With the MLB trade deadline fast approaching and intrigue swirling everywhere around where-oh-where Tarik Skubal will go, I thought we could have a little more fun than the tried-and-true ranking of trade candidates (which I have already done) and revive one of the greatest forms our beloved sports media ever took: the mega preview.

Anyone else remember those old Sports Illustrated MLB preview issues with their 40-odd pages of info on every team, what to watch that season, cool graphics, cutouts and photos with flashy presentation and peak magazine aesthetic? It might have just been because I was 10, but I lived for this stuff.

So in my never-ending battle against those that would leave the mega preview to die alongside many other forms of written sports content, we’re bringing it back… digitally… with significantly fewer graphics… and a much smaller production staff (me)… and we can’t cover every team here because, ya know, priorities… but the energy of the mega preview will abound like Christmas cheer when Buddy the Elf starts to sing. There will be categories; there will be fun everywhere you look. After all, the mega preview is worth preserving, even in formaldehyde.

Q: Will the Detroit Tigers, who have surged since the beginning of June, actually trade Tarik Skubal?

A: I find it kind of hard to believe they won’t. The Tigers have apparently set an “outrageous” price for Skubal for interested teams, which may read like they will only trade him for an absolute heist. As they should, given the two weeks they have to induce some team to panic and trade the farm for a guy on an expiring contract. But leverage is fickle, and the Tigers may realize that come August 3, they may wind up keeping Skubal for an already-doomed run and lose him for nothing this winter. That will be a tough pill to swallow.

A: That’s an almost impossible question to answer. On one hand, you have the teams you’d expect him to probably sign with next offseason: the Los Angeles Dodgers, sure, but reports suggest the Chicago Cubs, Tampa Bay Rays and Atlanta Braves are strong candidates to go all in with Skubal. I particularly like the Braves as a landing spot, as that rotation is not as good as it looks on paper.

Q: But could he end up with [insert your favorite team]?

A: Yes, provided they are any type of contender, though there are a few teams I don’t think could or would produce a Skubal package. The San Diego Padres are not really tracking to make the postseason and are clean out of elite prospects to trade, even though they would usually be a prime suspect to go in on a big name. Nor is my favorite team (the Boston Red Sox) being run in a way that suggests they’re going to go all-in on a rental, no matter how well they’ve played pre-deadline. But you can rationalize quite a lot of teams, particularly some fringe actors who wouldn’t really expect to re-sign Skubal. Dare to dream!

The MLB trade deadline rules because every team can get involved. According to FanDuel, there are 15 entire teams with between 10-1 and 50-1 World Series odds, which may seem long but actually suggests a high level of parity… behind the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are teetering on the edge of having minus odds to win it all. But every team in that group can talk themselves into being a buyer, and every other team probably feels like a seller. So who are the splashiest participants?

1. Detroit Tigers — what the Tigers do (or do not) do will define this deadline, as whatever contender adds Skubal to their rotation will immediately vault into supercontender status. He’s that game-changing.

2. Washington Nationals — the Nationals possess two top-tier young position players: James Wood and CJ Abrams, and while I don’t think they are likely to trade Wood (I know, scintillating analysis), anything is possible with Abrams. This team has major building blocks for the future and could set themselves up well for the future with a good deadline.

3. New York Yankees — I can’t see the Yankees standing pat at this deadline with how the American League is just sitting there for them to take. They have a lot of holes in the roster, especially with their injuries.

4. Boston Red Sox — a team that was going to be one of the deadline’s biggest sellers has turned this whole thing around and now looks like a potential buyer, though it could still go either way. Relief pitching always sells like hotcakes at the deadline, and the single-best reliever on the market was Aroldis Chapman. Do the Red Sox believe enough in this utility-laden roster to hang onto a 38-year-old closer when they could get major value in return?

5. Minnesota Twins — how often do you get to run back-to-back fire sales? The Twins could really make the deadline interesting if they chose to make Byron Buxton available, and Joe Ryan could finally be heading for greener pastures after he was nearly traded last year. Those would easily be two of the biggest non-Skubal names.

6. San Francisco Giants — Rafael Devers has perhaps revived his stature as an elite hitter, but the Giants are still cooked as far as 2026 goes. They have a lot of tradable players, from Jung Hoo Lee to Luis Arraez and Matt Chapman. If the Giants have talked themselves into this Devers power spike and want to keep his gargantuan contract on the books, great. If they think instead that this is an aberration that has salvaged his trade value, they could maybe try to offload his contract much like Boston did a year ago.

A paragraph of the best trade assets you’ve never heard of (or at least haven’t thought about in a while)

Reid Detmers is not a name I had anywhere near any of my radars after he was moved the Los Angeles Angels bullpen last season for unclear reasons. I wrote a whole analysis of Detmers and why he’s considered so valuable despite his 4.39 ERA, and I think he could be a really impactful player in a better environment and could command a shockingly high price because of his age. Speaking of the bullpen, I also like Rico Garcia from the Baltimore Orioles, who has kinda just been mowing dudes down all year on a team that’s going nowhere fast. And while you may have heard of them, a pair of New York Mets pitchers in Clay Holmes (a starter) and AJ Minter (a reliever) feel like mortal locks to be dealt with how poorly this Mets season has gone.

One final perplexing player for the road

I’m curious about everything going on with Mickey Moniak and the Colorado Rockies. Here is a former number-one overall draft pick with serious pull-side power who’s 28 and has bounced around the league so much you’d think he was running from something. He’s come into his own in the mile-high air, and was seriously hot to start the season before cooling off a bit. There are red flags everywhere with Moniak, given his stats on the road pale in comparison to his Colorado numbers, but he has the bat speed and hard-hitting profile that could work for a lot of teams. But he strikes out too much, doesn’t walk enough and really only hits to one side of the field. He may not cost that much because of the risk, but could pay off big time for someone willing to take it.

Major League Baseball introduced a new innovation for the 2026 season by implementing the ABS Challenge System. The All-Star break provided an opportunity to reflect on how the Automatic ball-strike system has changed the game and overall, the reception has been positive.

It is impossible to discuss the ABS system without talking about the technology behind it. T-Mobile has played a huge role in the system. Go to a baseball game or watch one from home and you will instantly see all of the T-Mobile branding throughout the ballpark. However, it is important to point out that T-Mobile’s partnership with Major League Baseball simply isn’t branding. They are powering the technology behind the ABS system.

“We have been a partner with Major League Baseball for over a decade now and I think one of the things and the reasons it’s worked so well is we’ve kept innovating together,” T-Mobile Vice President of Sponsorships Amy Azzi said during All-Star festivities at Citizens Bank Park.

Major League Baseball began testing the ABS system back in 2022 in the minor leagues. A priority was of course that it needed to be accurate but it also had to be fast so that it wouldn’t take away from the game experience. The system is powered by Hawkeye Cameras that have been installed in every Major League park. The data is transferred over a private 5G network that is provided by T-Mobile. That leads to an almost instantaneous result.

“All of that data is transmitted into a software system that we’ve developed via the T-Mobile network,” said Morgan Sword who is the Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations at MLB. “That software system determines whether the trajectory of the ball matches with the strike zone we’ve loaded in. Then if it’s challenged, that produces a call.”

”That’s the call you see on the big board and then also on the broadcast. It’s a lot of technology that has to happen very quickly to keep that pace and rhythm going in the game.”

So far there have been over 6,000 challenges during the first half of the regular season. Teams start with two challenges each and lose one for every unsuccessful attempt. Sword said that the number of challenges was something that the league had tested in the minors and listened to feedback from fans. Two felt like the sweet spot.

“We decided on two challenges per team because that was the overwhelming fan feedback in the minor leagues that we started out at three. Fans told us that, you know, ABS challenges are great and exciting to a point. If you have games where there’s 12, 15 challenges, then it starts to feel a little like it’s disrupting the game a little bit. So we dialed it back to two and that’s produced about four challenges per game, which we think is kind of right on the money and fans have responded well to that.”

The overwhelming reaction to ABS from fans has been positive, but what about the players? Brewers’ Cy Young candidate Jacob Misiorowski talked about the ABS system at T-Mobile’s Club Magenta. Misiorowski said that he thinks that the system gives an advantage to the hitters.

“I mean, sure, yes, there’s an advantage for pitchers to get a corner call, but I think you have a bigger advantage to get a call reversed to a ball over a strike.”

While he thinks that ABS is tipped slightly in hitters favor, he is a fan of all of the technology that has made its way into baseball.

“All the technology that you’re getting, all the information that they throw up on the scoreboard, all that stuff is really cool. The tech comes back to us and we get that information and stuff like that to tweak pitches, tweak everything around it. There’s Hawkeye, stuff like that is huge.”

Phillies legends Ryan Howard and Chase Utley both agreed that they would have benefitted from having the ABS system.

“I think we both had a pretty good knowledge of the strike zone and I think that guys now, pitchers, catchers, and hitters are starting to get a better understanding of what that strike zone is,” Howard said. “We’ve seen pitches that are this far off, that are a ball, and then just a hair on, that are strikes.”

“Yeah, I think it would have helped. I think, right now, what we’re seeing is, calls are getting right,” said Utley. “At the end of the day, it’s about getting the calls correct.

While the ABS system looks like a success, Major League Baseball is currently looking for other ways that they can use technology to improve the game. They are testing a check swing system in the minors.

“It is the same Hawkeye tracking system. It actually tracks the bat, when a hitter swings. So you can finally, for the first time in the history of baseball, decide what a swing is,” Sword said. “We actually don’t really define that for anybody. So, we’ve made up a definition for the purpose of Triple-A just to see how it goes. But, we may tweak that.”

A lot of thought has gone into developing these systems and how they would impact the fan experience.

“It’s been really fun to watch it in the stadium, and I think I was telling Morgan before this, that some of the loudest moments in the stadium, you’d think someone hit a home run,” Azzi said of the ABS system.

“It’s really fun to see the impact it’s had on getting people to engage in even more. It supports the great momentum that the sport has right now.”

Next week, the 2026 MLB All-Star Game gets underway at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

But before this generation’s stars take the field, the next generation will take the stage in the City of Brotherly Love.

The 2026 MLB Draft gets underway on Saturday, and over 600 prospects will hear their names called during the 20 rounds that unfold, beginning with the Chicago White Sox at No. 1 overall. To get you ready, we have a mock draft to help set the stage.

For more on how the first round works, we have you covered here with this piece from Thursday. And a note on methodology: This is a “what I think will happen” mock draft, and not a “what I would do” mock draft. Mostly because I would draft Georgia catcher Daniel Jackson with every pick in that scenario. But there is still some “what I would do” sprinkled in …

Here are the picks, with some thoughts after.

If you want to get a little deeper into this class, read on.

Let’s dive into the top ten selections a bit more.

1. Chicago White Sox: Roch Cholowsky, SS, UCLA

It is by no means a done deal, but UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky remains the consensus top player in the class. And with the White Sox trying to sign him out of high school, the pairing between player and team fits. But there is a lot to like about Texas high school shortstop Grady Emerson, as well as Georgia Tech’s Vahn Lackey, who stand out as the top three players in the class. Chicago likely goes with Cholowsky, who might have the highest floor of the three, but Emerson might have the highest ceiling.

2. Tampa Bay Rays: Grady Emerson, SS, Fort Worth Christian HS (TX)

If Cholowsky indeed comes off the board first, Tampa Bay runs to the podium for Emerson. The high school shortstop has a silky smooth swing from the left side of the plate, is coming off another monster season where he slashed .532/.648/1.013, and was just the second high school player in the past 48 years to be named a semifinalist for the Golden Spikes Award, joining Bobby Witt Jr. on that short list.

3. Minnesota Twins: Vahn Lackey, C, Georgia Tech

The Minnesota Twins sit in a decent spot, as they would be happy to take Vahn Lackey, who slashed .397/.519/.722 as part of Georgia Tech’s monster offense this season.

4. San Francisco Giants: Drew Burress, OF, Georgia Tech

This might be the first departure from consensus, as a bit of “what I would do” works its way into this mock draft. But in addition to Lackey, outfielder Drew Burress was a huge part of the Georgia Tech offense this past season. He slashed .358/.473/.675, while belting 16 home runs to break Jason Varitek’s school record of 57 career home runs, as Burress hit 60 during his time in college. The San Francisco Giants have been linked to several bats in this class, but Burress’ power stands out.

5. Pittsburgh Pirates: Eric Booth Jr., OF, Oak Grove HS (MS)

Mississippi outfielder Eric Booth Jr. is something of a consensus pick for the Pirates, and Pittsburgh dipped into the Mississippi prep waters recently with some success with Konnor Griffin. Eric Booth Jr. is considered the top prep outfielder in the 2026 MLB Draft class, hit .467 as a junior in 2025, and followed that with a .481/.699/.922 slash line this past year:

6. Kansas City Royals: Jackson Flora, RHP, UC Santa Barbara

It’s time for the first pitcher to come off the board, and it is UC Santa Barbara right-hander Jackson Flora. Flora set a new school record with 133 strikeouts this season, as he finished with a 12-0 record, an ERA of 1.06, and a WHIP of just 0.853. Flora features high-level velocity — his fastball rests in the upper 90s and hits triple digits regularly — but he can mix in two different sliders, as well as two different changeups.

Here’s a look at that fastball:

And now let’s mix in some of that breaking stuff:

If Flora is off the board, high school arm Gio Rojas could be a pick for Kansas City here.

7. Baltimore Orioles: Justin Lebron, SS, Alabama

Here is another selection where the college influence creeps into my mind. Consensus is mixed on Alabama shortstop Justin Lebron, who could come off the board anywhere from No. 8 to the late teens.

So I concede I might be higher on him than consensus, but the tools are there and the shortstop was critical to Alabama’s run to Omaha this season. According to multiple reports the Orioles are looking at college bats with this pick, and Lebron makes a great deal of sense.

8. Athletics: Ryder Helfrick, C, Arkansas

As noted by other outlets, the Athletics are looking at college bats, and Ryder Helfrick sliding to this spot would offer a nice combination of positional value and power at the plate. Helfrick slashed .305/.420/.616 for the Razorbacks in 2025 along with 15 home runs, and followed that with a .283/.417/.562 slash line in 2026 along with 18 big flies.

Plus, there is a track record of success with the wood bat, as he slashed .261/.323/.837 for Brewster on the Cape during the summer of 2024, along with 11 home runs.

9. Atlanta Braves: Jacob Lombard, SS, Gulliver Prep HS (FL)

This might be a bit low for Jacob Lombard, who is coming off boards earlier than this in other industry mock drafts. But with the board falling like this, the Braves would be happy to see Lombard available. The Florida infielder carries some “swing-and-miss” risk, particularly against upper-level velocity, but he offers an intriguing mix of power at the plate and speed on the bases.

10. Colorado Rockies: Tyler Bell, SS, Kentucky

The Colorado Rockies are another team linked to college bats in the 2026 MLB Draft, and Kentucky infielder Tyler Bell certainly fits the bill. Bell slashed an impressive .343/.510/.608 for the Wildcats this past season, with nine home runs.

The switch-hitter also has power from both sides of the plate. Here is a home run against West Virginia in the College World Series Regionals:

And here is a blast from the right side of the plate against Tennessee earlier this season:

That will work at Coors Field someday.