2025 Positional Power Rankings: Summary

Over the past week and a half, we’ve published our annual season preview, ranking the league’s players by position and team based on a blend of our projections (a 50/50 split between ZiPS and Steamer) and our manually maintained RosterResource playing time estimates courtesy of Jason Martinez and Jon Becker. If you happen to have missed any of those installments, you can use the navigation widget above to catch up.

Today, I’m going to summarize the results. We’ll look at some tables and pick out a few interesting tidbits in a moment, but first, it’s important to remember that this exercise captures a snapshot of how we project teams to perform now. Teams aren’t static. Since we began publishing our rankings, the Rockies traded outfielder Nolan Jones back to the Guardians, the team that drafted and developed him. The Brewers traded Mark Canha and Manuel Margot. Evan Carter, who burned so bright for the Rangers late in 2023, has been optioned as he tries to regain his stroke after an injury-riddled 2024 season. Drake Baldwin, our no. 11 overall prospect, and Cam Smith, no. 70, officially made their respective team’s Opening Day roster, as did Ryan Johnson, a 22-year-old right-handed pitcher who was drafted in the second round last year and has never thrown a pitch in affiliated ball (he ranked 11th on our Angels list as a 40+ FV prospect). And in a depressing callback to this time last year, when his signed with the Diamondbacks mere hours after our starting pitcher rankings went live, about 25 minutes after we published this year’s installment, Jordan Montgomery announced that he’ll be getting Tommy John surgery.

This being baseball, players will tweak elbows and hamstrings, lose playing time to underperformance, and get traded. That’s why we maintain a Team WAR Totals page, which lists projected positional WAR by team and updates throughout the season as we learn more about who is likely to take the field every day and what shape they’ll be in when they do. It’s important to note that the WAR numbers you see on that page may differ from those you’ve seen on the positional power rankings, mostly because those figures are aware of the injuries and transactions that have altered our playing time estimates since the rankings went live; the Z-Scores I’ll include later also use the WAR figures that power the Team WAR Totals page.

But before we get to the Z-Scores, let’s take note of some general trends and fun factoids. First, we’ll look at each team’s positional ranks as of Tuesday at 3:40 p.m. ET. There are 11 positions, with each team’s pitching, batting, and overall WAR rank included in the final three columns. This table is sortable, so feel free to poke around:

A few things jump out here.

The Dodgers and Mariners are the only teams with multiple no. 1 position finishes (DH and the starting rotation for Los Angeles, catcher and center field for Seattle). The Braves and Dodgers each have five top-five position finishes, while the Orioles, Phillies, and Rangers each have four, and the Astros, Blue Jays, Padres, and Yankees each have three. The Braves have nine positions that rank in the top 10, while the Orioles have eight, the Mets and Red Sox six, and the Astros, Cubs, Dodgers, Phillies, Rangers, Twins, and Yankees five. The Orioles’ entire outfield ranks in the top 10, while the Braves and Orioles boast top-10 finishes at four of the five infield positions. Five teams (the Braves, Dodgers, Phillies, Red Sox, and Twins) have a rotation and bullpen that project in the top 10.

It’s interesting to look at the ways the top-10 teams by total WAR have gone about constructing their rosters. Like last year, the teams with the two best projected records in baseball, the Dodgers (97 wins) and the Braves (93), not only mostly avoid being bad — they each only have two bottom-10 finishes (second base and left field for Los Angeles, shortstop and left field for Atlanta) — but, as noted above, they’re frequently great. They each have five top-five finishes and strong representation in the top 10 (nine for the Braves, five for the Dodgers), including tremendous pitching. The Orioles aren’t far behind in terms of top-10 finishes, though where they’re weak says a lot about how they’ve built their team. As noted, their infield and outfield are both stout, and the return of Félix Bautista has their bullpen stuffed at no. 2, but their rotation ranks 23rd. It’s their lone position in the bottom 10, and their only one in the bottom 15, but it’s enough to drag them down to sixth in projected total WAR.

The Mariners and Mets are marked by their high highs and low lows. Seattle has those two first-place finishes, and its starters check in at no. 7, but the team also has four bottom-10 finishes (first, second and third base, as well as DH) and five in the bottom 15, each the most among the teams in the top 10 by total WAR. Meanwhile, the Mets’ eight top-10 finishes are counterbalanced somewhat by their three bottom-10 spots (second base, center field, and the rotation). The Phillies offer a version of this approach, with four top-five finishes, and five in the top 10, but no first-place finishes (though first base and the rotation are both no. 2), two in the bottom 10 (right field and catcher), and four in the bottom 15, including their entire outfield. The Twins and Blue Jays each have one first-place finish (first base for Toronto, the bullpen for Minnesota) and largely avoid the lowest lows (Minnesota has two bottom-10 positions, Toronto just one), though they both have four positions in the bottom 15, including the Jays’ starters and relievers.

The Rangers are no. 1 at second base, and then avoid having any positions in the bottom 10. The Yankees underwhelm at third base, checking in at no. 22, but that’s their lone bottom-10 placement, as well as their only position in the bottom 15.

It isn’t all good news. This is an exercise in ranking, which means someone has to be last, and as often happens, a few unfortunate clubs are bringing up the rear at multiple positions. The Rockies once again have five last-place finishes (first and second base, left and right field, and DH), and catcher and the bullpen both rank 29th, while the rotation ranks 28th. Woof. The Marlins have 11 bottom-10 finishes, the Rockies 10, the White Sox nine, the Nationals eight, the Reds seven, and the Angels, Giants, and Pirates six each. As you might have gleaned, all 11 positions for Colorado and Miami are in the bottom 15; the strength of Chicago’s center field ranking, courtesy of Luis Robert Jr., is the only thing saving the White Sox from a similar fate. Four teams – the Marlins, Nationals, Rockies and White Sox – have an average positional ranking of 20th or lower. Seven teams — the Angels, Athletics, Giants, Marlins, Nationals, Rockies, and White Sox — place in the bottom 10 for both their rotation and bullpen. Good teams can still have weak positions, of course; the Braves’ shortstop and Phillies’ right field spots both rank 29th, making them the worst positions among the teams in the top 10 by overall WAR.

Ordinal rankings do have their limitations, as some positions cluster tightly together. At many positions, fractions of wins are all that separate teams from each other. There’s basically a 5-WAR difference between the top and the bottom of the center field rankings, while many of the league’s bullpens are closely bunched behind the Twins in the top spot. As I mentioned in my introduction, it is important to look at the magnitude of the differences between the rankings, as well as the rankings themselves. Thinking about whether a team falls above or below the league average, and by how much, can be a more useful way of approaching things than obsessing over where your favorite team ranked. To that end, I calculated the Z-Scores of each team’s projected positional WAR (again, using the figures on Team WAR Totals page as of 3:40 p.m. ET yesterday) to show you the number of standard deviations away from league average each team is at each spot:

This table is also sortable, which makes it easy to spot the outliers, good and bad. I won’t narrate the whole thing except to point out the top-five positions by Z-Score:

• +3.34, Mariners center field
• +3.24, Dodgers designated hitter
• +2.79, Guardians third base
• +2.59, Yankees right field
• +2.33, Royals shortstop

As well as the bottom five:

• -2.45, White Sox bullpen
• -2.30, Padres catcher
• -2.17, Rockies bullpen
• -2.11, Athletics rotation
• -1.97, Rockies catcher

This season will no doubt contain surprises. Some teams will disappoint, and others will exceed expectations. Last year, we went into the season thinking the Twins would win the AL Central. They did not do that, but their division produced three postseason teams, including a Tigers team that swept the Astros out of the playoffs and a Royals team that bounced the Orioles in two games. Last year, the Red Sox projected to be the worst team in the AL East with a sub .500 record; now they project as the second-best team in a tight division and have one of the best rotations in baseball after ranking 20th at this time in 2024. Two teams are about to play their home games in minor league parks! Juan Soto is a Met! Paul Skenes throws a cutter now! Baseball is different today than it was last March, and it’ll be different tomorrow than it is today.

That always makes the positional power rankings something of a strange exercise, because for as precise as we try to make them, we’re always at least a little bit wrong. I’m inclined think that’s a feature, not a bug. The season would be pretty boring if we knew in advance exactly who would win and how. Only the Dodgers and Braves project to win 90 or more games, but with 18 clubs forecast for between 80 and 90 wins, it seems likely that someone will emerge to give the heavy hitters a run for their money. A lot can change over the course of a season, with many teams a prospect breakout or a bad injury away from looking very different come October than they do now. And after an offseason marked by big contracts, big trades, and consternation over the Dodgers, tomorrow is Opening Day. We get to spend the next seven months figuring out who is good and just how wrong we were here. The FanGraphs staff will be there for the whole thing, and I hope you’ll join us. I can’t wait.