Grading Every MLB Team’s Season in 30 Seconds Or Less

Grading Every MLB Team’s Season in 30 Seconds Or Less

Well, the 2025 MLB season is officially over with varying degrees of success for each bowl club. In today’s video, I want to give every single team a letter grade based on how their regular season went. Keep in mind, this has nothing to do with their postseason results, whatever they may be at the point I release this. My criteria for judgment will be twofold. First, their performance relative to preseason expectations, and second, how their overall season progressed in terms of arc and narrative. I will also be attempting to do so in roughly 30 seconds or less per club. I’m going to be going in alphabetical order. division by division, starting with the National League and the Atlanta Braves. This was in no uncertain terms an absolute disaster of a season for a team that had nothing less than the expectation of a postseason birth entering the campaign. And while yes, they dealt with a litany of injuries, there was more than enough underperformance to go around as well, leading to a team finishing solidly below the 500 mark despite a late season surge. This thing was a nightmare front to back, and I’m pretty sure every Braves fan out there will be looking to forget it. F. Who would have guessed that the Marlins would actually have a better record than Atlanta coming into the season, only finishing four games out of a wild card spot? They saw the emergence of multiple players. It’ll be huge for them going forward, like Kyle Sters, Jacob Marcy, Augustine Ramirez, and a host of usable arms in the bullpen. With all the issues they have yet to solve, you can’t argue with the heart of this team overall. B. Oh, the Mets. My goodness, what is there even to say? They went out over this off seasonason and spent what felt like billions of dollars on a roster construction that wasn’t even able to make the playoffs after being the best team in baseball through early June. Poorly timed injuries, insane bouts of unclutchness, and a roster that sneakily lacked depth all contributed to their downfall in Miami and what has become a near tradition for them. How could they get anything less than an F? I was one of, I think, quite a few people in the baseball space that thought the Nationals were going to be an interesting team for 2025. They not only had a number of very intriguing players, but some decent prospects as well that seemed to be on the cusp of making their big league debut. And while a number of these guys definitely did perform well, they were not complimented by anything in the way of overall production, leading to their squad having the second worst run differential in the entire sport, being one of only two with a sub 200 mark. D. I think Philadelphia is a good example of a club that managed to almost exactly meet their expectations coming into the year. Even if they did start a bit rocky, relatively speaking, as they ended up running away with the East after the Mets fell apart, they got quality contributions all up and down a roster that had some major aging concerns, but very few of which actually showed up on the field. Though the injury sustained by their ace, Zack Wheeler could prove catastrophic in October. A the Brewers lead off the Central as our first team who will undoubtedly receive a perfect letter grade as they had about as fairy tale a season as any in 2025. Led by a core of young underrated players along with the resurgence of Christian Yelich and the steady production of Wilson Contreras, the Brew Crew rode one of the hottest stretches we’ve ever seen in the middle of a season to a pretty solid division win over the heavily favored Cubs. Something I’m pretty sure nobody predicted in spring. A+ St. Louis had an uneven year, though I would struggle to say it was disappointing, per se. even though they ended up finishing below 500 on a four-game losing streak as they were in the playoff picture much longer than I think a lot of people predicted they would be and they saw some decent development from some of their young talent finally starting to get a picture of what a decent Cardinals roster might look like going forward so while it didn’t blow anyone away I don’t think it was a failure in any respect C the Cubs looked like they might be a 100 win team for much of the first half toing one of the most powerful lineups in the game and one of its brightest young stars in Pete Crow Armstrong along with some impressive depth up and down the roster But pretty much every one of these things fell apart somewhat in the second half, allowing Milwaukee to step in and take the division handedly. Still somewhat easily making the postseason after a relatively long drought shouldn’t be ignored. B+ the Pirates are a tough team to evaluate in some respects to me. Yes, they finished last in the division 10 games under 500, but they had stretches where they were pretty good and they do have some of the best young pitching in the sport led by soon to be Sai Young winner Paul Ste. I just have a hard time giving them props when they so obviously could have and should have been around 500 with even a small investment over the prior offseason into their offense. For that reason, I’m going to knock them down a bit to a D. The Reds are an interesting one to me because while they did make the playoffs for the first time in forever with an unlikely run to boot, it’s not like they were especially elite during the regular season, only finishing two games above 500. In fact, their ticket to this year’s big dance had more to do with the collapse of the Mets than the exceptional play of Cincinnati. though they did still have to execute when they needed to and did just that while boosting some of the deepest starting pitching in the game. B+. We enter into the final division of the NL with the Dbacks who similar to the Reds had a bit of a late season surge out of irrelevancy but one that didn’t end up resulting in a wild card spot. More importantly, they pretty much underperformed relative to their expectations besides this wire-to-wire enough so that they actually sold at the deadline. They still boasted one of the best lineups in the sport, but those bullpin blow-ups are going to give their fans Vietnam flashbacks for years to come, D+. The Dodgers did end up securing another division title while ending the year on a five-game winning streak. But the route they took to get there was certainly a winding one, filled with late inning blow-ups and prolonged stretches where their Hall of Fame offense could hit water if they fell out of a boat. However, a 93 win team, in my opinion, can never be considered a disappointment, even if they had all-time great expectations preceding this year. So, as such, I’m going to give them a B. One of these years, I’m sure the Giants are going to be good again, as besides the true outlier that was 2021, they haven’t managed to consistently make the playoffs since the mid210s. Even if prior to this year, not a lot of people were picking them to break this streak. 2025 ended up being a familiar story. Many cobbled together projects that produced a 500 record with no real consistency game to game. The additions of Rafael Devers and Willadamis could end up being instrumental in the years following, however, so good on Buster Posey for those C minus. The Padres’s ended up being a real surprise team for me. As though they had, in my opinion, one of the worst off seasons in 2024, losing a ton of talent without doing much to replace it, they still proved that through the power of a Super Bowl bullpen, which actually was added to mid-season, and enough offense to help get you by, you can still win 90 games in today’s MLB while going toe-to-toe with your biggest rivals, series in and series out. They may not have won the divisional race, but they certainly proved something in even engaging in it. A we now come to a team that has to receive the worst grade of this entire video. Not because they had a bad season, mind you. Everyone expected them to, but because of just how bad it was. 43 and 119 with a negative 424 run differential. Being the only team in MLB to give up more than a,000 runs pitching, being one of just two to score less than 600. Wireto-wire, this was an alltime stinker. And with the Montford family firmly entrenched in Colorado, I don’t see it getting much better going forward. F minus, which actually isn’t even an official grade, but I’m going to make an exception here. For an exceptionally terrible squad that never really had much of a chance to begin with. Moving on to the American League. Now, we lead off with one of the bigger surprises of the 2025 season as a whole. The Blue Jays, who managed to take preseason expectations of finishing anywhere from third to fifth in the division, and turned those on their head and route to winning their first East title since 2015, as well as securing the best record in the AL period. Veteran resurgences, surprise breakouts, insanely hot stretches of play. They had it all while solidifying a culture that could be instrumental in creating future success over the next half decade. A+ The Orioles remind me very much of the Braves, a team filled with young talent that had nothing less than postseason expectations entering the campaign, yet never managed to get any kind of momentum going when it mattered. Injuries, regression from key players, a prior offseason that was easily among the worst for any team. You could go on and on, but I think I’m going to cut it off here with the obvious letter grade of F. This was truly an amnesia year for the Burns. Do you remember when the Rays were perennial playoff contenders making the postseason every year from 2019 through 2023? That to me feels like a long time ago, as over the past couple seasons, they haven’t managed to be anything more than mediocre. Not being able to build off a summer hot streak that saw them for a time sit at top the East. However, with new ownership officially on the way along with the emergence of superstar junior Camano, things could be set to change going forward in Tampa Bay. Still, for 2025 in isolation, they have to get a D+. I saw a decent amount of people picking the Red Sox to make the playoffs in 2025 prior to spring training, but nearly an equal amount as well, saying that they were going to disappoint. And I think we saw both sides reflected throughout their schedule, at times looking like a juggernaut and at others a young team well out of their depth. But you simply can’t deny 88 wins and a postseason birth from a team that had missed the cutoff three years in a row preceding. This was an objective success. B+. It’s funny, you know, because when it was all said and done, the 2025 Yankees actually had the same record as their previous year’s team, even if for long stretches, it didn’t feel like they had a lot in common. Whereas last year’s identity was more so wrapped up in the success of a couple key superstars, this year relied much heavier on an overall deeper balance of depths spread throughout the roster in general. And in my opinion, besides one really bad stretch around the trade deadline, it worked to greater game-to-ame success. And hey, the proof is in the pudding. They only finished a tiebreaker shy of being the best team in the entire American League. A leading off the AL Central, we have an interesting one being the Guardians. Now, I know a lot of people in the MLB media are really high on this team right now because they managed to overcome one of the biggest divisional deficits in the history of Major League Baseball, jumping over 15 games in a month to overtake the Tigers. But I think it’s important to consider that this was a team that in two out of the last three years won their division with a positive run differential and 90 plus wins only to this year win 88 with a negative6 ratio. Hot streak notwithstanding, I don’t think I can give this team any higher than a B+ for that reason. The Royals are one of my personal lower-key disappointments as they followed up a postseason birth when they were five games over 500 by regressing to 82 and 80, seeing a number of their previous year’s key contributors not managed to come through for them when they needed most. With Junior still had an amazing season, Mikel Garcia and Vinnie Pascantino’s breakouts were awesome. But besides this, there wasn’t a ton to chew on. C minus. Detroit might be the hardest team to grade this entire video considering that they went through pretty much everything you can in one year. being for stretches the surprisingly good team at the top of the league and for others essentially being the Rockies, allowing them to choke away the biggest divisional cushion ever recorded. However, it’s important to remember that this is still an exceptionally young roster and they actually improved by one game prior to last year after not making the playoffs for basically a decade. So, to me, it’s hard to call this the failure that some people want to. When the dust settles, I think a B is probably appropriate overall. Another slam dunk failure of a year goes to the Minnesota Twins, who managed to slap their fan base in the face like few others by essentially punting their window entirely after a disappointing start. Yeah, I didn’t think their deadline was all that bad in terms of what they were able to acquire, but the decision to intentionally bomb their roster was certainly a questionable one and could do a number on their chances of competing for the next half decade at least. Easy F. The White Socks are another fascinating squad to me because on the surface they had a bad year. 21 games under 500, a negative 95 run differential, a 27 and 54 record away from home. But all of these did represent improvements somehow from the prior season when they actually had a worse record than the Rockies this year. So you can’t say it wasn’t growth and the emergence of some of their key young players including Coulson Montgomery, Lennin Sosa, Shane Smith, and a few guys in the bullpit do give some hope going forward on the south side. C. The last division of our video is led off by one of the most consistently underwhelming teams in the big leagues due largely to how stupidly they’re run in the Anaheim Angels. Despite getting great campaigns from a number of players, including Zach Nitto, Joe Adele, Taylor Ward, and Kinley Jansen, they weren’t able to cobble together anything close to what would be considered a respectable season. Sure, they hovered around 500 for a bit, but when you have an organization that refuses to commit to a path of consistent improvement, you’re not going to have anything close to sustained success. D minus. The Astros remind me a bit of the Tigers if they hadn’t managed to actually make the postseason as they too went through pretty much everything a team can in one year. Big- time success juxtaposed by big time struggles. It is hard to blame them however as when you can’t get more than 130 games of playing time from Jeremy Pñena, Isac Pedis or Yordon Alvarez who actually appeared in under 50 contests. It’s going to be really hard to cobble together something successful. As such, I actually don’t think 87 wins was all that bad. C++. The Athletics basically were the same team that they were in 2024. A fun bad squad that got hot later in the year thanks to an exceptional offense. However, this time around they have a new player that could end up being not only the face of their franchise, but one of the faces of the entire sport in Nick Curts who had, and I’m not being hyperbolic here, one of the best rookie seasons ever from a hitting perspective. Between him, Shay Langalers, Tyler Sodestrom, Jacob Wilson, and Brent Rooker, they have a ton of position player talent. They just need to add some pitching and improve their overall record. C. Seattle is going to be the only club of this entire video that I’m going to give a perfect letter grade to that didn’t win over 90 games. Why? Because Seattle hasn’t had a division win in almost 25 years. And they managed to do just that this season by knocking off their biggest rival and relative historical juggernaut, Houston, while registering one of the best catcher seasons of all time from Cal Raleigh, featuring 60 home runs and some more than likely heavy MVP support. We’ll have to see how they manage to handle the playoffs, which is their last real boogeyman to face, but for now, this regular season has to receive an A+. The Rangers come in as our last team in the video, and I guess it’s appropriate as they ended up being the average of pretty much every other club in the sport, posting a record of exactly 81 and 81. You can definitely argue that this was one of the more unlucky seasons we’ve ever seen as their expected win loss total based on their run differential was actually 90 and 72. Better than the Mariners, Astros, or Blue Jays. But they simply couldn’t get their offense going at any time of the year, allowing them to lose close game after close game. This coupled with some notable injuries ended up sinking their campaign entirely. D plus. All right, that was reviewing every MLB team’s season in around 30 seconds or less. Be sure to let me know if you agree with my choices and recommendations for any other content you’d like to see me do in this vein. All right, everybody. If you made it this far, I appreciate you watching. And if you did, consider checking out any of these other videos on your screen right now for other content just like this. Also, if you ever see anything you’d like to see me detail in the video, feel free to reach out to my email [email protected]. And if I end up using your idea, I’ll give you a shout out. Thanks for watching. Time to rest your day.

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