All told, Muncy was solid last year, posting some superb counting cat totals, although walking a smidge less often.

The Detroit Tigers have authored one of the most fun stories in baseball over the last few months, from their improbable and amazing run down the stretch to make the postseason, to their shockingly easy upset of a playoff-tested Houston squad.

He delivered hits in both games he played in this series to help take the sting out of what was an extremely difficult second half. In a part-time role, Bauers kept improving each month, capped by a superb June in which he got on base 40 per cent of the time.

While Charlie Hustle’s passing casts a pall over the baseball world on Tuesday, the fact that the playoffs get underway definitely helps ease some of that pain.

As alluded to above, the Yankees’ rotation will soon get a massive boost with the return of ace Cole. But the fact that this staff has thrived without him is one of the top stories of the first half.

In fact, he’s gotten a bit worse each month, and is still trying to earn his first win in May as he takes the mound vs. Toronto on Monday evening. Even so, Burnes’s record has been solid so far and his ERA (supported by an xERA of 2.99) is at its lowest level since that stellar 2021 campaign.

He pitches for a Cleveland Guardians squad that was expected to be rancid in 2022, yet wound up winning 92 games, and was projected to regress a bit in 2023, but actually wound up being a lot worse than that.