Who Are The 10 Best MLB Players This Season?

Fox Sports

4 days ago

The All-Star break marks the unofficial halfway point of the MLB season, so what better time to take stock of the year so far?
The 2025 season is full of players who are tearing it up at the plate and on the mound, but there are clear leaders whose performances outpace them all.
That said, let's take a look at the 10 best players this season — both position players and pitchers — and what has made them stand out among the hundreds and hundreds of others. 10 Best Players in MLB This Season 10. Francisco Lindor, New York Mets
Lindor has never won Most Valuable Player, but he has received votes in seven of his 11 seasons in the majors to go along with five All-Star team selections. He's always in the mix, and deservingly so. Lindor is once again having the kind of season that brought him those accolades, batting .260/.330/.457 with 19 first-half home runs, good for a 126 OPS+ that exceeds his career mark. He's an excellent defensive shortstop, too, and that combination has him eyeing his fourth consecutive season worth at least five wins above replacement. 9. José Ramírez, Cleveland Guardians
Ramírez, Lindor's former teammate in Cleveland, is one of the most underappreciated players in the game. It's not that people aren't aware that he's excellent, it's that they just might not realize how great he is. Ramírez missed becoming the seventh 40-home-run, 40-stolen-bases player in history by a single long ball in 2024. In 202, he became just the 24th player to reach 250 homers and 250 steals in MLB history. At .295/.363/.506 with 18 dingers and 29 steals this year, Ramírez is angling to make it 300/300 sooner than later. 8. Zack Wheeler, Philadelphia Phillies
Wheeler has finished second in the National League Cy Young race twice (2021 and 2024). He doesn't look as if he's going to slow down anytime soon, so much so that 2025 might finally be his year to win honors as the league's top pitcher. Wheeler is atop MLB in pitcher bWAR (4.8), and is leading the Senior Circuit in strikeouts with 154, while allowing the fewest hits per nine. That's not a blip, either. Wheeler has been hard to hit for years now but never as tough on opponents as in 2025. 7. Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh Pirates
He's just 23 years old and in his second year in the majors, but Skenes has already been the starter for the NL in the All-Star Game twice — and with good reason. He was a revelation in his 23 Rookie of the Year-winning starts in 2024, and he has been just as good in his follow-up campaign. Skenes leads the majors in ERA at 2.01 and has the lowest home run per nine in the NL at 0.4. He hasn't been lucky, either — his FIP is an NL-best 2.40 — as he's just this great at pitching. He might just be 4-8, but that says a lot more about how the Pirates have supported him than the other way around. Could Skenes win a Cy Young with a losing record? If anyone can, it would be the young flamethrower. 6. Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City Royals
You don't need a long memory to recall that Witt was once a defensive disaster. He put in the work, though, and turned his raw talent into actual production just as he had already been doing at the plate. Now, Witt is arguably one of MLB's best players, one with consecutive 30-homer, 30-stolen-base seasons. He might even earn a third this year if he can pick up the home run pace. It says something about Witt that he's hitting .294/.345/.504 in 2025, and that it could be considered a down year after his MLB-leading .332 batting average in 2024. To make up for it, Witt is playing even better at shortstop this year. 5. Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers
Skubal, the ninth overall pick by the Tigers in 2018, won the 2024 American League Cy Young by leading major-league pitchers in bWAR (6.4) and strikeouts (228) and the AL in ERA (2.39). Skubal is somehow pitching even better in his follow-up campaign. His ERA is down to 2.23 and his ERA+ up to 181. He has the lowest WHIP in the majors, the lowest walk rate, the highest strikeout rate — no pitcher has ever finished with both in the same year — and the lowest FIP. 4. Pete Crow-Armstrong, Chicago Cubs
Crow-Armstrong's tools were obvious when the Cubs called him up to the majors in 2023. His defense was excellent, thanks to an all-out style of play that got a boost from his ability to read a ball in play and get a great jump on it. He developed a surprising amount of power in the minors, too. That power has translated well, allowing him to become the fourth-fastest player to have a 25-homer and 25-steals season. There's a lot of 2025 left, too, so he might even become the seventh 40/40 player of all time if he can keep it going. The defense was always there, too, so this newfound offense — Crow-Armstrong is batting .265/.302/.544 and leading the NL in bWAR — has made him a star. 3. Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners
The 2025 season marks the third in a row that Raleigh has hit at least 30 homers. It's important to recognize that Raleigh has always had tremendous power for a catcher, but now, as he leads the majors in homers with 38 at the All-Star break — one shy of Barry Bonds' record set back in 2001. Raleigh is batting .259/.376/.634, good for a 190 OPS+ and his work behind the plate is worth noting, too. Raleigh has been one of the best players in baseball for some time now, but this added level of offense has jumped him from the back end of the list to right near the top. 2. Aaron Judge, New York Yankees
Judge is the best hitter in baseball, and his 2025 season is his best work to date. That's saying something for a guy who hit an AL-record 62 homers in 2022, has already won two AL MVPs and has led the majors in bWAR on multiple occasions. Judge is batting .355/.462/.733 with 35 homers and an MLB-leading 228 OPS+ and 125 hits. He could very well finish the season with over 100 extra-base hits, which has been done just 15 times before in MLB history. 1. Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers
Judge's performance might have been enough to take the top spot if not for one important thing: Shohei Ohtani is a two-way player again. Ohtani, who just missed a 100-extra-base hit season himself in 2024, is not only leading the NL in slugging (.605), home runs (32), total bases (224) and OPS+ (174), but he's back on the mound. In five starts, Ohtani has allowed just one run and five hits, while striking out 10 batters. Those starts make up just nine innings of work, but that number is going to climb as he stretches back out: anyone watching him can see that the stuff that made him such a good pitcher before his second Tommy John surgery is still there.
Honorable mentions: Juan Soto, New York Mets
James Wood, Washington Nationals
Jeremy Peña, Houston Astros
Fernando Tatis Jr., San Diego Padres
Kyle Tucker, Chicago Cubs
Elly De La Cruz, Cincinnati Reds
Byron Buxton, Minnesota Twins
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