Bold MLB Takes 60 Games into 2025 Season
In most professional sports leagues, 60 games is a long time. It's three-quarters of an NBA or NHL season. It's more than three NFL seasons.
For the diesel engine that is a Major League Baseball season, though, we're just getting warmed up, with more than half of the league still trying to figure out whether it ought to be a buyer or a seller in two months' time, when there will be close to 60 games still to come.
It's simultaneously early enough and late enough into the season for bold takes on what we've seen thus far and what we think it means for the near future.
Bold takes are presented in no particular order, but let's start things off with the best of the best to date.
Detroit Tigers Are the Best Team in Baseball
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This really shouldn't be a bold take.
The Tigers got to 40 wins before anyone else managed 38.
They've been in first place in the American League—sometimes in a tie; usually in sole possession—on a daily basis for the past six weeks.
They have, arguably, the current best pitcher in the world in Tarik Skubal, anchoring what has been maybe the best pitching staff in baseball dating back to mid-August of last season.
Their lineup is finally getting healthy, with both Wenceel Pérez and Parker Meadows making their 2025 debuts recently.
Even Colt Keith is finally turning into the franchise building block Detroit was banking on, batting close to .300 and slugging roughly .500 over the past month.
Yet, the Tigers don't have the best World Series odds.
Hell, they don't even have sole possession of a spot in the top four, looking up at the Dodgers (+280), Yankees (+500) and Phillies (+800) while tied with the Mets at +850.
And, look, I get it. Those four teams have been very good and were supposed to be a good deal better than the Tigers this season. Those four teams are also 2025's highest spenders by far, Spotrac estimating they will pay a combined $318.2 million just in luxury tax. The Dodgers alone are projected to spend more on their luxury tax bill ($156.2 million) than Detroit's entire $155.8 million tax payroll.
But let's put some respect on Detroit's name. Four of the last five World Series champions won at least 37 of their first 60 games, and the Tigers have been a notch better than that.
Pete Crow-Armstrong Has Been the National League's MVP
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Much like the Detroit one above, this really shouldn't be a bold take.
Baseball-Reference puts Pete Crow-Armstrong at a 3.8 WAR, trailing only Aaron Judge (4.7) and a good bit clear of the closest National League players in his rear-view mirror. Similar story on FanGraphs, where PCA's 3.6 WAR is tops among National Leaguers.
However, the betting odds remain all the way in on Shohei Ohtani securing his fourth MVP trophy, listed somewhere in the -300 range while Crow-Armstrong is more like +1000, depending on where you get your MVP odds.
Yes, Ohtani has been awesome once again. He's tied for the MLB lead with 23 home runs. Thriving atop that vaunted Dodgers lineup has him on pace for more than 170 runs, which would be the most since Babe Ruth's mark of 177 in 1921 and 20 more than anyone has scored in a single season in the past 88 years. Also, his slow-but-sure progression back to the pitching mound has been a daily talking point.
Please do not misconstrue this as any sort of anti-Ohtani agenda, when it's much more an acknowledgement that Crow-Armstrong is staking a claim for the title of best all-around player in baseball today.
Let's see if he can keep it up for a full season before we go stacking him up against the likes of Mookie Betts and Bobby Witt Jr. in present-day five-tool lore, but Crow-Armstrong reasonably could be headed for the All-Star, Gold Glove, Silver Slugger, MVP clean sweep that only Betts (in 2018) and Cody Bellinger (in 2019) have managed to do, dating back to 2010.
And unlike last year, when the gap between Ohtani and Francisco Lindor was so wide that the "at least one of them brings a glove to the ballpark" argument held minimal water, PCA as the early front-runner for the NL's Platinum Glove—while also on pace for better than 40 home runs and 55 stolen bases—is a big deal here.
Ohtani's much longer track record of success is a major reason why the NL MVP odds are what they are. But if we were still living in 2020 with a 60-game season, Crow-Armstrong would be the pick today.
There's Nothing to Worry About with Juan Soto
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Save for the torpedo bats mania in the opening week of the season, the biggest "Are you even in sports media if you aren't talking about this?" story of the 2025 season has been Juan Soto's slow start with the Mets.
This, of course, comes with the territory of signing the biggest contract in MLB history.
If you'll recall, people were also losing their minds when Shohei Ohtani had a .631 OPS with no home runs eight games into his first season with the Dodgers. Granted, that conflagration had a betting scandal propellant attached to it, but Ohtani eventually turned a corner and merely ended up with the most marvelous HR/SB campaign of all time.
With Soto, we're perhaps just now getting that corner turn.
He was *fine* through New York's first 39 games, but his numbers were downright abysmal from May 10-28, going 7-for-59 with no home runs for a .396 OPS—with a lack-of-hustle controversy, to boot. At that point, he was batting .224 and his slugging percentage had even dipped below .400.
Even as things got ugly, though, it always felt like the breakthrough was coming.
That's not just because he's Juan Freaking Soto, nor because he recovered just fine from a similar funk in 2021, when a .782 OPS through the team's first 50 games gave way to a 1.078 mark the rest of the way. It's because even when he was slugging .393, he still had some of the best marks in the majors in terms of walk rate, exit velocity and a whole host of expected stats like xBA, xSLG and xwOBA.
Was he "pressing" at the plate? Maybe a little.
But was he still hitting the ball ridiculously hard and suffering from one of the worst "BABIP compared to career norm" marks in the majors? Most definitely.
You could almost tell from how much everyone was rushing to publish their "What's wrong with Soto?" articles that even they fully expected him to snap out of it at any moment. And facing the woebegone Colorado Rockies may have been just what the doctor ordered, because he tattooed a pair of dingers in that series and now has three home runs in his last four games.
We Should Be Marveling Daily at What Royals Batteries Are Doing
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It's no secret that between the bigger bases, the pitch clock, the disengagement limits and those great big sliding mitts that make hands a few inches longer, stolen bases have become a much bigger part of the game in recent years.
There were 2,486 stolen bases with a 75.4 percent success rate in 2022, the year before the rule changes. Those numbers skyrocketed to 3,503 and 80.2, respectively, in 2023. And though the success rate is down to 77.6 percent, we're on pace for around 3,760 stolen bases this season.
What no one ever seems to talk about, though, is how laughably better than the rest of the league Kansas City's pitchers and catchers have been at bucking this trend.
To at least some extent, the Royals' unprecedented improvement from 56 wins in 2023 to 86 wins last season was a credit to their ability to keep opponents from stealing bases. While each of the other 29 teams allowed at least 96 stolen bases at a success rate north of 74 percent, Freddy Fermin and Salvador Perez combined to allow just 58, thwarting 32.6 percent of attempts.
Apparently, the rest of the league learned its lesson not to run on the Royals, because through 60 games this season, they've allowed just nine stolen bases while also catching nine in the act.
Every other team has allowed at least triple that amount, with the Marlins sitting at a more than 10x multiplier of 92 stolen bases allowed.
The Royals ranked fourth in the majors in runs allowed last season, they entered Tuesday for first place in that department this year, and you cannot possibly convince me that this isn't a major contributing factor.
The NL Rookie of the Year Has Not Yet Made His MLB Debut
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This reads as more of a bold prediction than a hot take.
The hidden take, though, is that this has been one of the more disappointing rookie classes in recent memory, to the point where a few months of a current minor leaguer might be enough to secure National League Rookie of the Year.
Admittedly, that's a bit harsh to the few young players who have impressed. Catchers Drake Baldwin and Agustin Ramirez are both more-than-viable candidates. Chad Patrick has been a revelation in the Brewers rotation. Dylan Crews could still find his way back into the conversation, if he gets back from the IL (oblique) before too long. And between Hyeseong Kim, Ben Casparius and Jack Dreyer, the Dodgers have three legitimate threats to secure the trophy that many assumed Roki Sasaki would win for them.
But there are also a pair of pitchers in Triple-A who ought to be thriving in Pennsylvania before much longer.
Dating back to August 2024, Pittsburgh's Bubba Chandler has now made 18 starts at Triple-A Indianapolis with a 1.96 ERA and a 12.6 K/9. Keeping him down there to build up some stamina was a fine argument in April, but he has thrown at least 86 pitches in each of his last four outings and it's hard to see how this isn't service time manipulation at this point.
At the opposite end of the PA Turnpike, Philadelphia's top prospect Andrew Painter has made four starts at Triple-A Lehigh Valley and could be nearing his MLB debut. However, between recovering from Tommy John surgery that caused him to miss all of 2023 and 2024 and the fact that the Phillies have maybe the best rotation in baseball, it's plausible his debut won't come until 2026—unless injuries to current big league starters change that timeline.
Lastly, keep an eye out for Bryce Eldridge. San Francisco's first base situation has been horrific this season with LaMonte Wade Jr. unable to get going in the slightest.
The longer they wait to call up Eldridge—who has six home runs and a .928 OPS in his last 20 games—the more they risk falling out of the postseason conversation. Perhaps he could follow in Yordan Alvarez's footsteps from 2019, getting called up on June 9 and still unanimously winning Rookie of the Year.
The Dodgers Have Become the Biggest Loser of This Past Offseason
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No one is going to shed a tear for the reigning World Series champions who are sitting 13 games above .500 with a total payroll (including their aforementioned $156 million tax bill) of $562 million that more than exceeds the combined $494.5 million payroll of the five stingiest teams: the Pirates, Athletics, Rays, White Sox and Marlins.
But, man, their big offseason moves have not gone according to plan.
Some of their cheaper moves have been awesome. Bringing back Kiké Hernández for $6.5 million was clutch, and that three-year, $12.5 million deal (which includes a pair of $5 million club options, too) with Hyeseong Kim is already looking like highway robbery. And they have at least gotten a positive return from one of the players signed to an eight-figure salary, with Teoscar Hernández hitting even a little better than he did last year.
About those other six moves, though...
Blake Snell's five-year, $182 million contract with the Dodgers was the first of many "How do they keep getting away with this?" moments of the offseason, but he lasted nine innings before landing on the IL with no return yet in sight.
That's one more inning than they've gotten out of Blake Treinen, though. They brought him back on a two-year, $22 million deal, but he pitched eight innings, suffered two losses and has been AWOL since mid-April.
Kirby Yates (one year, $13 million) also landed on the IL a few weeks ago, posting a disappointing 4.34 ERA before his departure.
Tanner Scott (four years, $72 million) has been a nightmare with an MLB-worst five blown saves and a 4.55 ERA. His usual problem of walking batters left and right hasn't even been the issue in the slightest, either, with just four free passes issued in 27.2 innings pitched. Rather, he went from an 11.6 K/9 and 6.7 H/9 from 2020-24 to marks of 10.1 and 8.8, respectively, this season.
Michael Conforto's one-year, $17 million deal has gone so poorly that it's astounding they are still giving him the majority of starts in left field.
And while the price tag for Roki Sasaki was literally pennies on the dollar compared to the others, his 4.72 ERA (and 6.14 FIP) in eight starts before landing on the IL might be the most disappointing of all in light of the lengthy courtship that preceded his arrival in Los Angeles.
Must be nice, though, to swing and miss that many times in free agency and still be the World Series favorite.
Choose Your Own Adventure: Baltimore Orioles Edition
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We're torn between two completely divergent Baltimore Orioles takes, so we'll just throw them both out there and let our readers decide which they prefer.
Bold O's Take No. 1: This Disastrous Season Is Actually a Blessing in Disguise
While you never quite know when a team's window of opportunity is going to slam shut, 2025 never felt like a "do or die" year for the Orioles.
They do have a ton of intriguing impending free agents to turn into prospects between now and the July 31 trade deadline, but the actual core isn't going anywhere.
They could do nothing for the next two years and still contend with Adley Rutschman, Coby Mayo, Jackson Holliday, Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, Colton Cowser, Heston Kjerstad and, for better or worse, Tyler O'Neill in their starting lineup through 2027, plus a full rotation of Grayson Rodriguez, Kyle Bradish, Dean Kremer, Tyler Wells and Cade Povich with Yennier Cano and Felix Bautista anchoring the bullpen.
At the same time, though, this disastrous season may be exactly the kick in the pants that the new ownership of David Rubenstein and Co. needed to start taking roster construction more seriously moving forward, beginning with this summer. They thought they could "budget approach" their way through losing Corbin Burnes and Anthony Santander, and it turns out that couldn't have been much more incorrect.
Bold O's Take No. 2: We May Have Buried Baltimore a Little Prematurely
At 16-34 through 50 games, the Orioles sure looked dead as a doornail, narrowly ahead of the White Sox for last place in the American League and with a negative-100 run differential that would've been worst in the majors if not for the Rockies.
But with wins in seven of their last nine games—with Charlie Morton even turning quite the corner for back-to-back quality starts—maybe there's still a pulse here?
Cowser just returned from the 60-day IL on Tuesday and immediately homered. Westburg is almost back from a hamstring strain that has kept him on the shelf since late April. In Ramón Laureano, Ryan Mountcastle, Cedric Mullins and Tyler O'Neill, they could be getting four other bats back within the next two weeks, too. And if they're even remotely still alive come early August, they should be getting both Wells and Bradish back into the rotation from their UCL surgeries. Plus, hopefully, Rodriguez makes his 2025 debut at some point.
Even after the recent surge, Baltimore is still nine games back for the AL's third wild-card spot and would need to leapfrog seven teams to get there. That's a significant climb. But with more than 100 games remaining and the general state of the American League just not being very good this year, perhaps it isn't insurmountable.
Texas Rangers Are the Biggest Disappointment in Baseball...
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There are a lot of teams making strong cases for "biggest disappointment," but why, in the name of all that is holy, can the Texas Rangers not hit?
There were 138 players who entered play on Wednesday with at least 10 plate appearances and an OPS of .760 or better. The Cincinnati Reds have nine such players. Detroit and Arizona each have eight. Even Colorado has three.
However, the Rangers—whose four highest-paid position players are making more in 2025 ($87.5 million) than the entire payrolls of the Marlins, White Sox or Athletics—have zero representation on that list.
Overall, the Rangers have a .639 OPS, virtually in a three-way tie for last place with the three teams you really don't want to be associated with for any reason this season: the Pirates (.641), the White Sox (.636) and the Rockies (.635).
And that is how you open a season 29-32 despite a starting rotation that leads the majors in ERA.
It's all eerily similar to what Seattle did last year, missing the postseason while tying for the fewest runs allowed, thanks to an MLB-worst team-wide batting average of .216 through the end of August.
At least Seattle was 44-31 at one point, though, thriving in spite of its moribund offense and looking like a near-lock for October. That ship has already sailed for Texas with losses in 10 of its last 14 games.
The Rangers have been shut out eight times and held to a single run on 12 occasions. They did manage to win three of those one-run performances, but it is inconceivable that a team with Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Adolis Garcia, Joc Pederson, Wyatt Langford, Josh Smith, Josh Jung, Jake Burger, etc. has been held to zero or one run in 20 of 61 (32.7 percent) games played.
...But the Boston Red Sox are Right There with Texas in the Land of Disappointment
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While the Rangers can't hit the broad side of a barn, Boston's debilitating problem during its wildly disappointing 29-34 start is that the non-Garrett Crochet portion of the pitching staff has been preventing runs about as well as a colander holds water.
Even with Crochet's 1.98 ERA included, Boston's rotation ranks 22nd in ERA at 4.25. Remove Crochet from the equation and it balloons to 5.01, with all seven starters sitting at 3.91 or worse.
But even when the rotation does a serviceable job, the bullpen often doesn't.
Their overall statistics look fine enough, with an "as RP" ERA of 3.47 and the fourth-best fWAR. Situationally, though, they've been a dumpster fire, with an MLB-worst 14 blown saves against just 13 successful saves and a near-worst mark of 24 holds.
While both Cleveland and Kansas City boast winning records despite negative run differentials because they only blow around seven percent of all save chances, Boston blows more than 27 percent, saddled with a brutal record of 6-17 in one-run games—already four more losses than they suffered in the entire 2024 campaign when they went 18-13 in those nail-biters.
What's wild about that is Aroldis Chapman has been lights-out thus far as closer, with a 1.80 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, 11.9 K/9 and nine saves with only one blown save. If and when the 37-year-old goes through the inevitable "can't find the strike zone" rough patch that has plagued him in each of the past four seasons, this thing could really start to unravel.
Heading into the season, I thought we'd be getting a Boston-Texas ALCS. Starting to wonder at this point whether either has what it takes to end up with a winning record.
It's Impossible to Talk Too Much About What Aaron Judge Is Doing
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The dream of a historic .400 batting average is beginning to fade a bit after back-to-back hitless performances brought him down to .387, but Aaron Judge is still having an outrageous season, even by his other-worldly standards.
With a 5.1 fWAR through 59 team games, Judge is on pace for a mark of 14.0.
He was unbelievably dominant last season, leading the majors with 58 home runs and 144 RBI, posting the seventh-highest wRC+ (218) ever in a season with at least 500 plate appearances, unanimously winning AL MVP even while Bobby Witt Jr. just single-handedly willed the Royals to a 30-win improvement and a spot in the playoffs...
And he is on pace for 25 percent better than the 11.2 fWAR he posted last season, presently with an incomprehensible wRC+ of 241.
If he actually keeps this up and gets to 14.0, it would be the second-best single season fWAR of all time, trailing only Babe Ruth's 14.7 campaign in 1923.
Anything better than 12.7 would be enough for Judge to lay claim to the best season ever among players not named Ruth, while anything north of 11.6 would put Judge in "Most valuable season since 1927 with the exception of Barry Bonds" territory, the current 11.6 high-water marks belonging to Ted Williams in 1946 and Pedro Martinez in 1999.
Perhaps it's too early to be getting worked up over full-season paces. However, what Judge is doing is nothing short of historic, and aside from the obligatory "if he can stay healthy" asterisk, nothing about what he has done in his career suggests he can't keep this up.
