2025 MLB Predictions - Participate in the Survey!

Issue #218

As part of my moving the Now Taking the Field newsletter from Substack to the Beehiiv platform, I plan to engage with you all more frequently via polls. Sometimes that will be just quick, one-question polls an the end of a newsletter on the topic of the day. But I’ve also started an account with Typeform so I can more easily create multi-question surveys too (Beehiiv has this feature also, but it appears to be intended to learn more about a newsletter’s readers, their content/newsletter preferences, etc.—something I’ll ask you about soon.)

Anyway, it is late February and spring training is underway… finally! I’ve been seeing various surveys and articles with predictions about the upcoming season, so I figured I could do the same as a means of testing out Typeform’s capabilities. So here is the link to my first 2025 MLB Predictions survey, which covers:

• Division winners

• Pennant winners

• World Series winner

• AL and NL MVP Award winners

• AL and NL Cy Young Award winners

I could have added more like the Rookie of the Year awards, Manager of the Year, Reliever of the Year, wins/loss totals for various teams, or interesting statistical questions (e.g., will Aaron Judge hit 60 HR this year?) But I figured I’d keep it simple for this first survey so we can together test out the functionality here!

In looking over the Vegas odds on the above items (as per FanDuel at least), here are some thoughts:

• AL East - Yankees (+100) are the clear favorite, followed by the Orioles (+240) and Red Sox (+440). I feel like the Blue Jays (+1300) picked up some pieces, so I’m a little surprised they are so low, well below the Rays (+950). My pick: Yankees.

• AL Central - This is a very tight four-team race between the Twins (+210), Tigers (+250), Guardians (+290), and Royals (+310). It would certainly be an epic story if the White Sox (+25,000) somehow won the AL Central in 2025. My pick: Tigers.

• AL West - I prefer the Rangers (+190) over the Astros (+180) who I think will feel the losses of Tucker and Bregman. The Mariners (+200) are considered in the hunt too, while the Angels (+2100) and Athletics (+2500) are longer shots. My pick: Rangers.

• NL East - Similarly the NL East is seen as a three-team race between the Braves (+135), Phillies (+195), and Mets (+195). The Nationals (+10,000) have a lot of young talent, but are not at the same level yet… and the Marlins (+25,000) are being given the same odds here as the White Sox in the AL Central. My pick: Braves.

• NL Central - Here we have the first outright favorite in the Cubs (-105), followed, by the always dangerous Brewers (+290) and the interesting Reds (+490). My Pirates (+1000) have exciting pitching but I’m not sure how they are going to score very many runs, and I’m not at all clear on what the Cardinals (+1000) are doing. My pick: Cubs

• NL West - Here finally we have the only prohibitive divisional favorite in the Dodgers (-650). Anything can happen in baseball, so perhaps the Padres (+950) or Diamondbacks (+1000) could surprise? Seems unlikely that the Giants (+3,700) will do so, and clearly not the Rockies (+50,000) who have even worse division crown odds than the White Sox or Marlins. My pick: Dodgers.

• AL Pennant - Yankees (+280) are the favorites, followed by the Orioles (+600), Astros (+850), and then a tie between the Red Sox, Rangers, Mariners (+1000 each). My pick: Yankees.

• NL Pennant - Dodgers (+140) of course are the leader, followed by the three NL East contenders Braves (+500), Mets (+650), and Phillies (+650). My pick: Dodgers

• World Series - Not at all surprising to see the Dodgers (+240) at the top here again, nor the Yankees (+700) next in line. And then given the Pennant odds above understandably the Orioles (+1400) are lagging a bit behind the three NL east leaders, the Braves (+900), Phillies (+1100), Mets (+1100). My pick: Dodgers — I just don’t see how the offseason has changed things much, and if anything the Dodgers got stronger than last year.

MVP awards are particularly tough to predict, since it is the not the Best Player Award—meaning some voters often either select as “most valuable” a key player on a division- or pennant-winning team (e.g., Willie Stargell in the NL in 1979 or Kirk Gibson in the NL in 1988)… or they pick someone whose value was outsized relative to the rest of his team (even if the team didn’t do that well).

That said, for the AL MVP the front-runners are pretty clearly Aaron Judge of the Yankees and Bobby Witt Jr. of the Royals. I’m seeing Yordan Alvarez coming up next in some places, but he’d have to put up monster offensive numbers since he doesn’t help on defense (and is a DH often). For that reason, more than Alvarez I like guys like Gunnar Henderson, Jose Ramirez, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., or Julio Rodríguez. My pick: Aaron Judge.

In the NL the early leaders are Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers and Juan Soto of the Mets. Some odds-makers have Fernando Tatis Jr. next, but I like several others more than him such as Mookie Betts, Bryce Harper, Kyle Tucker, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Elly De La Cruz. My pick: Kyle Tucker (or Shohei Ohtani, of course.)

Cy Young Awards are on the one hand more straightforward in that voters are selecting the best overall pitcher in each league. But the challenge arises because of the nature of pitching, which is prone to injury and inconsistency from season to season—both of which seem to be more the case now that in decades past (remember Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux?)

Tarik Skubal won the AL Cy Young Award last year, and he enters this year as the favorite to repeat. Oddsmakers seem to most often have Garrett Crochet, Cole Ragans, Logan Gilbert, Gerrit Cole, and the oft-injured Jacob deGrom following Skubal. My pick: Gerrit Cole.

In the NL, last year’s exciting NL Rookie of the Year winner Paul Skenes is the top choice, followed by the more established Zack Wheeler, Chris Sale (last year’s winner), and Blake Snell (two-time winner). Other Dodgers are candidates besides Snell of course, such as Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki, and depending on when he gets back on the mound, Shohei Ohtani. My pick: Paul Skenes.

So what do you think? Again, here is the link to my 2025 MLB Predictions survey - please take a few minutes to participate!

Thanks for reading… and I hope you enjoy the next several weeks of spring training!