Preview/Prediction

The final two months of the MLB season carry so much weight, it's tough to predict who will walk away with baseball's major awards here in the middle of August.

There are obvious front-runners for both AL and NL MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year honors as things currently stand, but a lot can change between now and the end of the season.

It's never too early to think ahead. With the MLB season chugging along toward its conclusion, some downtrodden teams already have their eyes on the offseason.

Clubs not harboring any postseason aspirations will be fantasizing about free agents. Not everyone possesses the deep pockets to sign a superstar, meaning some top names will shift locations as small-market clubs get more creative.

Perhaps you haven't noticed, but teams wasted little time in getting back to work once the non-waiver trade deadline passed on July 31.

From former stars on the downside of their careers like Michael Bourn, Mike Napoli and Nick Swisher to role players like Eric O'Flaherty and Tyler Pastornicky, a handful of players have been traded in the early part of August.

The current MLB landscape is dominated by young talent, with Mike Trout and Bryce Harper leading the way in their respective leagues, and that influx of youth has continued here in 2015.

This year's NL Rookie of the Year race is stacking up to be an absolute dogfight over the final two months of the season, and there is no shortage of young stars in the American League, led by the man pictured above: Carlos Correa.

The Kansas City Royals are a stone-cold lock to win the American League Central, but the rest of baseball's division and wild-card races are still far from determined.

As Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times noted, while the Royals have claimed a 12-game edge in the AL Central, the other five division front-runners have a combined lead of 11.5 games. Simply put, there's a lot left to be decided between now and the end of the season.

When the calendar turns over to September, MLB active rosters officially expand from 25 to 40 players.

Generally this is a time when teams promote the guys that have bounced between the minors and majors for most of the season, adding a few arms to the bullpen and bats to the bench in the process.

There are always at least a handful of top prospects who are given a chance to show what they can do during this time as well.

Looking at the American League heading into 2015, it was easy to imagine a three-team scrap for the AL Central title and a five-team battle royale for the AL East title. But the AL West title? Meh, there didn't seem to be much to see there.

But in the latest case of YCPB, here we are with two months left to go and the AL West is home to the most hotly contested division race in the Junior Circuit.

Two of the National League’s best teams will duke it out Friday in the first of three games at PNC Park as the Pittsburgh Pirates host the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are road favorites for the contest at sportsbooks monitored by Odds Shark.

Impact trades after baseball's July 31 non-waiver trade deadline might be uncommon, but they aren't impossible to pull off. We only need to think back to the nine-player blockbuster that Boston and Los Angeles pulled off in 2012 for evidence of that.

While we are unlikely to see a deal of that magnitude go down this month and the vast majority of trades that are completed will largely be considered mundane, there are impact players to be had and impact deals to be made.

With only two months left in the 2015 MLB season, the conclusion of the year's award races is no longer some far off, intangible thing. It's within sight and fast approaching.

And for now, that makes it a wee bit easier to predict who's going to be collecting hardware at the end of the year.