My First Half MLB Awards - Week Of 7/14/2025
Unique first half hardware, plus the NFL's collusion conundrum and Wilt's 100 point game
Hello readers and welcome back to the blog. An additional welcome to the deadest few days on the sports calendar: the MLB All-Star Break. While there may not be much content to analyze, that won’t stop me from putting out this blog (we haven’t missed a Tuesday since December!). Enjoy this week’s topics.
1. First Half Superlative Awards
To celebrate the All-Star Break, I present the Three Up Three Down first half awards. These aren’t your traditional accolades, so before we start, for totality’s sake, here are my combined league real award picks: MVP: Cal Raleigh; Cy Young: Tarik Skubal; ROY: Jacob Wilson, MOY: John Schneider.
Least Valuable Player: Ozzie Albies, Braves. Others have poorer numbers, but I value playing time for this award, and Albies has participated in all 95 Braves games so far. The switch-hitter is slashing .220/.290/.316 with an OPS+ of 71. He has driven in just 29 runs, a staggering total considering his last two full seasons have seen RBI figures of 106 & 109. Average defense and a lack of power are also hurting the second baseman. The Braves have two $7 million options on Albies starting next year - it will be very interesting to see if they keep him around.
Cy Least: Jack Kochanowicz, Angels. Again I prioritize playing time, and Kochanowicz has made all of his 19 scheduled starts for the Halos. The righty has an unsightly ERA of 6.03 and a WHIP of 1.63 in 94 frames. Kochanowicz’s K/BB ratio of 1.44 (65/45) is second-worst in baseball. At the very least, he’s completed six innings five times, and on May 15th delivered 6.2 frames of one-run ball at Dodger Stadium. Somehow. Baseball-Reference has him at 0.0 WAR, which makes no sense to me. How can a guy with an ERA north of six, having missed no starts, not be underwater in WAR?
Bad Time For A Break Award: Nick Kurtz, A’s. The rookie first baseman is surely ruing the fact he has to wait until Friday to continue his hot streak. Kurtz has hit four home runs in the last week with a .480 OBP, and his power surge is an extended one at this point. The Wake Forest product has gone deep 16 times in a little over a month’s time, with several of those being of the walk-off variety. He still strikes out at a massive 33% clip, so perhaps the current wave is unsustainable, but the A’s have to be thrilled at the splash Kurtz is making in his rookie year.
You’re Hot And You’re Cold Award: Ben Brown, Cubs. While the overall numbers - a 6.13 ERA in 14 starts - are ugly for the Cubs’ righty, Brown has a collection full of whiplash performances. He’s had a start of 7 IP & 2 ER, plus three separate outings of six shutout frames. On the other hand, Brown has surrendered six or more runs five times, including two outings of eight earned runs. The inconsistency has earned him a ticket to Triple-A Iowa. Perhaps he’ll be back with Chicago later this summer as a reliever.
Have We Gotten Too Used To This? Award: Paul Skenes, Pirates. I know he’s started the All-Star game two years running, and is one of the faces of baseball, but do are we fully recognizing the unbelievable start to Skenes’ career? Consider: through his first 43 starts, the former LSU Tiger has a 1.98 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, 10.7 K/9, and an opposing batting average of .193. Doc Gooden had arguably the best start to a pitching career ever for the ‘84 and ‘85 Mets, and here are his numbers over the same 1-43 game span: 2.33 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 10.8 K/9, .210 oppBA. Yes, Doc threw more innings, but wow. Imagine the coverage if Skenes played in New York.
We Don’t Break The Rules Award: The Kansas City Royals. The Royals are the only team in baseball to have not committed a pitch timer violation all season. Last season, K.C. was tied for the fewest violations (10), so this seems to be a trend. Perhaps their pitchers just work quicker than everyone else? And the hitters are ready earlier than normal? Good rules rundown in spring training? Who knows! On the other side of the coin, the Mets have been penalized the most (18).
2. Did NFL Owners Collude??
I became aware of the ongoing NFL/NFLPA collusion story just a few days ago, and I’m surprised it isn’t a bigger deal. We’re talking about the most valuable sports league in the world having awful details being made public about their supposed suppression of guaranteed contracts for players. An arbitration ruling from January regarding the collusion accusations from the NFLPA was recently made public by former ESPN reporter Pablo Torre.
I’ll attempt to give a basic rundown of the findings: after Deshaun Watson’s fully-guaranteed contract was signed in 2022, the 32 NFL owners saw a presentation suggesting that continuing to hand out such deals would be bad for business. Later on, private texts were obtained during the discovery phase that included owners slyly discussing the lack of guaranteed money in new QB deals. While the arbiter ultimately dismissed the suit, seeing a lack of definitive evidence of collusion to restrict the guaranteed money, the NFLPA failed to inform its members of the situation until - well, until this all became public! They agreed with the NFL to keep it quiet.
Even worse, in the days since we’ve learned that the NFLPA executive director, Lloyd Howell, has ties to a private equity firm that is pursuing ownership of an NFL team. Talk about conflict of interest! Reportedly, NFLPA members are outraged at not only the details of the suit but the deal made with the NFL to keep it all secret from them. There is some serious failure on all sides here: the owners for, in my eyes, definitely colluding; and the NFLPA for the lack of aggression in attacking the league over the issue. The NFL is so good at deflecting criticism and negative press that, in my eyes, this story has been only lightly covered at one of its major media partners, ESPN. I now shudder to wonder what is happening behind the scenes between NFL owners that we don’t know about.
3. What’s Weird About Wilt’s 100
On March 2nd, 1962, at the Hershey Sports Arena1, Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in an NBA game against the New York Knicks. While there is no doubt of that fact, there are some unusual aspects surrounding the historic contest that you may have been unaware of, and I thought were interesting enough to warrant a few paragraphs today.
First off, for many years, it was assumed the final 46 seconds of the game were not played, as fans stormed the floor following the triple-digit basket. Wilt and Philly statistician Harvey Pollack (who wrote the iconic “100” in the famous photo) had stated at various points that the game ended prematurely. It was not until the late 1980s that a recording of the radio broadcast was unearthed, encompassing just the fourth quarter. Announcer Bill Campbell is heard calling the game to its conclusion, featuring a couple baskets and fouls. (The only place I was able to find the extended audio online is this archived site.) Interestingly, the radio postgame show reported the final score as being 169-150, while the official report shows 169-147. Campbell gives differing scores in the audio of the final 46 seconds.
Another aspect to note is that while Wilt certainly got his first 69 points (the total through three quarters) in the “flow of the game”, so to speak, the same cannot be said for the final few minutes. The Knicks, despite being down 20+, repeatedly held the ball on offense in order to deny the Warriors possession. This lead to Philly fouling New York intentionally to get the ball back. Knicks center Darrell Imhoff was quoted in 2003 as calling this part of the game “a farce,” and there is likely some truth to that. The numbers speak for themselves: there were a combined 57 fouls and 93 free throws attempted that March night. Keep in mind for the latter number that the “three to make two” rule was in place at the time.
Last but not least, it’s worth noting that the rims at Hershey Sports Arena were notably forgiving. Wilt went 28/32 from the free throw line during the 100-point game, a marked improvement from his career 51% mark from the charity stripe. In the other two games in Hershey that season, the Big Dipper had gone 27 for 38 at the line. Sounds like the rims at De Pere High School.
To conclude, let’s keep in mind that this was the early 60s. Hardly any NBA games were televised, so why would this one in early March have been? And perhaps the discrepancies regarding the final seconds and score are explained by the overwhelming excitement over a dude scoring 100 points. I couldn’t tell you the final score of that Lakers-Raptors game, but I sure as heck know Kobe had exactly 81. Wilt’s 100 point game was a product of its time and place, and we’re lucky to even have the radio call to listen to these 63 years later.2
Weekly Trivia
LAST WEEK
Q: Who has been the highest-paid player in the NBA each season since 2017-18?
A: Steph Curry
THIS WEEK
Q: What MLB team has the highest postseason winning percentage of any franchise, at .600? They’ve won two World Series titles.
A: Next Week!
Still standing!
Three players from that night are still alive: Tom Meschery of the Warriors and Richie Guerin & Dave Budd of the Knicks.
Marlins
I do not like it when individual point totals are the result of the distortion of the game. Devin Booker’s 70 point game was like that. Kobe’s 81 was at least a real game and competitive all the way even though he did take like every shot. It’s like all those college records by Grinnell players. Can’t be taken seriously.