It’s that time of the year again. The chill of winter has faded away and a new season of baseball is set to begin in earnest. It also means it’s time for bold predictions, the kind of predictions you hold over the heads of your colleagues when you’re right and pretend they don’t exist when you’re wrong.
We went through this process on Opening Day last year, too, though most of our writers would rather forget their 2024 predictions. We’ll chalk it up to being a little too bold, which is the whole point of the exercise, right?
The results as follows:
It turns out, we all can’t be Stephen Nestradamus, err, Nesbitt.
That said, we’re putting the past behind us. It’s 2025 and we’re here with more bold predictions, one for each team. The rating system is simple. More fire emojis means the bolder the prediction. Much like players who claim to be in the best shape of their lives, our writers already seem to be in midseason form. So much so that I asked my editor if we could create a whole new category for even bolder predictions. The answer was, no. Sorry, Tyler Kepner.
The baseball is back. The predictions are bold. And the vibes are immaculate. Let’s begin.
Prediction
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This year’s bold prediction: The Diamondbacks, whose bullpen ERA ranked 23rd last season at 4.41, have a top-5 bullpen this season thanks to a deep rotation that keeps arms fresh, a full season of AJ Puk and the continued rise of Justin Martinez. — Tyler Kepner
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Last year’s bold prediction: A year after becoming the first Diamondbacks player to win a Rookie of the Year award, Corbin Carroll becomes the first Diamondback to win the MVP – and the first to have a 30/30 season.
Outcome: Carroll did swipe 35 bags, though he only slugged 22 homers, as his 2025 was a far cry from his rookie of the year season. He needed an outrageous second half (.919 OPS) to finish with 3.4 bWAR.
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This year’s bold prediction: Spencer Strider will pick up where he left off in 2023 when he led the majors with 20 wins and 281 strikeouts. The Braves won’t overwork him coming back from internal brace elbow surgery, but Strider and Chris Sale will be baseball’s best 1-2 starter combination and lead a potentially devastating playoff rotation. — David O’Brien
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Last year’s bold prediction: The Braves’ offense won’t be as prolific as it was in 2023, but their pitching will be better. The net result will be a third consecutive 100-win season and seventh straight NL East title, followed by a return to the NLCS for the first time since 2021 and a rematch there with the Dodgers. The Braves win the pennant, then win a second World Series title in a four-year span.
Outcome: The banged-up Braves won the World Series of MRIs, and their run of six straight NL East titles came to an end. Atlanta did somehow make the postseason, though.
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This year’s bold prediction: The core of homegrown position players will keep the Orioles in the hunt for four months, at which point it will be painfully obvious that, to go much further, the Orioles will need a top-of-the-rotation arm. No team will get more attention at the trade deadline as the Orioles have Coby Mayo, Samuel Basello and Heston Kjersted to dangle as bait — Chad Jennings
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Last year’s bold prediction: There’s so much Orioles hullabaloo focused on the quality (and quantity) of their young position players, you might not have noticed all the ace pitchers going down with injuries across the league. So, while you’re wondering whether Jackson Holliday will be called up in time to win Rookie of the Year, Corbin Burnes is going to steal the show by winning his second Cy Young just in time to hit the free agent market this winter. And that always works out, right Blake Snell?
Outcome: Double boo here. Holliday did not win the AL Rookie of the Year. And Burnes did not win the AL Cy Young. He did still cash in during free agency (six years, $210 million).
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This year’s bold prediction: The Red Sox win the division. The Yankees are saddled with long-term injuries to Luis Gil and Gerrit Cole and the Orioles still need to prove themselves after a lackluster winter, meaning the Red Sox have at least a chance to push for the AL East title for the first time since 2018. — Jen McCaffrey
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Last year’s bold prediction: If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, then here we are. Everyone is predicting the Red Sox to finish last in the division for what would be a third straight season. Is it bold enough (perhaps a little crazy?) if we make the same prediction that they’ll somehow have enough here to snag a wild-card berth?
Outcome: The Red Sox avoided the cellar. But at 81 wins, they also avoided the playoffs.
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This year’s bold prediction: The Cubs will finish slightly north of 83 wins, capturing the division title after trading for Sandy Alcantara in a blockbuster deadline deal with the Miami Marlins. — Patrick Mooney
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Last year’s bold prediction: Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins will make some of the biggest moves at the trade deadline, using one of the game’s top farm systems to acquire Shane Bieber and Kenley Jansen and try to win the National League’s blah division.
Outcome: Hoyer and Hawkins did indeed make some of the biggest moves… of the winter. Chicago added Kyle Tucker and Ryan Pressly in two separate deals with the Houston Astros following another 83-79 finish.
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This year’s bold prediction: The White Sox will win more games than last year. To quote former Chicago baseball man Lee Elia, you can take that downtown and print it! GMs don’t like making predictions but I did get Chris Getz to say he was confident they’d win more games. I’m saying they win 56 in honor of Mark Buehrle, who is getting a statue at the park this year. — Jon Greenberg
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Last year’s bold prediction: The White Sox finish ahead of expectations and win a resounding 65 games. Manager Pedro Grifol gets a contract extension after the team finishes three consecutive games without an error. GM Chris Getz signs Zack Grienke in May to bolster the team’s ex-Royals vibe, but passes on bringing back Andy Sisco and Mike MacDougal.
Outcome: The 2024 White Sox would have been thrilled to win 65 games. Instead, they won 41 and lost an astounding 121.
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This year’s bold prediction: Not only does Chase Burns appear in a playoff game for the Reds, he does so in a game started by Rhett Lowder. Lowder made his big-league debut the year after being drafted by the Reds and Burns could do the same. — C. Trent Rosecrans
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Last year’s bold prediction: Rhett Lowder starts a playoff game for the Reds. Lowder, last year’s first-round pick, should be in the big leagues sooner rather than later and it’s not as if the Reds, at this point, have a roster full of no-doubt Game 1 starters.
Outcome: The Reds, in fact, did not make the playoffs.
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This year’s bold prediction: Gavin Williams, one year after an injury-riddled season that included an ERA approaching 5.00, finishes in the top five in the balloting for the AL Cy Young Award and becomes the first Cleveland pitcher with at least 200 strikeouts since Shane Bieber in 2019. — Zack Meisel
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Last year’s bold prediction: José Ramírez wins the AL batting title. He ranked seventh in the AL with a .282 mark last season, his highest in a full season since 2017, but he ranked in the 96th percentile in expected batting average. He makes a ton of contact, rarely strikes out and if he can harness his chase rate a bit, he can yank fastballs past defenders who can’t shift against him the way they used to.
Outcome: Close but no cigar. A member of the Cleveland Guardians did compete for the AL batting title. It wasn’t JRam, though. Instead, Steven Kwan flirted with .400 at one point before finishing with a .292 average.
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This year’s bold prediction: After a sizzling spring training, shortstop Ezequiel Tovar cuts down on his strikeouts and comes into his own at age 23, unseating Francisco Lindor as the NL’s Silver Slugger shortstop. — Tyler Kepner
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Last year’s bold prediction: The Rockies’ pitching takes a pounding in the punishing NL West, and the team finishes with a 5.86 highest ERA, an MLB record for the 2000s.
Outcome: The Rockies were dangerously close to a 5.86 ERA, having finished with a 5.47 mark.
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This year’s bold prediction: The Tigers will hover around the .500 mark for most of the first half. If they can remain within striking distance in the AL Central race, they will be aggressive buyers at the trade deadline, making a serious run at an infielder such as Bo Bichette from the Blue Jays. — Cody Stavenhagen
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Last year’s bold prediction: Javier Báez will be a platoon player by season’s end. Báez was the second worst qualifying hitter in baseball last season with a 61 wRC+. He was moved down in the Tigers order, and despite talks of an offseason overhaul, Báez struggled at the plate in the spring. The Tigers aren’t going to eat his contract this year, but they won’t tolerate his struggles forever. By season’s end, Báez will only be starting against left-handed pitching.
Outcome: By season’s end, Báez was a non-factor for the resurgent Tigers, largely because he was hurt.
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This year’s bold prediction: Top prospect Cam Smith, who seized a corner outfield job over the spring, slugs a go-ahead home run on the final day of the regular season to secure a wild-card berth. — Chandler Rome
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Last year’s bold prediction: Yordan Alvarez will become the first player to win MVP while playing the majority of his games at designated hitter. Getting Shohei Ohtani out of the American League — and Alvarez into the second spot of the Astros’ batting order — should create a path to the award.
Outcome: Someone did win the MVP while playing the majority of his games at DH. It wasn’t Alvarez, though. No. It was Shohei Ohtani who authored MLB’s first 50/50 season.
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This year’s bold prediction: Bobby Witt Jr. will clear 10 fWAR for the second consecutive season. This time, he’ll win AL MVP. Unfortunately for Royals Nation, Witt will also have more WAR than the rest of the Royals’ Opening Day lineup combined. — Stephen Nesbitt
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Last year’s bold prediction: For the first time in seven years, the Royals will send three players to the All-Star Game: shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino and pitcher Cole Ragans, who will take extra pleasure in returning to Globe Life Field, the home ballpark of his former team.
Outcome: It was four all-stars: Witt, Ragans, Seth Lugo and Salvador Perez. Not too shabby, Nestradamus.
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This year’s bold prediction: José Soriano will get Cy Young Award votes. Ron Washington went with Yusei Kikuchi for Opening Day, saying the choice was “obvious.” But Soriano might beg to differ. His campaign went under the radar last season, due to the team’s poor record, a few bad outings, and an inability to finish healthy. But when Soriano was on, there were few pitchers in baseball who looked better than him. A second full season as a starter could bring big dividends. He might not win the award, but he’ll get some very positive national recognition this year. — Sam Blum
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Last year’s bold prediction: Mike Trout will call out Arte Moreno. We saw some budding frustration at the beginning of spring training when Trout said he’d been pushing ownership to acquire high level free agents. Despite being linked to many free agents, the Angels didn’t sign anyone more expensive than Robert Stephenson (3 years, $33 million). They cut payroll by more than $40 million. If the team isn’t in the playoff mix again, Trout might have to speak out more than he has before.
Outcome: Mike Trout to The Athletic on Sept. 23, 2024. “A couple additions in the offseason could make a big difference. It’s all up to the owner. I think that’s where we’re at.”
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This year’s bold prediction: The Dodgers will have multiple pitchers receive Cy Young votes. It’s not a question of talent, but workload. Blake Snell already has two Cy Young Awards on his mantle. Behind him, the Dodgers have a ton of talent despite injury concerns — would it surprise anyone to see Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow or even Roki Sasaki jump into the voting mix? — Fabian Ardaya
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Last year’s bold prediction: Mookie Betts will have the highest WAR season of his Dodgers tenure. The bar is high – he was worth 8.3 WAR by both Baseball Reference and FanGraphs a year ago, and he’s in his age-31 season. But he’s coming off an MVP-caliber offensive campaign, and if his glove is able to handle the move to shortstop, the positional adjustment could help him rack up more value. It’s already bold that he’s playing shortstop now. But what if he makes the decision look like a no-brainer?
Outcome: Betts finished with 4.8 bWAR/4.4fWAR, and the decision to play him at short was far from a no-brainer. The perennial All-Star ended back up in the outfield by season’s end. Perhaps round two will be more successful.
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This year’s bold prediction: Coming off Tommy John surgery, Sandy Alcantara will be in prime form and in Cy Young contention until he’s traded to an American League team in late July. — Stephen Nesbitt
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Last year’s bold prediction: Jake Burger and Jazz Chisholm Jr. become the second Marlins teammates with 35 homers in a season, a mighty feat achieved in 2017 by Giancarlo Stanton (59) and Marcell Ozuna (37).
Outcome: Chisholm finished with 24 homers (13 with the Marlins) and Burger slugged 29. Neither is with the Marlins anymore.
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This year’s bold prediction: No Willy Adames, no problem. Jackson Chourio and William Contreras will both be top-20 MLB hitters by WAR this season. — Stephen Nesbitt
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Last year’s bold prediction: As the club’s new No. 1 pitcher, Freddy Peralta will author the best season by a Brewers starter in recent memory. Reminder: Corbin Burnes won the Cy Young Award in 2021. Another reminder: Brandon Woodruff has been pretty good, too. Yeah, he will top what both have done.
Outcome: Peralta led the Brewers in innings pitched, but it was teammate Tobias Myers who had the more memorable season. Myers posted a 3.00 ERA in 27 games (25 starts). If not for some late inning heroics from Pete Alonso in the NL Wild Card Series, it was Myers who put the Brewers in position to move on with five scoreless innings in Game 3.
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This year’s bold prediction: Much like in 2023, when the Twins won the division title and snapped a two-decade playoff losing streak, starting pitching will carry them. Last year’s rotation ranked 11th in ERA among AL teams. This year’s starters will have a top-five ERA. — Aaron Gleeman
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Last year’s bold prediction: Sophomore second baseman Edouard Julien will lead the American League’s non-Yankees hitters in walks and finish in the league’s top five for runs scored.
Outcome: We think Julien would like a do-over for 2024.
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This year’s bold prediction: For the first time in franchise history, the Mets will have three players hit at least 30 home runs (and four with at least 25 long balls). — Tim Britton
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Last year’s bold prediction: Francisco Alvarez will be the best catcher in the National League. J.T. Realmuto owned that title for a while, and William Contreras, Sean Murphy and Will Smith provide stout competition. But Alvarez showed long enough flashes of excellence both at and behind the plate last year, as well as an impressive track record of swift improvement through his professional career, to expect another leap in his second season.
Outcome: The best catcher in the league last season was Contreras, who posted 5.4 fWAR. Alvarez finished ninth — just behind Realmuto.
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This year’s bold prediction: With added muscle over the offseason, Ben Rice, the projected fill-in at designated hitter in place of Giancarlo Stanton, will hit at least 30 home runs and be in contention for making the American League All-Star Game. — Chris Kirschner
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Last year’s bold prediction: Juan Soto wins the American League MVP, hitting no less than 50 homers. That’s not all. He does the Soto shuffle in an appearance on “Saturday Night Live.”
Outcome: Soto finished third in MVP voting, hitting 41 homers. While he didn’t actually make an appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” he does get portrayed by Marcello Hernández in a cold open Church Chat sketch.
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This year’s bold prediction: The A’s crash the playoff party as a wild card, and while MLB wants them to use Oracle Park in San Francisco for postseason home games, the A’s refuse. They’re having too much fun selling out games in Sacramento. — Tyler Kepner
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Last year’s bold prediction: The A’s break the 70-win threshold. The discourse around the team is deservedly bleak and they still won’t be a good team, but the starting pitching will be better, Mason Miller will have his own Pitching Ninja thread, and a full season of Zack Gelof, Lawrence Butler & Co. will improve the offense over last year’s dismal showing.
Outcome: Oh, so close. The A’s finished with 69 wins. But Miller was very much a Pitching Ninja darling, and Butler did show out, so much so that he inked a seven-year, $65.5 million contract extension over the winter.
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This year’s bold prediction: Andrew Painter arrives on June 30 for his major-league debut, then makes 14 starts that are great enough to propel him to a second-place finish in National League Rookie of the Year voting — behind Los Angeles’ Roki Sasaki. — Matt Gelb
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Last year’s bold prediction: Trea Turner wins the National League MVP. The $300 million shortstop redeemed his first season with the Phillies by hitting .337/.389/.668 in the final 48 games. The overall picture showed a star who underachieved, and Turner fought pressure to fulfill the expectations that came with a massive deal. With that burden eased, Turner can just be himself – one of the best players in the sport. It’s not audacious to think this is his year.
Outcome: It turns out, it was a little audacious to think 2024 would be Turner’s year. He didn’t earn an MVP vote, but he did make it to the All-Star team.
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This year’s bold prediction: Now comfortable in center field, Oneil Cruz will finally put it all together in Pittsburgh, turning in his first 30-30 season while cutting his strikeout rate below 30 percent for the first time in his big league career. — Stephen Nesbitt
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Last year’s bold prediction: Mitch Keller will be the pitching staff’s WAR leader, but rookie Jared Jones will have the rotation’s best ERA, 3.93. With sharpness early in the season providing sufficient rotation certainty, the Pirates will wait to call up Paul Skenes until June. Jones will finish seventh in NL Rookie of the Year voting.
Outcome: Nope and nope. It was Skenes who was Pittsburgh’s WAR leader (4.3) and its ERA king (1.96). And it was Skenes who received Rookie of the Year votes, enough to win the dang award while also finishing third in NL Cy Young Award balloting.
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This year’s bold prediction: Luis Arraez, with his left thumb surgically repaired and free agency potentially looming, becomes the first player to hit .360 or better in a full season since Joe Mauer in 2009. — Dennis Lin
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Last year’s bold prediction: Michael King becomes the latest player the Padres sign to a contract extension, albeit at a significantly more affordable price than Manny Machado, Yu Darvish, Jake Cronenworth, etc.
Outcome: King did not ink a contract extension. He also spent much of the winter the subject of trade speculation. He is, however, San Diego’s Opening Day starter, and after a standout 2024, he’s in line for a payday.
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This year’s bold prediction: Robbie Ray is one of the six National League pitchers who finishes with Cy Young votes. The only question is if he’ll get them while he’s still with the Giants, or if he’s the best pitcher traded at the deadline. That’s up to his teammates, but it’s OK to be bullish on Ray. He’s looked sharp this spring, and his new changeup is in the best shape of its life.— Grant Brisbee
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Last year’s bold prediction: Jung-Hoo Lee hits .314. Technically, he’ll hit .3143322476, (193 for 614) but it’ll be rounded down. This will be good for second in the National League, behind Luis Arraez, and the Giants will start selling windmill hats to take advantage of his nickname, Grandson of the Wind.
Outcome: Lee hit .262. He was limited to 37 games because he hit the outfield wall, and then hit the IL with a season-ending shoulder injury.
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This year’s bold prediction: Ichiro Suzuki becomes the first player in history to use his Hall of Fame speech to announce his comeback as an active player. The Mariners add him to the roster and surge to the AL West title. — Tyler Kepner
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Last year’s bold prediction: The Mariners win the first pennant in franchise history as Logan Gilbert wins the Cy Young Award, Julio Rodriguez wins the MVP and Jerry Dipoto wins the trading deadline by pulling off his biggest acquisition yet: Juan Soto.
Outcome: This is why they call them bold predictions.
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This year’s bold prediction: The Cardinals hover around .500 for most of the first half, leading John Mozeliak to buy at the trade deadline — even if that path isn’t best for the organization’s long-term player development goal. — Katie Woo
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Last year’s bold prediction: After the most disappointing season of his career, Nolan Arenado goes full revenge tour and finishes top-three in NL MVP voting. Last year was the first full-season since 2014 where Arenado did not record at least 30 homers and 100 RBI. It also ended his streak of 10 consecutive Gold Gloves — he’d won the award every year since he debuted. Someone has to propel the Cardinals out of last year’s cellar. It’s going to be Arenado.
Outcome: Arenado posted arguably the worst full season of his MLB career. He spent the winter trying to leave St. Louis, but after nixing a trade to the Astros, Arenado remains a Cardinal, at least through July, or even sooner.
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This year’s bold prediction: The biggest storyline heading into October is the potential of the Rays hosting a World Series in a spring training ballpark. Shane McClanahan returns quickly from a spring training injury scare, Junior Caminero emerges as a top-five third baseman in baseball, and the Rays are scaring everyone as a wild-card team with the biggest home field advantage in the sport — a home field that happens to be the Yankees spring training facility, which the Rays have embraced as an extension of their scrappy, find-a-way ethos. — Chad Jennings
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Last year’s bold prediction: Low and behold – or should that be Lowe and behold – the Rays have an offense, too! Well known for their ability to develop pitchers, the Rays actually are going to hit themselves into contention in the first half. Second baseman Brandon Lowe is healthy again, right fielder Josh Lowe is coming off a strong second half, and the Rays will have a top-five offense to keep themselves afloat until some of their injured arms return in time to make a playoff run down the stretch.
Outcome: How does bottom-five offense sound, Chad? The Rays finished with a team-wide .668 OPS, and if the White Sox weren’t horrifically miserable, then Tampa Bay would likely have laid claim to the league’s worst offense.
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This year’s bold prediction: New first baseman Jake Burger slams a career-high 40 home runs, inspiring the chefs at Globe Life Field to their most popular culinary creation since the Boomstick: The Jake Burger. — Tyler Kepner
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Last year’s bold prediction: Wyatt Langford and Evan Carter (in that order) become the first teammates to finish 1-2 in the AL Rookie of the Year voting since Alvin Davis and Mark Langston of the 1984 Mariners.
Outcome: A pair of teammates nearly did finish 1-2 in the voting. But that team was the Yankees — though Langford did get a few votes.
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This year’s bold prediction: The Blue Jays will not only extend Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — 15 years, $600 million with deferrals — but will ride his bat to a Wild Card berth and the club’s first ALDS appearance since 2016. — Stephen Nesbitt
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Last year’s bold prediction: Bold, eh? Well, how about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. replicates his 2021 season, where he finished with a 1.002 OPS and MLB-leading 48 home runs. But this season, the Blue Jays slugger won’t be blocked by Shohei Ohtani’s two-way ways. Guerrero will win the American League MVP and cement himself as one of today’s great hitters.
Outcome: Guerrero finished sixth in MVP voting. His 2024 season (30 homers, .940 OPS) wasn’t as good as his otherworldly 2021. But by one measure it wasn’t that far off, either. He posted a 167 OPS+ in 2021 — 166 OPS+ in 2024. Not bad!
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This year’s bold prediction: The Nationals will again lead the majors in stolen bases. Dylan Crews will swipe 50, CJ Abrams and Jacob Young 40, and James Wood 30. — Stephen Nesbitt
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Last year’s bold prediction: Nats top prospect James Wood will have a 30-30 season, between Triple A and the majors. He’ll occupy an outfield spot in Washington by early June. His first homer, 447 feet, will be on a sizzling Spencer Strider first-pitch fastball. I have spoken.
Outcome: Wood was closer to 20/20 between Triple-A Rochester and Washington. His first homer was on a less than sizzling 93 mph fastball from Lance Lynn. It was also well short of 447 feet.
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(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Rich Storry, Justin K. Aller / Getty Images, Matt Kartozian / Imagn Images)
