Ten Bold MLB Predictions for 2025
Let's see if I....do a little better than last year.
Hi friends-
Before we get started, you can re-visit my 10 Bold Predictions for 2023—which went pretty well!— here:
Ten Bold MLB Predictions for 2023
In researching this piece, I learned that Spencer Strider is both a vegan and an ardent Bernie Sanders supporter. These two facts don’t make Strider more likely to be good at baseball, but they do make him a bit of an odd-ball among his red-meat-devouring, Trump-loving peers.
It takes a certain kind of confidence to be an analog man in a digital world. But look, Strider struck out 202 batters in 131.2 innings last year.
You can also revisit my 10 Bold Predictions for 2024—which went very poorly!!— here:
What I Got Right and What I Got Wrong about 2024
Baseball is impossible to predict, especially because pitchers love to dominate for a month then disappear into an MRI tube for two years.
To give you an idea of how very wrong I was about the 2024 season, I used a Mariner as the cover boy for said predictions. LMAO. Literally, never again with Seattle (apologies to reader Jane).
In both of those pieces, I seemed to do well-ish when forecasting individual award winners, and pretty terrible when trying to pick pennant and World Series winners. This is because I have shown confidence in teams like “the Mariners,” to challenge myself to be, well, *bold.*
Reader, I don’t want to look dummy again. The Mariners are dead to me.
But I’ll tell you what: I have not learned my lesson on the Texas Rangers, who I picked to repeat as World Series champs last year (they did not even even make the playoffs).
Guys, I’m picking them to win the AL again this year. So let’s kick this bold prediction piece off with that one:
The Rangers will advance to their second World Series in three years.
(Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)
Let me explain…. If Gerrit Cole had not blown out his elbow, I’d be picking the Yankees to repeat as AL champs. The AL East is shaping up to be a bar scrum, and, without Cole, the Yanks may even finish third in the division this season behind the Orioles and Red Sox.
I’m not picking Baltimore to win the AL pennant because their front office has an allergy to starting pitching, and the O’s have not won a playoff game since the 2014 ALDS. I just don’t see them going from losing 10 straight postseason games to rattling off 11 (or 13, if they’re the wild card again) wins in one October.
I’m picking the Rangers for the same reason I chose them last year: I expect Corey Seager, Wyatt Langford, Evan Carter, and Adolís Garcia to be good. Jacob deGrom is back (at least until May when he disentigrates again). Kumar Rocker may be in the hunt for Rookie of the Year. Nate Eovaldi is a workhorse of an ace who I believe will still be alive in October. Also? The best four or five teams in baseball are in the National League, and I had to pick somebody! But if the Rangers stink again this year they will be added to the Dead to Me (DTM) list like the Mariners.
9. The Dodgers will win 115 games but will *not* repeat as champions
I know they’re the best team in the sport and have maybe assembled the toughest starting rotation since the league lowered the mound in 1969, but there’s a reason no MLB team has gone back-to-back since the 1999/2000 Yankees: this s—t is hard. And random. The sheer number of playoff teams included in October now thanks to the expanded wild card just means more landmines for the biggest beasts to trip on.
The Dodgers opened this season with 11 pitchers on the injured list, but their core group of hitters has been remarkably healthy over the past few years. I have my doubts they can make it all the way through October unscathed this year.
Freddie Freeman’s ankle is still a mess six months later. Mookie Betts caught a mystery plague, brought it to Tokyo and back, and is down to 157 pounds. “My body’s just kind of eating itself,” Betts told reporters earlier this week, after not being able to keep solid food down for the previous 13 days. He did single and draw a walk off Tarik Skubal yesterday, because of course he did. But I’ve seen influenza derail months and then seasons (see Ruiz, Keibert), so I hope Betts didn’t rush back too fast.
Then there’s Shohei Ohtani, who is returning from a torn labrum in his non-throwing shoulder, and torn ligaments in his throwing elbow. Yes, he is superman. But will his body be able to handle pitching and hitting this year? I hope so, because that’s fun for the rest of us. But I worry it won’t.