David SchoenfieldDec 26, 2025, 07:00 AM ETCloseCovers MLB for ESPN.com Former deputy editor of Page 2 Been with ESPN.com since 1995
Let’s take a break from the free agent signings, the trade rumors and the holiday cheer to dig into some cold, hard facts. We’re going to pick one stat from the 2025 season for each MLB team and examine how that number will make or break the 2026 season for that team.
Arizona will need to address its rotation, but the bullpen needs an overhaul as well. As general manager Mike Hazen put it bluntly during the winter meetings: The Diamondbacks need pitching. Settling on one closer would be a good start.
The Cubs ranked first in position-player WAR via Baseball Reference — by a significant margin: 39.1 to 31.8 for the New York Yankees, who finished second in the metric. FanGraphs WAR wasn’t quite as generous to Chicago, ranking the Yankees first at 34.3 and the Cubs third at 31.1, but aside from debating the vast difference in evaluation here between Baseball Reference and FanGraphs, it holds that the Cubs’ position group had an exceptional season in 2025.
As a team, the Reds finished tied for last in the majors in average exit velocity, so the lack of teamwide power won’t be any easy fix with swing changes or just elevating the ball more often. They will probably have to go outside the organization to improve their power, including perhaps trading a pitcher to land a bat, especially because apparently there was big money available for only Schwarber.
So who gets the job in 2026? Eric Wagaman got the most starts there in 2025, but he’s a 28-year-old journeyman who just produced a minus-0.4 WAR season. He’s not the answer. Backup catcher Liam Hicks, who slugged .346, got the second most starts there.
While there is a common assumption that finding first-base production is easy enough, the Marlins have proved that’s not the case. Ending the revolving door and finding a multiyear answer at the position should be a priority for the rest of this offseason.
Analysts will tell you that hitting with runners in scoring position isn’t — for the most part — a repeatable skill. Check how the top two teams in batting average with runners in scoring position since 2021 fared the following season:
2024 Diamondbacks: .285 to .249 (scored 95 fewer runs) 2024 Royals: .282 to .255 (scored 84 fewer runs) 2023 Orioles: .287 to .251 (scored 21 fewer runs) 2023 Rays: .285 to .212 (scored 256 fewer runs) 2022 Dodgers: .272 to .276 (scored 59 more runs) 2022 Astros: .270 to .270 (scored 90 more runs) 2021 Astros: .272 to .270 (scored 126 fewer runs) 2021 Blue Jays: .270 to .258 (scored 71 fewer runs)
Bottom line: The Brewers scored 806 runs in 2025, their most since 1999. That total may be hard to repeat in 2026.
Anyway … how can the Phillies improve their offense in 2026? They need a left fielder and — once again — would love to upgrade on Nick Castellanos and his .294 OBP in right field. Justin Crawford will be given every opportunity to earn a starting spot in the outfield, although his lack of power suggests he won’t be an impact hitter right away.
This is all related to player development and scouting. Since 2018, position players Travis Swaggerty, Nick Gonzales, Henry Davis and Termarr Johnson were all drafted in the top 10. Johnson is still in the minors, but the other three didn’t reach expectations. There is a potential franchise savior on the rise, however: Konnor Griffin, the No. 9 pick in 2024, who crushed his way through three levels in the minors in 2025 to become the top prospect in the game.
They’ll need more than Griffin, however, which the Pirates acknowledged with pursuits of Kyle Schwarber and Josh Naylor in free agency. At some point, making “strong offers” doesn’t pass for good enough PR. They’ll have to actually reel in a big free agent if they want an improved offense to support their rotation.
The Nationals pitching staff ranked 29th in batting average allowed with that .268 mark. They also finished 28th in strikeout rate (19.9%) and 24th in walk rate (9.0%). To point out the obvious: The pitchers struggled.
New pitching coach Simon Mathews, a former minor league pitcher, will have his work cut out for him to generate some improvement. Just 30 years old, Mathews last played professionally in 2019, and then worked at a couple of performance facilities, spent four years in the Reds’ minor league system and was the Reds’ assistant pitching coach in 2025.
This may be one of the most amazing stats of the year: 17 different pitchers recorded a save for the Diamondbacks. Yes, that’s a record (the 2021 Rays and 2024 Dodgers each had 14). It wasn’t by design, of course. A.J. Puk started the season as Arizona’s closer and got injured after eight appearances and four saves. Justin Martinez picked up five saves before injuring his elbow. Shelby Miller earned 10 saves before he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers at the deadline. The Diamondbacks finished 27th in bullpen ERA and 29th in win probability added by relievers.
Did the Diamondbacks miss their window that began with the surprising run to the World Series in 2023? They led the majors in runs in 2024 but missed the playoffs after losing a tiebreaker to the Mets and Braves. They had another good offense in 2025 but dropped to 80-82. It hasn’t been for lack of trying: They signed Eduardo Rodriguez, Jordan Montgomery and Corbin Burnes for a combined $337.5 million, but in five combined seasons so far, those starters accumulated just 1.1 WAR, with Burnes likely to miss all or most of 2026.
The Braves signed Ha-Seong Kim to a one-year contract to take over at shortstop. Kim got a late-season 24-game run with the Braves after they claimed him off waivers from the Rays. At his best in 2022 and 2023 with the Padres, Kim put together back-to-back 5-WAR seasons on the strength of excellent defensive metrics at both shortstop (2022) and second base (2023) while producing above-average OBP. The defense and offense both slipped in 2024 before he tore his labrum in August, and then he didn’t excel on either side of the ball in his 48 games in 2025.
There were a lot of bad numbers we could have picked for the Rockies, but let’s just go with the big one: 119 losses, tied for third most in a season since 1900. Since 2019, they lead the majors in losses, with 31 more than the Pirates. They have a new president of baseball operations in Paul DePodesta, who has spent the past 10 years with Cleveland … the Cleveland Browns. He then hired Josh Byrnes, the former GM of the Diamondbacks and Padres who spent the past 11 seasons overseeing scouting and player development for the Dodgers, as the new GM.
Certainly, the bullpen was the big issue in 2025, which the Dodgers addressed by signing top available closer Edwin Diaz. There are still plenty of power arms in L.A.’s pen, too; expect a much better season from that group. So, let’s go with 30.7 as a key number — the average weighted age via Baseball Reference (based on playing time) of Dodgers position players in 2025, making it the oldest group in the majors. It was still an effective group, thanks in large part to Shohei Ohtani, as only the Yankees scored more runs than L.A.
If there’s a reason the Dodgers are beatable in 2026, however, it will be regression from this group as age starts catching up to some of the key performers. The Dodgers have dropped from 906 runs in 2023 to 842 in 2024 to 825 in 2025 — remember, that’s despite adding Ohtani in 2024. Freddie Freeman is still great but will be entering his age-36 season; Max Muncy is 36; Mookie Betts will be 33, coming off his worst season; Teoscar Hernandez will be 33, coming off a .284 OBP. The Dodgers added to the bullpen, but let’s see if they look to boost the offense — or at least get a little younger.
Keep in mind that the MLB overall batting average has hovered between .243 and .248 since 2021. The good news for the Brewers is they’ve been consistent in this category, hitting .268 in 2024 (fifth in the majors) and .269 in 2023 (eighth). They also improved from 21st in the majors in strikeouts in 2024 to fifth in 2025, another reason they improved even more in 2025. A low strikeout rate doesn’t always translate to continued success, however: The Royals struck out the fewest times in the majors last season and still regressed from that high RISP average in 2024.
The Mets ranked 27th in the majors in innings with 796 from their starting pitchers. That’s not necessarily an automatic negative — the Brewers ranked 26th and the Dodgers 28th, and those two played in the NLCS — but in the Mets’ case, there were repercussions. The bullpen, pitching a ton of innings early in the season, was great for two months, but then struggled over the final four months. Relievers Reed Garrett, Danny Young, Max Kranick and Dedniel Nunez all went down for the season with arm injuries.
The Mets will have to rebuild their bullpen from the top down. Closer Edwin Diaz signed with the Dodgers after the Mets had earlier signed Devin Williams. To get better results out of the bullpen, they will need more innings from their starters. But with rookies Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong and Brandon Sproat all potentially in the rotation and presumably facing limited innings, that may be difficult to achieve without pushing the holdover starters a little deeper into games — or signing a starter in free agency who can carry a heavier workload, like Framber Valdez.
With Kyle Schwarber back in the fold, the Phillies will once again roll out a big three of Schwarber, Bryce Harper and Trea Turner. Those three combined for plus-77 runs created above average; the rest of the lineup was 38 runs below average. That was good enough for the Phillies to finish eighth in runs scored, but the lack of lineup balance has manifested itself with offensive struggles in the postseason the past two years. Philadelphia depends too much on Schwarber and Harper both being hot at the right time.
Most of those great teams had a lights-out closer and that was sort of the case for the Padres. Suarez saved 40 games in 45 chances, which, while an excellent save percentage, isn’t historic. It was more the Padres’ depth that made their pen so good. Plus, they have an ace in the hole: Mason Miller, acquired from the A’s at the trade deadline, will be in San Diego for a full season and take over as the closer, as the Padres announced he’ll remain a reliever following speculation that they would move him to the rotation. Jason Adam is expected to be healthy after missing the end of the season when he tore a left quad. This pen should be great again. The Padres will need it to be.