MLB season’s midway point a good time to analyze individual awards races and rate best/worst team moves

Major League Baseball reached its halfway point with the Athletics, Cardinals, Marlins, Nationals, Pirates, and White Sox all unexpectedly contending for postseason berths.

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It won’t stay that way for some of those teams, but it speaks to the unsettled nature of this season.

Outside of the Yankees and Rays, there’s not an American League team you could confidently predict to finish over .500. The National League is deeper, but it would still be a surprise if the Dodgers did not win their third consecutive pennant.

The parity has an NFL-type feel.

The same is true for the individual award races. The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani is lined up to win his third consecutive NL Most Valuable Player plaque and fourth straight overall. But there is no clear favorite in the AL beyond a designated hitter (Houston’s Yordan Alvarez) or a great player on a bad team (Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr.).

A few other thoughts on the first half:

MVPs: Ohtani and Witt: Let’s not overthink this in the NL. Ohtani has given the Dodgers 13 starts with a 1.58 ERA and posted a .963 OPS with 46 RBI as a hitter.

The AL is wide open with Aaron Judge, the 2024 and ‘25 MVP, on the injured list since June 5 and not expected back in right field for the Yankees before August. Witt has been the best overall player, but not by a wide margin over Alvarez, Yankees outfielder Cody Bellinger, or Athletics first baseman Nick Kurtz.

Keep an eye on Pete Alonso if the Orioles make a run and another first baseman, Yankees RBI machine Ben Rice.

Cy Young: Cam Schlittler (Yankees) and Jacob Misiorowski (Brewers). Schlittler is up to 100 innings, already 27 more than last season. The Yankees will have to be careful with how they use him in the second half and that could open the door to somebody else.

Guardians rookie Parker Messick doesn’t get a lot of attention, but has been excellent.

Ohtani has said his goal is to win the Cy Young for the first time. But Misiorowski’s numbers have been so impressive, particularly the 138 strikeouts over 93 innings.

Rookie of the Year: It’s disrespectful to the quality of baseball in Japan that 26-year-old slugging White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami is considered a rookie by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. But he is.

Messick, Tigers shortstop Kevin McGonigle, and Toronto third baseman Kazuma Okamoto are solid candidates in the AL. Cardinals second baseman JJ Wetherholt and Reds infielder Sal Stewart are the NL favorites.

Manager of the Year: In the AL, Aaron Boone deserves some sort of trophy for managing nine years in New York.

Milwaukee’s Pat Murphy has won twice in a row in the NL. Dave Roberts hasn’t won since 2016. Sure, the Dodgers have the highest payroll but he’s the Joe Torre of his time.

Walt Weiss has given the Braves a seamless transition from Brian Snitker. He’d be my choice.

Best offseason move: The market cratered for Murakami, and he settled for two years and $34 million from the White Sox.

What a steal he has been for Chicago. Murakami had 20 homers and 41 RBIs in his first 57 games and has batted second or third all season for an ascendant team.

Honorable mentions: Dylan Cease gave the Blue Jays a 2.75 ERA and league-leading 118 strikeouts through 14 starts. It’s an expensive deal (seven years, $174 million) that looks good for now.

Kyle Schwarber was a stay, not a move. But the Phillies are getting what they paid for with the DH, on and off the field.

Worst offseason move: The Dodgers signed Kyle Tucker to a two-year, $114.92 million deal in January with player options for 2028 and ’29 worth an additional $53.5 million a season.

He has been barely a league-average hitter, chasing more pitches than usual and hitting the ball on the ground more often. His play in right field has taken a dip, too. Los Angeles has the financial wherewithal to absorb a bad contract. But Tucker has a .592 OPS at Dodger Stadium and has dropped in the lineup from second to sixth.

Dishonorable mention: Bo Bichette (Mets). He had a .570 OPS through June 2 for a last-place team, but has hit well since. This expensive signing (one season, $52 million) might not look so bad in September, but the infielder was a major reason for the team’s terrible first half.

Anthony Rizzo was a sixth-round pick of the Red Sox in 2007 out of Marjorie Stoneman Douglass High in Parkland, Fla., the same school that has since produced Jesús Luzardo and Roman Anthony.

Rizzo shot up the prospect charts and was in Double-A by 2010. He was traded to the Padres after the season in the ill-fated deal for grouchy Adrian Gonzalez.

He went on to become an All-Star, Gold Glover, and World Series winner with the 2016 Cubs. But his first organization always held special meaning for him.

“Getting drafted by the Red Sox is something I’ll always cherish,” Rizzo said.

Here’s something you might not know: Rizzo was interested in coming back.

After being traded from the Cubs to the Yankees in 2021, Rizzo became a free agent. He called Sox assistant general manager Raquel Ferreira that offseason and said he wanted to return to the organization.

“I was like, ‘Hey, you guys need to sign me,’ ” Rizzo said. “I still love the ties in Boston. I had a lot of close friends there.”

But with Bobby Dalbec coming off a good season, the Sox weren’t interested in acquiring a first baseman. Rizzo stayed with the Yankees to finish out his career and returned to the Series in 2024.

Now retired, Rizzo will be back at Fenway Park for the Yankees-Sox game Sunday night, working for NBC on its pregame show and contributing insights during the game.

Rizzo played 23 regular-season games at Fenway in his career and had a modest .641 OPS. But he homered off Nate Eovaldi in the memorable 2021 AL Wild Card Game.

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A few other observations on the Red Sox:

▪ Sox fans have experienced two championships since 2013 and five last-place finishes. They know how to tell a good team from a bad one.

Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow knows this, having played parts of five seasons in Boston, including the roller coaster seasons from 2012-15.

But Breslow told the Globe’s Tim Healey that a team with what at the time was the fourth-worst record in baseball wasn’t necessarily going to be sellers.

“We’ve got a lot of baseball games to play between now and [the trade deadline], and we’re going to do everything we can to get the ship righted for 2026,” he said.

The ship is stuck on a reef, and the fans get that. Most would prefer to see some momentum toward a better 2027 than clinging to the idea that the Sox will suddenly turn the season around.

▪ Interim manager Chad Tracy understandably trusts his veteran relievers to tell him if they need to get in games to stay sharp.

But he overplayed that hand with Aroldis Chapman, who appeared in only four games from May 21-June 21, pitching four innings. Chapman then faced the Rockies on Monday and allowed four hits to the four hitters he faced and blew a 2-0 lead.

Chapman had his usual velocity, but uncharacteristically left pitches over the plate. The game-winning triple by Jake McCarthy was a middle-middle fastball.

Tracy and pitching coach Andrew Bailey were riding a hot hand and let Chapman call the shots. But four appearances in a month?

▪ The Sox have used seven players as leadoff hitters. Going into the weekend, they had a .301 on-base percentage and had scored 39 runs over 79 games. Only the Guardians, Reds, and Giants had lower OBPs.

The Red Sox traded Rafael Devers last season because he was insubordinate. Turns out that was a trend.

Devers refused to play first base in 2025, even turning down an in-person appeal from principal owner John Henry (who also owns the Globe). Then he was traded to the Giants on June 15 and played first base on July 22.

Now Devers has embarrassed the Giants, refusing to leave the game for a pinch runner at Miami last Sunday.

With San Francisco down by a run against the Marlins, rookie manager Tony Vitello sent Jonah Cox into the game after Devers drew a walk. Devers wagged a finger at Vitello and wouldn’t leave the field until umpire Nate Tomlinson forced the issue.

Devers took off his helmet and used it to shield television cameras from seeing him cursing as he walked back to the dugout. He then jumped out of the way when bench coach Jayce Tingler tried to pat him on the backside and went right to the clubhouse.

It was wholly unprofessional.

Devers refused to speak to reporters after the game. Then he claimed Tuesday that it was just a misunderstanding and blamed the media for blowing it out of proportion.

He has one stolen base in the last two seasons. Of course, Vitello was going to run for him in that situation. He just wanted to show up his inexperienced manager.

Vitello, who coached at the University of Tennessee before taking the Giants job, said Devers sat with him on the flight back to San Francisco, and they had a “good conversation.” He said the flap was just a product of Devers’s competitiveness.

The Sox should have been more honest with Devers about their pursuit of third baseman Alex Bregman before the 2025 season. He deserved to be in the loop and had every right to be annoyed.

But once Triston Casas was lost for the season with a knee injury, Devers should have volunteered to learn first base for the good of the team. He sulked instead, forcing Henry to get involved.

Henry had signed Devers to a $313.5 million extension two and a half years before. When times got tough, that didn’t buy him an ounce of loyalty.

As someone who covered Devers from his major league debut until the trade and spoke with him often over the years, I saw three factors change him.

The dismantling of the 2018 Red Sox left him on an island in the clubhouse as all his mentors were culled from the roster.

I also believe he saw the new contact as having achieved his biggest goal, rather than as a reason to work harder and become a team leader.

He also took the acquisition of Bregman too personally, making it about his ego and not what helped the team.

Now, Vitello looks weak, and Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey has to find a way to make it work with Devers, who is due $225 million from 2027-33. Posey said he would sit down with Devers and talk to him about setting a good example as a leader in the clubhouse.

Good luck with that.

Breslow has taken a lot of heat this season, and justifiably so. But getting the Giants to take all of that contract looks like a coup.

Alex Cora, we’re told, is having the best summer of his life. He’s been traveling with his family, coaching his sons, and even spent time in Boston over the last week, attending two World Cup games (see above, with NESN’s Tom Caron) and visiting a few favorite restaurants. Now that the Mets have fired Carlos Mendoza, a door back into baseball has opened, too, for the former Red Sox manager. Cora played for the Mets from 2009-10 and is close with Carlos Beltrán, a senior adviser with the team. Beltrán was set to manage the Mets in 2020 but was fired before the season in the wake of the Astros scandal. If Beltrán wants the job again, owner Steve Cohen will have a tough call. But being a rookie manager in New York isn’t easy, even for a Hall of Fame player. Cora would bring big-market experience and a winning pedigree … The Brewers got the best of the Sox in the trade that sent Kyle Harrison (8-1, 2.50 ERA), David Hamilton, and Shane Drohan to Milwaukee for Caleb Durbin, Andruw Monasterio, and Anthony Seigler. But Milwaukee erred in trying to replace Durbin at third base with free agent Luis Rengifo, who signed for $3.5 million. He hit .205 with a .534 OPS over 57 games before being released Tuesday … Ah, the life of a major league manager. Boone had to tell Jazz Chisholm not to play second base with a lollipop in his mouth after Monday’s game against the Tigers in Detroit. “I talked to him about it, and it should be over with,” Boone said. “I mean, let’s face it, I was annoyed by it.” Chisholm laughed it off. “I love lollipops. I like candy. I like something to distract me a little bit,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a bad look. I’m playing a game, a kid’s game.” … Oakland Coliseum, beloved by some and reviled by others, could be closed by the end of the year, as there are events booked only through December. At some point, the plan is to tear down the Athletics’ former home so the property can be redeveloped … Justin Verlander, 43, has made one start for the Tigers because of hip and hamstring issues. The Blue Jays placed 41-year-old Max Scherzer (back spasms) on the injured list June 17, and he has made six starts with a 10.23 ERA. It doesn’t feel like baseball will have another 300-game winner any time soon, if ever again, given how starters are used. Verlander has 266 career victories and Scherzer 222. The Yankees’ Gerrit Cole is third among active pitchers with 155 … The Friends of the Ted Williams Baseball Camp will host a luncheon and silent auction from 12-4 p.m. on July 12 at Loon Lake Lodge in Lakeville to benefit The Jimmy Fund. Sports memorabilia, tickets, and golf and hotel packages are available. Register by July 8 by searching Ted Williams Camp on eventbrite.com … Because a few new readers have asked, mentioning a Sox player’s birthday is a nod to the late Nick Cafardo, who made it a weekly staple. The general rule is to make it somebody born on the date the column is published and is still with us. As for this week, happy 74th birthday to Joe Sambito. The lefthanded reliever from Brooklyn played 11 seasons in the majors, the final two with the Red Sox from 1986-87. He worked primarily as a setup man but had 12 saves in ’86 for the American League champions. Sambito had a better career than most. He was an All-Star in 1979 with the Astros and received Cy Young votes in 1980. Sambito also appeared in 10 postseason games. He worked as an agent after he was done playing. His son, Gio, pitched for Air Force.

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