Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Ben’s new sound-dampening windows, listener defenses of MLB’s altered two-way-player rule, and the latest intolerable “breakout” pick, followed by Stat Blasts (15:49) about the teams with the most winless, non-lossless pitchers and the all-time past-their-prime/time-travel teams. Then they preview the 2025 Houston Astros (32:41) with The Athletic’s Chandler Rome, and the 2025 St. Louis Cardinals (1:25:07) with The Athletic’s Katie Woo.
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! It’s not all ❤️ and 🥰 for MLB teams, though, as the reporting of pitchers and catchers throughout the week has allowed some previously unreported injuries to come to light. The flip side of that coin is that injuries (and 60-day injured lists opening up) create more spots for lingering free agents.
There were a flurry of moves this past week, including the last two big dominoes to fall, with Alex Bregman and Nick Pivetta finding homes. Here’s all that transpired, which as always is reflected frighteningly quickly on the FA Matrix and Trades/Claims page of the Offseason Matrices document:
Marquee Free Agent Signings
Red Sox Sign Alex Bregman for Three Years, $120 Million
With Rafael Devers entrenched at third base, Bregman is expected to slide over to second with the Red Sox. He played positions other than third base earlier in his career — mostly shortstop (966 innings) while Carlos Correa was injured, but also 32 innings at second and 3 2/3 innings in left field — but he hasn’t left the hot corner since 2019. Still, as Ben Clemens noted in his piece on the signing, “Bregman has always felt a bit like a second baseman.”
Top prospect Kristian Campbell looked to be in strong position to claim the second base job out of spring training, something that doesn’t appear to be in the cards any longer with Bregman’s signing. But injuries, slumps, and trades (Triston Casas and Masataka Yoshida have had their names swirling in trade rumors all offseason) happen, and if the big three of Campbell, Marcelo Mayer, and Roman Anthony force the issue at some point during the season, the Red Sox will adjust their roster accordingly.
Effect on Other Teams
The Tigers and Cubs were reportedly the other finalists for Bregman’s services, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be looking for an everyday third baseman in the free agent or trade market. Bregman is a great player, and the Tigers and Cubs would’ve shuffled their rosters to accommodate him if they would’ve signed him, but neither team actually needed a third baseman. Indeed, both clubs have a top prospect who is expected to be their starting third baseman: Jace Jung in Detroit and Matt Shaw in Chicago. It’s possible that the two teams could still sign a third baseman, such as Jose Iglesias or Paul DeJong, as insurance just in case either Jung or Shaw isn’t ready, but both veterans would be nothing more than depth pieces.
Effect on Similar Players
I’m not sure any remaining position player will sign for even 10% of what Bregman received.
Padres Sign Nick Pivetta for Four Years, $55 Million
San Diego now has four starters set in stone… if they don’t trade any of them. Pivetta will be in the middle of the rotation with Yu Darvish, behind co-aces Dylan Cease and Michael King. The structure of Pivetta’s deal (just $4 million in the first year between the signing bonus and base salary) helps the Padres basically kick the can down the road on figuring out their cash flow problems. Cease, King, and Luis Arraez are set to hit free agency after this season, freeing up tens of millions of dollars.
As for Cease himself, the Padres are reportedly inclined to hang on to him and make their rotation a real strength. Matt Waldron, Randy Vásquez, and the newly signed Kyle Hart (more on him below) are the top contenders for the fifth spot in the rotation.
Effect on Other Teams
Pivetta was clearly the best remaining starting pitcher on the market, and if Cease and King are unavailable in trades, teams still looking for pitching are not going to be able to acquire anyone nearly as good as Pivetta, let alone better. Andrew Heaney, Jose Quintana, Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn, and swingman Spencer Turnbull are the most notable free agents starters left.
Effect on Similar Players
There are no similar players left in Pivetta’s class, so his deal isn’t informative for anyone else. He got a really nice deal considering how late in the offseason he signed.
Ben Joyce got some run as the Angels’ closer after Carlos Estévez was shipped off to the Phillies, but that job should now firmly be Jansen’s in 2025. The 37-year-old is 32 saves away from passing Lee Smith for third all time and 53 away from becoming the third member of the 500-save club, where he would join Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman. All three players ahead of Jansen on the saves list are Hall of Famers.
Joyce’s more fluid usage might actually make him more valuable to the Angels. Last season, he averaged 4.9 batters faced per appearance until his first save on August 3 — including getting six outs five times — before closing out his year with an average of 4.1 as the ninth-inning man.
Effect on Other Teams
With Jansen heading back to Southern California, there are just two free agent relievers left who could conceivably serve as closers for a contender this year: David Robertson and Kyle Finnegan, and Finnegan was non-tendered! Still, he was an All-Star last season before his performance cratered in the second half. Some team might be enamored by his high-velocity fastball and have some tweaks in mind for his secondary stuff to get him back into high-leverage form. Meanwhile, the ageless Robertson only recorded two saves last year with the Rangers because he was behind closer Kirby Yates in their bullpen. But Robertson was absolutely brilliant (3.00 ERA, 2.65 FIP, 3.19 xERA) in his setup role and has plenty of experience closing games. Teams who could still use (but won’t necessarily add) a clear-cut ninth-inning arm include the Red Sox, Rangers, Diamondbacks, and Nationals.
Effect on Similar Players
Robertson had a better year than Jansen, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll sign a better deal. At this point in the offseason, there are fewer teams in the market for an established high-leverage reliever, so he may have to settle for less given then lesser demand.
At the start of the season, there’ll be no real effect on the Dodgers. Kershaw underwent toe and knee surgeries at the end of the 2024 campaign, keeping him out of action for the Dodgers’ World Series run. He expects to open the season on the 60-day IL, and Los Angeles obviously has the starting pitching depth to withstand Kershaw’s extended absence.
Effect on Other Teams
No team has to pivot here: Kershaw was always going to remain with the Dodgers.
Effect on Similar Players
And there aren’t any similar players either, just waiting for one team to bring them back without considering the other 29.
Hernández’s addition could be considered a somewhat superfluous one for the Dodgers. In his appearance on Dodger Territory, Andrew Friedman said that it would’ve been “Kiké or nothing” in adding to the team’s offense.
Hyeseong Kim is the only one of the 13 hitters on the Dodgers’ projected roster who can be optioned to the minors, and it would probably take an especially rough spring training for that to come to fruition. Chris Taylor could, I suppose, be DFA’d following last year’s rough season, but he was decent enough down the stretch to make that unlikely. This means the likes of Andy Pages, James Outman, Dalton Rushing, and Alex Freeland will have to wait for an unfortunate injury to get time at the major league level.
For now, the defensively brilliant Taylor will back up and provide insurance for oft-injured center fielder Luis Robert Jr., who’ll be flanked by Andrew Benintendi in left and a Mike Tauchman/Austin Slater platoon in right. Taylor could give Benintendi some days off against southpaws, but he’s not going to have a big role on the White Sox unless (or until) Robert is moved. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that the White Sox had discussions with the Giants and Reds about a deal for Robert, but the likelihood of a trade coming into play before the start of the season is unknown.
Heyward and Joe should make for a playable, if uninspiring, left field platoon for a Padres team that’s extremely strapped for cash and in the midst of an ownership battle between family members of the late Peter Seidler. On days Heyward is playing, San Diego will have a formidable defensive outfield with Jackson Merrill in center and Fernando Tatis Jr. in right, and Heyward can always replace Joe late in games. The Padres could probably use one more hitter to serve as their DH (or part of a DH rotation), but it’s unclear if they have the budget for that. Tirso Ornelas is probably the front-runner for that role as the roster is currently constructed.
Which Hitters Are Still Left?
Remaining free agent hitters who could plausibly earn a major league deal include:
Junis made 18 relief appearances and six starts for the Brewers and Reds last year, never going beyond six innings or 73 pitches. That short leash fits the Guardians’ dogma well; they’re going to rely heavily on their bullpen, anyway. Junis figures to compete with Triston McKenzie, Logan Allen, Slade Cecconi, and Joey Cantillo for the fifth starter spot. If Junis isn’t in the rotation, he’ll be a Swiss Army knife in the bullpen akin to Pedro Avila last year.
Marlins Sign Cal Quantrill for One Year, $3.5 Million
The 30-year-old Quantrill is, amazingly, the second-oldest player on the Marlins’ projected roster, just a week younger than Anthony Bender. His “elder” presence will hold down a rotation spot behind ace Sandy Alcantara, in addition to lefty Ryan Weathers and erratic righty Edward Cabrera. That leaves one rotation spot open, most likely to be filled by Max Meyer, Valente Bellozo, or Adam Mazur. Young phenom Eury Pérez should be back from Tommy John surgery around the All-Star break.
Tigers Sign John Brebbia for One Year, $2.75 Million
Brebbia is the second major league reliever the Tigers have added this offseason, along with the $7.75 million deal for Tommy Kahnle. The red-bearded righty was awful last season with the White Sox before turning in five really nice performances with the Braves to end his year, parlaying those into a nice little major league deal. He’ll probably be used in lower-leverage spots to start, though the Tigers’ fluid bullpen roles means he could pick up a few saves here and there.
Barlow joins a Reds bullpen that’s already full of veteran relievers. Barlow, Taylor Rogers, Brent Suter, and Emilio Pagán all have six-plus years of service time and will help set up for closer Alexis Díaz. Tony Santillan performing anywhere close to how he did last year (30.3% K-BB%) would go a long way toward helping a unit that looks to be stronger in name value than real value.
Despite pitching brilliantly in the KBO last year, Hart had to settle for a modest one-year deal (plus a club option for $5 million, which can increase with escalators based on games started). And with the first four rotation spots already set and Randy Vásquez and Matt Waldron also around, Hart won’t be assured of a rotation spot out of camp. Additionally, he can still be optioned to the minors (unless his contract includes a clause that says otherwise, but we haven’t heard that it does), so it’s not guaranteed that he’ll make the team out of camp.
Graveman has been a great reliever when healthy, with a 2.74 ERA in 187 1/3 innings with the Mariners, Astros, and White Sox from 2021-23, but he missed all last season because of shoulder surgery. He’ll slot in behind co-closers Justin Martinez and A.J. Puk, helping set up along with Kevin Ginkel, Ryan Thompson, and Joe Mantiply. We’ve currently got Jordan Montgomery projected as the long reliever, though he could pitch his way back into a rotation spot or find his way out the door in a trade.
This won’t affect the 2025 Mets much at all, since Smith could miss the entirety of the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery in July. The contract includes a $2 million club option for 2026, allowing the Mets to keep Smith around at a low price if his rehab goes swimmingly.
Which Pitchers Are Still Left?
Remaining free agent pitchers who could plausibly earn a major league deal include:
This is David’s first piece as a FanGraphs prospect contributor. He is from Northwest Indiana and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Statistics at Indiana University. He previously wrote for Down on the Farm, and has given talks at the SABR Analytics Conference and Saberseminar.
Earlier today, Eric Longenhagen launched his 2025 Draft Board, highlighting the top draft prospects in this year’s class. In this piece, I want to look a bit further into the future and focus on some of the college underclassmen you’ll want to keep an eye on this year. I selected a pitcher and a hitter from each of the Power 4 conferences, along with two non-Power 4 underclassmen and one unique true freshman. Of course, there’s a lot more talent in these conferences than just the guys I have listed here, but this should give you some idea of the players to watch over the next couple of seasons.
ACC
Drew Burress, CF, Georgia Tech
Burress hit .381/.512/.821 with 25 home runs in 58 games as a freshman at Georgia Tech last year. At a stocky 5-foot-9, he doesn’t necessarily look the part, but if you look past his size, there aren’t many holes in his game. He doesn’t whiff much, he doesn’t chase much, and he has plus power that he gets to in games due to a swing path that lets him lift the ball. Burress is loose in the box and has an interesting stance, with his bat pointed towards the ground and his lead elbow pointed high in the air. There’s length to the swing at times, but he’s shown the ability to get the bat on the ball wherever it’s pitched. Defensively, Burress spent all 58 games in center field last season. His feel for the position is still developing, but there’s a solid underlying foundation here because of his above-average speed. Overall, he’s the front runner to be the no. 1 overall pick in 2026 as someone who plays a premium position with a well-rounded offensive profile. Read the rest of this entry »
This is my first We Tried Tracker update since December, and I have missed you. I have missed who we were in that simpler, infinitely less cruel time of, you know, two months ago. A lot has happened on the We Tried front, far too much to cover in one article, but with Alex Bregman and Nick Pivetta coming off the board this week, all but one of the first 45 entries on our Top 50 Free Agents list have been signed. (No. 33 Andrew Heaney is the exception.) It’s time to reflect on the state of effort in major league front offices. First, I need to beg for your help once again. I have missed some We Trieds. I’m sure of it. If you see any out there in the wild, or if you notice any omissions in the tracker, please let me know on Bluesky or email me at WeTriedTracker@gmail.com, a real email address that I really check. (I even check the spam folder, which today contains an email from the daughter of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. She needs a trusted investment manager/partner for her $27.5 million fortune. I’m about to be so rich, you guys.)
From the very beginning of this exercise, the Red Sox have paced the league. As of Thursday, I have them credited with 12 different We Trieds in nine different categories. That’s nearly 18% of all We Trieds! No other team has notched more than six. The Red Sox are fully lapping the field. And until Wednesday evening, what did they have to show for all that effort? A trade for Garrett Crochet and a couple of one-year deals for pitchers in various states of recovery from Tommy John surgery. Well, all that has changed. Apparently, practice really does makes perfect, because the Red Sox have landed Bregman, our third-ranked free agent, on a three-year, $120-million deal with two opt-outs (and enough deferred money to lower the total present value to $90 million). Amazingly, Bregman is the first position player Craig Breslow has signed to a major league deal since the Red Sox hired him in October 2023. That’s why we keep trying. You never know when lucky number 13 is going to pay off. If you just stick to your guns, keep lowballing free agent after free agent, one of them will eventually be so beaten down by the process that he will accept your terms. It’s truly an uplifting tale of hope in these bleak times.
The moment Bregman signed, we got two very detailed We Trieds. Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Pressreported that the Tigers had offered six years and $171.5 million, including some deferred money, while USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported that the Cubs offered four years and $120 million. MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian clarified Chicago actually offered $115, with opt-outs after the 2026 and 2027 seasons. Regardless of which Cubs offer is more accurate, Detroit’s and Chicago’s offers involve a lower AAV than what Bregman got from Boston, but more money and more years. The Red Sox offered something those two teams didn’t: the ability to leave immediately. If Bregman has himself a big 2025 in Boston, he can try again next offseason. If he doesn’t, he’ll have 120 million reasons not to feel too bad about how things turned out. Sometimes trying the hardest to sign a player means being the most willing to let him leave.
With nearly every notable free agent spoken for, I should probably reflect on what I learned during this exercise. I’ve never paid attention to the hot stove season this intently, and certainly not with this kind of odd, specific focus. I guess the biggest lesson is what a We Tried can tell you about how a team wants to be perceived. Unless I missed something, nine teams haven’t notched a single We Tried: the Astros, Brewers, Cardinals, Dodgers, Marlins, Pirates, Rockies, Twins, and White Sox. That’s a very eclectic group. The Dodgers haven’t felt the need to leak it to a reporter when they failed to land a player, because why would they? They’re actually improving their team, so they don’t need to keep up appearances. The White Sox, Marlins, Pirates, and Rockies are barely playing the same sport. They’re not competing for impact free agents and would never want their fans to get that impression, lest it raise expectations above their current level of negative infinity. The Twins and Brewers have spent the offseason trying to pull off a balancing act: trying to remain competitive without raising payroll. Unfortunately, they came into the offseason with a solid team and real expectations, and the silence has been deafening.
As for the Cardinals, I don’t really know where to begin. They are, in theory, starting a rebuild, but if there’s been any progress on that front, they’ve done a great job at concealing it. They haven’t signed a major league free agent. They haven’t even hinted that they’ve spent a moment considering the possibility of signing a major league free agent. Instead, they have tried so, so hard and so, so publicly… to get a little bit worse. The Cardinals have spent the entire offseason absorbed in an ill-fated attempt to trade Nolan Arenado, despite the fact that doing so wouldn’t make the team better in the short run (because Arenado is still a solid player) or in the long run (because his contract is so underwater that it’s not worth real prospect capital). The Cardinals were engaged in the noblest attempt of all: saving a few million dollars for the purpose of saving a few million dollars. On Thursday, lame duck president of baseball operations John Mozeliak essentially admitted that this lofty dream was dead. The Cardinals will spend the 2025 season furious that Arenado is still — if the projections are right — their second-best player, rather than what he could have become: a medium-sized pile of money.
Then there are the teams that have been out there trying like crazy. The top four teams are all in the AL East: the Red Sox with 12, the Orioles with seven, the Blue Jays with six, and the Yankees with five. The Cubs and Padres each have four. To some extent, this is just a reflection of reality. The AL East is a monster division where winning is expected. The Yankees play in the biggest media market in the country. They have the loudest fans in the country, and those fans expect them to sign everyone. Silence probably isn’t an option. The Red Sox have similarly demanding fans, and their front office has been publicly promising to break the bank for two straight offseasons now. They didn’t deliver at all during the 2023-2024 offseason, and until the Bregman signing, the only multi-year deal they’d handed out this offseason was still, in a sense, a one-year deal, as it went to Patrick Sandoval, who will be recovering from internal brace surgery for most of the 2025 season. In retrospect, it’s easy to see their We Trieds as assurances that they were acting in good faith.
The Orioles and Blue Jays are in a similar position: They want it to be known that they’re out there attempting to improve their teams. If they’re not trying as hard as fans might like, at least they’re trying loudly. However, there’s an insidious undertone, as all this trying comes while owners are publicly softening up the ground for a death march toward a salary cap. They’re getting ready to lock out the players, and toward that end, they’re getting an early start on painting the players as greedy millionaires. Through that lens, it’s easy to see each We Tried as an attempt to portray the billionaire ownership class as generous and benevolent, willing to go out and sign all those players you want them to, if only those players weren’t quite so expensive.
Rather than end on such a cynical note, let me tell you about my favorite We Tried. It came from Anne Rogers, the Royals beat writer for MLB.com. On February 4, Rogers reposted an MLB Trade Rumors article about Randal Grichuk’s signing with the Diamondbacks. “Royals tried to get Grichuck (sic) but he returns to Arizona,” she wrote. I clicked on the link to the article to find the part about the Royals trying. But when I read the article, I saw that the part about the Royals trying was just a link to that same post from Rogers. You can just keep clicking back and forth between the two links forever. It’s a We Tried ouroboros, and crucially, of the 69 We Trieds I’ve recorded so far, it’s the only one that uses that exact terminology. There’s no “We were in on,” or “We were in the mix,” or “We made a competitive offer.” It’s pure and simple: “Royals tried,” with absolutely zero further information.
This is also the funniest We Tried of the offseason simply because of the terms. Grichuk signed for one year and $5 million (technically it’s $2 million, with a $3 million buyout on a mutual 2026 option). Every other player who was the subject of a We Tried signed a contract that was at least twice as big as Grichuk’s. At least one player I can think of signed a contract that is 153 times bigger than Grichuk’s. There is no such thing as a major league team that can’t afford a one-year, $5 million contract. Hell, several little league teams could probably swing that deal if the right 12-year-old should come along. The Royals truly lowered the bar here. This is what minimum effort looks like.
Today is the first day of the 2025 college baseball season, and to celebrate, we’re cutting the ribbon on our 2025 Draft prospect rankings and scouting reports. They’re now live on The Board, so head over there for all these players’ tool grades and reports. In this piece, I’ll touch on several individual players who I think are among this year’s best and most interesting prospects, and discuss the class as a whole from a talent standpoint, as well as which teams are in position to have a huge draft.
First, some quick housekeeping on the rankings. I’ve got just shy of 100 players on The Board right now. I’ve hard-ranked the players with a 40+ FV and above, while the 40 FV players are clustered by demographic below them. At this stage in the draft process, players are more in “neighborhoods” or clusters. It’s too early to have hundreds of players ordinally ranked, because the deeper you go, the more those rankings will change between now and draft day. On this update, I’ve tried to include players who have the best chance to take a leap during this season and climb The Board. This is definitely a ceiling-heavy list at this stage, in part because so many of the higher-floored players tend to reveal themselves during the college season. New prospect contributor David Gerth, whose debut piece will run later today, helped produce the reports on the players in the Big Ten conference. Obviously, there will be much more to come in the next few months as guys separate themselves from their peers, and new standouts emerge. Read the rest of this entry »
David Butler II Imagn Images; Ashley Green/Telegram & Gazette-Imagn Content Services, LLC
After four season’s worth of high-profile trades, extensions, and free agent signings, the Padres have had a very quiet winter save for the headlines that their ownership battle has generated. On Wednesday, the day that their pitchers and catchers reported to their spring training facility in Peoria, Arizona, the team made by far its biggest move of the offseason, signing free agent Nick Pivetta to a four-year, $55 million deal. They followed that up on Thursday by inking lefty Kyle Hart to a one-year deal with an option.
Taken together, the additions appear to set up a trade of Dylan Cease, the top starter on last year’s 93-win Wild Card team and a pending free agent this winter. However, general manager A.J. Preller indicated that’s not the plan right now, telling reporters on Thursday, “He’s a very big part of our club. The additions the last couple days supplement what’s a really good rotation. That’s our focus here going forward — having that strong rotation.”
Of course, any decision to keep Cease could be revisited if the Padres receive an offer they can’t refuse, or if they fall out of contention this summer. It should also be pointed out that Michael King, the team’s second-best starter in 2024, is a trade candidate as well; he can also become a free agent after this season if he declines his end of a mutual option for 2026. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s Valentine’s Day, and instead of being out on the town with your beloved, you’re sitting on the sofa bingewatching the latest installment of a streaming entertainment institution. Not the new season of Love is Blind; the new season of college baseball.
Baseball is like football and basketball, in that a large part of the appeal of the college game is its abundance. Not every game is worth watching, but with some 300 Division I schools to choose from, there’s a good chance that somewhere out there, there’s a close game in the bottom of the ninth, or a pitchers’ duel between top prospects, or a rivalry matchup with postseason implications. It’s borderline-impossible to remember the names of all 300 teams, much less any useful information about them. So in the interest of efficiency, here are seven schools I’ll have my eye on this season, because I think they’ll have an outsize influence on the shape of this season as a whole.
Oregon State
I’m not going to say this is the most excited I’ve ever been for a college team, ever. But it’s the most excited I’ve been for a college team without multiple contenders for the no. 1 overall pick, like the Kumar Rocker/Jack Leiter Vandy team, or Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews at LSU. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Red Sox signing Alex Bregman, the Padres signing Nick Pivetta, and Anthony Rendon’s latest long-term injury. Then they preview the 2025 Chicago Cubs (29:35) with The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma, and the 2025 San Francisco Giants (1:14:41) with The Athletic’s Grant Brisbee.
There’s still more winter to go, but this week gave us a sign of spring that’s way more promising than any silly groundhog in Pennsylvania. Pitchers and catchers have reported to Florida and Arizona for spring training. As usual, this is also the best time to do the first mega-run of ZiPS projected standings, to gauge where every team stands at the prelude to the 2025 season. Naturally, these are not the final projected standings, but they’re accurate through every bit of knowledge ZiPS and Szymborski have as of the morning of Thursday, February 13.
These standings are the result of a million simulations, not results obtained from binomial or even beta-binomial magic. The methodology isn’t identical to the one we use for our playoff odds, which we recently launched to both acclaim and dismay. So how does ZiPS calculate the season? Stored within ZiPS are the first- through 99th-percentile projections for each player. I start by making a generalized depth chart, using our Depth Charts as a jumping off point. Since these are my curated projections, I make changes based on my personal feelings about who will receive playing time as filtered through arbitrary whimsy my logic and reasoning. ZiPS then generates a million versions of each team in Monte Carlo fashion.
After that is done, ZiPS applies another set of algorithms with a generalized distribution of injury risk that changes the baseline plate appearances or innings pitched for each player. ZiPS then automatically and proportionally “fills in” playing time from the next players on the list to get to a full slate of PAs and innings.
The result is a million different rosters for each team and an associated winning percentage for each million of them. After applying the new strength of schedule calculations based on the other 29 teams, I end up with the standings for each of the million seasons. I promise this is much less complex than it sounds.
The goal of ZiPS is to be less awful than any other way of predicting the future. The future is tantalizingly close but beyond our knowledge, and if anyone figures out how to deflect the astrophysicist Arthur Eddington’s arrow of time, it’s probably not going to be in the form of baseball projections. So we project probabilities, not certainties. If this does not satisfy you, just assume that any deviation from the actual results are due to flaws in reality.
Over the last decade, ZiPS has averaged 19.2 correct teams when looking at Vegas preseason over/under lines. I’m always tinkering with methodology, but most of the low-hanging fruit in predicting how teams will perform has already been harvested. ZiPS’ misses for teams from year to year are uncorrelated, with an r-squared of one year’s miss to the next of 0.000541. In other words, none of the year-to-year misses for individual franchises has told us anything about future misses for those franchises.
We published the ZiPS projected American League standings on Wednesday, so unless you’re accidentally here looking for the air flow data of Vornado vs. Honeywell desk fans, you guessed correctly that we’ve got the National League installment for today. Please note that the World Series probabilities across the two pieces will not add up to precisely 100%, thanks to the Nick Pivetta signing, the Alex Bregmansigning, and some of the minor Wednesday transactions.
ZiPS Projected Standings – NL East (2/13)
Team
W
L
GB
Pct
Div%
WC%
Playoff%
WS Win%
80th
20th
Atlanta Braves
89
73
—
.549
35.8%
34.5%
70.3%
7.3%
96.4
81.6
Philadelphia Phillies
89
73
—
.549
34.0%
35.1%
69.1%
6.6%
96.0
81.5
New York Mets
88
74
1
.543
29.5%
35.9%
65.4%
5.6%
95.0
80.7
Washington Nationals
69
93
20
.426
0.5%
3.1%
3.5%
0.0%
76.6
62.3
Miami Marlins
68
94
21
.420
0.3%
1.6%
1.9%
0.0%
74.3
59.5
As far as bad seasons go, Atlanta had a darn good one, given the team still managed 89 wins and a brief playoff appearance despite significant injuries to Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuña Jr.. They both are expected to be back for most of the 2025 season, and even though their injuries have curbed their projections a bit, their returns are a major boon to the Braves — as good as any free agent signings made this winter. With guaranteed health on all fronts, the Braves would have a much more impressive projection, even taking into consideration the loss of Max Fried, but ZiPS expects there to be at least some injuries, and Atlanta’s depth these days isn’t terribly robust. The Braves also addressed their most glaring position of weakness, left field, with their signing of Jurickson Profar, who is coming off a career year with the Padres. ZiPS doesn’t expect Profar to repeat that performance, but considering Atlanta left fielders were below replacement level last season (77 wRC+, -0.3 WAR), his projected 110 wRC+ and 1.4 WAR represent a fairly sizable upgrade.
Not a lot of surprises here for the Phillies. Like the Braves, they had a very quiet offseason. As has been the case for the past few seasons, Philadelphia’s offense is quite solid, and incoming outfielder Max Kepler is a reasonable fill-in. The main concern for the Phillies here is simply that so many of their key contributors are now on the wrong side of 30. There is some risk that comes with new starting pitcher Jesús Luzardo, whom they acquired from the Marlins, but he offers quite a lot of high-end outcomes. But the truth is, this rotation probably would project to be a top-five staff in baseball even if Philadelphia had signed Steve Carlton instead, without the use of a time machine.
The Mets, on the other hand, had an action-packed offseason. Just signing Juan Soto and then mic-dropping likely would have made for a successful winter. To my utter shock, they were able to pull off the feat of not having to say goodbye to Pete Alonsoor pay him a ludicrous amount of money. Yes, he’s declining, but the team is better with him at first and Vientos at third than with Vientos at first and Brett Baty at third. Now, I think people are underrating Baty based on his early career performance, but a contending team ought to be far more interested in the Polar Bear! ZiPS is not particularly enthused by the rotation, but it’s enough to pull the Mets into just about an even projection with the Braves and Phillies.
The Nationals are improving incrementally, and you can see that offensive core of James Wood, Dylan Crews, CJ Abrams, and Luis García Jr. coming together. First baseman Nathaniel Lowe is a solid trade pickup, and he came cheap enough that I can hardly protest too loudly that he’s a much better fit on a contending team. But ZiPS thinks about half this lineup is awful, and feels this pitching staff might be a little worse that the offense. Washington is better than the Marlins, but ZiPS doesn’t believe this team is ready for a breakthrough in 2025.
The gamble for the Marlins was that if they could get enough of their dynamic young pitching to stay healthy, they could compete for a wild card spot even with their lineup looking like the equivalent of a Chevrolet Citation that’s been sitting in your weird cousin’s barn for 30 years. When that roll of the dice didn’t work out, they were out of ideas. Now, their rotation projects to be a bottom-five staff, and as for the lineup, I think I’d rather put my money on the car.
ZiPS Projected Standings – NL Central (2/13)
Team
W
L
GB
Pct
Div%
WC%
Playoff%
WS Win%
80th
20th
Chicago Cubs
86
76
—
.531
37.0%
19.4%
56.4%
4.1%
92.8
78.4
Milwaukee Brewers
84
78
2
.519
31.3%
19.6%
50.9%
3.4%
91.8
77.0
St. Louis Cardinals
79
83
7
.488
12.0%
13.7%
25.7%
0.9%
86.1
71.4
Cincinnati Reds
79
83
7
.488
10.8%
12.8%
23.6%
0.8%
85.6
70.5
Pittsburgh Pirates
77
85
9
.475
8.9%
11.0%
19.9%
0.6%
84.5
69.7
As has been noted, ZiPS really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really likes Chicago’s lineup, even though Kyle Tucker isn’t as good a fit for Wrigley Field as he was for that park in Houston with the new name I just forgot again. Daikon? Dovahkiin? Dank? (Editor’s note: It’s Daikin Park.) ZiPS is not excited about the rotation, especially if a few injuries work their way into the mix, but it’s not enough to keep the Cubs from projecting at the top of the division.
The Cubs shouldn’t rest too easy, though, with the Brewers projected to finish just a couple games behind them. Milwaukee bleeds an elite bullpen arm every year it seems, but it pumps out new dominant relievers at a faster rate than I churn out Simpsons references from 1995. The offense has stabilized a bit, with Christian Yelich getting his offense back on track, and though the Brewers didn’t go big and bold this offseason, most NL Central teams didn’t either. ZiPS gives Nestor Cortes a nice little bounce-back season, which should ease the pain of the loss of Devin Williams.
I thought the Cardinals would come out a few games better than this, but ZiPS clearly is not buying their offseason of inaction. It was surprising not because I think the Cardinals are good, but because ZiPS rarely projects them to mediocre, let alone bad. This is only the second time ZiPS has clocked them as a sub-.500 team. The first time was 2008, when St. Louis won 86 games. Perhaps this projection is a bit counterintuitive because the Cardinals were worse in 2023 than they were in 2024, and they entered last season with an 83-win projection, but ZiPS simply saw last year’s team as having a lot more opportunity for upside. That makes sense when you consider the Cardinals didn’t sign a major league free agent before camps opened, lost Paul Goldschmidt and Andrew Kittredge to free agency, and declined their options for current free agents Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson. All four of those guys are in the twilight of their careers at this point, but the Cardinals didn’t replace them externally, and their internal options don’t represent much of an improvement. Really, it feels like the Cardinals are just waiting around for John Mozeliak’s tenure to end.
The Reds boast some upside, but they also have some serious depth concerns, and an uninspiring group on the offensive side of the defensive spectrum. ZiPS kind of likes the rotation, but not the Plan B options after the projected starting five, and it’s decidedly lukewarm about the bullpen. There’s a lot of value tied up in comparatively few players: Elly De La Cruz, Hunter Greene, and a hopefully healthy Matt McLain.
Pittsburgh is a far less depressing team then you’d expect from its projected record, but it has far too many positions that are just screaming for more offense. Signing Anthony Santander would have been a much better idea than simply relying on Andrew McCutchen firing up the member berry invocations of a decade ago. Sure, a slugger like Santander wouldn’t come cheap, but now is precisely the time for the Pirates to spend. The top three in the rotation are terrific, and the Pirates are the type of team that if they could sneak into October, they could really surprise some people.
ZiPS Projected Standings – NL West (2/13)
Team
W
L
GB
Pct
Div%
WC%
Playoff%
WS Win%
80th
20th
Los Angeles Dodgers
97
65
—
.599
71.8%
20.9%
92.7%
18.3%
104.1
89.5
Arizona Diamondbacks
85
77
12
.525
12.8%
39.6%
52.4%
3.2%
92.3
77.9
San Diego Padres
84
78
13
.519
13.2%
38.0%
51.2%
3.3%
92.6
76.5
San Francisco Giants
77
85
20
.475
2.2%
14.3%
16.6%
0.4%
83.9
69.0
Colorado Rockies
63
99
34
.389
0.0%
0.5%
0.5%
0.0%
70.6
56.2
The curve for the Dodgers’ projections is actually pretty funny. You don’t quite see it with the 80/20 splits, but their 10th-percentile projection only drops another a third of a win and their first-percentile projection is 86 wins. Contrary to what people think, the sum of the Dodgers’ adding very expensive depth isn’t really on the high end, because they’re already pushing into diminishing returns territory. With good health, the Dodgers will have a hard time getting maximum value from all their players because they have so many good ones. The biggest benefit of all this is that the team is Marianas Trench deep, down at the depth where you start to see these fish things that look like Eldritch abominations. For the Dodgers to have a truly lousy season, it would probably take someone on their roster doing gain-of-function research on smallpox in the dugout, which is probably against the rules.
The Diamondbacks are absolutely solid everywhere except designated hitter, though ZiPS isn’t as keen on some of their replacement options. Adding Corbin Burnes is huge, and even if Jordan Montgomery ends up getting a lot of innings, he has to be better than he was last year, right? I actually thought Arizona would come out a few games better than this, but ZiPS really doesn’t like what happens in the event of a Gabriel Moreno or Ketel Marte injury, and the lackluster DH projection reflects the team’s lack of spare bats.
The Padres could be very good, but this is also a really delicate team. Bringing in Nick Pivetta is more helpful in the projections than what people might’ve expected because the back end of San Diego’s rotation looked pretty bleak to ZiPS. However, the wins that were giveth could be taketh away if the Padres trade Dylan Cease, something they seem determined to do, but that hasn’t happenedeth yet. The sudden changes in team revenues because of Diamond Sports’ bankruptcy and team ownership turmoil have really hurt the Padres, as they’re likely nearing the end of their current run. ZiPS really likes prospects Ethan Salas and Leodalis De Vries, but they won’t impact the 2025 roster, so you’ll have to wait until the ZiPS Top 100 Prospects next week for more on them!
The Giants successfully retained Matt Chapman, but they were below .500 with him last year. The big addition here is Willy Adames, but Justin Verlander is far less exciting than he was five years ago. There’s just too much meh all around for ZiPS to project San Francisco to be anything more than a third-tier candidate, though far from a hopeless one.
This may come as a shock to you, but the Rockies are acting with far more competence lately. Over the last two offseasons, they haven’t done anything crazy in free agency — like sign Kris Bryant to play the outfield — and they’ve stopped their usual practice of treating prospects as annoyances. It’s nice that Colorado is going to give Nolan Jones every chance to have a bounce-back season rather than plotting to replace him with, say, Andrew Benintendi, as the Jeff Bridich-era Rockies may have done. But just because they are a better-run organization doesn’t mean they are good. The hole is so deep that it will take quite a while to get out of it, and they basically still have to find an entire pitching staff. A healthy Germán Márquez and a miraculous resurgence from Bryant still wouldn’t make this team a contender.
As usual, I’m including the ZiPS playoff chart, which shows what the chances are that a number of wins is achieved by the division and Wild Card winners. For example, ZiPS projects the team that wins the NL East to have, on average, 95.6 wins, but just under 20% of the time, the eventual NL East champ will win at least 101 games.
Sponsor Us on Patreon
Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com
EW Subreddit
Effectively Wild Wiki
iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
Spotify Feed
Facebook Group
Bluesky Account
Twitter Account
Get Our Merch!
