We've officially reached the halfway point -- as of Monday morning, each MLB team has played an average of 82.3 games -- and have seen plenty of interesting trends, great or small.
We have learned that the Royals are more than a one-year wonder, the previously woeful Astros are good (perhaps a year earlier than we expected), and the White Sox and Mariners still have plenty of holes. We learned that Alex Rodriguez and the New York Yankees' front office could actually get along, but a few thousand miles away in Anaheim, Angels manager Mike Scioscia and GM Jerry Dipoto could not.
Some other truths are a little less noticeable. Here are a half-dozen "Insider-like" trends in play from the first half of the season:
Do not walk
Front offices and managers routinely preach the virtue of pitchers avoiding the free pass, and in 2015, the hurlers seem to be listening. We have seen just 2.84 walks per game in the majors this season, which would be the lowest total since a 2.82 mark in 1968, a year in which hurlers were so dominant that the mound was lowered for the following year. It also would mark the sixth consecutive year that number will have declined.