David SchoenfieldSep 24, 2025, 07:00 AM ETCloseCovers MLB for ESPN.com Former deputy editor of Page 2 Been with ESPN.com since 1995
Josh Naylor’s bases-clearing double helps Mariners clinch playoffs (0:42)Josh Naylor comes up huge as he clears the bases with a double to give the Mariners the lead in the eighth inning. (0:42)
There are still five very important days left in the 2025 regular season, with division titles and wild cards still to be determined, but it’s time to hand out our final regular-season grades for every team.
This grade is contingent on the Blue Jays holding on to the AL East title, which would be their first since 2015. They were 26-28 on May 27, but only the Brewers have a better record since then. The Blue Jays are better than their run differential suggests — several blowout losses have skewed that figure (they’ve lost games by 19, 14, 13 and 12 runs) — but it still feels like there are some smoke and mirrors involved here.
The Mariners, after an up-and-down season that saw their vaunted rotation struggle at times (especially on the road), got hot just when they needed to, winning 15 of 16 games during a September stretch to put them on the brink of their first division title since 2001 and secure them just their second postseason berth since then. This can turn into an A- once the Mariners officially clinch the division.
But mixed in with all these positive results have been a bunch of negatives as well: Sloppy defense and baserunning and, most concerning as we head into October, a wildly inconsistent bullpen that ranks 22nd in the majors in win probability added. If the bullpen can get hot — and there is indeed the depth and talent for that to happen — the Yankees will be tough to beat in the postseason.
In the end, they significantly underperformed their Pythagorean record despite going 9-7 in extra-inning games. With Jacob deGrom, Corey Seager, Nathan Eovaldi and Marcus Semien chewing up $124.5 million in payroll for 2026, they might not have much choice but to roll out the same core next season.
Yes, it might be another 100-loss season for the White Sox, but it’s still a 20-win improvement with a corresponding 200-plus run improvement in run differential from last year’s embarrassing megadisaster. In fact, a 14-34 record in one-run games in 2025 shows that the White Sox were more competitive than their win-loss record suggests.
Most importantly, they integrated a promising group of rookies into the lineup throughout the season: Colson Montgomery, Kyle Teel, Edgar Quero and Chase Meidroth have each produced more than 1.5 WAR, the first team with four rookie position players with at least 1.5 WAR since the 1946 Reds. Rookies Shane Smith and Sean Burke also held down rotation spots for much of the season. Hey, it’s something to build upon as the White Sox appear headed in the right direction.
Let’s put it this way: Even if the Mets manage to pull out the final wild card, a C- grade is the highest we can go just because of the torture they’ve put their fans through — and Mets fans are used to suffering already. If the Mets do complete this late-season collapse and miss the postseason, however, the grade — an F — will be an easy one to give to a team boasting a $340 million payroll.
The Brewers never faltered. The exclamation point on the best regular season in franchise history — they’ll get there with their 97th win, topping the 96 wins of 2011 and 2018 — was the 14-game winning streak to begin August. Their run differential of plus-173 easily leads the majors, made even more remarkable considering that season-opening four-game series against the Yankees when the Brewers were outscored by 32 runs, and gives them a chance to top the plus-174 differential of 1982’s Harvey’s Wallbangers, the only Brewers team to reach the World Series. Pitching, speed, defense, just enough power: Now let’s see if that formula works in the playoffs.
George Springer, at 35 years old, has been their best offensive player with a monster season, and they’ve received solid performances up and down the lineup from the likes of Addison Barger, Ernie Clement and Davis Schneider, while Eric Lauer popped up out of nowhere to solidify the rotation. Still, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette have been excellent, and Kevin Gausman has pitched like an ace since late June with a 2.30 ERA over 15 starts. Their World Series hopes might come down to closer Jeff Hoffman and whether he can keep the ball in the park.
This could be viewed as a ho-hum Cleveland season, one marred by the gambling investigation into Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz, but instead the late surge combined with a Detroit collapse has turned this into perhaps one of the most memorable regular seasons in Cleveland history, if the Guardians can pull out this division title after the odds of doing so were 0.0% on August 25. Is this a good Cleveland team? Honestly, it’s a mediocre one that has been outscored on the season. But the Guardians beat up on the teams they had to (21-6 against the Twins and White Sox), received lights-out pitching down the stretch and, with one win already in this current series against Detroit, have put themselves in place to pull off one of the biggest division comebacks in MLB history.
For three-plus months, this was an A+. On July 8, the Tigers were 59-34, the best record in the majors — and it was no fluke, as they had deployed impressive roster depth and production up and down the lineup, with Tarik Skubal once again on his way to a Cy Young Award. But now? This season could end up as one of the most crushing, not just in Detroit history but MLB history, if the Tigers don’t hold on to the division title or at least a wild card. Both of those are in jeopardy after they first lost 12 of 13 in July and then went 7-18 after their division lead stood at 10½ games on August 25 (and was still 10 games on Sept. 3). And if the Tigers don’t make the playoffs? Let’s just say this will no longer be a passing grade.
The Padres are back in the playoffs for the second season in a row — only the second time that has happened in franchise history (2005-06 was the other) — and we’ll bump this grade up if they can manage to chase down the Dodgers the final weekend of the regular season and win their first division title since 2006. The bullpen has been the team’s strength, leading the majors in win probability added, while the offense got a little better after general manager A.J. Preller traded for Ramon Laureano, Ryan O’Hearn and Freddy Fermin at the deadline. While the bullpen, now featuring Mason Miller as well (although without Jason Adam for the playoffs), can carry the team in October, the rotation with Nick Pivetta, Michael King, Dylan Cease and Yu Darvish could be sneaky good as well, even if Cease and Darvish didn’t have their best regular seasons.
Yes, the Dodgers should reach 90 wins, and yes, they still lead the NL West, but we’re grading on a curve here — and this has hardly been the easiest of seasons for a franchise where we expect 100 wins every year. There have been more injuries to the pitching staff (again), as only Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Clayton Kershaw will make 20 starts. The bullpen has alternated between bad and terrible, and the lineup has more holes than we’re used to seeing from the Dodgers (though, it still ranks second in the majors in runs). Most importantly right now, however: The rotation is healthy for the playoffs for the first time since 2022, Mookie Betts has found his offense the past five weeks (OPS over .900), Shohei Ohtani is an indomitable force and, you know, anybody’s bullpen can get hot for a month.
What to make of the 2025 Astros? On the one hand, they lost Alex Bregman in free agency, traded away Kyle Tucker and then lost Yordan Alvarez for more than 100 games because of a broken hand and then an ankle sprain right before they had to play their biggest series of the season — in which they were swept by the Mariners, all but giving the division title to Seattle. The bullpen was great and Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez were great (until that Seattle series, in which both had losses), but the back of the rotation was a mess. And the Astros never did figure out left field after the silly Jose Altuve experiment didn’t work out. Still, here they are, with a chance to win a wild card. The dynasty is still breathing.
My favorite oddball statistic of the season: The Diamondbacks have 17 different pitchers with a save, breaking the previous record of 14 shared by the 2021 Rays and 2024 Dodgers. That sort of sums up the chaotic nature of Arizona’s season — one in which the Diamondbacks are somehow still alive in the race for the final wild card, even after trading away Merrill Kelly, Eugenio Suarez, Josh Naylor and Shelby Miller at the deadline. They were 51-58 at the time, so it made sense to trade those players (all heading to free agency) and it’s a testament to the organization that the team has played better since then. Kudos to Geraldo Perdomo for an absolutely stunning season that has him closing in on 7 WAR — which only Paul Goldschmidt in 2015 (8.3) and Luis Gonzalez in 2001 (7.9) have reached in franchise history.
There have been only a few certainties in the baseball lives of the San Francisco Giants: Willie Mays could run everything down in center field, Barry Bonds was an unstoppable force, and the recent editions of the team will finish somewhere around .500. Buster Posey’s first season as the head of baseball operations produced a Giants team that resembled the previous three teams. They’ll fall short of the playoffs for a clear reason: They went 4-9 against the Dodgers and 3-10 against the Padres, scoring just 31 runs in 13 games against San Diego. Posey did make the big Rafael Devers trade, but Devers, while productive enough, has learned that hitting in San Francisco isn’t quite like hitting at Fenway Park, a ballpark he thrived in.
We start with an A+ for Paul Skenes and work backwards from there until we get here. Konnor Griffin, last year’s No. 9 pick, exploded into the sport’s consensus top prospect, reaching Double-A at just 19 years old (and hitting .321 there in 21 games), so that was a huge development for an organization that has struggled to produce hitters. Otherwise, however, the Pirates took a step backward, losing more games than they did in each of 2023 and 2024 as the offense ranks last in the majors in runs scored. Maybe most depressingly, after losing seven games in a row to begin May, the Pirates were 12-26 and out of it before school even let out for summer.