To kick off the 2025 MLB season, we brought together more than 60 ESPN baseball experts to rank the 100 best players in the sport.
More than four months later, some things have stayed more or less the same … and some things have changed quite a bit. In that spirit, we decided to rerank the top 50, based on what we’ve seen so far this season — and what we expect to see down the stretch.
So … how did we do? We asked some of the voters who participated in both rankings to critique the new list and reevaluate the original one.
Digging into the in-season update list
Who’s ranked too high on our updated list?
Olney: It’s a little bonkers that we have Nick Kurtz above Freddie Freeman, who less than a year ago dominated baseball’s biggest event, or Pete Alonso, who just tied the Mets’ franchise record for home runs.
Kurtz has career 285 plate appearances; Freddie has 357 career home runs. Every spring, I take our top 100 list around to show to players and get their comments. I think if I took that particular ranking around to clubhouses, I would be escorted out.
David Schoenfield: Has Juan Soto been the 12th-best player in baseball at times in the past? Yes. Is he the 12th-best player so far in 2025? Absolutely not. He’s hitting home runs and drawing his walks, but the batting average is down, the defense is not good and his hitting in the clutch — which doesn’t factor into WAR — has been atrocious.
He’s hitting .190 with RISP and .181 with runners on. His OPS in low-leverage situations is nearly 200 points higher than in high- and medium-leverage situations. The stats look OK, but even those overstate the value he has provided the Mets.
Who’s ranked too low?
Jesse Rogers: Are there that many pitchers you would rather have on the mound in a big game than Nathan Eovaldi? I don’t think so. Yes, he has missed time with injuries, but that makes his season even more impressive. He returned after a month’s absence and didn’t miss a beat, compiling a 1.93 ERA over his past eight starts (it was a 1.08 ERA before he gave up five runs in his most recent outing), including an eight-inning shutout gem against the New York Yankees on Aug. 5. Overall, he’s 10-3 with a 1.71 ERA. He’s better than No. 39.
Bradford Doolittle: Cristopher Sánchez has come on strong and fast. He has moved in behind Tarik Skubal and Paul Skenes in season value, but his trajectory might be pointing more sharply upward. I don’t know if he can overtake Skenes in the NL Cy Young chase — it’s hard to pass someone who never gives up any runs — but Skenes, Zack Wheeler and the rest of the field better avoid any lapses. I’d have Sanchez in the 10-to-12 range.
Which player who missed the cut could make us look silly over the next two months?
Alden Gonzalez: It was abundantly clear as soon as he returned from a second knee surgery that Ronald Acuna Jr. remained arguably the most electrifying player in the game. Over the course of 55 games from late May to the end of July, he slashed .306/.429/.577, hit 14 home runs, accumulated 2.6 FanGraphs wins above replacement and turned in an assortment of plays on defense and on the bases that left us in awe.
Now Acuna is out again, this time with a calf strain. His lack of playing time was certainly the reason he didn’t crack this list. But Acuna is primed to return later this month — and might make us look patently absurd for not putting him in the top 50 regardless.
Rogers: Brandon Woodruff. The Brewers righty is 4-0 with a 2.29 ERA in his return from shoulder surgery after missing all of last season. Other than an occasional mistake pitch — he has allowed seven home runs in 35 innings — he has been fantastic. Outside of those long balls, he has given up just 10 other hits while displaying his usual mastery of the strike zone, walking six batters so far while striking out 45.
And remember, he’s doing this in the middle of a pennant race — not always the easiest of situations to ease your way back in after an injury. If and when his velocity fully returns, watch out: The Brewers will have another option for the top of their rotation. And if Logan Webb — who has a 3.70 ERA outside of San Francisco — is 38th on the list, Woodruff belongs on it as well.
Looking back at the preseason edition
With some hindsight, what did we get right on the original list?
Kiley McDaniel: Manny Machado had the 61st-best WAR in baseball in 2024, almost the same output as his 2023 season. We ranked him 39th even though he was going to turn 33 during the season. Machado has rewarded our faith with a bounce-back season, already besting his WAR from both 2024 and 2023 with another month-plus to go in the season and landing at No. 17 in the update.
Schoenfield: Corbin Carroll was No. 18 on our preseason list and No. 18 in our update, so I guess that qualifies as getting it right. Remember, he was coming off a disappointing sophomore campaign, in which his average dipped from .285 to .231 and he lost nearly two wins in WAR.
It was somewhat optimistic to predict that he would bounce back to being a top-20 player, and he has, although the shape of his game is a little different than 2023 (his average is still lower, but he’s hitting more home runs).
What did we get wrong?
Doolittle: You can factor in park effects, defensive support and all that, but sometimes a number is so eye-popping that you just have to let it carry you away. One of those numbers is Eovaldi’s shrinking ERA.
There are probably four or so pitchers ahead of him based on volume, but we’ve got him behind Max Fried, Logan Webb, Joe Ryan, Framber Valdez and some others. If we’re talking about a right-now player ranking, Eovaldi has to be higher than No. 39 on the current list, and he wasn’t even on the season-opening edition.
Gonzalez: There isn’t a single reliever on this list. Not Josh Hader, who converted 25 consecutive saves to begin this season. Not Aroldis Chapman, who has been basically untouchable in his age-37 season. And not Adrian Morejon or Cade Smith, who both have been dominant setup relievers in San Diego and Cleveland, respectively.
Relievers don’t get the workload and thus don’t measure up in WAR. But nobody will be more important when it matters most in October.
What is the most surprising change from our preseason list to the midseason update?
McDaniel: Kyle Stowers! He had a career WAR of -0.9 entering this season and was dealt from Baltimore as one half of the return for Trevor Rogers last summer. Stowers has had one of the biggest breakouts of the season, hitting .286/.364/.544 with 25 homers and above-average defense in left field. While he has always had the tools to do something like this if everything clicked, nobody saw it coming this season.
