Who is leading MLB’s MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year races?

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🚨 Headlines

🇺🇸 USOPC trans ban: The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has effectively barred transgender women from competing in women’s sports, citing an “obligation to comply” with an executive order issued by President Donald Trump.

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⚾️ Holliday gets record bonus: The Rockies gave No. 4 pick Ethan Holliday a $9 million signing bonus, the most ever given to a high schooler and the fourth-most among all draft picks in MLB history.

🏀 Ratings drop: The WNBA All-Star Game drew 2.2 million viewers, which is the second-most ever but still represents a 36% drop from last year (3.44M), when Caitlin Clark (who didn’t participate this year) led her All-Star teammates against the U.S. Olympic team.

🏈 Hendrickson holds out: Bengals edge rusher Trey Hendrickson did not report to training camp amid a monthslong contract dispute. The four-time Pro Bowler called Cincinnati’s latest offer “atrociously low.”

🏈 UFL teams to relocate: The UFL’s entire USFL division (Birmingham Stallions, Houston Roughnecks, Memphis Showboats, Michigan Panthers) will reportedly be relocated for the 2026 season.

⚾️ MLB awards watch

With MLB’s second half underway, and just over two months left in the regular season, let’s take stock of the three major awards races.

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American League

MVP: With all due respect to the greatest offensive season by a catcher in MLB history and the Cy Young frontrunner, this one’s a slam dunk at the moment.

1. Aaron Judge (NYY): The Yankees captain is having the best season of his career in the midst of one of the greatest four-year runs in league history. He’s on pace for 12.3 WAR, per FanGraphs, which would be the best since Barry Bonds in the early aughts. Remove Bonds, and it’s the best since Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in 1927.

2. Cal Raleigh (SEA): The Mariners backstop is on track to become the first catcher with a 50-homer season, and Judge and Shohei Ohtani are the only players in baseball with a better OPS. Just a remarkable year from Big Dumper.

3. Tarik Skubal (DET): With no other hitter clearly in third place, this goes to the league’s best pitcher for two years running.

Cy Young: Skubal is vying to become the first back-to-back AL Cy Young winner since Pedro Martínez in 1999-2000, but his competition in Boston isn’t that far behind.

1. Skubal (DET): Detroit’s ace leads all qualified MLB starters in both strikeout and walk rate, which is outrageous. He also has the best WHIP (0.81) and is tied for the best ERA (2.19) in the AL.

2. Garrett Crochet (BOS): The hard-throwing southpaw leads the majors in strikeouts (165) and is tied with Skubal for the AL’s best ERA. And to think he only became a starter last year.

3. Hunter Brown (HOU): While his numbers are still excellent (2.57 ERA, 0.99 WHIP), a couple so-so starts in July have opened the door for guys like Jacob deGrom (2.28 ERA, 0.90 WHIP) and Max Fried (2.43 ERA, 1.01 WHIP) to take his spot.

Rookie of the Year: The Athletics might not have a home city or a major league ballpark, but they do have the league’s two best rookies.

1. Jacob Wilson (A’s): The first rookie shortstop ever voted by fans to start the All-Star Game has the fifth-best average in the majors (.315).

2. Nick Kurtz (A’s): He’s the only AL rookie with more homers or a higher OPS than Wilson, and with 29 fewer games played this race could tighten considerably.

3. Carlos Narváez (BOS): The Red Sox backstop has the third-best OPS among all AL catchers (.774).

National League

MVP: At some point, Shohei Ohtani will cede the throne of the greatest player on the planet. We are nowhere near that point as he barrels toward his fourth MVP in five years.

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1. Ohtani (LAD): The same guy who leads the NL in HR (36), runs (95) and OPS (.993) also has a 1.50 ERA through six starts since returning from elbow surgery.

2. Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC): The Cubs’ youngster is arguably the best outfielder in the majors, to say nothing of his 26 HR and 28 SB, both top five in the NL. Add it up and he trails only Judge for the MLB lead in WAR.

3. Juan Soto (NYM): All-Star snub and cold start aside, the Mets’ $765 million man has looked like himself — aka a top five player — for at least the last two months.

Cy Young: As with the AL, this is a two-man race at the moment.

1. Zack Wheeler (PHI): On the one hand, you have Philly’s two-time runner-up who leads the league in WHIP (0.88) and strikeouts (164) and is third in ERA (2.39).

2. Paul Skenes (PIT): On the other is Pittsburgh’s phenom, who boasts a league-best 1.91 ERA and a stellar 0.91 WHIP that trails only Wheeler’s. Good thing we’ve still got two months left to sort this out.

3. Logan Webb (SF): The Giants’ ace is leading the NL in innings for the third straight year, and could nab his third straight top-six Cy Young finish.

Rookie of the Year: Who do you choose: the solid player who’s been there all season or the lightning rod with just six starts under his belt?

1. Drake Baldwin (ATL): The Braves’ backstop has an .837 OPS and 11 HR (both second among NL rookies) to go along with above-average defense behind the dish.

3. Hyeseong Kim (LAD): The 26-year-old Korean is batting a scorching .317 through 53 games for the reigning champs.

🎧 Listen: What to watch for post All-Star break (Baseball Bar-B-Cast, Yahoo Sports)

📸 Through the lens

Washington, D.C. — A day after winning her doubles match, 45-year-old Venus Williams stunned world No. 35 Peyton Stearns with a straight-sets victory at the DC Open — her first tour-level singles match in over a year and first win since 2023. Unreal.

Turn back the clock: Williams is the oldest player to win a tour-level singles match since 2004, when 47-year-old Martina Navratilova won in the first round at Wimbledon.

Geneva, Switzerland — Defending champion England is headed back to the Women’s Euro final after their 2-1 comeback victory over Italy. They get the winner of Germany-Spain on Sunday.

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Historic strike: Chloe Kelly’s 119th-minute game-winner, a rebound off her own blocked penalty kick, was the latest game-winning goal in Women’s Euro history.

Mont Ventoux, France — Tadej Pogačar made history on Tuesday in his pursuit of a fourth Tour de France victory, climbing the iconic Mont Ventoux in just 54:51, a full minute faster than the previous record.

France gets on the board: Valentin Paret-Peintre won Stage 16 to give the host nation its first stage win of this year’s race. Pogačar still holds the overall lead by 4 minutes, 15 seconds over Jonas Vingegaard.

🏀 Yang Hansen has arrived

The Trail Blazers shocked the NBA world last month when they drafted Chinese center Yang Hansen with the No. 16 pick.

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How surprising was the pick? When Yang’s name was called, he was sitting in the stands with fans rather than in the green room with his fellow draftees because he hadn’t received an invitation.

Sin City sensation: Despite being a relative unknown in America, the 7-foot-1 Yang is already a phenomenon in his native country. That was apparent this month in Las Vegas, where he was one of the biggest stars of Summer League, writes Ben Golliver of the Washington Post:

Thousands of Chinese and Chinese American fans traveled to Sin City to watch Yang play … Tencent, a Chinese media company, dispatched a documentary crew to follow him … and more than a dozen reporters from China covered his games.

Back in China, 5.2 million people watched Tencent’s free broadcast of the Blazers’ exhibition against the Grizzlies, according to an NBA official, dwarfing the 1.1 million Americans who watched No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg’s debut for the Mavericks on ESPN.

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On Tencent’s paywalled service, one of Yang’s games drew 3.4 million viewers — 16 times the service’s average. And on China Central Television, Yang’s summer league games garnered larger average audiences than the national broadcast network’s telecasts of this year’s NBA playoffs.

Next in line: Yang is the third Chinese player to be drafted in the first round, joining Yao Ming (No. 1 in 2002) and Yi Jianlian (No. 6 in 2007). His favorite player is Nikola Jokić and he flashed Jokić-like vision in Vegas, where Yang had a higher assist rate than any of the 15 players picked ahead of him.

🏈 Coming soon: College football!

The 2025 college football season kicks off exactly one month from today. Here are some stories to get you up to speed, courtesy of Yahoo Sports’ Nick Bromberg.

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Familiar faces, new places: 10 biggest QB transfers to know

Miami’s Carson Beck (from Georgia), UCLA’s Nico Iamaleava (Tennessee) and Oklahoma’s John Mateer (Washington State) headline the list of high-profile signal callers who will be donning new jerseys this fall.

Coaching carousel: Here are all the new head coaches

Just six power conference schools (UNC, Wake Forest, Stanford, Purdue, UCF, West Virginia) hired new head coaches this offseason, but there was plenty of movement elsewhere.

More from Yahoo Sports:

Looking ahead: The season begins on August 23, with Iowa State vs. Kansas State (in Dublin, Ireland) headlining Week 0.

📺 Watchlist: Wednesday, July 23

⚽️ MLS All-Star Game | 9pm ET, Prime/Apple

The best players from North America’s top two leagues go head-to-head, with the MLS All-Stars (led by Lionel Messi) hosting the Liga MX All-Stars in Austin.

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⚽️ Germany vs. Spain | 3pm, Fox

The second Women’s Euro semifinal pits eight-time tournament champion Germany against reigning World Cup champion Spain. The winner gets England in Sunday’s final.

More to watch:

• ⚾️ MLB: Red Sox at Phillies (7pm, ESPN); Yankees at Blue Jays (7pm, Prime)

• 🚴 Tour de France: Stage 17 (7:35am, Peacock) … Riders travel 100 miles from Bollène to Valence in southeastern France.

• 🏀 WNBA: Dream at Mercury (10pm, CBSSN) … Atlanta (13-10) visits Phoenix (15-7) in a battle of likely playoff teams.

Today’s full slate →

🍿 Movie trivia

“Happy Gilmore 2,” the sequel to the popular 1996 comedy, premiered in NYC on Tuesday and hits Netflix on Friday.

Question: What other golf movie beat “Happy Gilmore” at the 1996 box office?

Answer at the bottom.

🏈 28 days of fantasy

For many of us, Yahoo Fantasy is the first place we had a football league. For others, it’s the tried-and-true place we go every fantasy football season, creating a ritual that we share with friends and family each and every Sunday.

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To celebrate our 28th year of delivering fantasy football, we’re dropping 28 BIG NEW features over 28 straight days starting August 4. More ways to play. More ways to draft. More ways to win.

Learn more.

Trivia answer: “Tin Cup”

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