2026 All Star Break Batting Leaders

With the All-Star Game in the books and a few days of rest before the unofficial second half kicks off, let’s take a look at the first half offensive leaders for the 24 games I’ve attended so far this season, starting with:
Home Runs

Name Total
Munetaka Murakami 5
Miguel Vargas 4
Colson Montgomery 4
Andrew Benintendi 3
Michael Conforto 3
Dansby Swanson 3
Ian Happ 3
Pete Crow-Armstrong 3
Tristan Peters 3

Hits

Name Total
Miguel Vargas 18
Chase Meidroth 15
Colson Montgomery 13
Ian Happ 13
Andrew Benintendi 13
Michael Busch 13

Runs

Name Total
Miguel Vargas 16
Ian Happ 12
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2025 BBWAA Award Predictions

The Baseball Writers of America have announced the finalists for their awards for the recently completed baseball season, which will be announced next week.  It is a good bet that few of my original predictions for the winners will be accurate.  Hopefully, these new predictions will be slightly better, especially since I’ll have a 33% chance of being right.

American League

Most Valuable Player: Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh, Jose Ramirez

Judge has won this award two of the last three seasons and his performance in 2025, when healthy, would ordinarily merit a third, but I have to believe Cal Raleigh, who became just the seventh player to reach the 60-home run mark and the first to do so while catching over 1000 innings, will bring home the award.

Cy Young Award: Hunter Brown, Garrett Crochet, Tarik Skubal

With all due respect to Brown, this is a two-way race.  Skubal seemed the obvious choice through much of the season, and I am guessing he will win, but Crochet probably made it much closer down the stretch.

Manager of the Year: John Schneider, Stephen Vogt, Dan Wilson

As usual, I didn’t make any predictions for this award prior to the season.  Schneider would be the obvious choice if voting were done today, after leading the Blue Jays within inches of a title.  Dan Wilson should also get some support for finally pushing the Mariners past the Astros.  But, if I had to guess, I would say Stephen Vogt will win, after the Guardians came out of nowhere to pass the Tigers for the AL Central crown after losing Emmanuel Clase to a gambling scandal mid-year.

Rookie of the Year: Roman Anthony, Nick Kurtz, Jacob Wilson

Another award I didn’t predict prior to the season.  Kurtz should run away and hide with this award after knocking 36 home runs with an OPS+ of 173.

National League

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