7 MLB Plot Twists Already Emerging in 2025 Season
At this point in the 2025 MLB season, we remain contractually obligated to use the phrase "still early" in any discussions about it. And that will be the case for a while.
There are nonetheless things about this campaign that feel...different. As in, certain things that are happening are not things that were supposed to happen. And as early as it is, there's no harm in talking in depth about such plot twists.
We specifically want to hone in on seven—please note the torpedo bat craze is not one of them, because enough already—that have us feeling flabbergasted, and they cover everything from individual players and teams to whole divisions.
There's no better place to start than New York, so let's head there now.
Aaron Judge and the Yankees Don't Miss Juan Soto
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When Juan Soto left the New York Yankees to join the cross-town Mets, he took a .989 OPS and 41 home runs with him.
These things are supposed to matter, and the pain of his departure seemed unavoidable once Giancarlo Stanton's elbows also took him out of the picture for the start of 2025. The Yankees offense felt doomed. Heck, it surely was doomed.
Instead, the team is 6-3 and has put up 25 home runs and 76 runs.
In case you're wondering, the runs are almost a record and the home runs are a record for a team's first nine games. And as much as the torpedo bats seem to have helped, this mostly comes down to Aaron Judge doing Aaron Judge things.
The two-time AL MVP became the first hitter in history to record six home runs and 17 runs batted in through his team's first eight games. There's no gimmicky bat at work here. Just his awesome power, plus many good pitches to hit.
Judge's rate of pitches in the strike zone is actually up from 2024. This is not how it was supposed to be without Soto getting on base ahead of him roughly 40 percent of the time, but facts are facts and the Yankees obviously aren't about to complain.
The Mets Are Struggling at the Plate, Dominating on the Mound
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Meanwhile in Queens, the Mets are also off to a 6-3 start even though Soto hasn't quite super-charged the offense.
His $765 million contract was obviously meant to do that, and he's doing well enough with a .385 OBP and a homer so far. Yet the Mets offense only has 33 runs to show this season, less than half what the Yankees have scored.
As for how the Amazins have nonetheless won more than they've lost, well, it's all there in their 1.91 ERA.
That is the best mark in the majors, and it should be noted that Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas are still on the injured list and that the defense hasn't been of much help, either.
What does explain this is that basically every Mets pitcher is off to a strong start. The power behind the throne continues to be pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, who has the staff mostly eschewing the four-seam fastball.
As a result, the Mets are getting a ton of ground balls and not letting many balls over the fence. Their four home runs allowed are the fewest in MLB.
Sustainable? Perhaps not for the whole season, but the Mets only need it to last until the offense wakes up.
The Rangers Don't Need Jacob deGrom to Be Their Ace
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Jacob deGrom is all the way back from his second Tommy John surgery and the Texas Rangers are 8-2, yet correlation does not equal causation in this case.
The two-time Cy Young Award winner has been solid in his two starts, but not spectacular. Of particular note is that deGrom, now 36, has struck out only nine batters in 10.2 innings, with a 96.7 mph fastball that is well below his 2021 peak of 99.2 mph.
As for how Rangers starters have a 2.68 ERA and a rate of 8.6 strikeouts per nine innings anyway, well, it helps to have Nathan Eovaldi and Jack Leiter.
Eovaldi, 35 in his own right, continues to age like anti-milk. He started his 2025 season with six innings of two-run ball and then fired a "Maddux" shutout against the Cincinnati Reds his next time out.
Though he's now on the injured list with a blister, Jack Leiter similarly impressed in his first two outings. The 24-year-old 2021 first-rounder allowed one earned run on six hits and one walk over 10 innings, showing an impressive 97.9 mph heater.
The Rangers have yet to really get their offense going, but it is likely just a matter of time before they do. Which is basically to say the whole league is on notice that the 2025 Rangers are more like the 2023 version than the 2024 iteration.
The Dodgers Are Not Running Away with the NL West
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Elsewhere on the topic of West teams off to hot starts, the Los Angeles Dodgers did what they were supposed to do out of the gate: not lose.
By winning eight in a row before losing two out of three to the Philadelphia Phillies over the weekend, the Dodgers became the first defending World Series champions to start a season 8-0. They're meant to be chasing the all-time wins record, so all of this tracks.
And yet, they don't hold first place in the National League West.
The San Francisco Giants have seen to that by winning seven of their first eight games, and even the San Diego Padres are right there with the Dodgers at 8-2.
The odds for the NL West race have yet to really change, as FanGraphs still gives the Dodgers a 82.6 percent chance of winning the division. Heck, the Giants (6.1) and Padres (5.2) are still basically level with the Arizona Diamondbacks (6.1), who are 5-5 thus far.
This nonetheless feels like a reality check for the notion that the 2025 Dodgers are unstoppable. And lest anyone think that an ultra-talented L.A. team can't possibly finish outside of the first place, this indeed happened as recently as 2021.
The AL Central Has Come Plummeting Back to Earth
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You know which division is decidedly not the NL West?
Well, all five of the others if you want to be technical. But especially not the American League Central, which is off to a stinky start in 2025.
At the start of play on Sunday, not one team in the AL Central was over .500. The Detroit Tigers (4-4) were the only one that was so much as even with that level, while the Cleveland Guardians, Kansas City Royals and Minnesota Twins were 3-5 and the Chicago White Sox were 2-6.
This is the same AL Central that not only sent three teams to the playoffs in 2024, but we also saw all three of them win at least one series. So, what the heck is going on here?
Some of it is probably inevitable regression to the mean, though there's also the question of how talented these teams were to begin with. Per FanGraphs, only the Twins began the year with better than a 50 percent chance of making the playoffs.
They've instead struggled to hit, which has been a general theme of the season for the AL Central so far. Of the five teams in the division, four have an OPS+ below 100.
It Doesn't Look Like the Brewers Are Going to Find a Way
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Speaking of struggling Central teams, at least the Milwaukee Brewers are back to .500 at 5-5 after losing four in a row to start the season.
Yet beyond going 0-4 out of the gate, they did so while allowing 47 runs. That tied the major league record for the most runs allowed in a team's first four games, though the Brewers stood alone with the 17 homers they served up.
Despite righting the ship since then, they have still allowed more runs (64) than any other team. And there are reasons to believe this is not a fluke.
They have a serious stuff problem, and it doesn't just show in their MLB-low average fastball of 91.8 mph. They're also top-five in the majors with their contact rate and their hard-hit rate.
Of course, the Brewers still have their pedigree. They've made the playoffs six times in the seven previous seasons, including four times as the winners of the NL Central.
Their odds have already shifted, though, and obviously not in a good way. According to FanGraphs, they're at 25.6 percent for making the playoffs and 19.1 percent for winning the division.
The Braves Are Bad and Probably Already Doomed
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The Atlanta Braves won a game on Friday. Always cause to celebrate, to be sure, but especially for them in that instance.
It was their first win of the season after seven straight losses to open it.
Of all the shockers in the first two weeks of the 2025 campaign, this is the cake-taker. The Braves haven't missed the playoffs since 2017, and FanGraphs had them as a 64.2 percent favorite to win the NL East and 15.8 percent favorite to win the World Series at the outset.
They're already in real trouble of doing nothing of the sort. Because out of all the teams that have ever started a season 0-7, none have ever made the playoffs.
If the Braves are going to buck history in this regard, they'll need Alex Verdugo to be a capable fill-in for Jurickson Profar during his suspension. And when their time comes, they'll need Ronald Acuña Jr., Spencer Strider, Sean Murphy and Reynaldo López to make strong returns off the injured list.
Not exactly hopeless, as situations go. But even now, the Braves have already ceded NL East favoritism to the Phillies, with the Mets also lurking to leapfrog them.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
