30 thoughts on 30 teams as we head into the second half

Let's take a looksie around the league, shall we?

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Hi friends-

Thanks for your patience as I’ve been dealing with a personal matter. We’ve got a lot of baseball to cover so let’s dive in with Thirty Thoughts on All Thirty Teams, starting with the best teams and working our way to… the worst.

1. Tigers (59-34)

   It may be tough to remember now but the Tigers were picked by most experts to finish fourth in the AL Central.

   Those predictions were offensive to me, and I wondered if gambling sharks and MLB insiders had watched the same terrific Detroit team down the stretch as I did last season, or somehow tricked themselves into believing that Royce Lewis, Byron Buxton, and Carlos Correa would each play 150 games. Here’s what I wrote in my MLB preview:

   Unlike the Orioles and Phillies, Detroit got better as the season went on, then played incredible baseball in October, sweeping the heavily favored Astros on the road in the wild card round with crazy comebacks, heroic pitching from unlikely relievers, and Tarik Daniel Skubal.

   AJ Hinch is as good a postseason manager as there is in the game, and his young team feeds off his October experience. It was the veteran Astros who looked uncharacteristically jumpy against the Tigers last October, while Detroit played loose with nothing to lose.

   Now with some postseason experience under their belt: look out….This is a team to watch.

   I picked them to make the ALCS and people laughed at me. Crickets lately from the haters, however! Nobody doubts this team has a shot at winning it all anymore.

2. The Dodgers (56-37)

   Is this the least enjoyable 56-37 team in the history of baseball to watch day in and day out? I’m coming around to the idea that teams should be forced to forfeit rather than be allowed to throw bullpen games day after day. You should get one bullpen day a week, then, as David Lynch said, you should fix your hearts or die.

   But if the boys in blue are going to keep breaking all the pitchers they draft and develop with their Driveline-on-Steroids philosophy, then openers and roster churn and 87 different dudes pitching for the team by August will define this era of Dodger baseball, even more than Shohei Ohtani will. This is the opposite of entertainment. It’s a slog and a groan.

   There’s no question that the Dodgers resources allow them to win this way, because they can just keep buying reinforcements when their throwing programs chasing velo and spin murder their homegrown guys. It doesn’t mean the product is fun to watch. I miss it when starting pitchers were main characters. I miss when those guys were left in too long. I miss getting attached to personalities. I watch the Dodgers every day and I can tell you that 50% of the time the bullpen door swings open I’ve never heard of the guy running out.

   Speaking of main characters: is Mookie Betts old now? His OPS is .703, which is .160 points lower than in 2024 and .284 points lower than it was in 2023. On one hand, the Dodgers did not place Betts on the injured list after he dropped 20-ish pounds due to a mystery illness the first week of the season. He should have had weeks to recover and regain the weight he lost, especially because as the smallest player on the team he did not have extra pounds to lose in the first place. He did not take time away to heal, but played through it instead. And here we are.

   On the other hand, before Mookie got sick the team had already decided to move him to the infield because he was slowing down in right. We probably won’t know if his subpar 2025 is due to illness, aging, or both, until we see what he can do next season, but this is something to watch.

3. Houston Astros (55-37)

   ….How? How are they doing this without Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker, or Alex Bregman? Jose Altuve has been putting up strong numbers, but his underlying metrics are awful and indicate a regression is coming….Can the same thing be said for the ‘Stros?

   The AL West is meh once again, and it will take the Mariners or Rangers getting hot to knock Houston off its perch. We here at the Long Game have placed way too much faith in the Ranges and Mariners lately, so congrats to the Astros on winning the AL West yet again.

4. Chicago Cubs (54-37)

   Is a guy saved in my phone under “Petey” with a baby picture (shared from his father) going to win the NL MVP? Pete Crow-Armstrong currently has the highest WAR in the NL at 4.7. He would become the first infant to win the MVP, so I am rooting for him.

5. Toronto Blue Jays (54-38)

With the United States of America firmly in its flop era, this is the perfect time for Canada’s team to storm the gates and win the trophy that celebrates America’s pastime. We do this to Canada every year in hockey. It’s only fair.