Our ranking of the top 100 MLB players for the 2025 season is here! And that means it's time to talk about what we got right -- and wrong.
We asked five of this year's voters -- Bradford Doolittle, Kiley McDaniel, Buster Olney, Jeff Passan and David Schoenfield -- to examine this year's list and let us know what they and their colleagues missed on and what surprised them the most. Who is too high or too low? Who did we leave out entirely? And who could leap onto the list -- or even into the top five -- in the future?
Here's what they had to say.
What surprised you most on this year's list?
Schoenfield: Mookie Betts over Aaron Judge? Even acknowledging that the voting was conducted before Betts' illness, it doesn't add up for me. Value? Judge just had the greatest season ever for a right-handed batter and has eclipsed 10 WAR in two of the past three seasons. Durability? Over the past four seasons, Judge has played 569 games to 532 for Betts. Age? Judge is entering his age-33 season, but Mookie is entering his age-32 season. Maybe my fellow voters got swept up by Mookie playing shortstop and gave him extra credit for that. Too much extra credit. Judge arguably should be No. 1 on the list -- and certainly not fourth.
Olney: I agree with a lot of the player feedback we got when we showed them our list -- in too many cases, we seemed to buy in to what is expected of players rather than what players have already accomplished. The best evidence of this might be with Roki Sasaki: The fact that we had him ranked ahead of Jacob deGrom, Mason Miller and Shota Imanaga -- just to name a few -- before he has reached the fourth inning in any start in the big leagues is kind of bonkers. But hey, we're also fans, and we get excited about potential just as fans do.
Who is the biggest snub from our list?
Passan: I get it. Innings pitched aren't sexy. Sinkers are lame. Mixing pitches is for guys who don't have the stuff to blow hitters away. And yet the lack of respect for Sonny Gray is inexplicable. In last year's rankings, coming off a second-place finish in the American League Cy Young voting, Gray was 80th. And now, a year after striking out 203 against just 39 walks in 166 innings, he doesn't muster a spot on the list? Fine. Keep sleeping on Gray. By the end of the season, he'll have logged more innings, struck out more guys and walked fewer than a majority of the pitchers on the list. And one of the most underappreciated players of his generation will just keep doing what he does.
Olney: Eugenio Suarez's track record is pretty steady -- he'll hit his 300th career homer sometime this year and he has five seasons of 30 or more home runs, including 2024. He also had an adjusted OPS+ of 116 last season and has played at least 150 games in six of his 11 seasons in the majors. He was in the top 50 again in FanGraphs WAR last season. Sure, he has been an All-Star just once, and he has never won a Silver Slugger Award, but front offices have clearly valued him, with Cincinnati, Seattle and Arizona targeting him over the course of a career in which he has grossed $80 million in salary. I think we've sold him short.
Which player in the top 100 is most underrated?
McDaniel: Bryce Miller and Cristopher Sanchez are popular breakout picks because they combine a solid base of performance and some improved traits that seem to have them on the verge of consensus frontline starter status. Sanchez's velocity on his sinker has been up a couple ticks, which could help to juice his strikeout rate this season, while Miller has significantly changed the shape of his cutter -- one of seven pitches in his arsenal.
Passan: Cal Raleigh is arguably the best catcher in baseball and still finds himself more than 50 spots behind Adley Rutschman, which I suppose is to be expected. Raleigh's workmanlike approach tends to keep him firmly under the radar, and guys with career on-base percentages under .300 do not often come with big fan clubs. And yet Raleigh is coming off a season in which he won the Platinum Glove as the AL's best defensive player. If ever there's a time to reward him for that -- and his 34 home runs and 100 RBIs -- it's now.
A switch hitter with power and an elite glove -- especially one who plays a position that's so thin at the big league level -- warrants a higher placement. Oh, and Juan Soto is a top-five player in the sport. Ranking him eighth is thinking too hard.
Which player in the top 100 is most overrated?
Doolittle: Calling a player overrated is a little negative for my taste, so I would instead point out that the error bars for players with short track records is a little larger than others. We are trying to take a forward-looking approach, but some of these placings are kind of a leap of faith, even if they do turn out to be right.
One prime example of that is the Athletics' Lawrence Butler. Don't get me wrong, I'm a believer. Still, he landed here on the basis of one good half-season. He got a nice contract extension over the winter, though, so it's not like our voters were the only ones impressed by his half-season breakout.
Schoenfield: I'll go with Trea Turner at No. 29. A good player, no doubt, but his offensive peak came in 2020-21 and he hasn't eclipsed 3.5 WAR in either of the past two seasons. His two flaws are clear and unlikely to improve in 2025 at age 32: He doesn't walk much (which holds down his on-base percentage) and he's a below-average defensive shortstop. His home/road splits are also extreme, helping to boost his offensive numbers: In his two seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies, he has 29 home runs and an .892 OPS at home compared to 18 and .697 on the road.
Which player could make the biggest jump on our list next year?
Passan: Seeing as Junior Caminero isn't on the list, he's got a chance to debut as a top-25 player in his first full season with the Tampa Bay Rays. The power, the plate discipline, the swing decisions -- it's all there to cement Caminero's status as one of the game's rising stars and the key to Tampa Bay's aspirations to contend in the AL East. Among those actually on the list: Spencer Strider (56) and Jacob deGrom (70) need to stay healthy, but if either does, he will be right up there with Skenes, Wheeler and Skubal among the best in the sport.
McDaniel: Michael King (contract year), Garrett Crochet (pitching for a new team) and Spencer Strider (coming back from elbow surgery) are all properly motivated to post another season at or better than the level of their last (healthy) season and move into the conversation among the best pitchers in baseball.
Who's your bet to make the top 100 next year?
McDaniel: Roman Anthony. I don't know when he'll get called up this season, but I don't think it will take long. Once he arrives for the Boston Red Sox, I think he'll rake and stick -- and offer some defensive and baserunning value, to boot. To me, he is the best combination of a player with opportunity to come up and the ability to make a splash. He'll immediately enter into the conversation of the best young players in the game and earn a spot on next year's list.
Schoenfield: I have Spencer Schwellenbach as a sleeper Cy Young candidate this season, so I clearly see him as a top 100 candidate right now -- and certainly for 2026. I loved his rookie performance, posting a solid 3.35 ERA with the Atlanta Braves after making just two starts in Double-A.
It was quite the meteoric rise for a player who barely pitched at Nebraska (31 innings as a reliever in his draft year in 2021) and then had Tommy John surgery after getting drafted. He has had success, he has premium stuff and now, he has a year of MLB experience under his belt.
Predict who will join the top five by 2028
Olney: Let's go with the Jacksons: Jackson Merrill and Jackson Chourio. In the second half of the 2024 season, Merrill had a slugging percentage of .596. Now, in his second full season, the 21-year-old is already batting cleanup for a San Diego Padres team that might have the best shot at beating the Los Angeles Dodgers this year. That pair, along with Soto, will join Shohei Ohtani and Bobby Witt Jr. by then.
Doolittle: We probably should have Soto in the top five this year anyway, but he'll definitely be there by 2028. He'll also be spurring hot debates about the best hitters of all time. He controls plate appearances in a way that's unmatched by anyone I've ever personally seen. I don't even care if he never wears a glove again and just DHs. He's a top-five player right now and will be in five years, too. If we want to zero in just on the younger players who we project to jet up the rankings, I'll also take Chourio.