On Opening Day, everyone begins at zero. Thirty teams all angling for the same thing: the pileup on the field after the last out in a World Series clincher.
In a just universe, this would mean each of the 30 franchises would own a 1-in-30 shot at earning that celebration. That's a 3.3% chance. Alas, the sports universe is not just and the realistic odds from team to team vary a great deal.
As we do every season, we're focused on the odds in that category -- title probability -- at the outset of the season, using those forecasts to slot teams into World Series tiers.
Last season ended with the preseason Tier 1 Los Angeles Dodgers beating the Tier 2 New York Yankees. In 2023, it was the Tier 3 Texas Rangers topping the Tier 4 Arizona Diamondbacks. Could this be the year a team emerges from Tier 5 to win it all? Maybe not, but these results show that the system yields a forecast, not an immutable destiny.
Where does your team stand in the pecking order for 2025 World Series hopefuls?
A note on methodology: This ranking used player-level projections as the inputs to my team forecast model, which were blended with over/under lines from ESPN BET. These calculations were used to create a baseline win expectation, which formed the basis for 10,000 simulations of the rest of the 2025 schedule, yielding our win forecasts and postseason probabilities.
Teams are ranked by average simulation wins and then placed into one of five tiers according to their playoff and championship probabilities. For the latter tiers, a rough ETA for each team's arrival as a contender has been added.
Jump to a tier:
Tier 1: The Dodgers' time is now | Tier 2: Their time could be now
Tier 3: We're saying they have a chance | Tier 4: Wait 'til next year
Tier 5: Two years away ... at least
Tier 1: The Dodgers' time is now
Typically, teams in Tier 1 are the front-runners to land the top seed in their league and should be all-in trying to win the World Series. This year, we've reserved the tier for one team.
1. Los Angeles Dodgers
Champions: 28.4%
Win average: 102.4 (1st; last season: 101.7, 1st)
In the playoffs: 97.7% (last season: 97.2%)
State of the franchise: Things have never been better for the defending champs. With two titles in five years behind them, the Dodgers are such heavy favorites to repeat that they get their own tier. Get used to it. This All-Star team of a franchise has an unlimited horizon.
Pivotal statistic: 117. The Dodgers have so much high-end talent in so many areas, so many resources and so much depth that it's only natural to wonder if they will break the MLB win record of 116 (set by the 1906 Cubs and matched by the 2001 Mariners). The only thing truly working against them is that the incentives for doing it lie in intangible areas such as legacy and prestige. Once you've clinched the top overall postseason seed, every win after that has no marginal utility, and it becomes more important to rest players where needed and position your pitching staff for October. Still: This team is so loaded that even if the Dodgers clinch that top spot by, say, the middle of September, they might get the record without even trying.
Tier 2: Their time could be now
Teams in this group are clearly in the win-now category (but still aren't the Dodgers).
2. Atlanta Braves
Champions: 14.4%
Win average: 96.5 (2nd; last season: 96.4, 2nd)
In the playoffs: 91.1% (last season: 90.9%)
State of the franchise: Still going strong. Last season was a bit of a step back, with the Braves' win total dropping from 104 to 89. Even so, the Braves ended up in the playoffs for the seventh straight season, and they enter 2025 as nominal favorites to return to the top spot in the National League East. For now, the Braves still are the closest answer the NL has to the Dodgers, but this season will determine if this version of an Atlanta mini-dynasty has already peaked.
Pivotal statistic: 1,498. That's the combined number of plate appearances from Ronald Acuna Jr. (735) and batters faced by Spencer Strider (763) in 2023. Last season, that number was 264. Both players began the 2025 season on the injured list but should be back in action soon. They won't get to that 2023 level of deployment, but the closer they get, the more powerful the Braves will be. Atlanta has depth, but not Dodgers-level depth, and the Braves simply lost too much star power to injury a year ago.
3. New York Yankees
Champions: 6.5%
Win average: 88.7 (5th; last season: 91.2, 3rd)
In the playoffs: 68.3% (last season: 77.5%)
State of the franchise: Fuzzy. Which is a strange way to describe the state of baseball's most successful franchise, especially since the Yankees are fresh off an American League pennant and haven't had a losing season since 1992. Still, this is all about the Juan Soto departure. The Yankees had one of baseball's preeminent stars -- who just weeks before had authored a historic moment with his AL Championship Series-clinching homer against Cleveland -- tried to keep him and lost him to the team with which they share the New York City market. Times changed. The Yankees made an impressive pivot in the transaction market after Soto left, but then encountered a rash of injuries to their rotation this spring, with Gerrit Cole's season-ender topping that list. Yes, the Yankees still have a narrow edge in these numbers in the favorite's seat to win the AL again. Rather than firming their grip on the circuit, the Yankees appear to have fallen back into a cluster of good but not great teams.
Pivotal statistic: 106. With Soto gone and Cole out, more of the onus falls upon Aaron Judge than ever. Two of his past three seasons have ranked among the greatest in Yankees history. In between, he had an injury-marred season in which he played great but got into just 106 games. The Yankees can't realistically expect Judge to do more than he did in 2022 or 2024. But they need him to remain at that level ... and stay healthy. A 106-game season or worse from Judge would sink the Yankees, considering how deep and tightly packed most of the AL is right now. Of course, if Judge stays healthy and keeps mashing the way he did over this season's opening weekend, he might hit 80 homers and draw 200 walks.
4. New York Mets
Champions: 6.0%
Win average: 90.2 (3rd; last season: 91.0, 4th)
In the playoffs: 73.5% (last season: 76.5%)
State of the franchise: Everything seems to be in place for a new Mets golden age, one that will have Soto as the headline star but far from alone. With David Stearns calling the shots, the Mets now combine opulence with restraint. The former marked the 2023 disappointment; then with Stearns on board, the latter resulted in a bounce-back season that ended one round shy of the World Series. There's just no good reason this formula should not work.
Pivotal statistic: 498. That's the average number of walks issued by pitching staffs a season ago. The Mets were at 586, more than all but two teams. Their starting pitchers walked more hitters than any other rotation. Their relievers threw more pitches per plate appearance than any other bullpen. This was a key reason New York rated as a league-average run prevention team even though the Mets were fifth in strikeouts. They need to continue to miss bats without missing the plate nearly so often, with that league-average figure serving as a nice benchmark for improvement.
5. Baltimore Orioles
Champions: 5.9%
Win average: 88.0 (7th; last season: 87.5, 8th)
In the playoffs: 64.7% (last season: 62.3%)
State of the franchise: Impatience? The Orioles' contention window is far from closed. Their impressive group of young position players -- a cadre still so deep they don't have every-day spots for some really talented hitters -- ranked fourth in runs per game in 2024. They did that while still ranking as the sixth-youngest group of batsmen. But after two seasons of 90-plus wins followed by fruitless trips to the postseason, it's time for this process to yield some autumn results. It's unfair, of course. The Orioles have won 101 and 91 games over the past two years, and are positioned to get into that range again in 2025. Fair or not, though, teams are ultimately judged by what they do after the regular season, not during it.
Pivotal statistic: 194⅓. Corbin Burnes' innings total was 60⅔ more frames than Baltimore got from any other pitcher in 2024. Now he's in Arizona. The Orioles might not get that many innings from any one starter, but they need a more stable rotation. If they can find a core five who land in the range of 140 to 170 innings, Burnes' workload might be missed less than Birds fans fear.
6. Houston Astros
Champions: 5.4%
Win average: 88.7 (6th; last season: 88.0, 6th)
In the playoffs: 68.7% (last season: 66.0%)
State of the franchise: Signs of decline have emerged. Last year's win total was Houston's lowest full-season result since 2016. After a remarkable seven-year streak of reaching the ALCS; last season the Astros failed to win a postseason contest. Most of the stars from Houston's decade of dominance are elsewhere, though a smattering of stalwarts such as Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez and Framber Valdez remain. The minor league system ranked last in Kiley McDaniel's preseason ratings, and that was after Houston traded for spring training sensation Cam Smith. Despite all of this, Houston began the season with the seventh-most expensive opening 26-man roster, per Cot's Contracts. It might not be over yet, but the end for this era of Astros baseball is at the very least looming on the horizon.
Pivotal statistic: 177. Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman have ostensibly been replaced by Smith and Isaac Paredes in the Houston lineup. Tucker and Bregman combined to average 177 runs created over the past four seasons. Paredes' figure during that time span was 54, and if he hits that, the onus would be on Smith to do something that's not particularly realistic. Since the Astros will be getting lesser defense at the positions opened by the departures of Tucker and Bregman, how much of an offensive decline at those slots can the team absorb?
7. Texas Rangers
Champions: 5.2%
Win average: 87.1 (9th; last season: 87.7, 7th)
In the playoffs: 61.0% (last season: 63.8%)
State of the franchise: The Rangers are searching for organizational consistency. The 2023 championship was the acme moment in Texas' history, and the Rangers remain reasonably warm even after last year's injury-marred step back. Still, the bottom line is that since 2017, outside of the championship season, they have topped out at 78 wins. With a payroll projected to land in the top 10 for a third straight season, it's time for Texas to show that it has become the year-in, year-out power it appeared on the verge of becoming.
Pivotal statistic: 156. Jacob deGrom's adjusted ERA over his career has been 56% better than league average. Among MLB starting pitchers, that's tied for the best qualifying figure in history. (With Clayton Kershaw, if you're wondering.) During the 2020s, deGrom has been even better than that, with a too-good-to-believe ERA+ of 194. Because we've seen so little of deGrom the past couple of years, perhaps the degree of his dominance has started to fade in the collective memory. But if he can approximate what he has done before and get to 130 or 140 innings (or more, but let's not get greedy), the wait will have been more than worth it for Rangers fans.
8. Philadelphia Phillies
Champions: 4.8%
Win average: 89.2 (4th; last season: 88.7, 5th)
In the playoffs: 68.9% (last season: 66.5%)
State of the franchise: The Phillies won their first NL East title in 12 years in 2024, but after playing in 30 playoff games during 2022 and 2023, they were knocked out in four games by the Mets in the division series. The Mets' rise, the Braves' constancy and maybe even, before long, a return to relevance by the Nationals, have made the terrain rough for the Phillies. They are a very good team, capable of winning it all. But with the roster starting to show some age and the landscape around them growing ever more perilous, the Phillies need to break through sooner rather than later in the form of the franchise's third World Series title in 143 years of existence.
Pivotal statistic: 200. This isn't a baseball statistic but a reference to the calendar. The 200th day of 2025 is July 19, the first weekend after the All-Star break. Phillies GM Dave Dombrowski has been vague when discussing the timeline for electric righty Andrew Painter's return to the big league pitching staff, but he has said "July-ish." That's when we're all debating how teams can or should maneuver around the trade deadline. But it's possible that in adding Painter to the mix, the Phillies might get as much of a jolt from that move as from any trade around that time.
Tier 3: We're saying they have a chance
The odds look stacked against these teams in terms of immediate title contention, but a playoff berth is in play, so anything can happen.
9. Arizona Diamondbacks
Champions: 3.0%
Win average: 87.1 (8th; last season: 86.6, 9th)
In the playoffs: 58.4% (last season: 56.4%)
State of the franchise: Fun. This is such a fun team to watch. From a competitive standpoint, D-backs fans are certainly hoping for more than fun, but it's a good starting point. Arizona went to the World Series in 2023 and became a much better team in 2024, but still was the odd team out in the quest for the NL's six playoff slots. That's two straight winning seasons for the Snakes after 198 losses in 2021 and 2022. It feels like there is more here, though, with an athletic position group; a fully stocked, high-level rotation; and a long-term franchise cornerstone in Corbin Carroll. This is a team ready to explode, even if in this context it means finishing as a powerful runner-up to the Dodgers.
Pivotal statistic: 1. Pretty simple, really. The Diamondbacks scored 44 more runs than any other team in the majors in 2024. Yes, park effects play into that, but the Snakes ranked second in runs on the road, so it wasn't all Chase Field. Alas, the team they finished behind in road scoring was ... you guessed it ... the Dodgers. If there is any hope for the Diamondbacks to steal a division crown, repeating as baseball's most prolific offense would be a good start.
10. Minnesota Twins
Champions: 2.7%
Win average: 85.1 (10th; last season: 84.5, 11th)
In the playoffs: 52.4% (last season: 49.2%)
State of the franchise: With the franchise on the market and the resolution of the sale process still hard to pin down, the Twins are running in place. This is a well-run team, well supported in a good market, and it plays in a terrific ballpark. Even as the franchise has teetered on the edge of elite status, its payroll hasn't reached the top half in the majors for more than a decade, so a lot has to go right for the Twins to make the leap from solid/middling. Instead, they've lost too much production from the top of their roster in too many years. More than anything, as the ownership situation lingers in limbo, that's the thing that needs to change.
Pivotal statistic: 360. Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton and Royce Lewis averaged that number in the plate appearance column, with each of them finishing between 325 and 388. Boost that number to 600, and the Twins take on an entirely different aspect.
11. Boston Red Sox
Champions: 2.5%
Win average: 84.1 (15th; last season: 84.1, 15th)
In the playoffs: 45.6% (last season: 45.0%)
State of the franchise: Gathering momentum. The Red Sox are working on a three-year stretch of .500-or-worse baseball, but it feels like things are getting very close to exploding once again in Boston. That begins with an exciting group of position players getting deeper with an influx of high-ceiling prospects. Kristian Campbell, in the Opening Day lineup, is at the vanguard of this new wave of talent, but Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer aren't far behind.
Pivotal statistic: 31. Only the woeful White Sox blew more saves than the Red Sox bullpen, which finished 25th with a 4.36 ERA. There are some new faces in the group this year. Well, old faces in a new place, when we're talking Aroldis Chapman, Liam Hendriks and Justin Wilson. There is little room for error in what figures to be a crowded and deep field for playoff slots in the AL, and lead exec Craig Breslow has to prove his mettle when it comes to assembling contention-worthy bullpens. If he does, look out.
12. Seattle Mariners
Champions: 2.5%
Win average: 84.3 (14th; last season: 84.5, 11th)
In the playoffs: 46.8% (last season: 47.3%)
State of the franchise: Groundhog Day. The Mariners have become a source of exasperation. It's not because they haven't been solid. Seattle has won 90, 90, 88 and 85 games over the past four regular seasons. Over the last three of those campaigns, the M's have posted Pythagorean records between 88.5 and 91.3 expected wins. What's been frustrating is that the Mariners keep manifesting the same combination of strengths and weaknesses. Good pitching, especially in the rotation, and a middling or worse offense undermined by too many strikeouts. Nothing happened this winter to alter that profile.
Pivotal statistic: 1,600. The 2023 Twins set the standard for team strikeouts (1,654), but the 2023 Mariners (1,603) and 2024 Mariners (1,625) rank with them among the only four teams to whiff at least 1,600 times in a season. (Last year's Rockies round out the group.) Early returns in 2025 suggest we are seeing this happen all over again.
13. Kansas City Royals
Champions: 2.3%
Win average: 84.6 (11th; last season: 84.4, 13th)
In the playoffs: 48.8% (last season: 48.4%)
State of the franchise: Apparently resurgent. Between 2018 and 2023, the Royals lost 98.3 games for every 162 they played. At the end of that stretch, they also featured a farm system that had been ranked in the lower tiers of the majors for multiple seasons. Then they leaped by 30 games, made the playoffs and were competitive once they got there. Even more: The Royals were a blast to watch and had a clear approach to what they were doing. How all of this happened so quickly remains wonderfully stupefying. But because it was so rare and strange ... the Royals kind of need to do it again to make it seem real.
Pivotal statistic: .653. The flip side of this number is .812. That's the combined OPS the Royals got from their 2-hole (mostly Bobby Witt Jr.), 3-hole (Vinnie Pasquantino) and 4-hole hitters (Salvador Perez). Only the Yankees, Dodgers and Diamondbacks did better. Alas, the Royals' other spots compiled that unsightly collective .653 OPS, ranking 24th in the majors. Simply put, the Royals need to give their big three more support to keep last year's good vibes going.
14. Detroit Tigers
Champions: 1.8%
Win average: 83.0 (16th; last season: 82.8, 16th)
In the playoffs: 41.2% (last season: 40.2%)
State of the franchise: Emerging from the shadows. The Tigers have been building slowly but came together all at once late last season. After Detroit offloaded veterans at the trade deadline, the proverbial white flag for the also-ran, the club suddenly took off and kept going all the way through the mighty Astros in the wild-card round and into the ALDS. It all happened fast, but now the expectations have been raised in Detroit. With an elite farm system, a maturing big league roster and the fresh taste of recent success, all trends are pointing upward for the Tigers.
Pivotal statistic: 753. Despite having the eventual Cy Young winner in Tarik Skubal on top of their rotation, the Tigers' starters finished last in the majors in innings pitched. Between injuries and the deadline trade that sent Jack Flaherty to the Dodgers, Detroit's pitching plan over the last two months consisted of Skubal and the improvisational skills of the Tigers' coaching staff. And it worked! The Rays have put up lower rotation innings counts several times in recent years while also posting high win totals. Still, for the Tigers, this wasn't so much a plan but a reaction. Now Flaherty is back, and with Jackson Jobe joining the rotation, the Tigers hope to have a more traditional pitching setup. A key number for Detroit in 2025 will be how many more innings than that 753 total from last year it can muster from its starters.
15. San Diego Padres
Champions: 1.8%
Win average: 84.5 (12th; last season: 84.4, 13th)
In the playoffs: 44.4% (last season: 44.4%)
State of the franchise: Settled, for now. With the Padres' ownership situation seemingly calmed down for the time being, San Diego embarks on a fresh quest for its first World Series crown. The past couple of years have been odd. In 2023, the Padres built up the payroll around their one-year gamble on Soto. They limped to an 82-win season despite sporting the run differential of a 92-win team. Last season, the expected record fell to 90, yet the Padres won 93 games in the actual standings and returned to the playoffs. After a too-quiet winter, the Padres enter 2025 with plenty of star power but a roster with some glaring holes. The big question is whether they can fill some of those gaps as the new season plays out.
Pivotal statistic: 141. Entering his age-26 season, that's the career-high total in games played for Fernando Tatis Jr. Last year, that number was 102. The Padres' position player group this year is thin, and for San Diego to nab what figures to be a hotly contested wild-card slot, it needs its stars to play full seasons. That begins with Tatis, because if he can just play in 145 to 150 games, you figure he'll be back in the center of the MVP conversation. Tatis' prime has arrived.
16. Toronto Blue Jays
Champions: 1.6%
Win average: 82.9 (17th; last season: 82.7, 17th)
In the playoffs: 39.2% (last season: 38.8%)
State of the franchise: It's an anxious time in Toronto. That state of general unease will continue until the Blue Jays do or do not reach an accord with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on a new deal. Last season's slide to 74 wins was a bad sign; so too were the Blue Jays' myriad disappoints during the winter's free agent period. For now, Toronto remains in win-now mode. But as we've written before, there is just no good way to read where this is all headed. One thing that is clear: A strong start to the season is a prerequisite for a near-term easing of Blue Jays fans' anxiety.
Pivotal statistic: $500 million. That seems to be the general range of where Guerrero would like to land in talks that are ongoing. Of course, if it were that simple -- meeting a specific number -- you'd think we'd have a resolution by now. Either way, if Guerrero ends up being traded or bolts after the season, which would likely go hand-in-hand with another disappointing finish in the standings, his departure might be only one of a lot of changes that take place in Toronto.
17. Chicago Cubs
Champions: 1.5%
Win average: 84.3 (13th; last season: 85.5, 10th)
In the playoffs: 51.2% (last season: 56.5%)
State of the franchise: The Cubs are always playing "Lake Shore Drive" at Wrigley Field, but if they want a 1970s song that better represents the state of the franchise, they might turn to Stealers Wheel. The Cubs have averaged 77 wins over the past four seasons and won 83 in each of the past two. In some ways, they've been unlucky, as they've fallen 12.3 wins shy of their Pythagorean records over those past two seasons. Still, the Cubs have fallen into a pattern of overpromising and underdelivering. In the NL Central, being stuck in the middle might mean contention, but the Cubs, as one of baseball's top revenue earners, should be more than that.
Pivotal statistic: 17. Hector Neris led the Cubs in saves last year, earning those saves with such a low level of reliability that he was released in August. Luck played a part in the Cubs' recent shortfall between actual and expected wins, but the foibles of the bullpen certainly haven't helped. We know Craig Counsell can run a bullpen, which he did as well as anyone during his years in Milwaukee. But he also always had at least one back-of-the-bullpen hammer with the Brewers and often more than one. For the Cubs, one will do for now, and so the onus for that falls on offseason acquisition Ryan Pressly.
Tier 4: Wait 'til next year
These teams might be just a move or two away from climbing up the hierarchy.
18. Tampa Bay Rays
Champions: 0.8%
Win average: 80.3 (19th; last season: 80.0, 19th)
In the playoffs: 27.1% (last season: 25.6%)
ETA: 2025-26
State of the franchise: Reloading. The Rays pursue their strategies with gusto. You have to give them that. Last season, despite not being too far out of wild-card contention, they became the deadline's most aggressive off-loader, deepening the farm system that has always fueled Tampa Bay's consistent status as a contender. Injuries overwhelmed the Rays' pitching staff, but the group is healthier now, and the system looks deep in both quantity and quality.
Pivotal statistic: 87. Last year was an exception, but from 2020 to 2024, the average win total (per 162 games) for the third-place finishers in the AL East was 87 games. These days a division can get as many as four teams into the playoff field, but, still, the Rays are in a hypercompetitive circuit. That narrows their postseason path and is why their middling win projection lands them in this tier. Before 2024, however, the Rays could almost be penciled in for at least 87 wins, so we're about to find out just how much of an aberration last season will prove to be.
19. St. Louis Cardinals
Champions: 0.7%
Win average: 81.0 (18th; last season: 81.2, 18th)
In the playoffs: 33.9% (last season: 34.1%)
ETA: 2025-26
State of the franchise: Agitation. The annoyance doesn't come from the team itself but from its ever-invested fan base. The team's stated offseason objective of beginning a reset is at the root of this discontent. The problem is that the Cardinals had it backward. Unless you are tearing down to the studs, you don't really need to explain a step back. You just do it, assuming the results will speak for themselves. But the Cardinals advertised this plan, didn't really execute it and ended up with a not-bad roster that might be good enough to compete in their division. As if to underscore that reality, the Cardinals swept their opening series against Minnesota and grabbed the early lead in the NL Central. It's going to be an interesting season in St. Louis.
Pivotal statistic: Zero. As in no-trade clauses. The Cardinals have doled them out generously when signing key veterans such as Nolan Arenado, Willson Contreras and Sonny Gray. Now, when they'd like to pivot in the form of trades to clear payroll and bolster the minor league depth, these veterans go into "Bartleby, the Scrivener" mode. Such is their prerogative, but this is a mess of the Cardinals' own making. The irony is that in the short term, it makes the Cardinals more competitive.
20. San Francisco Giants
Champions: 0.6%
Win average: 79.9 (21st; last season: 79.7, 21st)
In the playoffs: 24.6% (last season: 23.4%)
ETA: 2026-27
State of the franchise: Reaching for the glorious past. During Farhan Zaidi's six seasons running the Giants' front office, the 162-game win totals went 77, 78, 107, 81, 79, 80. The 107-win season was certainly memorable, but it turned out to be a glaring outlier for team operating right in the middle. That's not the place where a marquee franchise wants to reside, especially in the aftermath of an era that featured three titles in five years. So Zaidi is out, and in is one of the centerpieces of that mini-dynasty, Buster Posey, who steps into the top front office slot for the first time.
Pivotal statistic: 68. The stolen base has returned with a vengeance in MLB the past couple of years thanks to a few rules tweaks. The Giants have not caught the wave. San Francisco finished 29th in swipes a season ago with those 68 thefts, and that was up from a 30th-ranked total of 57 in 2023. Getting up to speed, so to speak, will take some time, but in general, Posey needs to construct some offenses that offer more stylistic versatility, such as the ones featured by division rivals San Diego and Arizona. They are all chasing the Dodgers, and you can't really catch L.A. by playing the same way, only worse.
21. Cleveland Guardians
Champions: 0.5%
Win average: 77.7 (last season: 77.6, 22nd)
In the playoffs: 19.0% (22nd; last season: 18.9%)
ETA: 2025-26
State of the franchise: Doing its thing. The Guardians don't always project well (hence this forecast) and don't always stand out in the preseason betting markets. But for more than a decade, Cleveland has churned out solid-to-excellent teams that usually win more than they lose. Those teams have won division titles, made the playoffs with regularity and even taken a few postseason series. They've won in a variety of ways. Lately, it has been with a position group that has annually ranked as the youngest or second-youngest group of hitters in the league. On the pitching side, sometimes the rotation has been a strength. Other times, such as 2024, it has been the bullpen. The common thread to all of it is consistent, above-average baseball.
Pivotal statistic: 2.57. The Guardians didn't just lead the majors in bullpen ERA, they lapped the field. The next-best figure was Milwaukee's 3.11 mark, and even that was a bit of an outlier -- in third was Atlanta at 3.32. The problem with extreme numbers is that they tend to get sucked back toward the middle. That doesn't mean Cleveland won't feature a good bullpen in 2025, but the group is unlikely to repeat the scale of last year's dominance. So the question becomes whether the Guardians can offset that regression with improved production elsewhere on the roster.
22. Milwaukee Brewers
Champions: 0.5%
Win average: 79.9 (20th; last season: 79.8, 20th)
In the playoffs: 28.9% (20th; last season: 27.7%)
ETA: 2025-26
State of the franchise: Doing its thing. Yes, we're repeating ourselves, but it's fitting that the Brewers are grouped in with the Guardians in this pecking order. Like Cleveland, Milwaukee is annually a hard team to predict, and that's become increasingly so the younger the Brewers have gotten. Their preseason over/under totals the past four years have gone 83.5, 90.5, 85.5 and 78.5. Their actual win totals have been 95, 86, 92 and 93. It's almost like the lower the expectation, the better you figure the Brewers will be.
Pivotal statistic: 41. Only Miami (29) posted fewer quality starts than the Brewers. This was despite the fact that Milwaukee's rotation ranked fifth with a 3.65 ERA. The disconnect was by design. You have to go six innings to earn a quality start, and the Brewers rarely let their starters go that long. The Brewers had 96 games in which a reliever went at least two innings, most in the NL and second overall to rotation-strapped Detroit. There has been a lot of turnover in the Milwaukee bullpen, and while the Brewers are among the best at iterating in that area, a little more consistent length from the rotation would be nice. The early returns from the starters in Milwaukee's opening series at Yankee Stadium were not promising.
23. Cincinnati Reds
Champions: 0.2%
Win average: 75.9 (23rd; last season: 75.8, 23rd)
In the playoffs: 14.6% (last season: 14.5%)
ETA: 2026-27
State of the franchise: Waiting to explode. Sometimes that kind of feeling stems from a team coming off an aggressive offseason. That's definitely not the case for Cincinnati. Still, any team with Elly De La Cruz dropping jaws game after game feels like it could take off at any time. It doesn't hurt that the Reds also have the scintillating Hunter Greene leading the rotation. Finally, this anticipation is boosted by the arrival of future Hall of Fame manager Terry Francona. The Reds haven't won more than 83 games since 2013. To say this franchise is overdue for an unexpected breakout is an understatement, and Tito has authored that kind of thing before.
Pivotal statistic: For De La Cruz to take the next step from MVP hopeful to MVP contender, he has to slice the whiffs. Only three batters have ever struck out more times in a season than De La Cruz did last year, and he was still really good. He might start by just making more contact from one side of the plate. He struck out more than 31% of the time as both a right-handed and left-handed hitter. De La Cruz is never going to morph into Luis Arraez, and you wouldn't want him to. But for all his power, the more De La Cruz puts the ball in play and gets on base, the more his awe-inspiring speed comes into play.
24. Los Angeles Angels
Champions: 0.1%
Win average: 73.8 (25th; last season: 73.7, 24th)
In the playoffs: 8.9% (last season: 8.9%)
ETA: 2026-27
State of the franchise: Disappointing. The Angels had an active offseason and should be better than last season's 99-loss dud. Given improvement from some of their young hitters and a more-or-less full season from Mike Trout, it's not impossible that the Angels make a run at a wild-card spot. That wouldn't change the reality that the franchise needs a makeover. There is some young talent on the big league roster, but the rapidity with which some of them were sped to the majors is not necessarily a healthy sign for an organization. No matter how you slice it, the Angels have been the most disappointing franchise in baseball during Trout's career. That's certainly not Trout's fault.
Pivotal statistic: 9. That's as in the position -- right field -- Trout's home for the first time. If that leads to an improvement on another number -- 119, Trout's high for games played since 2020 -- it will brighten matters considerably.
25. Athletics
Champions: 0.1%
Win average: 73.5 (26th; last season: 73.4, 25th)
In the playoffs: 8.4% (last season: 8.2%)
ETA: 2026-27
State of the franchise: On the road again. On the field, the A's are headed in the right competitive direction. As for literal direction, the franchise's multiyear detour in Sacramento brings with it an invariable feeling of limbo around the franchise. Of course, limbo, in various forms, might well be the defining trait of the franchise. The goal now is to edge the on-field improvement forward so that by the time the A's open in Las Vegas, they will do so with a team worth watching. They might get there.
Pivotal statistic: 27. Here's the recent sequence of events for Lawrence Butler. He starts off as a regular for the Athletics last season but limps to a .179/.281/.274 start over 41 games, earning him a demotion to Triple-A Las Vegas. While there, he plays in 27 games, doing just OK, finishing with a slash line of .255/.349/.418. On June 18, he was back in the majors and over the rest of the season, Butler hit .291/.330/.565 with 20 homers and 15 steals in 84 games. Finally, on March 6, he signed a seven-year, $65.5 million extension that should mean the next time Butler plays in Vegas, it'll be in a big league uniform. If Butler keeps doing what he did after last season's recall, his new pact will be a bargain. But it was, after all, just 84 games on the heels of a 27-game demotion.
26. Pittsburgh Pirates
Champions: 0.1%
Win average: 74.2 (24th; last season: 73.2, 26th)
In the playoffs: 10.4% (last season: 8.9%)
ETA: 2026-never
State of the franchise: Maddeningly cheap. Yes, cheap. But at least they have the game's most dynamic young pitcher on board, if only for a few years.
Pivotal statistic: 250. Paul Skenes struck out 170 batters as a rookie in only 133 innings. At 11.5 strikeouts per nine innings, that translates to 223 if he gets to 175 innings. But Skenes was, after all, just a rookie, and we can dream of even more whiffs and even more innings. Are 250 strikeouts a possibility? If Skenes gets to that territory, it would be the most strikeouts by a Pirates hurler since Bob Veale in the mid-1960s.
27. Washington Nationals
Champions: 0.0%
Win average: 67.7 (27th; last season: 68.8, 27th)
In the playoffs: 1.9% (last season: 2.7%)
ETA: 2026
State of the franchise: Almost back. A surprising push toward .500 could just be the thing to motivate the Nationals toward an aggressive 2025-26 offseason. The young talent is coalescing on the big league roster and still increasing in number. Those who have been around for a couple of years, like MacKenzie Gore and CJ Abrams, are pushing toward their primes. The Nats bolstered the mix with some targeted veteran pickups in Nathaniel Lowe, Josh Bell, Amed Rosario and Paul DeJong. For now, the payroll remains in the bottom 10. A strong 2025 uptick could position Washington for a 2026 breakout, on the field and on the payroll.
Pivotal statistic: 6. That's how many teams DeJong has played for since the start of the 2023 season. He remains a solid defender with decent power for an infielder but his career has slipped into that zone where he's become a perennial stopgap. And so it goes now that he's with the Nationals, with whom he signed a one-year, $1 million deal. Barring something unexpected, DeJong will hold space for some future combination of Brady House, Trey Lipscomb and Seaver King. House is probably the immediate name to watch and when he establishes himself in D.C., it will make the next version of a contending Nats team look that much more complete.
Tier 5: Two years away ... at least
There is work to be done, probably too much to hope for a serious run this season.
28. Miami Marlins
Champions: 0.0%
Win average: 62.9 (28th; last season: 62.9, 28th)
In the playoffs: 0.4% (last season: 0.4%)
ETA: 2027-28
State of the franchise: Back to the beginning. Stop us if you've read this before, but the Marlins have torn down and gone young. For now, as long as Sandy Alcantara is still around, the first part of that process -- trading away productive veterans -- won't quite be complete. But Miami has gotten most of the way there with startling rapidity, given the team's playoff appearance just 18 months ago.
Pivotal statistic: 15. Kiley McDaniel put the Marlins' farm system right in the middle of his rankings before the season. Much of that is improved prospect depth stemming from all of those offloading trades. The Marlins need more foundational types, and given all the losses likely in their near future, they should be in position to draft some possible candidates to fill that need.
29. Colorado Rockies
Champions: 0.0%
Win average: 57.1 (29th; last season: 57.1, 29th)
In the playoffs: 0.1% (last season: 0.1%)
ETA: 2027-28
State of the franchise: It's just a flesh wound. Have we compared the Rockies' apparent lack of self-awareness to the ravings of the Black Knight before? Seems like low-hanging fruit, which we love in this space. Owner Dick Monfort mostly restrained himself from his usual practice of issuing wildly optimistic offseason forecasts. He did reportedly say this year's Rockies defense has a chance to be the best in baseball history, but that's harmless enough. Anyway, the Rockies are still gradually getting younger and there are some genuinely exciting names in the system, such as pitcher Chase Dollander and hitter Charlie Condon. You could look askew at the end-of-spring decision to send prospect Zac Veen back to Triple-A in favor of a Nick Martini/Sam Hilliard platoon, but if it helps to finish off Veen's development, that's fine. It's not hopeless. Really, 'tis but a scratch.
Pivotal statistic: One. The landscape of talented young shortstops is crowded at the moment, but the mural clearly has a place for Ezequiel Tovar. Last season, Tovar earned his first Gold Glove Award and hammered 26 homers to go along with an NL-leading 45 doubles. Good stuff. But he also had one net steal: six successful thefts, minus five times caught stealing. Tovar has 71st percentile sprint speed, so he should be more of a threat when he's on base. And he should be on base more, but his 200 whiffs against 23 walks suggest more than a little work to be done on the plate discipline front. Tovar just started his age-23 season, so for all the good work he's already done, he has plenty of room -- and time -- to get a lot better.
30. Chicago White Sox
Champions: 0.0%
Win average: 54.1 (30th; last season: 54.2, 30th)
In the playoffs: 0.0% (last season: 0.0%)
ETA: 2028-29
State of the franchise: Welcome to the nadir. Well, how else can you classify a record 121 losses? It's the literal nadir in the history of the major leagues. That said, you know what they say about striking bottom, and truly there is nowhere to go but up for the ChiSox. The Chris Getz-led front office has not been idle during the tumble in the standings, and the organization is a lot deeper than it was when he took over. Getz has also led a much-needed overhaul in a number of processes in which the White Sox had fallen behind, while adding some that the franchise lacked altogether. It has to pay off in wins, eventually, but at least you can say that when the White Sox decided to tear down, they deployed no half-measures.
Pivotal statistic: 5.3 Luis Robert Jr. earned MVP votes while winning a Silver Slugger Award in 2023, when he hit 38 homers, stole 20 bases and compiled 5.3 bWAR over 145 games. Last season, his OPS+ slipped from 130 to 87. Entering his age-27 season, Robert has put in the work to bounce back, and if he can regain his previous track, it would be huge for the White Sox. Indeed, it would also be huge for a future Chicago trade partner, because a fully functioning Robert would emerge as perhaps the most sought-after player in 2025's in-season trade market.