2025 MLB Previews Part III: Eat or Be Eaten in the Easts

What will happen in the MLB East divisions this season?

Let’s dive in!

AL East

1. New York Yankees
2. Boston Red Sox
3. Baltimore Orioles
4. Toronto Blue Jays
5. Tampa Bay Rays

New York Yankees

• 2024 Record: 94-68
• Notable Additions: Max Fried, Devin Williams, Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt
• Notable Subtractions: Juan Soto, Gleyber Torres, Clay Holmes, Nestor Cortes, Alex Verdugo, Anthony Rizzo
• Relative Expectations: World Series redemption with Judge as the guy
• Wild Card Player to Watch: Jasson Dominguez

The Yankees are coming off of losing one of the most comical World Series ever to the Dodgers in 5 games that featured a Freddie Freeman grand slam, the stereotypical Yankee hard-o fans getting banned for touching Mookie Betts, an Aaron Judge dropped ball in a 5-run blown lead meltdown, and more. To top that all off with a cherry for the haters of the Yankee “evil empire,” Juan Soto and Clay Holmes both left across town for the Mets after they gave up a haul to recruit him all year as the “Tiffany organization.”

Despite the “turmoil” in the midst of a collapse, it shouldn’t be all doom and gloom for a team that just lost out on one of the best young hitters to play the sport. With the money that could have been spent on Soto, sure, the Max Fried contract is a bit of an overpay long term, but they’ve got another ace with Cole, Paul Goldschmidt is the next Anthony Rizzo rehabilitation project, Devin Williams has been lights out as a closer to sure up what’s now projected to be one of the best bullpens with a stable of arms that won’t have an ERA above 4, and Cody Bellinger is going to rake to the short porch after acquiring him from the Cubs.

They’re just kind of the boring but correct answer from an offensive perspective, given that the only superstar in the lineup now that Soto is gone is Judge, with a caveat of the games Stanton played when he’s not torn another muscle bodybuilding. It’s a lot of projection on guys like Ben Rice, MLB The Show cover star Jazz Chisholm actually living up to the billing, and Jasson Dominguez getting full-time reps; he was literally nicknamed “The Martian” for his out of this world talent, but we need to see the 22 year-old phenom put it all together now without Soto in the lineup.

If doing things like allowing beards and not playing New York, New York after losses showed that changes are necessary, maybe some other big things are headed the Yankees’ way. However, in an American League now without a clear favorite, they’re the boring team that likely took a step back but will still project to be in title contention until they’re not.

Boston Red Sox

• 2024 Record: 81-81
• Notable Additions: Alex Bregman, Garrett Crochet, Walker Buehler, Patrick Sandoval, Aroldis Chapman, Justin Wilson
• Notable Subtractions: Tyler O’Neill, Kenley Jansen, Chris Martin, Nick Pivetta
• Relative Expectations: Take the AL East and make the spending worth it
• Wild Card Player to Watch: Triston Casas

The Red Sox woke up and finally realized that they’re not a small-market organization and started acting like it. Last year, their marquee pickup and projected opening day starter before injury was Lucas Giolito. This year, he’s projected to be their FOURTH pitcher after making the huge trade for Crochet, the leap that Houck made with their pitching coach that made it possible to pitch in Fenway last season, and signing Walker Buehler. They also loaded up and paid top-dollar for Alex Bregman, who as cliche as it sounds to refer to as just a “winner” is going to do wonders for the locker room to have a face and a veteran bat that is known as the guy; he wanted to play in Fenway where he’s statistically the best at the park by OPS in history, and he’s reunited with Alex Cora.

They stole the drama from spring training with the “who is going to play third” controversy, but there’s been much worse in Boston before that hasn’t deterred their winning ways, and they tend to go from disaster to postseason contender on a year-to-year basis now. One could make the argument that their depth chart doesn’t have an MVP candidate, and they’re a mixed bag of veterans mixed with young players projected to make the leap, but isn’t that exactly what you want? Jarren Durran and Wilyer Abreu have already shown that they’ve come along a lot faster than other organizations, and the same could potentially be said if they bring up prospects Kristian Campbell and Roman Anthony. From a developmental perspective, you trust organizations, and the Red Sox are finally operating like they can be trusted in the projections market.

The lack of a superstar with a lot of moving parts and playing in the AL East will make you hesitant to bank on them as title-contenders from the get-go. Still, they’re now in the realm of the top tier of the AL merely by acting the way that they used to in the “Boston is Titletown, Loozah!” era.

Baltimore Orioles

• 2024 Record: 91-71
• Notable Additions: Tyler O’Neill, Tomoyuki Sugano, Gary Sanchez, Charlie Morton, Andrew Kittredge, Dylan Carlson, Ramon Laureano
• Notable Subtractions: Corbin Burnes, Anthony Santander, Eloy Jimenez
• Relative Expectations: Make the postseason AND have postseason victories!
• Wild Card Player to Watch: Grayson Rodriguez
• We’ve still yet to see a postseason win from Baltimore since 2014, despite them being the bright future O’s that have the fun splash zone, the youngest and highest-ceiling prospects in the game that they just don’t know what to do with, and a new owner that now operates as a fan.

Baltimore is one we had marked as World Series dark horses last year; we continuously begged for them to make a deal for a superstar to pair with Gunnar, who took the leap with Bobby Witt Jr. in the golden age of shortstops the first half of last season, and all they did was a plethora of non-moves. Santander is now in Toronto, Burnes is now in Arizona, and they’re truly just banking on the “the youth will be one year older!” movement in Jackson Holliday, Colton Cowser, Coby Mayo, and more. It’s just a lot of “solid” without holes for a team with an owner giving himself a bobblehead night and owning a copy of the Magna Carta to not capitalize now with money and assets to be a major player in free agency.

The remainder of the AL East got better while the Orioles got worse aside from the age, and they’ll need Grayson Rodriguez to finally be a reliable top-line starter with Burnes gone unless another move is made. Orioles fans are finally worthy of being angsty about having expectations, though, which is what you want in a winning organization.

Toronto Blue Jays

• 2024 Record: 74-88
• Notable Additions: Max Scherzer, Anthony Santander, Andres Gimenez, Jeff Hoffman, Yimi Garcia, Myles Straw
• Notable Subtractions: Jordan Romano, Spencer Horwitz, Ryan Yarbrough
• Relative Expectations: Throw punches at the other AL teams to get Vladdy Jr. to stay
• Wild Card Player to Watch: Bowden Francis

Speaking of turmoil, how about the ultimate “always the bridesmaid, never the bride” of all of professional sports, huh?

Striking out on Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto, Roki Sasaki, and seemingly everyone in between aside from getting their big fish in spending big on Anthony Santander and veteran warrior Max Scherzer, the Blue Jays are about to miss out on an era. After accumulating the son of nearly every superstar known to mankind, Vladdy Jr. said, “You guys just saw the trailer; you’re about to see the movie,” which happened to be Emilia Perez. With the potential for him leaving in free agency now after they couldn’t reach an agreement, it could have the possibility of reaching send-off mode.

Ironically, the roster is much better than last year, a season in which everything went wrong, and they’re undoubtedly the team you could still talk yourself into if everything goes right. But the vibes have never been lower, and we’ve done this year after year. The defensive addition of Gimenez is going to elevate the pitching of Gausman even more, and Bowden Francis showed a ton of promise as a starter. Replacing Jordan Romano wasn’t tough with Jeff Hoffman, considering the Blue Jays’ bullpen finished dead last.

The offense also could leap, considering everything went wrong for Bo Bichette. Varsho has always been a defensive stud who had power way back when and will be looking to recapture it, and Santander crushed the Blue Jays when he was in Baltimore. Will Wagner is also the next “son of a superstar” they’ll put on a billboard if Vladdy decides to walk.

The problem is that you don’t want to get burned again by an organization that hasn’t been serious in a loaded AL East, and the potential for moving their franchise player at the deadline if they’re out of contention would be catastrophic. The Blue Jays have everything and nothing to be optimistic about all at once.

Tampa Bay Rays

• 2024 Record: 80-82
• Notable Additions: Ha-Seong Kim, Danny Jansen, Eloy Jimenez
• Notable Subtractions: Jose Siri, Jeffrey Springs, Dylan Carlson, Tyler Alexander
• Relative Expectations: Continue to be the pesky Rays that somehow find a way
• Wild Card Player to Watch: Junior Caminero

By no means would the Tampa Bay Rays be a bad team by projecting them to finish fifth. The AL East is a beast, and they could easily still be a playoff contender. It’s just that NO ONE knows how to project this team because they have and always will operate differently. They don’t spend and develop prospects and use them like computer chess pieces, and they’ll be playing in a minor league stadium due to the damage to the Trop and will be playing 69 out of their last 103 games on the road. No one knows what this team is.

What we do know is that one of the worst offensive lineups in baseball last year is resetting; if you watched 21 year-old Junior Caminero’s winter league home runs and bat flips, you know he has everything in the making of being a slugger that could take the mantle from Arozarena and make up for the devastating blow that was finally paying a guy in Wander Franco and him turning out to be an abhorrent human that should never play baseball. Caminero is still young, though, and he’ll have months like Elly De La Cruz’s debut where he looks like the best hitter in baseball and others where he slumps and is clearly learning. The lineup is uninspiring, but he and Carson Williams, the speedy top shortstop prospect who will get to learn from the tutelage of cig-smoking former MVP award-vote getter Ha-Seong Kim, could be the future.

As for the pitching and their record, they’re getting Cy Young-winner Shane McClanahan back and will likely develop some pitching prospect we’ve never heard of with a fun name (Nathan Lavender, come on down!) and win more games than we think because it’s not exciting. There’s just far too much unknown heading into the year in an AL East that is a lot better since they won 99 games than for you to like them better than the other 4 teams.

NL East

1. Atlanta Braves
2. Philadelphia Phillies
3. New York Mets
4. Washington Nationals
5. Miami Marlins

Atlanta Braves

• 2024 Record: 89-73
• Notable Additions: Jurickson Profar, Bryan De La Cruz
• Notable Subtractions: Adam Duvall, Luke Jackson Whit Merrifield, Jorge Soler, Travis d’Arnaud, Charlie Morton, AJ Minter, Gio Urshela
• Relative Expectations: Get healthy and back into World Series contention
• Wild Card Player to Watch: Jurickson Profar

After putting up one of the most historic regular seasons of all-time offensively in 2023, the Braves just kind of had everything go wrong for them, aside from Chris Sale winning the NL Cy Young and Marcell Ozuna slugging. The star-studded roster built in their prime to go toe-to-toe with the Dodgers with either injured (Spencer Strider, Ronald Acuna Jr., Sean Murphy, Ozie Albies, and Michael Harris all missed significant time, to name a few) or significantly had a drop-off from the year prior until it was too late to get hot like Matt Olsen or Austin Riley. They were never the feared powerhouse they’ve been accustomed to being.

That could make for a significant bounce back year if the lineup of all-stars return to form; Acuna might not steal near as much after having his second torn ACL in four years, but there’s no one that ignites a locker room and the energy on the basepaths, and he’s proven he can still hit for power and on-base should he return in the second month of the season. Michael Harris II is now projected to have his best season ever to hold it down for him at just 24 years old, and the addition of Jurickson Profar is absolutely mystifying- he was nearly out of the league before being the value add of the season as the unsung hero of last year’s Padres and went on for Alex Anthopolous to say he was the best free agent available next to JUAN SOTO! If he signed anywhere else, I think we’d view it as an overpay, but Profar could easily continue the magic of last year on a trusted organization like Atlanta, who’s made the postseason 7 straight times.

Strider was the NL Cy Young Preseason favorite before going down for the year in his second start, and while the Braves weakness has normally been having an unpredictable rotation subject to change, it feels like they’re finally developing some stability with Chris Sale coming back, Reynaldo Lopez and Spencer Schwellenbach stepping up, and AJ Smith-Shawver looking to have a breakout year at just 22.

It arguably couldn’t have gone worse for the Braves last season from what they’re working with, and they STILL made a wild card. Their biggest move wasn’t adding Profar this offseason- it was getting the Braves back to being the actual Braves next year. 

Philadelphia Phillies

• 2024 Record: 95-67
• Notable Additions: Jesus Luzardo, Jordan Romano, Max Kepler, Joe Ross
• Notable Subtractions: Spencer Turnbull, Jeff Hoffman, Austin Hays, Carlos Estevez
• Relative Expectations: Exactly what the Eagles just did
• Wild Card Player to Watch: Andrew Painter

The Phillies put together year after year a core that has played together in unity with a lineup that bangs and one of the best rotations in baseball of workhorses only to come up just short in the postseason (also known as the narrative of Philly sports entirely sans Villanova and this year’s Eagles). However, you may judge their shortcomings and a roster that is now quietly becoming one of the oldest in baseball. They have continuity, fewer question marks, a front office that makes contending-team moves that you trust, and a roster that just plain got better in the arms race that is the NL East.

Getting over the hump this year will be more of the same on offense- expecting Castellanos and Schwarber to more for contact and on-base rather than just slugging, Harper maintains his health now taken over full-time as a first baseman, and Trea Turner is finally Nats Trea Turner for a full season. What holds you back from banking on them as a seminal favorite in the East is that the ceiling is still what it has been aside from getting Max Kepler at a discounted price; they floated Alec Bohm in trades this winter largely in that what he did to pick up the slack from his production felt unprecedented.

Their pitching staff retained together has been the antithesis of what we all know- everyone is throwing 100 and having to get Tommy John surgery, whereas the core of Wheeler, Sanchez, Nola, and Suarez continue to be horses and are why they’re considered one of the best in baseball; getting Luzardo for pennies to replace the awful Taijuan Walker start is going to take away the possibility of a dud, and Andrew Painter, their top prospect rebabbing, could be the hired gun brought in for an October run if he gets the call.

The Phillies brought back the gang; they’re one year older with one more year of miles and scars together, and that’s what prevents us from projecting their ceiling higher than it was last year. However, that goal will still be the same as it has been with Harper signing his lifetime deal and tattooing the Phanatic on himself: to finally do what the Eagles just did.

New York Mets

• 2024 Record: 89-73
• Notable Additions: Juan Soto, Clay Holmes, Frankie Montas, AJ Minter, Jose Siri, Ryne Stanek
• Notable Subtractions: Luis Severino, Harrison Bader, Jose Iglesias, JD Martinez, Jose Quintana, Adam Ottavino
• Relative Expectations: World Series (and better than the Yankees)
• Wild Card Player to Watch: Francisco Alvarez

PHOTO: Jim Rassol/Imagn Images

The beloved Mets that made it to the NLCS one meme at a time are bringing the gang back together and more with the marquee addition of the offseason, stealing him from the crosstown rivals. That’s right, Clay Holmes!

But in all seriousness, the Mets accomplished what Steve Cohen was there to do and more: they were one Dodgers series away from the World Series and gave Juan Soto more money than anyone ever to stick around for a lifetime. What they also did was have so much fun on their magical run that guys like Pete Alonso, Jesse Winker, and Jose Iglesias wanted to stick around regardless of if they had money or playing time for any of them. It’s cool and fun to be a Met and have people for some reason praising Grimace!

That being said, the Mets are still going to be putting all of the pieces together in this loaded division, despite adding the best all-around hitter in baseball. Frankie Montas will already be losing a month, Clay Holmes will reportedly look to adjust to the rotation, and they’re still banking on some unknowns of Brandon Nimmo not falling off entirely last season, Starling Marte and Kodai Senga coming off of injuries, and the youth in their lineup such as Francisco Alvarez, who can REALLY slug as a fired-up young catcher, but also look like one of the most befuddled bats in the lineup.

Regardless, Soto is a culture setter. When you have him and a blank check on a team that nearly made the World Series, they’ll be right in the mix at the top of the NL trying to get back.

Washington Nationals

• 2024 Record: 71-91
• Notable Additions: Nathaniel Lowe, Michael Soroka, Josh Bell, Amed Rosario
• Notable Subtractions: Patrick Corbin, Kyle Finnegan
• Relative Expectations: Be the team that takes the leap and spend big for the playoffs next year
• Wild Card Player to Watch: Jacob Young

It certainly feels like the Nationals are everyone’s favorite “they’re a year away from being a year away” team. While they’ve had the most losses of any NL team since their 2019 World Series, the youth and the way that they were still a fun watch when Patrick Corbin wasn’t getting shelled every outing last year make you think the youth has arrived, and the pitching development from player-turned-coach Sean Doolittle will arrive. They could eventually spend some money on a marquee free agent when the time is right, and they’re not as far away in this division.

CJ Abrams, possible gambling issue aside, has forever been the “will he make the leap?” as one of the top prospects in their rebuilding trades and literally wears a gold chain of an alien because of his skillset; even though last season he was an all-star and had his best year for what it’s worth, he’s still been one of the worst defenders in baseball and might not be able to be anything more than just a piece. However, in steps the OTHER youth movement- we finally got to see 6’7 MOOSE James Wood crank 9 homers for 79 games at just 21, and star out of LSU Dylan Crews also got in big league at-bats and showed flashes of why he was a top pick.

The real wild card might actually be Jacob Young, though, who will bat towards the bottom of the lineup since he’s struggled offensively, but BEHOLD the trope of a “best shape of his life” picture this offseason, and he’s a man who was top 10 in statcast BOLTS (yes, that is a speed run stat) yet he just could never make it on the base paths. If he puts it together offensively, that will be dangerous for the young sluggers Crews and Wood to knock in from scoring position.

Doolittle was brought in and the pitching staff felt it saw a massive improvement in every non- Patrick Corbin start last year; we keep waiting on the arrival of Mackenzie Gore with stuff as an ace in a comparable way to CJ Abrams coming over from San Diego, and Mitchell Parker and Trevor Williams were seen as overperformers in what hopes to be a staff that can begin to develop pitching.

They’re the perfect MLB.tv game when you want to see young names get reps in that can be your hipster “team of the future” pick. It’s a bad omen that they got rid of the Cherry Blossom uniforms, though. 

Miami Marlins

• 2024 Record: 62-100
• Notable Additions: Cal Quantrill, Matt Mervis
• Notable Subtractions: Jesus Luzardo, Jake Burger
• Relative Expectations: Don’t be as bad as last year’s White Sox, and keep Sandy Alcantara
• Wild Card Player to Watch: Eury Perez

You could make an All-Star team of players that have been traded from the Marlins to other teams at this point.

They are clearly not actively trying to win games since shocking the world as the pitching powerhouse fish with arms making a wild card appearance two years ago to fielding a roster that will cost less than $50 million entirely (that’s ALMOST one year of Juan Soto) and didn’t do anything to get better after cleaning house and firing everyone over the last several years. Derek Jeter, the main hailed as holier than thou by the baseball community, even took a step away from the stench of the rotten fish tacos of LoanDepot Park.

Conor Norby was one of the baby bird Orioles that may be fun to watch blossom as a hitter if you’re grasping at straws for a reason to watch. Still, the real question is just what the return could be for a former Cy Young winner with a VERY tradeable contract in Sandy Alcantara returning from injury on a Marlins team that is not afraid to move stars. Sandy just has to show that he wants to stay AND that it’s good for both him and the team if they get massive offers.

Eury Perez was a freakazoid thunder to Sandy’s lightning the last time we saw him pitch in 2023 as the literal youngest player in baseball and will get to pitch midseason again.

The ideal scenario? Your 2030 World Series Miami Marlins featuring Cy Young winner Eury Perez and MVP Conor Norby!

You’re not buying it, are you?

PHOTO: Jim Rassol/Imagn Images