becoming himself, hits .339 with 31 home runs and 84 RBI. His OPS is a supernova. The swing is long, looping, almost careless. The ball does not seem to leave the park; it seems to escape it. Beside him, Lou Gehrig hits .301 with 20 homers and 78 RBI, the quieter storm in the same sky.
The Yankees do not prevent runs with anything like the efficiency of the Astros or Indians — 409 scored, 358 allowed — but they hit with such sustained violence that they remain dangerous in any series. Al Mamaux, 10–4 with a 3.26 ERA, is a sturdy if unspectacular ace, and Herb Pennock has emerged as one of the league’s best relievers.

If the season ended today, the playoffs would belong to Houston, Cleveland, Washington, and New York. But 154 games is a long road. Behind them, the Giants, Cardinals, Dodgers, and Cubs all circle within striking distance, waiting for someone in the top four to blink.

The MVP Race: Ruth and the New Pretenders

If baseball still believed in the idea of a Most Valuable Player as a single figure, unambiguous and towering, the midseason favorite would be wearing pinstripes and swinging a bat like a cathedral bell.

Babe Ruth sits atop the ballot with Ruthian indifference:
.339 average
.439 on-base
.756 slugging
31 home runs, 84 RBI in 78 games
These are numbers that do not invite comparison so much as end it.

But this is the Decade Duel, and history is crowded.
Sammy Sosa of the 1970 Cubs has, in many ways, matched Ruth blow for blow:
.345/.436/.769
33 home runs, 71 RBI
a 1.205 OPS that actually tops the Babe’s
He plays right field with a flair that feels almost anachronistic among the old wool uniforms and flannel caps. Yet his Cubs hover at 39–39, a .500 team in a league that punishes imperfect pitching. Writers have long argued over the line between greatness and value; Sosa is forcing that argument again.

Jeff Bagwell, the fulcrum of the league’s best team, makes a different case:
.345/.431/.718
27 home runs, 80 RBI
playing Gold Glove defense at first for a club with the best record in the league

If Ruth is the most spectacular and Sosa the most explosive, Bagwell may be the most essential. Should the Astros finish on top, his candidacy will come with the full weight of a champion.

Mark McGwire (.324, 33 home runs, 72 RBI) looms in St. Louis, a muscle-bound argument that raw power still belongs in the conversation. Barry Bonds (.311/.434/.628), Juan Soto, Manny Ramirez, and Albert Belle all hover in the neighborhood where votes are cast and reputations are made.

Half a season gone, and the MVP race looks less like a ladder and more like a constellation. The brightest stars are Ruth, Sosa, Bagwell, and McGwire. Whether value belongs to the best player, the best hitter, or the best player on the best team will be a question the second half tries to answer.

The Cy Young: Verlander, Tiant, and the Old Fury

If the MVP race is crowded, the Cy Young race has a clearer front-runner and a gallery of challengers.
Justin Verlander has done something rare: he has taken a league full of legends and made them look ordinary.
11–2
2.21 ERA
110 strikeouts in 118 innings
opponents hitting barely enough to justify bringing bats to the park

He is, at midseason, both the ace of the best team and the most complete pitcher in the league. His candidacy is as straightforward as his fastball.

Just behind him, it is Luis Tiant, twisting his body into knots and hitters into frustration.
12–4
3.06 ERA
117 strikeouts

more innings than Verlander, more decisions, more nights carrying a defense that is not always graceful
Where Verlander’s case is clean, Tiant’s is romantic: the workhorse, the showman, the man who takes the ball and keeps it until someone pulls it from his hand.
Bob Gibson, naturally, refuses to leave the conversation.
8–6
2.80 ERA
135 innings, 10 complete games

In another universe — one where his Cardinals score just a few more runs — he might be leading this race. Instead he stands as an emblem of something every baseball man knows: wins and losses are the noisiest statistics.
Pedro Martínez, 7–8 with a 2.91 ERA and 132 strikeouts for a 34–44 Boston team, might be the most dominant pitcher on a per-batter basis. His WHIP of 0.91 sparkles, his strikeout rate leads the league, and his losses say more about his offense and bullpen than about Pedro himself. If the Red Sox wake up, he could still surge into the first tier.

From the bullpen, Hoyt Wilhelm has turned the knuckleball into an electoral issue:
5–2
1.76 ERA
15 saves in 31 appearances

He is the rare reliever whose impact has been profound enough to earn Cy Young points. Beside him, Herb Pennock and others show that relief work is no longer just for the tired and the old.

Rounding out the pack, Max Scherzer (10–5, 3.20), Jason Schmidt (8–6, 3.49, 111 SO), and Mamaux and Ford for the Yankees give the race its second tier. All have been excellent; only a historic second half could pull them past Verlander and Tiant.

Greatness at the Edges
Awards and standings do not tell the entire story of a half-season lived between centuries.

They do not fully capture Cal Ripken, hitting a modest .257 but anchoring a beleaguered Orioles club with 15 home runs and the same square-jawed persistence that carried him through another lifetime in Baltimore.
They do not quite do justice to Lou Gehrig, whose “mere” 20 homers and 78 RBI would be headline material in most years, but here make him the quieter luminary on his own team.

They do not explain why Pedro Martínez, Bob Gibson, and Max Scherzer can all pitch brilliantly and still leave the mound too often with their shoulders slumped.
Nor do they capture the daily thrill of seeing Bonds from 2001 glare into a 1918 sun, or Soto at 21 stand in the same outfield conversation as Ruth, or Sammy Sosa taking his cuts like someone who has no intention of deferring to ghosts.

The Road Ahead
So, at midseason, this is what we know:
The Astros and Indians look like the two best teams in the league.

The Nationals and Yankees hold the inside track on the remaining playoff berths, but by no unshakeable margin.
The Giants, Cardinals, Dodgers, and Cubs are close enough to make every series in July and August feel like September.

Ruth, Sosa, Bagwell, and McGwire are writing an MVP race that would make any historian dizzy.
Verlander leads the Cy Young race by a nose, chased by Tiant, Gibson, Pedro, and a knuckleballer old enough to be half the league’s father.

In the end, this is the real prize of a league like this, beyond trophies and awards. It takes men from different calendars and drops them into the same batter’s box, asks them all the same question: What can you do now?

At midseason, the answer is simple:
Quite a lot.

And none of it is finished.

11/13/2025

Season 18 draft order

Decade draft/Franchise Draft
1/12 ExpatBama 2022 Astros + Jeff Bagwell
2/11 Midget 2009 Dodgers + Duke Snider
3/10 REVEJB 2019 Nationals + Bryce Harper
4/9 Joshbonds25 1996 Indians + Luis Tiant
5/8 Davrogbro62 1970 Cubs + Sammy Sosa
6/7 Jimgriddy 1983 Orioles + Dave McNally
7/6 dalbpho8 1968 Cardinals + Mark McGwire
8/5 Lordhawke 1955 Tigers + Justin Verlander
9/4 Kingdude 1924 Yankees + Russ Ford
10/3 bodell82 1918 Giants + Barry Bonds
11/2 CoachPappy17 1931 Athletics + Vida Blue
12/1 Ndekar 1946 Red Sox + Pedro Martinez

7/8/2023

Team Year combos used

* = Division Winner

1900s
1900 Boston Beaneaters/Braves* (season 2)
1901 Pittsburgh Pirates
1902 Pittsburgh Pirates
1902 St. Louis Browns
1903 Boston Americans (Red Sox)
1904 New York Giants
1904 Philadelphia Phillies
1906 Chicago Cubs
1907 Chicago Cubs* (season 3)
1908 Chicago Cubs
1908 Philadelphia Athletics
1909 Philadelphia Athletics
1909 Chicago Cubs
1909 Pittsburgh Pirates
1909 Cleveland Naps
1909 Boston Red Sox


1910s
1910 Chicago Cubs* (season 5)
1910 Boston Red Sox
1910 Pittsburgh Pirates
1911 Chicago Cubs* (season 4)
1911 Philadelphia Athletics
1912 Philadelphia Athletics
1912 Chicago Cubs
1913 New York Giants
1914 Boston Red Sox
1915 Boston Red Sox
1915 Chicago White Sox
1916 Boston Red Sox
1916 Chicago White Sox
1917 Chicago White Sox
1919 New York Giants* (season 6)
1919 Cleveland Indians
1919 Detroit Tigers

1920s
1920 Cleveland Indians
1920 New York Giants* (season 1)
1923 New York Giants
1923 Pittsburgh Pirates
1925 New York Yankees* (season 8)
1926 New York Yankees
1927 New York Yankees
1927 Philadelphia Athletics
1927 New York Giants
1927 Washington Senators
1928 New York Yankees
1928 Philadelphia Athletics
1928 St. Louis Cardinals
1928 New York Giants
1929 Philadelphia A’s
1929 New York Yankees

1930s
1930 Philadelphia A's
1930 Chicago Cubs
1930 New York Yankees
1931 Chicago Cubs
1931 New York Giants
1932 New York Giants
1932 New York Yankees
1933 St. Louis Cardinals* (season 3)
1934 St. Louis Cardinals
1934 New York Yankees
1936 Detroit Tigers* (season 8)
1936 New York Yankees
1937 New York Yankees
1938 New York Yankees
1939 New York Yankees* (season 1)
1939 St. Louis Cardinals

1940s
1941 St Louis Cardinals* (season 6)
1941 Boston Red Sox
1941 Brooklyn Dodgers
1942 St Louis Cardinals* (season 4)
1942 New York Yankees
1943 St Louis Cardinals
1944 St. Louis Cardinals
1947 New York Yankees* (season 2)
1947 St. Louis Cardinals
1947 Brooklyn Dodgers
1947 Cleveland Indians
1948 Brooklyn Dodgers
1948 Boston Red Sox
1948 Cleveland Indians
1949 Brooklyn Dodgers
1949 New York Yankees* (season 5)
1949 Cleveland Indians

1950s
1950 Cleveland Indians
1950 St Louis Cardinals
1951 New York Yankees
1953 Chicago Cubs
1955 Cleveland Indians
1955 Brooklyn Dodgers
1956 Cleveland Indians
1956 Brooklyn Dodgers
1957 Brooklyn Dodgers
1957 Milwaukee Braves
1958 Milwaukee Braves
1958 Los Angeles Dodgers
1959 San Francisco Giants
1959 Milwaukee Braves
1959 Los Angeles Dodgers
1959 Pittsburgh Pirates
1959 Chicago White Sox

1960s
1961 Los Angeles Dodgers* (season 6)
1962 Cincinnati Reds
1962 St. Louis Cardinals
1963 Detroit Tigers
1963 St. Louis Cardinals
1964 San Francisco Giants
1965 San Francisco Giants* (season 5)
1966 Baltimore Orioles
1967 Baltimore Orioles
1967 Chicago White Sox
1967 Detroit Tigers
1968 Detroit Tigers
1968 Baltimore Orioles
1969 Baltimore Orioles
1969 San Francisco Giants
1969 Chicago Cubs

1970s
1970 Baltimore Orioles* (season 1) **Champions
1970 Minnesota Twins
1971 Baltimore Orioles
1971 San Francisco Giants
1972 San Francisco Giants
1972 Oakland Athletics
1972 Baltimore Orioles
1972 Cincinnati Reds
1973 Detroit Tigers
1974 Boston Red Sox* (season 4)
1974 Cleveland Indians
1975 Cleveland Indians
1976 Philadelphia Phillies
1977 Cincinnati Reds
1977 Boston Red Sox
1978 Philadelphia Phillies
1979 New York Yankees* (season 3)

1980s
1982 California Angels* (season 2)
1983 California Angels
1984 Montreal Expos
1985 New York Mets
1985 California Angels
1985 St. Louis Cardinals
1986 Houston Astros
1986 New York Mets
1987 New York Mets
1987 Oakland Athletics
1988 Cincinnati Reds
1988 New York Mets
1988 Montreal Expos
1989 Oakland Athletics
1989 Seattle Mariners
1989 Montreal Expos* (season 8)
1989 Texas Rangers

1990s
1990 Oakland Athletics
1991 Houston Astros
1992 New York Mets
1993 Texas Rangers
1995 Cleveland Indians
1995 Atlanta Braves
1996 Atlanta Braves
1996 Seattle Mariners
1997 Atlanta Braves* (season 5) **Champions
1997 Seattle Mariners
1998 Atlanta Braves
1998 Houston Astros* (season 8) ** Champions
1998 Los Angeles Dodgers
1998 Seattle Mariners
1999 Atlanta Braves
1999 Arizona Diamondbacks

2000s
2000 Atlanta Braves
2001 Atlanta Braves
2001 St. Louis Cardinals
2001 Boston Red Sox
2002 Atlanta Braves
2003 Florida Marlins
2004 Boston Red Sox* (season 2) **Champions
2004 Houston Astros* (season 3) **Champions
2004 Angels
2006 Boston Red Sox
2006 Los Angeles Dodgers*(season 4) **Champions
2006 Minnesota Twins
2007 Boston Red Sox
2007 New York Mets
2008 New York Mets
2008 Los Angeles Dodgers* (season 1)
2009 Philadelphia Phillies

2010s
2010 Boston Red Sox
2012 Boston Red Sox
2014 Los Angeles Angels
2014 Detroit Tigers
2015 Detroit Tigers
2016 Washington Nationals* (season 6) ** Champions
2016 Toronto Blue Jays
2016 Chicago Cubs
2017 Washington Nationals
2017 Cleveland Indians
2017 Los Angeles Dodgers
2018 Los Angeles Dodgers
2018 Milwaukee Brewers
2018 Washington Nationals
2019 Houston Astros
2019 Los Angeles Dodgers
2019 Atlanta Braves

2020s
2021 Houston Astros
2023 San Diego Padres