MLB Power Rankings: Dodgers dethroned as our top 3 sees a major shakeup

New York Times

27-05-2025

By Tim Britton, Johnny Flores Jr. and Andy McCullough
Every week,​ we​ ask a selected group of our baseball​ writers​ — local and national — to rank the teams from first to worst. Here are the collective results.
We're coming out of Memorial Day weekend, which is right around when things really start to matter in the MLB season. It's not that March and April games don't make an impact, but by Memorial Day, there's a good enough sample to know the storylines, stats and series that will dominate the next 100 games or so.
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Speaking of storylines, we're highlighting each team's early MVP this week. Some of these are no-brainers. But who would've guessed that the Mets' early MVP would be someone who isn't even on the roster? Or that the Orioles' pitching MVP would be a 35-year-old rookie from Japan? Not us.
A lot can change between now and Game 162, but as it stands, these are the players, or in the case of the Rockies, people, who have made the biggest impact thus far.
Record: 33-20
Last Power Ranking: 2
Early MVP: Aaron Judge
Yes, yes, it's almost cliché at this point to turn a Power Ranking into a contrarian hot take, but it must be said: The real MVP of the Yankees is actually Aaron Judge. You probably haven't noticed Judge's excellent under-the-radar stats, like his batting average near .400 and his league-leading total of home runs. He has nearly 50 percent more wins above replacement (according to FanGraphs) than the next closest guy in the league, let alone on his team. — Tim Britton
Record: 34-19
Last Power Ranking: 7
Early MVP: Zack Wheeler
At a position of extreme fluctuation, Wheeler has become the sport's best metronome — a starter you can depend on for 200 of the highest-quality innings in baseball. His strikeout rate is up this year to a career-best mark, just around one-third of opposing hitters. He's throwing his splitter more to devastating effect. He's one of the two best right-handed starters in the sport, and how you order that pair is a fun debate. — Britton
Record: 33-21
Last Power Ranking: 1
Early MVP: Yoshinobu Yamamoto
This might be a controversial pick given Andy Pages' breakout, Freddie Freeman's renaissance and Shohei Ohtani's general excellence. But with the Dodgers' rotation reeling with injuries, Yamamoto's campaign has become all the more important. Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki are on the injured list. Clayton Kershaw is still finding his way after returning from two offseason surgeries. Yamamoto has filled the void as the club's No. 1 starter. He responded to his weakest outing of the year, a pounding by Arizona on May 8, with seven scoreless innings against the Diamondbacks two weeks later, lowering his ERA to 1.86 in 10 starts. — Andy McCullough
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Record: 33-21
Last Power Ranking: 4
Early MVP: Jeremy Hefner
Scorching Aprils have turned into mediocre Mays for Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso — the regression that was supposed to happen to New York's pitching staff. Instead, let's recognize a pitching coach who's turned a former closer (Clay Holmes), a non-tender (Griffin Canning) and an enigma (Tylor Megill) into the best rotation in baseball. How long those individual performances last is unclear; the ability of Hefner and the Mets to extract them from a variety of pitchers in the last year and a half, though, is starting to look sustainable. — Britton
Record: 35-20
Last Power Ranking: 3
Early MVP: Tarik Skubal
No one is doing it quite like Skubal. A season after winning the AL Cy Young Award, he is having an even better year through 11 starts. On Sunday, in his first career complete game, Skubal tossed a Maddux (shutout on 100 or fewer pitches) to help the Tigers top the Guardians. His final pitch clocked in at 102.6 mph, the fastest pitch of his career. His 13 strikeouts are the most in a Maddux … ever.
It might be the best-pitched game since Roki Sasaki threw a perfect game with 19 strikeouts for the Chiba Lotte Marines. What Skubal is doing on the mound is the stuff out of video games. Even then, that might not tell the tale of just how dang good he has been. That he's also doing this as a lefty is just the cherry on top of every pitching nerd's wildest fantasies. — Johnny Flores Jr.
Record: 33-21
Last Power Ranking: 6
Early MVP: Pete Crow-Armstrong
There are simply not enough words (at least words that I'm allotted to write) about how good PCA has been. His 3.1 fWAR and bWAR are second in all of baseball, while his 14 homers and 14 stolen bases are both in the top 10 of the league. He became the first Cubs player to have two separate six-RBI games in the same month, and his defense has been just as good, with a 100th percentile Outs Above Average mark. Budding MVP might be too kind for Crow-Armstrong. We're watching a bona fide superstar rise before our very eyes. — Flores
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Record: 31-23
Last Power Ranking: 8
Early MVP: Matt Chapman
Chapman will likely never hit for a high enough batting average to contend for the actual MVP. But he regularly racks up wins above replacement because he plays exceptional defense at third base and provides plenty of power. Thus far in 2025, Chapman has led the way for his club, which continues to nip at the collective heels of the Dodgers in the National League West. Chapman's glove offers a safety net for the team's pitching staff, which is receiving a typically strong season from Logan Webb and a bounce-back campaign from Robbie Ray. — McCullough
Record: 30-22
Last Power Ranking: 5
Early MVP: Fernando Tatis Jr.
As Tatis goes, it seems, so go the Padres. Tatis couldn't seem to make an out in April, tagging pitches and taking walks as he punched up a 1.011 OPS. San Diego raced out of the gate alongside him. But the season has curdled in recent weeks, as the Padres were swept by the Mariners and the Blue Jays in a six-game losing streak. Tatis' numbers have come back down to Earth during that span. San Diego can get itself back on track with upcoming series against Miami and Pittsburgh. But a recent shoulder injury for star pitcher Michael King won't make the journey easier. — McCullough
Record: 25-27
Last Power Ranking: 10
Early MVP: The catchers
Only the Mariners and Cubs have gotten more production out of their backstops than Atlanta, with Sean Murphy and especially rookie Drake Baldwin emerging as critical parts of a lineup only now getting whole. While Murphy has returned strongly from an injury-riddled 2024, Baldwin has been the revelation. He made the team when Murphy was out the first 10 days of the season, and he's pushed the veteran into a relatively even time-share of late. — Britton
Record: 29-23
Last Power Ranking: 9
Early MVP: Kevin Seitzer
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Seitzer, the hitting coach who saved Alex Gordon's swing and led Atlanta's historic 2023 lineup, might be making more magic in the Pacific Northwest. For the first time since what feels like the days of John Olerud, the Mariners possess offensive firepower. The lineup entered Sunday's games ranked fifth in the majors in wRC+ and sixth in home runs. Cal Raleigh has responded to his $105 million extension with the best numbers of his career. Jorge Polanco has been a bargain at $7.75 million. J.P. Crawford has bounced back. If Julio Rodríguez and Randy Arozarena get hot, Seattle could run away with its division. — McCullough
Record: 29-24
Last Power Ranking: 13
Early MVP: The entire roster
This might go against the spirit of the award and may also be a copout, but when you've managed to win 16 of the past 19 games to turn a 13-20 start into a 29-23 mark at Memorial Day, there's no single MVP.
Whether that's Kody Clemens and his walk-off double against the Guardians, or Ty France's walk-off solo shot to beat the Royals, or Brooks Lee and his game-ending single, the Twins have seen contributions from up and down the roster. The club's 3.20 staff ERA is third best in the league, and its 1.15 WHIP is best in all of baseball. With Matt Wallner and Byron Buxton set to return imminently, things in the AL Central are about to get interesting. — Flores
Record: 30-24
Last Power Ranking: 11
Early MVP: Matthew Liberatore
Before the start of the 2025 season, Cardinals manager Oli Marmol and pitching coach Dusty Blake lobbied for Liberatore to be given a chance in the rotation. Since breaking camp as the Cardinals' No. 5 starter, Liberatore has rewarded that faith and then some. Through 10 starts, he has a staff-leading 2.73 ERA, with a walk rate that is the third-lowest in all of baseball. It's a legit breakout season for the 25-year-old, one that has the Cardinals pushing for a wild-card berth in a season that was meant to be focused on development. — Flores
Record: 28-25
Last Power Ranking: 14
Early MVP: Hunter Brown
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The Astros have spent most of this season stuck in neutral, hovering a game or two above or below .500 for most of the way. The lineup sorely misses slugger Yordan Alvarez. The rotation has been dinged by injuries to Spencer Arrighetti and Ronel Blanco. Brown, the right-handed fifth-round pick in the 2019 draft, has offered some hope for the team's prospects, if they can get healthy. He has pushed his way into the American League Cy Young Award conversation: he entered Sunday's games ranked sixth among qualified AL starters in ERA (2.04), fourth in fielding-independent ERA (2.60) and fifth in strikeouts per nine innings (10.36). — McCullough
Record: 27-27
Last Power Ranking: 12
Early MVP: Corbin Carroll
It took Carroll, the 2023 National League Rookie of the Year, several months to emerge from a sophomore slump last season. No such trouble this year: Carroll corrected some flaws in his hitting approach and got off to a scorching start in 2025. He has cooled off a bit in May, but continues to hit for power and steal bases. His $111 million extension looks like a tremendous bargain — the Diamondbacks can have him around for six more seasons, the likely duration of Carroll's prime. — McCullough
Record: 27-29
Last Power Ranking: 15
Early MVP: Garrett Crochet
Strong cases can be made for either Alex Bregman or Rafael Devers, but we'll go with Crochet for being every bit the ace that the Red Sox acquired him to be. In a rotation with bigger issues than expected, Crochet has turned every fifth day into a surer thing. The most impressive aspect of Crochet's start has been the length he's provided: Off a second half of innings limitations, Crochet is averaging better than six frames per start — which is actually saying something in 2025. — Britton
Record: 29-26
Last Power Ranking: 16
Early MVP: Kris Bubic
Bobby Witt Jr. continues to be arguably the Royals' only source of offense, but it's the breakout of Bubic that is most deserving of this imaginary MVP award. In his sixth season in the bigs, Bubic has emerged as a legitimate AL Cy Young Award candidate (5-2, 1.45 ERA, 282 ERA+, 3.1 bWAR).
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Back in 2018, the Royals used each of their first four first-round picks on pitchers (Bubic, Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch and Brady Singer). Of that group, only Bubic has remained a starter, with Lynch being the only other to remain with the organization, though as a reliever. In other words, starting pitching development hasn't necessarily been Kansas City's strong suit in recent years, but the emergence of Bubic is a step in the right direction. — Flores
Record: 29-24
Last Power Ranking: 18
Early MVP: Cade Smith
OK, hear me out here. José Ramírez continues to pad out his Hall of Fame resume, and Steven Kwan is one of the league's best pure bat-to-ball hitters, but Smith has been a key cog in the Guardians' machine.
Case in point: facing the division-leading Tigers with no outs and the bases loaded, Smith struck out the next three batters to preserve Cleveland's 3-0 lead, a game they ended up winning.
Cade Smith entered the game with no outs and the bases loaded.
He struck out the next three batters to escape the jam 🔥 pic.twitter.com/bBQbrZCbGb
— MLB (@MLB) May 23, 2025
With an offense that ranks 24th in the league in OPS (.681), so much of the Guardians' formula relies on passing the baton from reliever to reliever. That manager Stephen Vogt can rely on Smith to put out fires or hold down the heart of the order in any inning is a luxury Cleveland fans know all too well. (See mid-2010s Andrew Miller.) — Flores
Record: 26-29
Last Power Ranking: 17
Early MVP: Nathan Eovaldi
The Rangers are off to a disappointing start because the offense refuses to ignite. But the internal competition for staff ace is a robust one. For now, we'll give the crown to Eovaldi over Jacob deGrom and Tyler Mahle. Eovaldi took a hard-luck loss against the Yankees last week but lowered his ERA to 1.60 after six innings of one-run baseball. DeGrom has already made 10 starts, his best output since 2022. He has dialed back his velocity — he's throwing 97 mph instead of 99 — with still sterling results. Mahle has also been strong after missing most of the past two seasons recovering from Tommy John surgery. But their performances will be for naught if the lineup never wakes up. — McCullough
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Record: 27-26
Last Power Ranking: T-21
Early MVP: Jonathan Aranda
Aranda has been the exception in a lineup that has almost universally underperformed. The prevailing thought entering the season was that the bevy of home games at Steinbrenner Field early in the year would help Tampa Bay's hitters get off to quick starts. Alas, while the Rays have been better at home than on the road, they still rank toward the bottom in baseball in runs per game. Although he's cooled off the past couple of weeks, Aranda has been lethal against right-handed pitching and has done his best work in Tampa. — Britton
Record: 27-28
Last Power Ranking: 19
Early MVP: Elly De La Cruz
Few players in baseball remain as frustratingly fun to watch as De La Cruz. Yes, he strikes out nearly 30 percent of the time. Yes, his range as a shortstop isn't particularly good. But … when he makes contact with the ball, there aren't many out there like him. When he gets on base, you know he's going to beeline for the next possible bag at an absurd level of speed. And when he makes a stellar play, that baseball is going to come out like a rocket out of his hands. For a Reds team teetering around .500, De La Cruz remains the best reason to tune in on a nightly basis. — Flores
Record: 27-28
Last Power Ranking: 20
Early MVP: Rhys Hoskins
At 32 years old, Hoskins is in line for his best season yet. Through 50 games, he's slashing .292/.393/.478 with seven homers and 28 RBIs for a 142 WRC+, good enough for top 30 in all of baseball. There's a good chance he makes the NL All-Star team for the first time in his career. Chalk it up to an offseason mechanical change or another year removed from a torn ACL, but Hoskins has been everything an offensively starved Brewers team could need and then some. — Flores
Record: 26-27
Last Power Ranking: T-21
Early MVP: Chris Bassitt
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Look, it's always our preference that our pick for a team MVP isn't on the losing end of a 13-0 contest in his last start before we go to press. But we can't win them all, and neither, of course, can Bassitt. Sunday's poor start against the Rays aside, Bassitt has bounced back from a not-bad-but-not-up-to-his-standards 2024 by pitching as well as ever this season. That could lead to an interesting decision in a couple of months: Bassitt is 36 and in the final year of his deal with the Blue Jays, who continue to linger around .500 in a relatively flat American League. — Britton
Record: 23-31
Last Power Ranking: 23
Early MVP: Jacob Wilson
The bottom fell out fast for the Athletics. Back on May 13, the A's put a 10-run thumping on the Dodgers to move to two games above .500. The club looked flawed but feisty, capable of hanging around the postseason discussion for most of the summer. And then … the team started losing. And losing. And losing. Eleven losses in a row, until the group snapped the streak on Sunday, in a game in which Wilson homered, collected three hits and raised his batting average to .350. So, yeah. It is a bad time. But Wilson could win American League Rookie of the Year, which is nice. — McCullough
Record: 24-29
Last Power Ranking: 24
Early MVP: James Wood
It's not supposed to be this easy to justify your franchise's decision to trade a player like Juan Soto. But here we are, not even a full year into Wood's major-league career, with a good number of people calling Washington's trade of Soto to San Diego a success. Wood's not the only part of that, but right now he's the biggest, and not just because of his frame. He's been a top-15 hitter in the sport so far this year. He's 22. — Britton
Record: 25-28
Last Power Ranking: 26
Early MVP: Zach Neto
Neto played a big role in a recent eight-game winning streak that revived the Angels and thrust them into the American League West race. The 24-year-old shortstop posted a .997 OPS during that stretch. As the leadoff hitter, he sets the tone for his club, while his glove anchors the infield defense. The season started on an ominous note for Neto, who missed the first few weeks after undergoing offseason shoulder surgery. But since he has returned, he looks like an improved version of the player who broke out in Anaheim last summer. — McCullough
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Record: 19-34
Last Power Ranking: 25
Early MVP: Ryan O'Hearn
Depending on your optimism for the rest of the Orioles' season, it's either a great thing or a terrible thing that the club's best player in 2025 has been one of the few guys with no team control beyond this season. O'Hearn has been Baltimore's best hitter, hovering around that beautiful .300/.400/.500 slash line. If the O's season continues to spiral, O'Hearn could end up the first piece moved in July. — Britton
Record: 19-36
Last Power Ranking: 27
Early MVP: Paul Skenes
Could it be anyone else? As the Pirates seemingly implode around him, Skenes has done nothing but shove.
Few things are as emblematic of Skenes' impact than him tossing eight innings of one-run ball against the Phillies, his first career complete game, mind you, only to take the loss because the Pirates went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position. That is the brutal brilliance of Skenes. He's on pace for another All-Star nod and another top Cy Young Award finish, and we're still waiting for the Pirates to meet him there. — Flores
Record: 21-31
Last Power Ranking: 28
Early MVP: Kyle Stowers
The Marlins entered Monday averaging as many runs per game as Atlanta (if you're brief with your decimals), and a lot of that owes to Stowers. Acquired in the Trevor Rogers deal with Baltimore last trade deadline, the outfielder has bloomed at 27 into one of the National League's best hitters. Miami's just waiting on the other half of that trade, Connor Norby, to bust out like Stowers. — Britton
Record: 17-37
Last Power Ranking: 29
Early MVP: Chase Meidroth
The first major piece of the Garrett Crochet deal is beginning to blossom, with Meidroth making an immediate impact in his first 29 games to the tune of 1.1 fWAR on a .307/.391/.376 slash line, 31 hits, eight stolen bases and a 12-game hit streak. Perhaps the most noteworthy element so far has been his plate discipline. He has an 18.7 percent chase rate, which, if he were to qualify, would be in the top 10 of baseball.
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That 1.1 fWAR is an entire win better than what Luis Robert Jr. (0.1 fWAR) has been able to put up in 48 games as an everyday player. Depending on how things shake out, Meidroth could be Chicago's sole All-Star rep. Oh, and if that wasn't enough, then he should be the MVP solely for his nickname, which, according to Baseball Reference, is apparently 'Force Field.' Yeah, that'll play. — Flores
Record: 9-45
Last Power Ranking: 30
Early MVP: You, the loyal Rockies fan
The Rockies won on Friday. No, really, they did. They even beat the Yankees. The Yankees are a good team. It was a nice win, 3-2, the sort of crisp ballgame that rarely occurs at Coors Field. It was the team's ninth victory in 2025. And, of course, the residue from the victory evaporated midway through the next game, when the Yankees hung a 10-run inning on the Rockies amid yet another blowout. If you are a fan of the Rockies and you subject yourself to the daily crucible of watching this team, kudos to you. It cannot be easy. — McCullough