The All-Star break has come and gone. The trade deadline is less than two weeks away. The World Cup is over. It’s baseball season, baby.

We took some questions about the second half. Let’s get to it!

Some questions have been edited for length and clarity.

Get out your crystal ball, tarot cards and Ouija board and tell us which team is going to go on a big, successful run from now until the end of the regular season. Who you got? — Ed H.

As Dayton Moore liked to say when I pestered him with hypotheticals, “My crystal ball is broken.” I’m the guy who predicted the Mets to win the National League East, the Royals to win the American League Central and Garrett Crochet to win the AL Cy Young award. On the other hand, I did go out on a limb and take the Dodgers to win the NL West. So maybe I am qualified to tackle this one after all.

I did pick the Red Sox to make the postseason, so I can pat myself on the back for that one — though I won’t self-congratulate too strenuously, because the Sox resided in the basement of the East as recently as July 5. The revival of the Sox, and the (likely) subsequent temperature reduction on Craig Breslow’s seat, has been the story of these past few weeks. The Marlins caught fire in a similar fashion in June. Who will it be in August?

Maybe it will be the Mariners. Cal Raleigh is bound to perk up at some point. The team has more talent than its rivals in the West. They could grab control of the division if they play up to their ability.

But Seattle was expected to contend, and isn’t far from first place. Trying to find a losing club with a chance for a lift is tougher. My heuristic for this exercise is run differential. That statistic tends to demonstrate a club’s underlying talent. And the only club, as of Monday, with a losing record but a positive run differential, the only club with a signal that could outweigh the noise, is the Detroit Tigers. But even after a six-game winning streak to open the month, the Tigers entered Monday sitting 6.5 games back in the division and 4.5 games back in the wild-card race. Plus, they may be compelled to trade Tarik Skubal by the deadline. Detroit dealt away Jack Flaherty in 2024 and still reached the postseason, but Skubal is a much better pitcher, and any decision to move him is far more emotionally fraught.

I am aware that this is not a bold answer. I just don’t see a hidden contender lurking among the middling clubs.

We just watched a World Cup where the ball was literally charged up to record and emit data in real time and all the players wore trackers, yet we rarely heard anything about that information on the broadcasts. Baseball is awash in metadata — how hard each pitch is thrown and hit, length of homers, etc. — and while I initially welcomed every bit of that, I found I really enjoyed how the World Cup matches focused purely on the game itself. What are your thoughts on baseball’s explosion of data and the fan experience? — David S.

It is something I grapple with all the time. My first year covering baseball was 2010. I remember trawling through Brooks Baseball for PITCHf/x data so you could figure out how often a guy threw a certain pitch. The idea that we could get, in real time, stuff like sprint speed and route efficiency and expected batting average was incredibly far-fetched. So I also have been thrilled by the granular level of information I can now access to help write stories and convey information. The trouble is not bogging down the reader or the viewer with too much superfluous data.

I think part of the trick, as writers, is sifting through all that info and extracting the stuff that matters — and also connects with the audience. I would not use batting average as a metric to describe how good a hitter is. I don’t think it does the job, but I also often wonder if I’m losing the reader by referencing OPS+ or wRC+. Does the reader know that 100 is average? When you say a hitter has a 125 OPS+, does that carry the same resonance as saying the hitter has a .300 batting average? Do I want to spend three sentences spelling all this stuff out?

I understand why some fans get cranky when they look at the videoboard during a game and see a player’s OPS, rather than his batting average. I get it. I don’t understand why football teams stopped running the ball on 3rd and three, either. But the game evolves, and it’s our job as journalists to explain that evolution to our audience. And while baseball can be overrun by data during games, at the end of the day, it’s a sport that revolves around a guy on the mound holding a rock and a guy at the plate holding a club. Doesn’t get more pure than that.

Do the Dodgers at all regret their handling of Cody Bellinger? Seemed like they punted on him rather early, but it’s hard to have many regrets when you’re the Dodgers. — Al B.

Bellinger spent a decade in the Dodgers organization. The team drafted him out of high school in the summer of 2013 and non-tendered him in the fall of 2022. Along the way, he won a Rookie of the Year award, an MVP and helped the team snap its World Series drought in 2020. But he did not receive a storybook ending in Los Angeles. A series of injuries sapped him of his power and athleticism, which led to the club cutting ties with him rather than paying him something like $20 million in arbitration for 2023. There are certainly things both the player and the team could have done differently that might have changed the outcome, but that’s mostly something I believe based on Chaos Theory.

Given all that, I don’t sense much ill feeling between the two parties. When the Dodgers visited Yankee Stadium this weekend, Bellinger gabbed with former teammates, staffers and even slide-accident survivor David Vassegh. As the California Post reported, the Dodgers contacted Bellinger this past offseason as he navigated free agency. Bellinger preferred a long-term deal, and the Dodgers opted for a short-term pact with Kyle Tucker. They are all adults here. It takes a special set of circumstances for a star to remain with one team for his entire career. It is special because it is rare.

Cody Bellinger’s time with the Dodgers came to an ugly end, but there do not appear to be hard feelings on either side. (Jeff Hanisch / USA TODAY)

I had a chance to chat with Bellinger for a little while last week at the All-Star Game. He was making his first appearance there since 2019. While working on a story about Mike Trout, I asked Bellinger about how he learned to adjust as he went through injuries. When he debuted in the majors, the game came quite easily to him — he hit 39 homers as a rookie and posted an 8.7 bWAR season two years later. But then his body betrayed him, and he found it challenging to reorient himself.

“I just did things so naturally without knowing,” Bellinger said. “And then, when it’s not going well, you’re just like ‘What the —?’ Every mental thought you have, it’s not working the same. So then you have to learn how to work again, pretty much.”

Part of that process, I suspect, required leaving Los Angeles and rebuilding his game with the Cubs. That rejuvenation could have happened with the Dodgers, of course. But sometimes a change of scenery brings benefits. And while the Dodgers may regret that it didn’t work out with Bellinger, I don’t think it’s fair to suggest they gave up on him too soon. Bellinger posted a 44 OPS+ in 2021 and an 81 OPS+ a year later. (Did I explain OPS+ in the previous answer so I could get away with not explaining it here? I’ll never tell.) They weren’t willing to wager $20 million on him for the next season — remember, these were the pre-Ohtani days when the team still fretted about luxury-tax penalties. That process seems reasonable to me.

It may be a bummer for Dodgers fans, who adored Bellinger, to see him wearing another uniform. But it is hard to argue with the results for either side. Bellinger has landed not one but two nine-figure contracts in free agency. He has established himself as a vital cog for a Yankees franchise with championship aspirations. And the Dodgers, of course, are the back-to-back champs and the kings of the sport. It is a credit to Bellinger for getting back to the All-Star Game in the years since leaving Los Angeles, and it is a credit to the Dodgers for keeping things rolling after Bellinger (and Corey Seager and Joc Pederson and Justin Turner and so many others) left town.

Will the Royals win enough games for Bobby Witt to have a realistic shot at winning the MVP? — Brian A.

My initial inclination was to dismiss the premise. (No offense, Brian, I have an eight-month-old baby and have become more disagreeable due to lack of sleep.) By and large, the BBWAA voters have moved past the argument of “If you took him off the team, they still would have missed the playoffs, so how valuable could he be?” It is not uncommon for a player on a losing team to win the trophy. Shohei Ohtani did it in 2023 and 2021 for the Angels. Mike Trout did it in 2019 and 2016 … also for the Angels. (Perhaps you are sensing a theme.) Giancarlo Stanton won it in 2017 with the Marlins.

And the three favorites for this year’s award, at least by my appraisal, all come from losing teams: Witt, Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez and Tigers rookie Kevin McGonigle. The betting markets also like Rays third baseman Junior Caminero, but I don’t think he will amass enough WAR to overtake Witt or enough offensive force to overtake Alvarez in any of the comprehensive categories like OPS, wOBA or wRC+. I also doubt McGonigle will receive many first-place votes. He put together an awesome first half and looks like a long-term star, but much of his offensive value stems from getting on base rather than power. He will face the same problems that Caminero will: not enough WAR, not enough slug.

So, that leaves Alvarez and Witt. Neither plays on a particularly good team. The Astros entered Monday at seven games under .500. But the Royals are jockeying with the Angels and the Rockies for the worst record in the sport. It has been a tremendously disappointing season in Kansas City. And while, as I said earlier, I think voters have mostly disconnected individual awards from team-wide success — thank you, Angels, for enlightening the public! — history suggests Witt may be hampered by the collapse around him. Only twice in the history of the MVP award has the winner come from a last-place team: Andre Dawson with the Cubs in 1987 and Alex Rodriguez with the Rangers in 2003. And those teams finished last in the division, not in all of baseball.

Where does that put Witt? In a bit of a bind, as long as he and Alvarez both stay healthy and keep performing at the same levels as the first half. As of Monday, he and Alvarez were each worth 4.6 wins above replacement, according to FanGraphs. Witt held a small edge, 4.9 to 4.5, on Baseball-Reference. The difference between the two is marginal enough that voters will have to wade into narrative territory. The case for Alvarez will be a bit easier to make — he leads the sport in on-base percentage, slugging percentage and all the fancier offense categories. Witt is, in my opinion, the best all-around player in baseball, but his value is spread into so many different facets of the game that the case gets muddled. And when forced to flip a coin between the two, a voter may say, “Well, they would have finished in last place without him.”

Who will be Milwaukee’s slugging addition? Andrew Fischer? Or a trade acquisition? — Gary D.

This is one of the central storylines of the deadline. As of this writing, the Brewers have the best record in the sport. They are the biggest threat to snatch home-field advantage away from the Dodgers. Then again, Milwaukee posted a better regular-season record than the Dodgers last summer, and that didn’t matter much in October. They tend to be more conservative at the trade deadline, but that’s part of the reason the team has assembled such a high-quality farm system while ruling the division these past few years.

The clear weak spots in their lineup are third base and designated hitter. Christian Yelich is the DH, and I don’t see him moving off that spot, despite his lackluster production this season. Fischer plays third base. He has been tearing up the minors in his age-22 season. The 2025 first-round pick got some experience playing for Italy in the World Baseball Classic, but the gap between Double A and the majors remains vast. I don’t know if the Brewers will gamble on displacing the defensive stability brought by Joey Ortiz for a rookie.

If the Brewers make a significant upgrade at the deadline, I suspect it will come in the form of a pitcher rather than a slugger. There aren’t many top-shelf hitters on the market, and Milwaukee has a ton of interchangeable pieces that can provide some versatility. The more acute need, especially with Brandon Woodruff done for the season and Kyle Harrison nursing a forearm issue, is within the rotation. The team has the pieces on the farm to acquire Tarik Skubal or Joe Ryan. I expect to maintain their usual discipline at the deadline, but maybe last year’s trouncing by the Dodgers changed the calculus. We shall see!

Who do you think the White Sox bring up for the second half? — Anonymous U.

Sorry, I believe you meant to send this elsewhere. I am forwarding your message to:

His Holiness Pope Leo XIV

00120 Vatican City

But if the Pope doesn’t get back to you, I could see the team bringing up both Hagen Smith and Tanner McDougal at some point later this summer. McDougal has been working in relief in the minors since experiencing a flexor strain in April. Smith looked bound for the big-league rotation before hurting his shoulder in June. Smith threw an inning out of the bullpen last week. The Sox are trying to manage the workload for both guys, who still figure into the team’s long-term rotation plans.