The second half is here and at the time of writing this, the trade deadline has come and gone nearly an hour ago. While many of the suggestions I made in Sunday’s post did not come to fruition, we did see a flurry of moves. However, in something of a surprise, two of biggest names on the market – Garrett Crochet and Tarik Skubal – stayed put. The likely reason for both players not being traded was compensation. Reports indicated that both the White Sox and Tigers wanted tremendous returns for their respective aces. One report claimed that the Tigers wanted a ‘Godfather offer’ for Skubal.

With that being said, I wanted to follow the deadline with 5 bold predictions for the second half of the season and heading into the offseason. Let’s get started:

The Pittsburgh Pirates will sneak into the NL Wild Card

If I had made this prediction on April 8, it wouldn’t have been very bold. The 9-2 Pirates were off to a hot start and playing their best baseball. Then, reality set in. They went 2-9 in their next 11 and leveled off. That’s pretty much where they’ve been since. Then, on May 17, top pick Paul Skenes made his highly anticipated debut. Skenes’ arrival and subsequent dominance – culminating in his 12th career start being on the mound of the 2024 All-Star Game – has energized and revitalized the Pirates clubhouse. The only issue for the Buccos since has been the offense. The Pirates are in the bottom third of the league in most offensive categories, but have played better since June, going 29-22 since June 1 (22-31 prior to June).

While I believe that Pittsburgh is still a year or two away, their young pitching trio of Mitch Keller, Jared Jones and Paul Skenes is electrifying The Steel City, and it would behoove the Pirates to strike while the iron is hot! They’ve added a RF Bryan De La Cruz and Isiah Kiner-Falefa at the deadline in hopes of bolstering that offense. Sitting 6 games back in the NL Central in third place, the Pirates clearly believe they can make a push. The division is weak, and they’re just 2.5 games out of a Wild Card spot. Are the additions of De La Cruz and IKF enough to allow the once-lowly Buccos offense to keep up with the vaunted pitching attack at the top of the rotation? I believe it will, and the Pirates will find themselves playing in October.

The Yankees Will Move on from Aaron Boone

I don’t believe that the Yankees will make a move during the season, but I think this season’s rollercoaster is evidence that the Yanks have gone as far as they can with Boone at the helm. The Yankees started the season hot – 50-22 – so hot that just a quick glance at the standings or their current playoff positioning wouldn’t reveal a problem. After all, their .583 win percentage this season is the 5th-best in baseball. However, since that hot start, the Yankees has gone 15-23.

Aaron Judge continue to hit at an MVP-caliber clip, but the Yankees continue to struggle to collect wins. It seems as though the Yankees are in a rut that is mostly mental. As good as their roster is, I have no choice but to look in Aaron Boone’s direction. Boone is a very emotional manager, jumping to his players’ defense at every chance. Boone’s 38 ejections since 2018 (Boone’s first year as NYY manager), the most by anyone in Major League Baseball in that span. As I’ve mentioned before when speaking about Boone, sometimes, when things are going well, a manager getting thrown out can fire up a team and make them play inspired. But when you’re scuffling the way the Bronx Bombers are, it can be a distraction – a rockslide tosses the team to a new low. I think the team’s issues are mostly mental, so Boone’s style may be the problem. I do think that Boone is a good manager, but his time in pinstripes may be up.

The Cleveland Guardians will end the longest title droughts in sports

It may not seem bold given that the Guardians have the best record in the American League, but I don’t believe anyone expected Cleveland to be in this position going into the season. As I’ve mentioned before, at the All-Star break a year ago, I predicted that the Guardians would separate themselves in a very weak division to make the playoffs. They did not. One year later, the AL Central is much stronger, but so is Cleveland, which is where my prediction comes in: once the Cubs ended their historic 108-year championship drought in 2016, the ownership of the longest winless drought in sports ironically transfer to the very team Chicago beat in 2016 – Cleveland. I believe this could be the year for Cleveland. Many might still predict the Yankees to win the AL, but given their notable struggles, I think Cleveland now has a solid chance to win their first championship since 1948.

The Cardinals will move on from Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado

A couple of weeks ago, I thought there was a decent chance that the Cards would move both at the Deadline, but I’m not surprised they didn’t. After all, St. Louis has been playing better baseball of late and are in a position to make a push for a Wild Card spot, and perhaps you’d be crazy to trade a superstar duo with 15 All-Star appearances, 14 Gold Gloves and an MVP between them, but that’s why I expect this to take place in the offseason. Before the season, I predicted that St. Louis would win the Central, largely because of the duo, but the main knock against them from both fans and media was their age. The Red Birds have the oldest roster in baseball and didn’t do much to remedy that at the deadline, instead trading off Tommy Edman and Dylan Carlson (average age of 27) for Tommy Pham and Shawn Armstrong (average age of 34.5). The geriatric Cardinals got older! That said, this may be the offseason that St. Louis chooses to rebuild. The 36-year-old Goldschmidt will be a free agent at season’s end, and while Arenado has opted in until at least 2027, I believe one of the best defensive third basemen of all-time could fetch quite a return.

The Red Sox make a deep playoff run and give fans an EPIC Netflix documentary

When it was announced that the Boston Red Sox would be the subject of a Netflix documentary that was essentially baseball’s version of “Hard Knocks” for the 2024 season, fans were excited, anticipating that the news and the impending presence of a film crew would force the team to make a plethora of flashy offseason moves to turn a subpar 2023 squad into an exciting documentary subject. Unfortunately, that didn’t come to pass, and fans and media pundits alike (myself included) were very vocal about Boston inactivity and as such, predicted Boston to finish at or near the bottom of the AL East.

Fast forward to July 30th, and the Red Sox are having a great season that no one expected. Rafael Devers and Jarren Duran were both tabbed for the All-Star Game, Tyler O’Neill is having a bounce back season, and both Kutter Crawford and Tanner Houck are having excellent seasons on the mound. They are currently sitting 2 games back of the final wild card spot. I was curious to see if they’d be buyers at the deadline, and they were. Nothing flashy, but they added relievers Lucas Sims and Luis Garcia to a bullpen that needed improvement.

This situation reminds me of the movie “Fever Pitch” staring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore. Released in 2004, the movie follows a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan and his friends as they navigate another season. The original ending of the movie was meant to show the Red Sox come up short yet again, continuing their then-86-year title drought, but the Sox unexpectedly made it to the Series, so the film crew scrambled to send Fallon and Barrymore to St. Louis for Game 4 of the 2004 World Series and filmed a new ending on the field, during the championship celebration. I’m not saying that the Sox will win the World Series (if you scroll up, you’ll see I predicted Cleveland for that), but I am predicting that the unexpected season and the Netflix cameras will help fuel this team not only into the playoffs, but all the way to an ALCS appearance. Crazy? Maybe, but hey, these are BOLD predictions after all.

Feel free to comment on this post if you have any bold predictions of your own. Until the next one, today’s a good day to go 1-0!