FanNation - The Republic of Sport

AL East

Boston Red Sox - A; Best Record in the major leagues despite David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez having somewhat off years. They have three possible Rookie of the Year candidates (Daisuke Matsuzaka, Hideki Okajima, andDustin Pedroia). Josh Beckett has a good shot at a Cy Young Award. The Red Sox are the only team with six players in the All Star Game.

Toronto Blue Jays - C-; Second place in the AL East, one game below .500, and 10 games behind the Red Sox. Frank Thomas' 500th home run of his career has been, perhaps, the biggest highlight of the first half of their season and Alex Rios was the first Blue Jay to reach the Home Run Derby Finals.

New York Yankees - D+; Tied with the Blue Jays at 10 games out of first and one game below .500 it is the first time the Yankees have been under .500 at the All-Star break since 1995 (I believe, correct me if I am wrong). A-Rod is having an MVP caliber season and Jorge Posada is performing tremendously, but they can't seem to win.

Baltimore Orioles - D; The Orioles are 15 games out of first and are 38-49 right now. Erik Bedard is have a great season, with 7 wins and 149 strikeouts, which leads the major leagues. Brian Roberts is having a great season, with a .322 batting average, .405 on base percentage, and a .443 slugging percentage.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays - F; The Devil Rays are in their usual spot, last in the AL East and the MLB, far from .500, and 19 games back. As a franchise that was created not too long ago, they have had their first repeat All Star appearance in Carl Crawford. Carlos Pena has been a pleasant surprise. He has had 20 home runs, he is batting .287, his on base percentage is .395, and has a slugging percentage at .609.

AL Central

Detroit Tigers - A; The Tigers are in first in the toughest division in baseball. They have a dominant rotation including Justin Verlander, Jeremy Bonderman, and Nate Robertson. Justin Verlander is only 24 years old and already has a World Series appearance and a no-hitter under his belt. They also have one of the strongest lineups in the MLB, but their bullpen is not as strong as it could be.

Cleveland Indians - A; They are only one game out of first place in the AL Central. The Indians have done better than many people expected with a 52-36 record. C.C. Sabathia has a good chance at a Cy Young award and has really performed well. Grady Sizemore has been selected to his second All Star game in a row. Victor Martinez will also be in the All-Star game.

Minnesota Twins - B; 8 games out of first and just one game above .500, but the Twins seem to always have a better second half. Torii Hunter has been preforming well and he is finally back to the All Star game after five years. Justin Morneau has performed well again this year. Johan Santana is second in the MLB at strikeouts and has 10 wins so far this season.

Chicago White Sox - D; The White Sox are having a terrible season. They are far behind .500 and are 13 games back.  Bobby Jenks is their only representative at the All Star game. The resigning of Mark Beurhle was a great move. He is young and already has a no-hitter. Jermaine Dye has had a bad first half. Dye is down .101 points down in his average from last season. He also only has a .271 OBP.

Kansas City Royals - D; Last Place in the AL Central and 15 games back. The Royal's Gil Meche should have a better record than 5-6 with his 3.54 ERA in his 19 starts. Only four players have played 80 or more games and David Dejesus is the only player who has played every game. Lastly, none of the players that have played more than 22 games are batting at or above .300.

AL West

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim - A; They have one of the best records in baseball and are first in their division. Orlando Cabrera is performing in amazing fashion. Vlad Guerrero is playing like, well, Vlad Guerrero. They have, arguably, the best closer in the MLB in K-Rod. John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar are both pitching incredibly well and both have good shots at Cy Young and 20 wins.

Seattle Mariners - B+; The Mariners had a very successful first half going 49-36. Their manager quit after an 8 game winning streak, wait, what? J.J. Putz and Ichiro Suzuki are heading to the All Star Game. Ichiro Suzuki is batting .359 and has an OBP at .410. J.J. has an incredible ERA at 0.88 and 24 saves. He has 44 strike outs in 41 innings pitched.

Oakland Athletics - B-; The Athletics are always a second half team and they will be even more of one this year because they have had many injuries this year. Dan Haren is the starter in the All Star Game this year. Haren has a league best 2.30 ERA and has 10 wins which could easily be more if he had the run support. The Athletics are in third with a record of 44-44.

Texas Rangers - D; The Rangers are tied for second to last place in the AL. They have some of the worst starters in the league. None of their starters have an ERA below 5.36 (Kameron Loe has that ERA). The best record of their starters is 7-6 and that is Kevin Millwood's record. Sammy Sosa has really been a pleasant surprise.

NL East

New York Mets - B+; I agree with Billy Wagner, these Mets have underachieved. They could be much better than they are right now. Carlos Delgado has been a let down and Pedro isn't back yet. Jose Reyes' effort on the grounder where he didn't even run was disappointing. John Maine has been an incredible surprise and should be an All Star. The Mets need to improve their consistency.

Atlanta Braves - B-; Andruw Jones has been in a slump all year long and is batting only .211. This is Andruw's last season before going into free agency. Edgar Renteria is having a good year this season, as is Chipper Jones. John Smoltz and Brian McCann are both going to the All Star Game.

Philadelphia Phillies - C; Cole Hamels has pitched as well as any pitcher this year. He is 10-4 with 124 strikeouts and two completegames this year. This year Ryan Howard became the fastest player to reach 100 homeruns. Chase Utley, Aaron Rowand, and Cole Hamels are on the National League All Star team. Jimmy Rollins is the starter on the National League All Snub team.

Florida Marlins - C-; Miguel Cabrera made it into the All Star game like Hanley Ramirez should have. Dontrelle Willis has the best win percentage of all the Marlin's starters (.500). He has only 80 strikeouts and 50 walks. Hanley Ramirez is batting .331, has an OBP of .388, and last he has a slugging percentage of .538.

Washington Nationals - D; The Nationals have done better this year than expected at 36-52. Dmitri Young is the single player representing the Nationals in the All Star Game becuase of his .339 average. Ryan Zimmerman has not done very well this year with a batting average of .251. Their pitching is very weak.

AL Central

Milwaukee Brewers - A; The Brewers are the surprise of the year. They are in first in the AL Central, they have a record of 49-39, they are 4.5 games ahead of the Cubs, and they have an MVP candidate in Prince Fielder. The Brewers have four different players in the All Star Game, J.J. Hardy, Prince Fielder, Ben Sheets, and Francisco Cordero.

Chicago Cubs - A-; The Cubs looked out of it early on in the season. They kept losing, Lou was arguing with the umps and every other call, and teammates were fighting in the club house. Now, suddenly the Cubs are only 4.5 games back and they are winning ever since they traded Michael Barrett. The Cubs had the best record of any team in the month of June.

Saint Louis Cardinals - C; The defending World Series champs are 5 games behind .500 and 7.5 games out of first. Albert Pujols, the only All Star, is having a successful season, in complete contrast to Anthony Reyes. Reyes is 0-10 with an ERA of 6.40! Their pitching is terrible and everyone else in their lineup hasn't been very successful either.

Pittsburgh Pirates - D+; "Fans for Change" can't be happy with a 40-48 record and 9 games out of first. Freddy Sanchez who is batting .296 with 2 home runs, 33 runs, and 32 runs batted in, says everything about this team. Tom Gorzelanny was probably more deserving of an All Star selection than Freddy.

Houston Astros - D+; This has been a mostly gloomy year for the Astros. The brightest part was Craig Biggio's 3,000th hit. Carlos Lee has had a great year. Also, Hunter Pence and Roy Oswalt are really going to help the Astros out in the future. Hunter Pence is most liely going to be NL Rookie of the Year and Roy Oswalt will be a great pitcher for years to come.

Cincinnati Reds - D-; The Reds are terrible this year, although they have been on a streak since firing their old manager. Ken Griffey Jr. is finally back to the All Star game. Ken is the only Red there, but you could give an arguement for Adam Dunn to go also. Aaron Harang is also deserving to be pitching in the All Star Game. Other than those three, the Reds are absolutely pathetic.

NL West

San Diego Padres - A-; The Padres have an amazingly strong pitching staff. They have the starter for the National League and two mroe pitchers in the All Star Game. Their lineup, however, could use some pop. Chris Young has a phenomenal ERA at 2. Their hitting needs to improve if they want to win the World Series, but their pitching amazes me.

Los Angeles Dodgers - B+; The Dodgers are 48-40 and only 1 game out of first place in their division. Russell Martin, the All Star catcher, is having a great season. He leads catchers in stolen bases and runs in the MLB. Brad Penny is performing superbly with a 10-1 record. Brad has a 2.39 ERA, he has allowed ony 31 earned runs.

Arizona Diamondbacks - B; They have a record of 47-43, this was much better than what was expected from this team. Orlando Hudson, Jose Valverde, and Brandon Webb are all going to the All Star Game and I am surprised that Eric Byrnes was not playing. Eric was there, but he wasn't playing.

Colorado Rockies - C+; The Rockies are .500 and only 5.5 games out of first. They are very underrated. Matt Holliday should be a starter in the All Star Game. He is an outstanding young player and will be great for many years. Matt leads the Rockies in everything besides stolen bases, caught stealing, OBP, and Slugging Percentage. Jeff Francis is also having a great season.

San Francisco Giants - F; The Giants are old and pathetic this season. Barry Zito has been a huge bust and no one on this team is batting above .295 with at least 15 at bats. Barry Bonds is the single part of the Giants that will do something this season. That is, of course, break Hank Aaron's home run record. Barry Bonds is having a comeback season and is a surprise to everyone so far.

                              *Predicted World Series Winners*

                                        The Detroit Tigers!!

The Tigers are looking to avenge their loss in last year's World Series loss to the Cardinals and with their lineup and dominant rotation, I don't think the poor bullpen is enough to hold them back from winning the big one. The World Series MVP will be...Magglio Ordonez!

Predicted MVP - AL Alex Rodriguez, NL Matt Holliday

Predicted Rookie of the Year - AL Daisuke Matsuzaka, NL Hunter Pence

Predicted Cy Young - AL Josh Beckett, NL Jake Peavy

Predicted Hank Aaron Award - AL Alex Rodriguez, NL Hunter Pence

Predicted Manager of the Year - AL Mike Scioscia, NL Ned Yost

Predicted Edgar Martinez Award - Gary Sheffield

Predicted Comeback Player of the Year - AL Sammy Sosa, NL Barry Bonds