August has arrived! 7 storylines to follow down the stretch

The Trade Deadline is coming at 6 p.m. ET on Monday -- a little later than usual this year -- but do not think that is all that’s happening in August.

August can get a bad rap sometimes, the supposed “dog days” of the MLB season. But the games matter just as much, and the standings can shift rather dramatically. After the Deadline, teams know who they are, and they learn how to mesh -- what works and what doesn’t. And they also know the final stretch run is just around the corner.

This is when it starts getting serious.

Here’s a look at the biggest storylines we’ll be watching in August.

1. So, seriously, who’s getting traded?

Just about everybody in baseball is frantically refreshing their preferred news source trying to make sure they don’t miss a single trade (or scoop), so I’m fully aware that any speculation I put in this paragraph could get instantly dated.

But there are so many big names still on the market, led of course by two-time Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal, who was terrific in what could have been his final (??) start for the Tigers on Wednesday and could change the entire trajectory of the pennant chase and the postseason entirely on his own.

There are other potential X-factors, too, from Mason Miller to Luis Arraez to Freddy Peralta to heaven knows who else. Which teams are aggressive buyers? Which ones are aggressive sellers? We have the first three days of August to find out, so keep refreshing.

2. Will these Wild Card races sort themselves out?

It is a little absurd how tightly compacted the NL Wild Card race has become. You basically have five teams within one game of .500 chasing two teams that have been up and down: Arizona (currently up) and Philadelphia (down). The AL still has four teams within three games of the Guardians, who are holding the last Wild Card spot there.

Some of these teams are likely to push in their chips before the Deadline, and some are likely to do the opposite, but which is which? The Twins say they’re in and already proved themselves a buyer on Thursday night; the Cardinals, on the other hand, seem like they will be sellers after dropping 16 of their past 23 games through Thursday. But we’re still waiting for others to pick a direction.

And don’t forget that we’ve seen teams go on runs AFTER they traded away talent at the Deadline. (Remember the Tigers and Jack Flaherty two years ago?) The next few days should provide some clarification about which teams are in this for the long haul and which aren’t … but the rest of this month should provide quite a bit more.

3. Can Yordan keep his Triple Crown hopes going?

It has been 14 years since anyone hit for the Triple Crown, with the Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera making history for a 2012 Tigers team that, don’t forget, made it to the World Series. Before that, no one had done it since Carl Yastrzemski for the 1967 Red Sox (another World Series team, for what it’s worth).

The Astros’ Yordan Alvarez, after an injury-riddled 2025 season that was the nadir of his career, has a golden opportunity to be the next player in this exclusive club. He began Friday ranked first in the AL in homers with 35 (four clear of second-place Ben Rice), first in RBIs with 80 (seven clear of Rice) and, yep, first in batting average at .321 (18 points ahead of the Rays’ Yandy Díaz).

The Astros are still in the AL West and Wild Card chases, so they’ll need all that Alvarez can give them. Right now, what he’s giving them looks a lot like history. Can he maintain it through the hottest, longest month of the year?

4. Is Shohei Ohtani going to pitch?

On Aug. 3 -- yes, Trade Deadline day -- it will have been a full month since Ohtani last pitched. He has been limited to hitting since then because of lingering left knee soreness, and more recently, there was word of a right biceps issue, as well.

The Dodgers remain confident Ohtani will be back on the mound eventually, but his absence has led to multiple cascading new plotlines, from the Dodgers potentially being eager to add rotation pieces at the Deadline to what kind of rest they’ll give Ohtani so he’s 100% in October to, intriguingly, whether he can hang on to his lead in the NL MVP race. He has won an MVP Award in four of the past five seasons, and each of the past three, but the Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong, perhaps the best player in baseball for the past month or so, is rapidly gaining on him. That trend will be much easier to maintain if Ohtani continues to serve only as a DH.

Ohtani’s inability to get back on the mound is another reminder of just how difficult, and impressive, what he does on a yearly basis truly is. But that doesn’t mean we can’t pine for his mound return nevertheless.

5. Will we see Aaron Judge?

Speaking of superstars with health issues … it’s probably a little bit too ambitious to think Judge can come back from his rib injury in the next month, no? He has been out since May 31 and has yet to resume baseball activities, so September is probably more likely, particularly considering the Yankees have been able to hold onto their playoff position without him.

But they’re still in the AL East race, and they’re also missing Cody Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton. (Plus, Rice is hitting .208 since the All-Star break.) They won’t rush Judge back, of course. But while there is pressure for the Yankees to add at the Deadline, there would be no bigger addition than him.

6. Does anyone grab control of the AL division races?

No NL division race is especially close right now, but things look much more up for grabs in the AL. As mentioned, the Yankees remain within striking distance of the Rays in the AL East, just 3 1/2 games back entering Friday. The AL Central is plenty intriguing, too. The White Sox remain one of the best stories in baseball, but it’s still reasonable to wonder whether they can go the distance, with both the Guardians (two games back) and Twins (three games) close behind.

But the division with the most juice right now -- the race that feels the wildest -- is the AL West. The Rangers have spent most of the past few weeks in first place, but they’ve been anything but a juggernaut, hovering right around .500 and never building a lead bigger than two games. That lead was down to a half-game over the Astros heading into the teams’ series that began Friday night, with the Astros having just reached the .500 mark for the time since they were 6-6.

And seriously, there’s no team with more on the line than the Mariners, who were many observers’ pick to win the American League this year but have just never quite got it going in 2026. Is August when it finally happens?

7. How fun will the Field of Dreams game be?

Can you believe it has been four years since the most recent Field of Dreams game? That one was between the Reds and Cubs, and was a terrific experience, even if it didn’t quite have the drama of the first edition back in 2021, which featured Tim Anderson’s memorable walk-off homer.

The game returns on Aug. 13 and will feature the Phillies against the Twins (with both teams in some sweet throwback jerseys). It should have all the pageantry and incredible visuals we saw from the previous two games. The field itself, as well as the stands, have gone through renovations and expansions, and the whole thing seems sized up: It’s even on Netflix this year.

But it’s still the Field of Dreams game. It turns out you really can go back.