10 Burning Questions for 2nd Half of 2024 MLB Season (2024)

Now that the Futures Game, the draft, the Home Run Derby and the All-Star Game have been checked off the ol' calendar, it's on to the second half of the 2024 MLB season.

Or at least, it will be when games actually resume on Friday. But in the meantime, so many questions come to mind.

Specifically, 10 questions that will need to be answered in some way, shape or form in these last few months of the regular season. They touch on a worrying leaguewide trend, a select few standout players, the trade deadline and the fates of various playoff races.

It would be a bit much to predict what the answers to these questions will be, but a "Playing a Hunch" will be provided for each as we go.

Let's start by taking a look at the league's offensive landscape from 30,000 feet up.

It was clear by the time the All-Star break rolled around in 2023 that MLB's new rules were working as intended in significant ways.

One, of course, was that offense had gotten a boost. But now that looks like a blip, as offense in the first half of 2024 more so resembled the first half of 2022:

There are also other alarming key performance indicators, such as drops in the league's walk rate and the success rate on stolen bases.

Still, let's stop short of falling into hysteria at the possibility of 2024 becoming the new 1968.

The league's OPS has been trending up since May, going from sub-.700 figures in the first two months to .721 in June and .738 in July. That is usually how it goes, and it bears noting that the best months for offense in 2023 were the last three months of the season.

It could also help that some of the year's best pitchers—i.e., Garrett Crochet, Tanner Houck and even Tarik Skubal—are getting into uncharted territory with their workloads. If they tire, hitters stand to benefit.

Playing a Hunch: Offense will go up to roughly 2023 levels

Though it's hard to count Paul Skenes among the best pitchers of the entire season so far, he's arguably been the best since he first came aboard with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

That was on May 11, and since then he's made 11 starts and pitched to a 1.90 ERA with 89 strikeouts against 13 walks. He's notably already tied for third on the all-time list of pitchers with starts of at least six innings, no hits and 11 strikeouts.

And then he started the All-Star Game, which was a big deal. Perhaps you heard about it.

But as unstoppable as Skenes is, he's still a 22-year-old rookie and one of those guys who's getting into uncharted territory with his workload. Between college and the minors last year, he logged 129.1 innings. He's already at 93.2 total innings in 2024.

The Pirates have carefully managed Skenes' workload, leaving a soft cap at 100 pitches even if he has a no-no going. Frustrating, but wise. The last thing they want for their No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft is for him to burn out too fast, too soon.

Skenes himself may also grasp the importance of saving his bullets. Though he's averaged 99.1 mph with his fastball for the season, he took a little off on June 29 (98.0) and July 11 (98.2). There's a valuable lesson inherent in how he kept dominating in both starts.

Playing a Hunch: Skenes will land in the 140-150-inning range with an ERA in the low 2.00s

There's a more notable assault on the record books happening in the American League, but Shohei Ohtani has a historical pursuit of his own going in the National League.

With 29 home runs and 23 stolen bases so far, the two-time MVP is on pace for 48 homers and 38 steals. As such, he has a real chance to become the sixth member of the 40-40 club.

Barring injury, there aren't any good reasons to doubt that Ohtani will go north of 40 home runs for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He's been there and done that twice already, and he's been making better contact than ever before in 2024.

As for the stolen bases, Ohtani fell off the pace only to get right back on it. After swiping only three bags in his previous 35 games, he nabbed seven in 10 games to finish off the first half.

Granted, Ohtani's offensive assignment changed on June 17, when he moved into the leadoff spot to spell Mookie Betts in the wake of his hand fracture. He'll move back to the No. 2 hole when Betts is back, which could influence how often he chooses to run.

There's also a possibility that Ohtani, who's strictly been a DH this year, will have to play the outfield at some point. If so, there will be pressure on him to preserve his legs.

Playing a Hunch: Ohtani will fall a few stolen bases short of 40-40

As for the aforementioned pursuit of history in the AL, Aaron Judge is doing the thing again.

Only this time, he's chasing his own single-season AL home run record and not Roger Maris'. The 6'7", 282-pound slugger has already made some history in the process, as his 34 home runs before the break are a New York Yankees record.

Judge isn't technically ahead of his pace from 2022, however. Though he hit "only" 33 of his eventual 62 homers in the first half that year, it was over 85 games. He's already played in 96 games in 2024.

Hence why he's on pace for a relatively modest 56 homers, for which it didn't help that he homered only four times in his last 16 games before the break. By comparison, the 15 games before that yielded nine long balls.

Playing a Hunch: Judge will at least get to 60 home runs

The next major event on the MLB calendar is the trade deadline, and it'll be here very soon. If you didn't already have July 30 circled, you need to get on that.

All sorts of big-name players have appeared in trade rumors, including Garrett Crochet and Luis Robert Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Pete Alonso, Randy Arozarena, Mason Miller, Cody Bellinger and even Max Scherzer.

Yet as much as the makings of an exciting deadline are clearly there, there's no ignoring the general weird-looking shape of the market.

The trade candidacies of Alonso, Arozarena and Bellinger are complicated by how their teams are technically in contention. Scherzer's Texas Rangers are more of a long shot, but he's still such a believer that he won't waive his no-trade clause.

Guys like Guerrero, Bichette and Miller don't come with such hang-ups, but each is controlled beyond 2024 and is therefore associated with a high asking price and, potentially, unwillingness on the parts of their teams to sell. Indeed, the Toronto Blue Jays sure sound like they don't want to move Guerrero or Bichette.

This pretty much leaves the Chicago White Sox and Miami Marlins and the wares that they have to offer, though at least there's smoke that could lead to fire with them. Most notably, rumors are swirling around Crochet and Chisholm.

Playing a Hunch: A trade of Crochet will add noise to an otherwise quiet deadline

Speaking of Alonso and the New York Mets, they were 11 games under .500 as recently as June 2. Then they went into the break three games over and holding the NL's third wild-card spot.

Jim Bowden of The Athletic writes that the Mets' recent play has "essentially taken Pete Alonso off the trade market," which would apparently suit the slugging first baseman just fine:

Yet whereas the Mets are only 0.5 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals for the second wild-card spot, they're also feeling pressure from the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres (1.0 back), as well as from the Pirates (1.5), San Francisco Giants and Cincinnati Reds (3.0) and the Chicago Cubs (3.5) as well.

It's a messy picture that will need to be sorted out in the second half, but for now it bodes well that FanGraphs gives the Mets the best odds of any of these teams of securing a wild-card spot.

So, too, does the fact that they have a weaker remaining schedule than the Pirates, Cardinals and Reds. The Mets also don't need to make a trade to substantially bolster their rotation, as Kodai Senga will see to that when he comes off a long stay on the injured list.

Playing a Hunch: The Mets, Atlanta and San Diego will be the NL's three wild-card teams

The Dodgers are 117-for-117 in terms of waking up to greet the day with at least a share of first place in the NL West, which is not exactly a surprise.

They always were the overwhelming favorite to win the division, and they're even more so now. FanGraphs gave them a 71.6 percent chance of winning the NL West on Opening Day, and that figure has since risen to 86.5 percent.

So why does it feel like things could be going better for the Dodgers?

Probably because they lost 10 out of 15 to finish off the first half. Oh, and because of the injuries to Betts, Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Clayton Kershaw's continued absence, seemingly half their danged roster is on the IL.

The Dodgers still lead the Padres and Diamondbacks by 7.0 games and the Giants by 9.0 games, but each of those teams has the advantage of an easier remaining schedule. And while the Dodgers are still waiting to get healthy, it's already happening for the Padres (Xander Bogaerts), Diamondbacks (Zac Gallen) and Giants (Blake Snell).

None of this is meant to imply that the Dodgers are doomed. Only that they should watch their back.

Playing a Hunch: The Dodgers will hold on, but their final advantage will be smaller than 5.0 games

Meanwhile in the Central divisions, neither the Cleveland Guardians nor the Milwaukee Brewers is far behind the Dodgers in terms of days spent in first place.

For the former, the total is 111 in the AL Central. For the latter, 103 in the NL Central. Neither has so much as tasted of second place since back in April, and both clubs now have better than a 50 percent chance of winning their divisions after starting off as underdogs.

At the same time, neither the Guardians nor the Brewers are sitting as pretty as they once did. Both will enter the second half with only a 4.5-game lead on their closest pursuers. Milwaukee's high was a 7.5-game advantage on June 19, while Cleveland had a 9.0-game edge as recently as June 25.

Pitching is a major question mark for both, and especially for the Guardians. Whereas the Brewers recently acquired Aaron Civale and should get Devin Williams back sometime in the second half, only activity at the trade deadline can save Cleveland's notably dismal rotation.

In the form of the Minnesota Twins, the Guardians also face a more direct threat than the Brewers do from the Cardinals, Pirates, Reds or Cubs. The Twins won 21 of their last 32 games to close out the first half, and they have an easier remaining schedule than the Guardians to boot.

Playing a Hunch: Both will hold on, but Cleveland will spend time in second place before the season is over

As recently as June 18, a season that had started going bad on the Astros right off the proverbial bat was pretty close to looking like a lost cause.

Not so much anymore, though. They were seven games under .500 and 10.0 games out of first place on that date. Now they're four games over .500 and only a game off the pace.

The Astros can go into the second half feeling confident that they're only going to get stronger, and not just because Kyle Tucker and Justin Verlander should soon come off the IL. According to Bowden, the Astros have "made it clear" that they'll be buying at the deadline, with a shopping list that includes starting pitching and a first base upgrade.

Mind you, the Rangers are not to be counted out. They went into the break as winners of seven out of their last nine and, though Bowden doesn't expect them to make "significant trades," they don't really need to. Getting Jacob deGrom, Josh Jung and others back healthy would suffice as a game-changing development.

Which brings us to the most pressing question in the AL West: Can the Seattle Mariners hang on?

They've had first place all to themselves since May 12, but their offense has never not been a liability and their remaining schedule is harder than Houston's or Texas'. They're therefore going to need a bunch of grit, several notable trades or both.

Playing a Hunch: The Astros and Mariners will trade places while the Rangers stay in third

As for the AL East, here's how the top three teams were arranged back on June 14:

Now here's how they're arranged a little over a month later:

These two things are not alike, and the effect is the best division race in either league. Indeed, this is the only one featuring three teams within 4.5 games of each other.

The advantage both the Yankees and Red Sox have on the Orioles concerns a whole bunch of help standing by on the IL. The former will get Giancarlo Stanton and Clarke Schmidt back eventually. The latter will get Triston Casas and Liam Hendriks.

The Orioles, though, are as primed as anyone to make noise at the deadline. They still have the best farm system in baseball, and it's easy to imagine them leveraging their surplus of young hitters to land a much-needed rotation upgrade.

The clubs' remaining schedules paint still another picture, with the Red Sox (they have seven games left against both Baltimore and New York) stuck with the hardest and the Yankees with the easiest, with the Orioles about in the middle.

It feels like the kind of race that will come down to whichever team gets the most support from players who aren't core stars. As in, not Gunnar Henderson or Corbin Burnes for Baltimore, Aaron Judge or Juan Soto for New York or Rafael Devers or Jarren Duran for Boston.

Playing a Hunch: All three teams stay where they are, but the Orioles will win by more than 5.0 games