These Are Baseball’s Boom-or-Bust Squads For 2025
For this group of teams, high variance equals high drama.
Happy Opening Day! (For 28 of 30 teams, at least — not you, Cubs and Dodgers.) Baseball starts up again stateside on Thursday, which is always cause for celebration. But with a new season comes new questions around which teams will rise or fall, and how much we really know about who the true World Series contenders are.
Some things about this season are already obvious: The L.A. Dodgers are going to be good. The White Sox and Rockies are going to be bad. But for everyone in between, there remains a wide variation in potential outcomes for 2025 — and that’s especially the case for teams who carry a lot of volatility across their different forecasts (because of factors like high-upside talent or risky players on the roster).
So after studying the computer forecasts, crunching the offseason Wins Above Replacement numbers and reading the expert takes, here are the interesting teams that I’m still just not totally sure about — for good or for bad — this season.
⚾ Atlanta Braves
Consensus projection: 92.9 wins
Why I’m just not sure about them: It’s important to note that the variance on this list isn’t all about downside — though last year’s Braves certainly showcased how much injuries can drag down a team’s potential. We must remember that Atlanta won 104 games and looked like clear World Series favorites for most of 2023; their upside is potentially rising to that level again in 2025, particularly once they get Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuña Jr. back from injury. And yet, their leader in projected FanGraphs WAR is Michael Harris II at 5.0 (a new career high) with Chris Sale not far behind (4.4) despite his own injury history. So there’s definitely still a good amount riding on uncertainty here.
⚾ Philadelphia Phillies
Consensus projection: 88.4 wins
Why I’m just not sure about them: Last year’s Phillies were the class of MLB… for about a half-season. But they crashed out from 62-34 at the All-Star break to 33-33 afterward, then were outscored 23-12 by the Mets in a disappointing NLDS exit. What was already a team on the older side is mostly rolling with the same group again, with a few exceptions — and while that’s not a terrible thing, given the talent of Bryce Harper, Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, etc., these same Phils have run so hot and cold at times the past few seasons that you never fully know what they’ll do.
⚾ New York Yankees
Consensus projection: 87.3 wins
Why I’m just not sure about them: The defending AL champs have incurred some pretty heavy losses since the end of last season, between the offseason departure of Juan Soto to the Mets and the loss of Gerrit Cole to Tommy John surgery in spring training. They also added plenty of new faces as well, a group headlined by Max Fried, Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt and Devin Williams. Add in their extreme reliance on Aaron Judge staying healthy — he played a career-high 158 games last year en route to winning AL MVP — and it isn’t hard to envision this Yankees season turning out any number of different ways, some of them good but plenty of them not.
⚾ Chicago Cubs
Consensus projection: 87.1 wins
Why I’m just not sure about them: My offseason net WAR accounting tells me that the Cubs added the most production from last season of any team — a haul that included Kyle Tucker, Justin Turner, Jon Berti, Colin Rea, Nicky Lopez, Carson Kelly, Ryan Pressly, Matthew Boyd, etc. (To say nothing of top prospect Matt Shaw, also in the mix.) And on paper, that appears to make the North Siders comfortable favorites in the NL Central, nearly four projected wins clear of the rival Brewers. But I thought the same thing last year. If the Cubs underperform again, they’ll have to make a tough choice around whether to trade the pending free agent Tucker — which could send the season spiraling.
⚾ Houston Astros
Consensus projection: 86.6 wins
Why I’m just not sure about them: It would be easy to write the Astros off as yesterday’s dynasty after they somehow failed to make an eighth consecutive trip to the ALCS last October, then lost Tucker, Alex Bregman and other franchise mainstays in the offseason. But let’s be serious. Houston is not hurting for talent. My main source of uncertainty might just be that you can only successfully retool on the fly so many times. Their core is aging, the lineup is going through more changes (Jose Altuve is learning left field!), and the end of the rotation is in permanent flux. It all adds up to make the Astros feel more fragile than in years past.
⚾ San Diego Padres
Consensus projection: 86.1 wins
Why I’m just not sure about them: No team lost more offseason WAR talent than San Diego, when they said goodbye to Ha-Seong Kim, Tanner Scott, Jurickson Profar and other important members of the 2024 Padres. But by the same token, no team has been more all over the place when it comes to meeting — or missing — those same kinds of expectations than the recent Padres. This team owned the worst net WAR of the 2023-24 offseason as well… then promptly improved its record by 11 games. With a ton of star power still, especially in a lineup anchored by Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Merrill, Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts, it would be foolish to bet big on a drop-off.
⚾ Seattle Mariners
Consensus projection: 86.1 wins
Why I’m just not sure about them: Seattle doesn’t have the same level of disagreement across their different forecasts as the other teams on this list — in fact, the projection systems are virtually unanimous that the Mariners will win between 85 and 88 games. (That is Jerry Dipoto’s target, after all.) But they still warrant a place among our high-variance squads simply because we couldn’t hazard a guess about what Julio Rodriguez and this offense will do. Armed with one of the best projected pitching staffs in MLB, Seattle could quickly rise up the AL pennant odds if its scoring problems are a thing of the past… but we’ve seen too many cold spells from them to be certain.
⚾ Texas Rangers
Consensus projection: 84.4 wins
Why I’m just not sure about them: The Rangers are probably the biggest question mark in the American League, if not all of baseball, as we head into 2025. After winning the 2023 World Series, Texas was supposed to build on that success with another postseason bid, but injuries and underperformance ruined the title defense as they slipped to 78 wins. And yet, that championship didn’t feel like a fluke run — this team is loaded, if healthy. But health is a huge “if.” The gap between the Rangers at full strength and another version that’s derailed by injuries is as wide as any team’s range of outcomes in baseball this season.
⚾ Boston Red Sox
Consensus projection: 83.4 wins
Why I’m just not sure about them: One of the themes that extends across just about my entire sportswriting career has been the predictable unpredictability of the Boston Red Sox. They will always earn an automatic spot on lists like this for me, because I can’t think of another team that so consistently zigs when everyone thinks they’ll zag — across countless players, coaches, managers, front offices, etc. So obviously we have zero clue what Boston will bring to the table in 2025, as per usual. They offset a handful of veteran offseason losses by landing Alex Bregman and Garrett Crochet, yet their preseason forecasts are quite modest. This means they will either win the World Series or finish in last place.
⚾ Anybody in the AL Central (Twins, Guardians, Tigers, Royals)
Consensus projections: 83.1 wins (MIN); 82.0 (DET); 81.8 (CLE); 81.1 (KC)
Why I’m just not sure about any of them: Predicting this division is a disaster. Last year’s clear favorites, the Twins, started strong but melted down with a 28-38 second-half record to finish in fourth place. Stats couldn’t get a feel for the Guardians all year, while the upstart Tigers and Royals surged to matching 86-win playoff campaigns. Against all of that background, the projections are basically shrugging — and I don’t think that’s altogether unwarranted. A healthy Twins core could revive the spirit of 2023, which saw them end an 18-game playoff losing streak… but are Royce Lewis, Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa really going to stay intact? And then, it would not be shocking to see any combination of the division’s other three contenders either progress or regress.
⚾ Toronto Blue Jays
Consensus projection: 80.9 wins
Why I’m just not sure about them: I was surprised enough when Toronto showed up among the top offseason winners of 2024-25 by WAR. But anyone who thinks they have a handle on what will happen once this Jays team takes the field is kidding themselves. At the high end, they could get another MVP candidate season from Vladimir Guerrero Jr., to go with strong defense from Andrés Giménez, timely hitting from Anthony Santander and a vastly improved pitching performance — making them a surprise factor in the division race. But the season could also see Toronto fall out of contention, then deal Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and anything else that isn’t nailed down. It feels safe to say that this will be a turning-point season for the franchise in some way, but nobody can say right now which direction that turn will take in Toronto.
⚾ Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates, Washington Nationals
Consensus projection: 77.8 wins (CIN); 75.6 (PIT); 71.9 (WSN)
Why I’m just not sure about them: Consider this our catch-all entry for up-and-coming teams who might surprise us by being ahead of schedule in 2025. In each case, outcomes hinge on further leaps from young players with high potential, as well as the supporting casts around them: Elly De La Cruz and Hunter Greene with Cincinnati; Paul Skenes and Oneil Cruz with Pittsburgh; James Wood, CJ Abrams and MacKenzie Gore with Washington. So much else needs to go right for each team that the playoffs are probably an unrealistic goal this season… but you never know with these kinds of young teams.
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