MLB: Ranking the top storylines of the first half

San Francisco Giants

After their bullpen faltered in the NLDS just one year ago, they went out and signed one of the best relievers on the market in Mark Melancon, filling their only hole. Well, turns out they had a few more holes that needed some duct tape as they sit with a 34-56 record, 27 games back of the Dodgers in the NL West.

Poor seasons from anyone not named Buster Posey has definitely contributed to the surprising downturn in San Francisco, but with the club’s management handing out big dollar long-term contracts to a number of their core players prior to this season, plus their expenditures on the free agent market in recent seasons, the Giants could be facing a tough uphill battle to reach contention again in the near future with a limited farm system, pesky opt-out clauses and already being pressed against the luxury tax.

The one factor that they have working in their favor is that seemingly everyone is slumping this season, which means that a lot hasn’t gone right. That could all change pretty quickly. Brandon Belt still gets on base and Joe Panik has been just a bit below average at the dish, but Brandon Crawford‘s wRC+ of 65 is the worst that he’s had at any stop in his pro career in which he’s played more than a handful of games. If they get some production out of anyone in the outfield, they could start scoring runs again too!

While Madison Bumgarner has been out for the majority of the season, his absence isn’t the cause for their slacking. His replacement, Ty Blach, has been more than serviceable most outings, but the rest of their starting rotation hasn’t been the advantage they were thought to be. Matt Moore has the worst ERA among qualified pitchers at 6.04 and even though he’s actually been performing well with a 3.58 FIP, Jeff Samardzija leads the National League in losses with ten. Hey, it’s still one less than the reigning AL Cy Young champ.

The Giants being in contention with the Phillies for the worst team in baseball is a thrilling storyline on its own, but how they approach the MLB trade deadline could give them staying power for the next couple of weeks. Will they be able to get value for Johnny Cueto or potentially even Melancon? Will they start trading players not named Bumgarner, Posey or Crawford? This could get very interesting.

Chicago Cubs

The Chicago Cubs go off and win a World Series and everything in what was totally not a fluke season, and then return to being the Cubs of the previous 108 years? What the hell?

Much like the Giants, their foes from last year’s NLDS, their big name guys just aren’t performing. Miguel Montero had some choice words about his pitchers recently after allowing anyone that reached base to run around the bases at will. While this may not be anything by itself, could it be the symptom of something larger brewing in the clubhouse?

The Cubs (43-45) are in arguably baseball’s most winnable division given the talent they have, but instead they’re sitting below the .500 mark. They have plenty of time to turn things around, but with a 7.5 game deficit in the wildcard race and a 5.5 game disadvantage in the Central, they won’t have a ton of time to mess around. They’ll have to come out of the gate with some energy to start the second half.

How they’ll approach the deadline should be interesting as well. They already have enough talent to contend, on paper. Heck, they won the whole damn thing a year ago. If they’re not looking to make a big move, where do they turn to improve? The rotation? Somewhere offensively? Do they just start playing their best defensive lineup?

The Cubs fall from grace hasn’t been nearly as steep as San Francisco’s, but it has certainly been more surprising.

Juiced Balls

I am far from an expert on the topic of juiced baseballs, but Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer has made looking into whether or not the balls are juiced his pet project this season.

Home runs are up. Scooter Gennett was a home run machine for a day. The aforementioned Yonder Alonso is now an All Star. The home run spike is indisputable. Some say it’s batters taking a new approach with launch angles provided by Statcast. Some believe that with the rise in strikeouts, players are swinging for the fences more often, with the stigma of the “K” essentially leaving the game entirely. Both of those factors have likely contributed to the increased home run rate.

The balls still comply with the restrictions of MLB, but somehow they’re flying a bit further than they used to. While it’s not likely that we’ll get a definitive answer in the near future, the ramifications of these dingers could lead to a change in the rules.

When the pitchers dominate the game, the rules are changed to bring offense back into baseball. Perhaps the opposite will occur in the next decade? With the long-term ramifications of this one, it made the cut as one of the top five storylines of the first half.

Aaron Judge/Cody Bellinger

I almost feel like I could leave those two names right there and you’d know what I mean, so we’ll make this one quick. Judge is a monster at the plate and has been blasting past rookie records, Yankee records and more than likely a music store that sells records. Do brick and mortar music stores still exist? The point being Judge is good at baseball.

With 30 homers before the break, the most attention has been paid to his dingers, but for me the most fascinating part of Judge’s game is that he can also hit for average (.329), and more than holds his own in the outfield. Not bad for a literal giant.

Cody Bellinger wasn’t being compared to Aaron Judge before the season began, but the Dodgers rookie has put up 25 homers of his own this season while playing in 14 fewer games. His batting average isn’t quite as high (.264) and he doesn’t have the sheer power to demolish a baseball the same way that Judge has, but he sure has a perdy swing.

These two are the easy frontrunners for the Rookie of the Year awards in their respective leagues at the break, and Judge may even be the AL MVP if he keeps up at anything close to the pace he’s at. Meanwhile, Bellinger is still just 21 (turns 22 on Thursday) and is one of the driving factors behind his team’s huge surge over the past couple of months.

Bellinger and Judge will now likely be linked for the rest of their careers.

Milwaukee Brewers

There have been a few surprise teams this season from the Arizona Diamondbacks (53-36) and Colorado Rockies (52-39) who own both of the NL wildcard spots to the Minnesota Twins (45-43) who are 2.5 back in the AL Central and one game out of the second wildcard spot in the American League. But the Milwaukee Brewers take the cake as my most intriguing storyline so far this season because they’re in first place, in the same division as the Cubs and well ahead of schedule in terms of their rebuild efforts.

I’m not big on super teams outside of the Golden State Warriors, who are my local team, and even still I have a hard time rooting for them these days because it’s just expected that they’ll win. I like drama in my sports. There’s no fun (for me) in watching Michael Jordan or Tom Brady in the moment. I’ll definitely give them their due, but in the moment I’m always rooting for the underdog.

Part of that mentality is why I love baseball. Any team can be fun to watch, even when they’re bad. But when a team that is supposed to be bad starts contending? Oh man that’s the best.

Enter the Milwaukee Brewers, who I actually started following when I was writing over at an Astros site after the Carlos Gomez deal a couple of years back. The Brewers got one of my favorite Astros prospects, Brett Phillips, in that deal, so I started keeping an eye on them more and more. Since that move they’ve been adding talent from literally everywhere, and have built up a solid little team.

Sure they have flaws, but the fact that they’re nine games above .500 at the break and have a legitimate shot at making the playoffs is pretty remarkable, given that they never bottomed out in their rebuilding process.

While the Red Sox could use a third baseman, the one they traded away this past offseason, Travis Shaw, has been nearly a three win player this season and has a 138 wRC+. Seems kind of reminiscent of the Jonanthan Villar deal a year ago, where they traded away a Double-A prospect and got Villar, who led the bigs in stolen bases last year. While he hasn’t quite replicated that success this season, it shows that the Brewers have a plan, and it’s working.

Next: 5 All Stars that could be traded

With baseball’s lowest payroll, prospects galore and an energized fan base, the trade deadline could be very interesting in Milwaukee for all the right reasons. They could legitimately make a case for adding one of the top-of-the-market starters with a couple years left on their contract, or just bolstering their bullpen for a short-term fix. Either move would make sense for this team, and they have plenty of prospects on the cusp of making it to The Show, so the Brewers’ rebuild could already be over. The second half should give us a good idea of where they are for certain.