Barring a spate of postponements, the 1,215th game of the 2023 MLB season will be booked sometime Thursday.
What's the relevance of that number, you ask? Well, there are 2,430 games over the course of a season -- 162 games, 30 teams, two teams playing in each game. So when that 1,1215th game becomes official -- we don't know which one it will be, as it depends on the order in which Thursday's games are completed -- we will have as much regular-season baseball behind us as we have to look ahead to.
Most years, this actual halfway point of the season goes unrecognized because baseball people tend to think of the All-Star Game as the halfway mark. Indeed, the game itself is informally billed as the Midsummer Classic. So let's honor this true halfway point by handing out a few midseason awards. Some of these categories are obvious and literal, while others are just made up because I wanted to note something interesting. (You can decide which awards fall into which category.)
Note: AXE ratings will be mentioned. They are alluded to and explained here.
Best half-season player: Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Angels
Ohtani's 161 AXE is a mind-bending number that dwarfs even the epic seasons being posted by 2023 standouts like Ronald Acuna Jr. and Corbin Carroll. This is Ohtani in full blossom -- and it's both magnificent and a little terrifying.
Think of it like this: There is a non-zero chance that Ohtani wins the American League Triple Crowns in both hitting and pitching this season. I mean, sure, the odds of that happening are astronomical. But they aren't zero.
Through Sunday, Ohtani was leading the AL in home runs and RBIs. He ranked fifth in hitting but he's hovered around .304 for the past few weeks, and it looks like someone might take the batting crown in that league this year with a sub-.320 average.
The pitching part is an even longer shot, but if he gets really hot, you never know. His seven wins put him in a tie for ninth in the league, but he's only four behind league leader Shane McClanahan. Meanwhile, Ohtani is ninth in ERA and second in strikeouts, despite being in a six-man rotation, which works against his counting totals.
It's not remotely likely that Ohtani will win a dual Triple Crown. But the fact we can even mention such a thing halfway through a season is another way to describe the wonder of a player doing things we've just never seen in the big leagues.
Top starting pitcher: Framber Valdez, Houston Astros
An AXE score of 130 is meant to denote an awards-worthy campaign, whether it's for Most Valuable Player or Cy Young. At the moment, there are 10 pitchers around the majors who have reached that benchmark. Only one of them reaches 140, though, and that's Valdez.
Valdez has improved steadily over his big league career, and after finishing fifth in last year's National League Cy Young balloting, he's shown us that 2022 was not his peak season.
If one thing has marked Valdez's style on the mound, it's been his ability to keep balls on the ground. He's always posted enough strikeouts to keep him from getting burned by bad BABIP luck, but this season, his strikeout and walk rates are both at career-best levels.
That combination has provided more game-in, game-out consistency than ever from Valdez -- and, it turns out, more than anyone else in MLB. The starting pitcher rankings at BillJamesOnline.com are built on a system that rewards proven performance and consistency as much as anything else, and Valdez had been baseball's No. 1 starter there since mid-June until slipping to second after a so-so outing Tuesday. (Incidentally, Valdez was passed for the top spot by none other than Ohtani -- yet another Ohtani reality that borders on the sublime.)
The Cy Young races are crowded in both leagues, and the one in the AL is tight enough that Valdez can't really be called a front-runner just yet. But all things considered, no one has been better over the opening months of the season than he has.
Top relief pitcher: Alexis Diaz, Cincinnati Reds
A key component of the Mets' feel-bad season has been the absence of injured closer Edwin Diaz. But it's not all bad news for the Diaz family: Edwin's younger brother, Alexis, has been elite and a big factor in what is very much becoming a feel-great season in Cincinnati.
The Reds lead the majors in bullpen bWAR, a surprise outcome that can largely be credited to Diaz's consistent dominance, which has validated the eye-popping numbers he posted as a rookie last season.
His strikeout rate has exploded, going from 11.7 per nine innings as a rookie to a startling 15.1 this season. He's allowed just one homer in 138 batters faced while going 22-for-22 in save opportunities and posting a 1.85 ERA. Finally, Diaz leads all big league pitchers in win probability added (3.5).
You really can't do it any better than that.
Top rookie: Corbin Carroll, Arizona Diamondbacks
In the AL, two rookies have won MVP awards: Fred Lynn in 1975 and Ichiro Suzuki in 2001. No one has ever done so in the NL.
Which brings us to Carroll, who has put a stranglehold on the NL Rookie of the Year race while edging closer and closer to Acuna in the MVP chase.
Despite some stumbles last weekend, Carroll trails only Acuna in both Baseball Reference and Fangraphs WAR, as well as win probability added. Both players have helped their teams to division leads as we hit the halfway point.
According to Fangraphs, Carroll is on pace for 34 homers, 47 steals and 122 runs scored. He's still a rookie, and surely he will be tested as he continues to work his way around the league. But so far, Carroll has been everything the prospect gurus said he would be and more.
Most surprising player: Jonah Heim, Texas Rangers
If we told you before the season that the Rangers would have four of the 12 most valuable position players in the AL over the first half, you'd say, sure -- sounds like Marcus Semien, Corey Seager and Adolis Garcia are all doing what Texas hoped they would do. But who else is up there?
And indeed, Semien and Seager are the top two and Garcia has been excellent, ranking 12th in the AL by AXE. In a tie with Garcia, right behind Seager and Mike Trout, is Heim. Tell me you saw that one coming.
You didn't. No one did.
This is Heim's age-28 season, and before 2023, he had career totals of 776 plate appearances, a .214 batting average and 81 OPS+. His defensive metrics were good -- that's why the Rangers gave him 450 plate appearances in 2022 -- but his defense has gotten even better, and his bat has been a revelation this year (121 OPS+).
Most exciting player: Elly De La Cruz, Cincinnati Reds
De La Cruz, in terms of raw production, hasn't even been the best rookie on the Reds. That honor goes to fellow infielder Matt McLain. But De La Cruz is someone you just cannot take your eyes off. Even still, awarding "most exciting" is saying something, because there are some dynamic performers in the majors right now ... including those honored above.
Take the game in which De La Cruz hit for the cycle -- an 11-10 Reds win over the Atlanta Braves on June 23 that might have been the best contest of the 2023 season so far. De La Cruz became the first Cincinnati hitter to hit for the cycle since Eric Davis in 1989. If you are old enough to remember how electric a young Davis was, you will understand why the connection is apt.
De La Cruz hit a 117 mph double that looked like it might go through the fence at Great American Ballpark. On the triple that completed the cycle later in the game, he posted the fastest first-to-third time of any big leaguer this season. Since he was called up, he has also exhibited a rocket-fueled arm that reached 97.5 MPH on one throw.
That call-up, by the way, didn't happen until June 6. This is going to be fun.
Fish out of water award: Luis Arraez, Miami Marlins
We're halfway through, and the realities of a long big league season and those of MLB circa 2023 have yet to torpedo Arraez's quest to become the first .400 hitter since Ted Williams in 1941.
Any half season of .400 hitting, or close to it, is historic. But the league context makes it even more remarkable. Even though the ban on extreme shifts has resulted in a five-point boost (so far) on the aggregate batting average, that top-line mark is still only .248 -- 18 points lower than the AL's mark when Williams hit .406 all those years ago.
Arraez's average translates to 159% of the MLB average, according to Fangraphs. That disparity is on track to be the largest ever in a full season in one of the extant major leagues -- by far. Rogers Hornsby holds the NL mark at 146 % (1924), while the AL record is Williams' 148 figure in 1957. In 1941, Williams hit 147% better than the AL norm.
Best team: Tampa Bay Rays
The Rays might be moving back toward the pack a bit, but there's no question that from beginning to present, they've been baseball's best club. I had them ranked 10th in my preseason projections, but they got off to such an overwhelming start that they seized the top spot in my weekly voting for our MLB power rankings by the end of the first week. Other than a one-week dip that put them just behind the Texas Rangers, they've remained there ever since.
The Rays have been good at everything, ranking second in my offense rankings, third in pitching and sixth in fielding. The Braves are baseball's hottest team at the moment and have passed the Rangers for second in last week's power rankings, but for now, Tampa Bay still looks like the class of the season.
Most surprising team: Miami Marlins
The Rangers are a close second here -- and the Reds are creeping up on both of them. However, as it stands in this snapshot of the season, no one has outplayed their forecast in my system more than the Marlins.
It's fair to suggest that the Marlins' hold on an NL playoff slot is precarious. I had them as roughly a .500 team entering the season, so in terms of their 46-34 record, they haven't been totally over their skis. But their run differential is more akin to that of a 79-win team over a full season -- not the 93 wins Miami is on pace for.
The biggest factor in that disparity is a 19-5 record in one-run games. This seems unsustainable. But you never know. Just last season, the Mariners rode a 34-22 one-run mark into the postseason. It's not an ideal formula, but given what the past few seasons have looked like in Miami, their fans will take it.
Most disappointing team: New York Mets
Honestly, you can land on any number of teams here. The San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals have both followed preseason World Series aspirations with second-division play. The Chicago White Sox looked like a playoff contender on paper but haven't been able to gain traction in a division that might end up being won by a sub-.500 team.
And in terms of the raw measure of biggest disparity between current win pace and preseason projection, that dishonor goes to the Kansas City Royals, who were expected to be just kinda bad (71 forecasted wins), not epically terrible (their current win pace is 45).
Still, if you combine forecast shortfall, World Series ambition and level of payroll investment, nobody measures up to the $400 million Mets.
As bad as it's been, things seemed to reach an illustrative nadir June 25, a Sunday getaway day game in Philadelphia. The Mets were nursing a one-run lead when the Phillies loaded the bases in the eighth inning. Alas, reliever Jeff Brigham hit lefty Kyle Schwarber with a pitch, forcing in the game-tying run.
Next up was right-handed-hitting Trea Turner, who took his stance all the way across the plate from where Schwarber had just been plunked. Then Brigham hit him, too.
It's been that kind of season for the Amazin's.