Heading into the second half, four American League teams have 50+ wins (Rays, Yankees, White Sox, Guardians). In the NL Central alone, four teams have already reached that mark (Brewers, Cubs, Cardinals, Pirates).

1. MLB schedule resumes

The regular season restarts tonight with the Phillies taking on the Mets in the first game out of the All-Star break. The other 28 teams will resume play on Friday. Philadelphia will send Aaron Nola to the mound. The veteran has struggled to a 5.75 ERA. Interim manager Don Mattingly has limited Nola’s usage, typically keeping him around five innings and 85 pitches. A Phillies victory would tie them in the win column with the division-leading Braves. The Mets will counter with Christian Scott. He entered the break coming off one of his best outings of the season, shutting out the Royals over five frames.

2. More deadline outlooks going live

Our 2026 Trade Deadline Outlook series continues to roll along. The NL East is now complete with the Nationals piece publishing last night. We’re officially more than halfway done with the team-by-team breakdowns. The landing page for the series can be found here. It’s updated as each new entry is published. Bookmark it and check back for the latest content.

3. New payroll tracker tool

We introduced an extremely cool feature yesterday. After months of hard work, the Payroll Tracker is now live on the site. It’s available under the Tools dropdown menu. The tracker is your new source for the most accurate and up-to-date MLB payroll data. Through a partnership with Ethan Hullihen, we’ve created the definitive public source for this information, updated three times a week. For more on the tool and how to access it, check out this post.

Photo courtesy of Lon Horwedel, Imagn Images