Any baseball fan can make predictions this time of the year and be right about most of them, the Dodgers will win 100+ games and make the playoffs, the White Sox will not. Paul Skenes will strike out more than a batter an inning, Shohei Ohtani will hit a lot of home runs and steal a lot of bases. Easy peasy. But only a few dare to make bold predictions, and here are 10 of mine.

Mike Trout will finish the season as a top 25 hitter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, the Angels’ three-time MVP has had a lot of injuries. But they have all been flukey injuries, not consistent pulled hamstrings like Royce Lewis, elbow issues like Jacob deGrom, plantar fasciitis like Carlos Correa or a fractured desire to play like Anthony Rendon. A pulled calf muscle, a broken hamate bone and a torn meniscus that required two surgeries to correct have sidelined Trout over the last three seasons. (Personal note: I had a torn meniscus and took three surgeries in 11 months to fix it).

He played 29 games in 2024 and had 10 homers at the end of April to lead all of baseball. His batting average was .220, but an unheard of .194 BABIP dragged the average down, his XBA was .271. In 2022 he played 119 games and hit 40 homers, scored 85 runs and had 80 RBIs. I see no reason he cannot put those numbers up again if he plays 120 games in 2025. If he can make it in 140 games, I expect him to put up MVP type numbers. His ADP in NFNC drafts before January 1 was 132 and in March drafts it is 94, some fantasy owners are buying the rebound.

Jacob deGrom will not finish as a top 30 starting pitcher.

I do not understand how a guy who has thrown 100 innings over the last three seasons is being drafted as a top 10 starting pitcher. The last time the Rangers starting pitcher threw 100 innings in a season, nobody had ever heard of Covid. Steamer projects him at 152 innings, OOPSY 132 innings. I will take the way, way, way under on both. I predict he does not hit the century mark; he does turn 37 in June.

deGrom came back at the end of 2024 to throw 10.2 innings, game up two earned runs and a walk with 14 strikeouts. One caveat, two of the starts were against the Mariners and one was against the Angels, who had one player from their Opening Day lineup facing deGrom.

In his prime he was the best pitcher, and maybe the best player, in the game. His stuff was electric, he dominated games and was at times a number one pick in fantasy drafts. But playing his age 37 season and his recent injury history, I am just not seeing a return to the glory days.

Maikel Garcia will be a top 75 hitter on the Fangraphs player rater.

After a stellar rookie season for the Royals in 2023 where Garcia hit .272 with four homers and 23 stolen bases, he suffered through a sophomore slump in 2024, hitting .231 (.260 XBA) with seven home runs and 37 stolen bases. The low batting average could be attributed to a.268 BABIP, 23 points below the league average, and low for somebody with Garcia’s speed. In 2024, he lowered his strikeout rate from 22.3% in 2023 to 16.5% in 2024 his hard-hit rate of 42.6% will above the league average of 31.28%.

Garcia, who just turned 25 years old, spent most of the 2024 season as the leadoff hitter for the Royals, but with the off-season acquisition of Jonathan India, Garcia could find himself lower in the Royals lineup. I expect the BABIP to return to the norm, his strikeout rate and hard-hit rate remain close to his 2024 numbers and for Garcia to have a good season. I can see a 10 homer, 40 stolen base season with a .270 batting average which would make him a top 75 hitter and a top 100ish pick in 2026 drafts. In March NFBC drafts his ADP is 203, I can see him cutting that number in half in 2026 drafts.

At least Seven of the top 10 starting pitchers from 2024 with the highest average fastball velocity will not pitch 100 innings in 2025.

The pitchers listed below had the highest average fastball velocity in 2024 of pitchers who threw at least 110 innings. Of those 10, at least seven will throw less than 100 innings, and one pitcher, Jared Jones, will probably not throw a single pitch in 2024 as it looks like he is headed for Tommy John surgery.

The list:

José Soriano

Paul Skenes

Hunter Greene

Jared Jones

Garrett Crochet

Tarik Skubal

Dylan Cease

Logan Gilbert

Luis Gil

Tyler Glasnow

Why do I make that bold prediction, you ask? Well, let us look at the list of 10 pitchers from 2023 with the highest average fastball velocity, and see how they did in 2024. (Velocity data from Fangraphs).

As you can see, four of the pitchers missed the whole season while recovering from Tommy John surgery. Spencer Strider made two terrible starts covering nine innings before undergoing the internal brace procedure on his right elbow. Only two pitchers threw more than 100 innings in 2024 and every pitcher on the 2023 list missed five weeks or more with arm related injuries. You add up all the innings, those 10 pitchers averaged 49 innings each. Not the greatest return on investment.

Looking at the 2024 list, Jared Jones will likely miss the season, he is currently seeking a second opinion, which is usually not a good sign. Luis Gil is out for two months with a lat strain, putting the 100-inning mark in jeopardy.

Hunter Greene is the only repeat name from 2023, is he next to suffer an arm injury? Tyler Glasnow has fought arm problems, including a Tommy John surgery that limited him to 6.2 innings in the 2022 season. While he has thrown 120 and 134 innings in 2023 and 2024 respectively, is he headed for a shortened season?

Do fantasy owners take this into account and avoid pitchers like these and settle for “safer” starting pitchers like Logan Webb, Aaron Nola and Pablo Lopez. Most owners will take the risk and hope Skenes and Skubal give them 180 innings and make it through the season. Chances are, most of these pitchers will not.

Reid Detmers finishes the 2025 season as a top 50 starting pitcher.

Angels left-handed starting pitcher Reid Detmers was the poster child for unlucky in the 2024 season, with metrics that scream unlucky. He had a 6.70 ERA (4.14 xERA), an outlandish .357 BABIP (league average .291) and a 62.9% strand rate (league average is 72.1%). Of the pitchers who threw 80 or more innings, Detmers’ 11.23 K/9 was sixth best in baseball. In his first five starts in 2025, he threw 27.2 innings with 30 strikeouts, a 1.19 ERA and 0.97 WHIP. Then the wheels came off and he ended up spending three months in the minors before returning in September.

Detmers will enter the 2025 season as a 25-year-old and those numbers should regress to the norm which will improve his stats in 2025. He possesses a great slider (120 on the stuff+ scale) and league average stuff and command. He is the 147^th pitcher being drafted in NFBC drafts since January 1, with a 432 ADP. If he can improve on his command, and the BABIP and strand rate return to league norms, combined with that dazzling K/9 rate, he should be in high demand in 2026 drafts.

Alex Bregman finishes higher on the FanGraphs player rater than Rafael Devers

Red Sox teammates Rafael Devers (ADP 35) and Alex Bregman (ADP 114) have been drafted 79 picks apart in NFBC drafts since January 1. I predict Bregman will finish higher on the FanGraphs player rater than Devers at season’s end.

Devers is battling injuries to both shoulders and his 2024 numbers showed signs of slowing down, although it could be due to the shoulder woes. His strikeout rate jumped from 19.2% in 2023 to 24.5% in 2024, slightly above league average (22.58%). His contact rate dropped from 76% to 71.9% and his hard-hit rate, while still excellent at 52.3%, it was a slight dip from the 54.7% in 2025. The shoulder issues could sap his power and could cause him to miss some time.

Bregman, signed as a free agent in February, saw his contact rate and hard-hit rate improve from 2023 to 2024, the opposite of what Devers did. His contact rate went from 87.4% to 88.6% and hard-hit rate went from 38.2% to 40.1. While Bregman’s strikeout rate rose from 12% to 13.6%, it is well below league average.

Steamer projections have the two with similar counting stats, I think Bregman batting third will get more RBIs than Devers, but Devers could get a few more runs. I think Bregman will be rejuvenated with the move to Fenway, peppering the Green Monster, and with the shoulder issues plaguing Devers, I expect Bregman to outperform Devers.

Ozzie Albies will be the top second baseman in 2025.

Following the patterns over the last six seasons, Braves’ second baseman Ozzie Albies is set to become a Top 20 player in 2025. In the last 3 odd numbered years, Albies has played an average of 155 games. In the last three even numbered years, he has played in exactly half of the games, including just 29 of the 60 games in the Covid year of 2020. If Albies can play 150ish games in 2025, he is a top 25 player.

Albies will enter the 2025 season as a 28-year-old in his prime and hitting in the middle part of that stellar Braves lineup should boost his counting stats. Steamer projections have him with 20 home runs, 73 runs and 73 RBIs. I will take the over on all three of those numbers, and sprinkle in 12-15 stolen bases, I think he finishes as the top second baseman in 2025.

The Dodgers, who are loaded with pitching, acquire former Dodgers Tyler Anderson and Andrew Heaney before the July trade deadline.

Every year the Dodgers enter the season with a plethora of starting pitchers and are always looking for pitchers at the trade deadline. Pitching injuries and the Dodgers go together like the Marlins and penny-pinching.
In 2024, two Dodgers, Gavin Stone (what?) and the oft-injured Tyler Glasnow were the only Dodgers to throw more than 100 innings. There were 14 different pitchers that made at least one start for the Dodgers in 2024. In 2023, 14 pitchers made starts while four threw 100+ innings led by Clayton Kershaw’s 131.2 innings.
Chances are, they will be looking for pitching in 2025. Pending free agent Tyler Anderson, the last Dodger pitcher to throw more than 150 innings (along with Julio Urias) in 2022, is a free agent after the 2025 season and will make the trek up I-5 to rejoin the Dodgers. Andrew Heaney, a pending free agent who was a Dodger in 2022, is an innings eater who could help the Dodgers down the stretch while their pitchers heal and rest for the playoffs.

There will not be more than 25 complete games thrown by starting pitchers in 2025.

“Come on baby finish what ya started…”

—Van Halen, “Finish What Ya Started”, OU812 album

Somewhere in the last 10 seasons or so, teams decided a pitcher could throw 100 pitches without risk of injury, but at pitch 101 their arm would fall off. Because of this silly “magic number,” pitchers do not go deep enough into games to finish what they started.

In 1975, Catfish Hunter of the Yankees made 39 starts and completed 30 games. In 2024 across the entire major league season, pitchers made 4,858 starts and completed 26 games. Hunter threw 181 complete games in his career, in the last five seasons there have been 178 complete games total.

The number of complete games went from 50 in 2021, to 36 in 2022, 35 in 2023 and 28 in 2024. Sometimes I yearn for the days when MLB was full of pitchers like Catfish Hunter and Greg Maddux instead of the numerous “throwers” in today’s game.

For the first time since 2017, there will be more hits than strikeouts across MLB.

While this is a bold prediction because the chances of it happening are slim, it is more a dream on my part. In today’s game, unless your name is Luis Arraez, nearly every hitter tries to hit every pitch 450 feet regardless of the count.

Major League players are striking out at an incredible rate. In 1973, Reggie Jackson won the American League MVP award and struck out 111 times in 629 plate appearances. He hit .293 with 32 home runs and 117 RBIs. In 2024, 121 players struck out 111 times or more including notorious sluggers Max Schuemann, Jose Caballero, Jared Triolo, Korey Lee, Leody Taveras and Willi Castro, who all hit 12 homers or less.

Below is a chart showing the hits to strikeout numbers for all MLB since 2017, and for historical context, I added the numbers for 2005, 20 years ago.

Looking at the numbers there were 10,553 less strikeouts in 2005 than in 2024. Can you imagine what today’s game would be like if the ball were put in play 10,553 more times over the course of a season? Instead, we get to watch Aaron Judge and Elly De La Cruz walk back to the dugout 200 times a season.

Two years ago, when the ridiculous ghost runner rule was put into play, the Yankees and Mariners went into extra innings and the game finally ended in the bottom of the 13^th when the Mariners scored a run. Two playoff caliber teams could not score a runner from second base with no outs seven times! How does that happen? Because instead of hitting a ground ball to the right side to move the runner to third and then hitting a sacrifice fly to score the run, both teams tried to hit the ball into the upper deck with every swing.

I believe the Yankees have failed in the postseason over and over again because they do not know how to move runners over, put the ball in play and produce the clutch hit. If they do not hit the ball over the fence in the postseason, they do not win.

There you have it, my bold predictions for 2025.