Opinion

NEW YORK — In the seats behind home plate, scouts from rival teams ogle the relief pitchers the New York Yankees haven't yet decided to sell. Just the other day, the Chicago Cubs had three scouts at Yankee Stadium, enough so each could have focused in on just one of the late-inning relievers who could change the trade market and perhaps Cubs history.

Boston Red Sox left-hander David Price was not an especially good pitcher Wednesday in a 4-0 loss to his old employer, the Tampa Bay Rays. Just ask him.

We've reached roughly the midway point of the 2016 MLB season, and that means it's time to hand out report card grades to all 30 teams.

So what exactly goes into grading a team's performance thus far?

The lazy way to do things would be to simply grade teams based on their win-loss record, but that's not a fair assessment considering each team enters the year with different goals and expectations.

It's happening a year later than they would have liked, but Wil Myers has become a star for the San Diego Padres in 2016.

Given the state of things in San Diego, though, all this does is raise the question of when Myers will be starring on a different team.

Trade speculation is tricky business, especially with more than a month before the Aug. 1 non-waiver deadline.

Who's selling? Who's buying? And which impact players are available?

With the second wild-card slot keeping fringe contenders afloat—and parity leveling the field, particularly in the American League—those are hard questions to answer. To quote the Dude, there's "a lotta ins, a lotta outs, a lotta what-have-yous." 

On Tuesday, only one opponent bested the Washington Nationals' Lucas Giolito in his hotly anticipated MLB debut: Mother Nature.

First, rain delayed the 21-year-old right-hander's start against Matt Harvey and the New York Mets at Nationals Park by nearly an hour.

While baseball's rumor mill is heating up, the San Diego Padres stand as the only non-contenders that have accepted their fate and are officially open for business. That should—and will—change in the not-so-distant future, as it makes no sense for teams on the outside of the playoff picture to drag their feet much longer.

It was roughly this time three years ago that Yasiel Puig was putting the finishing touches on a debut month for the ages.

Kris Bryant was the College Player of the Year in 2013, the Minor League Player of the Year in 2014 and the National League Rookie of the Year in 2015.

Clearly, the guy likes to outdo himself. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised about what he's doing in 2016.

The Texas Rangers have the best record in the American League, and they've mostly done it without Prince Fielder.

Oh, sure, Fielder has been around, appearing in 72 of the Rangers' 76 games. But for much of that time, he hasn't resembled the lineup-anchoring power hitter Texas expects him to be.