Unsolved MLB mysteries as trade deadline approaches

ARLINGTON, Texas — The first half officially closed Tuesday night with the All-Star Game, but with way more than half a season completed.

No team had played fewer than 95 games and, in all, an MLB-record 1,449 games and 59.6 percent of its schedule had been exhausted prior to the Midsummer Classic (thanks to MLB Network research). Yet, even with that much season played, there remains so much mystery about a trade deadline two weeks away, including:

1. Is Mason Miller available? It feels like no player should be more so.

The A’s are unlikely to play a meaningful game until they get to Las Vegas, no earlier than 2028. That is hundreds of appearances from now for a bad team. And the risk of staying healthy for that period for a guy who throws the hardest average fastball in the majors (100.9 mph) and had shoulder and elbow issues over the past two seasons seems red-line high.

Miller has five years of control and is the kind of end-game piece that every contender would see meaningfully upgrading championship odds. Thus, the A’s could theoretically return a haul.

Conversely, as heated as buying teams would be to add Miller’s heat — his 46.7 strikeout percentage is not only first, but second is in the distance: Josh Hader at 40.4 — there must be concern by any acquiring team of giving up that haul and having Miller blow out quickly.