The trade deadline has come and gone and the dog days of summer have arrived. Fewer than seven weeks remain in the 2025 MLB regular season. Pretty soon the postseason and awards races will really heat up, and very meaningful games will be played every night. Here are three trends worth keeping an eye on as baseball heads into the stretch drive. 

Naylor running wild with Seattle

New Mariners first baseman Josh Naylor is, by almost any measure, a very good hitter. He took a .292/.360/.464 batting line and 15 home runs into Tuesday night’s series opener against the Orioles. And, by almost any measure, Naylor is slow. The eye test says he’s slow and so do the numbers. He’s in the bottom 3% of the league in Statcast’s sprint speed, on par with slow-footed veteran catchers like Jose Trevino and Jacob Stallings. Naylor is not fast. It is no secret.

And yet, Naylor entered play Tuesday with 22 steals in 24 attempts this season, including 11 steals in 15 games with Seattle. Those 11 steals are not just the most in baseball since the day the Diamondbacks traded Naylor to Seattle. They’re five (!) more than any other player. Naylor already has three two-steal games with the Mariners. This is a player who stole 25 bases in parts of six MLB seasons combined coming into 2025. Now Naylor already has 22, with an outside chance to reach 30.

Speed helps, no doubt, but there is much more to stolen bases than pure speed. If anything, Naylor’s lack of speed is contributing to him piling up steals with the Mariners. Look at some of his recent stolen bases. The pitcher doesn’t even bother to check Naylor, so he takes off. These steals are on the pitcher as much as they’re on Naylor (or the catcher):

Naylor sat out one game last week with a sore shoulder and I thought that might cut into his stolen base pace because he wouldn’t want to risk further injury on a slide, but nope. He stole a base in his first game back. Naylor and Cal Raleigh, who is 13 for 16 stealing bases this season, make for quite the “guys stealing bases you don’t expect” duo in Seattle.

Ultimately, Naylor’s bat is his calling card, and it is what will get him paid nicely as a free agent after the season. The big uptick in stolen bases this year, particularly with the Mariners, is something that will help his team win in 2025 more than something teams will pay for in 2026 and beyond. Give Naylor credit though. He may not be fast, but he is a smart and opportunistic stolen base threat. When opponents have left the door open for him to run, he’s taken advantage.

Darvish’s new arm slot

Elbow inflammation delayed the start of Yu Darvish’s 2025 debut until July 7, and when he returned, it wasn’t pretty initially. The 38-year-old veteran right-hander was tagged for 17 runs in 16 ⅔ innings in his first four starts with nearly as many walks (9) as strikeouts (11). Then, in his fifth start, Darvish fanned seven and walked zero in seven shutout innings against the Mets. He’s allowed four runs in 17 innings in his last three starts after allowing those 17 runs in 16 ⅔ innings in his first four starts.

Darvish credited his sudden in-season turnaround — he allowed eight runs in 3 ⅓ innings in his start before the Mets game — to a new arm slot. Specifically, he lowered his arm slot pretty significantly (roughly 10 degrees per Statcast), which led to more run on his four-seamer and sinker and more depth on his breaking balls. The Mets know firsthand how much lowering the arm slot can help a pitcher. Sean Manaea made the same adjustment last summer and finished the season on an ace-like run.

Darvish lowered his arm slot and turned his season around.
MLB.com/CBS Sports

“I went into the bullpen leading up to (the Mets start) and I felt good about it,” Darvish told reporters, including the San Diego Union-Tribune, about dropping his arm slot. “So I went into the game with a different arm slot than usual and it worked. So all in all, I’m happy about that.”

Going into Tuesday’s game with the Giants, the Padres had won 12 of their last 15 games and closed the NL West gap to just one game behind the Dodgers. Michael King came back this past weekend, Nestor Cortes was acquired at the trade deadline, and Darvish has gotten his season on track with a mechanical adjustment. The Padres are better positioned to challenge the Dodgers now than at any point this year. Darvish’s new arm slot and improved performance is a major part of that.

Langeliers breaking out for A’s

Perhaps it is incorrect to call this a breakout season for Athletics catcher Shea Langeliers, who slugged 29 home runs last year and ranked eighth among catchers with a 111 OPS+. Maybe he already broke out. Either way, Langeliers has raised his game this season, racking up 85% of last year’s total bases in 69% of the plate appearances. Last week, he had a 5 for 6 game with a double and three homers, and he had 10 homers in his last 16 games entering Tuesday.

Langeliers always had uncommon power for a catcher. That power is why the Braves made him the No. 9 overall pick in the 2019 Draft and why the A’s wanted him in the Matt Olson trade. Langeliers slugging homers is not a surprise. It’s what he does. What has further elevated his game this season is his contact ability. Among the 276 players with at least 350 plate appearances in both 2024 and 2025, only one has cut his strikeout rate more than Langeliers:

The MLB average is a 21.9% strikeout rate this season. Langeliers went from a much-higher-than-average strikeout rate last year to a comfortably-better-than-average strikeout rate this year. Combine fewer strikeouts (i.e. more balls in play) with the above-average hard-hit ability Langeliers possesses, you have a player putting up big-time numbers at a position not known for offense. Langeliers missed most of June with an oblique strain and is still second among all catchers with 24 homers, and fourth with a 136 OPS+.

“I stopped worrying about my swing so much,” Langeliers told reporters, including MLB.com, about the key to his success last year. “Sometimes I get so in my head about breaking down video and what my swing looks like. I blame failures on my actual swing rather than what pitches I’m swinging at or my approach or wondering if I’m locked in in certain situations. Second half, I just went strictly approach-based on what I’m trying to do at the plate and worried less about my swing.”

Langeliers rates as an above-average defender in addition to providing big power at his position, so he’s an all-around impact player for an A’s team with a sneaky impressive position player core. Langeliers joins Rooker, rookies Nick Kurtz and Jacob Wilson, outfielder Lawrence Butler, and erstwhile top prospect Tyler Soderstrom. That’s a pretty good offensive foundation. The A’s have to get their pitching figured out, but the offensive pieces are there, and Langeliers is certainly one of them.