{"id":1577,"date":"2025-03-26T20:52:36","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T03:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1577"},"modified":"2025-03-27T06:17:57","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T13:17:57","slug":"2025-season-preview-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1577","title":{"rendered":"2025 Season Preview:  Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id=\"tn6iWTElRgxnEeJAGLvd_A\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2170116501\" target=\"_blank\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\nwindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'tn6iWTElRgxnEeJAGLvd_A',sig:'2xYOOtjpF6CLnQ5Ks91h-4F8aSwwxpo8VqoPHJoxWoc=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2170116501',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re just hours away from the real start of the 2025 MLB season, after last week&#8217;s two game appetizer in Japan.\u00a0 So it&#8217;s probably about time I start the DTBL season preview series.\u00a0 Because I&#8217;m so tardy getting started, I&#8217;m going to consolidate this down to a three part series, covering nearly half of the teams in this Part I.\u00a0 I intend to get through all ten teams before the end of the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>As usual, I&#8217;m going to use outside projections as the guiding light for my team previews.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve computed projected standings using\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/projections?pos=all&amp;stats=bat&amp;type=fangraphsdc\">FanGraphs&#8217; Depth Chart projections<\/a>, which merges two other projection systems, ZiPS and Steamer, and then adjusts to expected playing time based on each MLB team&#8217;s depth chart.\u00a0 As this year&#8217;s draft progressed, it started to occur to me that Depth Charts might not be my best option for this, for reasons that I&#8217;m not going to get into right now.\u00a0 I&#8217;m just throwing this out here to remind myself to reevaluate next year.\u00a0 One thing I will point out, which is a flaw in my own methodology and not the projections themselves, is that I compiled these player projections a few days prior to the start of the draft.\u00a0 So injuries and other spring training developments this month may not be factored into these numbers.\u00a0 Where especially relevant, I will mention this in the team write-ups.\u00a0 As I say every year, I wouldn&#8217;t read into the specific ordinal rankings too heavily.\u00a0 The purpose of this exercise is to get some sense of where each team&#8217;s strengths and weaknesses exist, in a largely objective fashion.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s get started.\u00a0 This first part is going to contain previews of the four teams projected to finish at the bottom of the standings.\u00a0 I went with four both because I&#8217;m trying to consolidate this into one fewer section than in previous years, and also because these four teams are projected to finish extremely close to one another in the standings.\u00a0 Just six points separate the seventh and tenth place finishers in the full projected standings, which I will share in the final article of this series.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the sixth place finisher is double digit points ahead of all of these teams.\u00a0 So if the projected standings are to be believed, which they honestly shouldn&#8217;t be, these are the four teams least likely to contend for the league title.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Charlie&#8217;s Thunder Choppers<\/h2>\n<p>Category &#8211; Projected Rank (2024 Rank)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Batting Average &#8211; 8th (9th)<\/li>\n<li>Home Runs &#8211; 10th (9th)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Batted In &#8211; 10th (8th)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Scored &#8211; 5th (6th)<\/li>\n<li>Stolen Bases &#8211; 2nd (6th)<\/li>\n<li>Earned Run Average &#8211; 9th (6th)<\/li>\n<li>WHIP Ratio &#8211; 8th (2nd)<\/li>\n<li>Wins &#8211; 10th (8th)<\/li>\n<li>Saves &#8211; 4th (6th)<\/li>\n<li>Strike Outs &#8211; 7th (3rd)<\/li>\n<li>Total Batting Points &#8211; 8th (8th-T)<\/li>\n<li>Total Pitching Points &#8211; 7th-T (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Points &#8211; 10th (7th)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Summary:<\/p>\n<p>Well, somebody has to be last.\u00a0 As mentioned up top, there really isn&#8217;t much separating any of the teams covered in this section.\u00a0 The Choppers happen to wind up with the fewest projected standings points though.\u00a0 Pitching is largely to blame for this, which is a bit surprising since they had an above average staff a year ago and are bringing back pretty much everyone who was responsible for that.\u00a0 Although that also sort of explains the drop in the projections compared to the rest of the league.\u00a0 They did not add any significant pitching pieces, at least on paper.\u00a0 Their first five draft picks were all hitters and they didn&#8217;t pick a starting pitcher until the 10th round.\u00a0 So the rotation to start the year figures to be the main five from last year:\u00a0 Logan Gilbert, Dylan Cease, Blake Snell, Brian Woo and Taj Bradley.\u00a0 There are a couple wild cards here that could improve things on the pitching side.\u00a0 One would be a strong return from Tommy John surgery from last year&#8217;s first round pick Eury Perez, though that probably won&#8217;t happen until the second half of the season.\u00a0 The other is the possible emergence of top pitching prospect Jackson Jobe who will begin the season in the Tigers rotation and could eventually give the Choppers a huge boost as an extra starter in a relief pitching slot.\u00a0 The methodology I use for these projections fails to reward teams with extra starting pitchers since all team inning totals are normalized.\u00a0 So if Jobe can stick in the rotation and put up good numbers in the process, that could be a huge boon to the Choppers in several categories, particularly strikeouts and wins.\u00a0 The bullpen should be a strength for the Choppers regardless of how they deploy Jobe.\u00a0 Emmanuel Clase remains one of the best closers in baseball.\u00a0 Kyle Finnegan and Carlos Estevez aren&#8217;t at that level, but should be reliable sources for saves.\u00a0 Like the pitching staff, the Choppers infield has a very familiar look to it with Adley Rutschman behind the plate, Pete Alonso at first and CJ Abrams at shortstop leading the way.\u00a0 It is not a flashy group on the whole, but reliable contributors across the board.\u00a0 The outfield is where things look completely different this year.\u00a0 Wyatt Langford, Lawrence Butler and Colton Cowser were all drafted in the first four rounds this month.\u00a0 All three provide power and Langford and Butler add speed to the mix as well.\u00a0 The one returning stalwart in the outfield is Kyle Schwarber.\u00a0 This outfield group is probably where the Choppers are going to need the breakouts to occur to soar past these modest offensive projections.\u00a0 While the Choppers are in the midst of a quarter century title drought, they almost never finish dead last either.\u00a0 That last happened in 2008.\u00a0 So needless to say, expectations are much higher than the numbers thrown out here.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Kelly&#8217;s Cougars<\/h2>\n<p>Category &#8211; Projected Rank (2024 Rank)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Batting Average &#8211; 10th (7th)<\/li>\n<li>Home Runs &#8211; 7th (7th)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Batted In &#8211; 7th (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Scored &#8211; 10th (10th)<\/li>\n<li>Stolen Bases &#8211; 10th (10th)<\/li>\n<li>Earned Run Average &#8211; 4th (10th)<\/li>\n<li>WHIP Ratio &#8211; 4th (7th)<\/li>\n<li>Wins &#8211; 5th (10th)<\/li>\n<li>Saves &#8211; 9th (10th)<\/li>\n<li>Strike Outs &#8211; 4th (9th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Batting Points &#8211; 10th (8th-T)<\/li>\n<li>Total Pitching Points &#8211; 5th (10th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Points &#8211; 9th (10th)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Summary:<\/p>\n<p>This is the second straight year that the Choppers and Cougars have come out on the bottom of these pre-season projections, so maybe there is something about their team builds that don&#8217;t fit well into this model.\u00a0 Although in the case of the Cougars, the last place projection a year ago proved to be correct.\u00a0 There are some signs of significant improvement this year on the pitching side.\u00a0 That&#8217;s largely thanks to the arrival of first overall draft pick Paul Skenes.\u00a0 Skenes has the fourth highest projected Pitching PAR in the league, first among rookies.\u00a0 The rest of the rotation is mostly unchanged from last year, with Corbin Burnes and Joe Ryan being the top returners.\u00a0 Besides Skenes, the other reason for improved projections is the expectation that Kevin Gausman will return to form after a disappointing 2024.\u00a0 Seth Lugo could have been a steal in the 10th round of the draft.\u00a0 He had a breakout season last year that actually put him in the thick of the AL Cy Young award race late into the season.\u00a0 It would be very surprising if the Cougars rotation isn&#8217;t vastly improved this year.\u00a0 The bullpen remains a question mark though.\u00a0 There are a lot of good stuff, late inning high leverage guys in this group, but only Ryan Walker enters the season with a closer gig locked up.\u00a0 Justin Martinez is a decent bet to contribute saves too.\u00a0 The rest of the relievers are a bit further down the pecking order on their clubs.\u00a0 The projections on the hitting side are not great.\u00a0 Only last year&#8217;s breakout star Brent Rooker is pegged to finish over 4 PAR.\u00a0 It is a little surprising that Ketel Marte isn&#8217;t at that threshold considering how great of a season he had a year ago.\u00a0 One guy to watch will be middle infielder Matt McLain who the Cougars used a second round pick on last year, but missed the entire season due to a shoulder injury.\u00a0 There is still tremendous upside potential there as a five category stud.\u00a0 The catching duo of Salvador Perez and Shea Langeliers is one of the league&#8217;s best pairs.\u00a0 Newcomer shortstop Xavier Edwards should easily lead the team in steals, which could be hard to come by for the rest of the roster.\u00a0 The outfield is a bag of mysteries outside of Rooker and Bryan Reynolds.\u00a0 This group took a hit this week when Nolan Jones was traded away from Colorado back to Cleveland.\u00a0 There are probably too many question marks on the hitting side to expect the Cougars to have an above average offense.\u00a0 So it will be up to Skenes and the rotation to take this team well out of the cellar.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Jay&#8217;s Jackalope<\/h2>\n<p>Category &#8211; Projected Rank (2024 Rank)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Batting Average &#8211; 6th (8th)<\/li>\n<li>Home Runs &#8211; 6th (8th)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Batted In &#8211; 6th (9th)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Scored &#8211; 6th (7th)<\/li>\n<li>Stolen Bases &#8211; 6th (9th)<\/li>\n<li>Earned Run Average &#8211; 8th (5th)<\/li>\n<li>WHIP Ratio &#8211; 6th (5th)<\/li>\n<li>Wins &#8211; 8th (9th)<\/li>\n<li>Saves &#8211; 10th (7th)<\/li>\n<li>Strike Outs &#8211; 6th (10th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Batting Points &#8211; 6th (10th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Pitching Points &#8211; 7th-T (9th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Points &#8211; 8th (9th)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Summary:<\/p>\n<p>Any hopes the Jackalope had in 2024 quickly died when reigning MVP Ronald Acuna Jr tore his ACL in late May.\u00a0 Unfortunately for the Jackalope, injuries are already shaping up to be a big part of the story again this season.\u00a0 But let&#8217;s start out with some positives.\u00a0 The Jackalope offense looks to be perfectly adequate across the board, projected to finish with more standings points this year in all five batting categories.\u00a0 This is largely thanks to the expected May return of Acuna, although I think the projections are probably a bit too optimistic about the number of plate appearances he will record and bases he will be allowed to steal.\u00a0 The other main boost to the offense is second overall pick Jackson Chourio who figures to be a five category star right from the get-go.\u00a0 Chourio joins an already strong cast of returning outfielders in Acuna, Michael Harris, Anthony Santander, Adolis Garcia and Pete Crow-Armstrong.\u00a0 This is clearly the Jackalope&#8217;s strongest position group, putting them up there with any team in the league besides the Mavericks.\u00a0 Cal Raleigh is among the league&#8217;s best catchers, but I would not say the Jackalope have superstars at any other infield position.\u00a0 Second round pick Mark Vientos should give them a nice boost at the hot corner though.\u00a0 Where these projections fall apart, and frankly are probably overcooked, is on the pitching side.\u00a0 That&#8217;s because I pulled these numbers in early March before it was known there was anything wrong with Gerrit Cole, much less that he will miss the entire season following Tommy John surgery.\u00a0 Cole would be impossible for any team to replace, but especially the Jackalope who are in crisis mode with the health of several other starting pitchers as well.\u00a0 Second round pick Jared Jones also has an elbow injury, which thankfully won&#8217;t require surgery at this time, but will probably cost him half the season.\u00a0 Grayson Rodriguez and Ranger Suarez will also start the year on the IL.\u00a0 Amazingly, oft injured Tyler Glasnow is the healthy ace of the staff at the moment.\u00a0 It is going to be tough for the Jackalope to keep afloat with their rotation in shambles to start the season.\u00a0 The bullpen does not appear equipped to pick up the slack either.\u00a0 Raisel Iglesias is the only pitcher on the staff who is a good bet to pick up a significant number of saves.\u00a0 Interestingly, the Jackalope opted to build their bullpen out of high strikeout guys who can perhaps boost the other non-saves pitching categories as well.\u00a0 Not a terrible strategy as difficult as saves can be to project.\u00a0 However, what was unusual about the Jacklope approach is that they picked several of these non-closers in the first half of the draft.\u00a0 One could assume this would have played out differently if they had known what was about to happen to their rotation.\u00a0 At any rate, the Jackalope have a solid offense, easily the best among the teams covered in this section according to the projections.\u00a0 The question is will it matter if they can&#8217;t field a full staff of healthy pitchers?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Dan&#8217;s Diamond Dogs<\/h2>\n<p>Category &#8211; Projected Rank (2024 Rank)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Batting Average &#8211; 9th (2nd)<\/li>\n<li>Home Runs &#8211; 4th (5th-T)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Batted In &#8211; 5th (5th)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Scored &#8211; 7th (5th)<\/li>\n<li>Stolen Bases &#8211; 1st (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Earned Run Average &#8211; 10th (9th)<\/li>\n<li>WHIP Ratio &#8211; 10th (10th)<\/li>\n<li>Wins &#8211; 9th (7th)<\/li>\n<li>Saves &#8211; 2nd (1st)<\/li>\n<li>Strike Outs &#8211; 10th (8th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Batting Points &#8211; 5th (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Pitching Points &#8211; 10th (8th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Points &#8211; 7th (5th)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Summary:<\/p>\n<p>We wrap up this segment of the preview series with last year&#8217;s most pleasant surprise.\u00a0 The Diamond Dogs followed up three straight last place finishes (two under current ownership) with a very solid fifth place standing.\u00a0 It was a vastly improved offense that was mostly responsible for the boost.\u00a0 That still appears to be the strength of the team heading into this season, with the pitching staff projected for the fewest points in the league.\u00a0 The makeup of the offense is a bit different this year though.\u00a0 These Dogs can run.\u00a0 Seven of them are projected to steal at least 20 bases this year, led by shortstop and reigning Rookie of the Year Elly De La Cruz.\u00a0 Newcomer second baseman Brice Turang and returning star shortstops Trea Turner and Oneil Cruz give the Dogs the fastest middle infield in the league, and a pretty powerful group as well.\u00a0 The outfield has a ton of potential upside.\u00a0 Veterans Teoscar Hernandez and Marcell Ozuna complement superstar Julio Rodriguez.\u00a0 Josh Lowe is someone to watch as a possible breakout star this season, particularly playing half his games in the very left-handed hitter friendly minor league park the Rays will call home this year.\u00a0 Adding to that outfield mix is first round pick Brenton Doyle who also plays in a hitter friendly environment in Denver.\u00a0 Take it to the bank that the Diamond Dogs will lead the league in stolen bases.\u00a0 These projections show a bit of a step backwards in batting average though.\u00a0 Overall, it is a solid offensive squad.\u00a0 The pitching staff will need to exceed the projections for them to take another step forward in 2025.\u00a0 The Dogs did not use any of their early draft capital on the rotation.\u00a0 The good news though is that they are entering this campaign in far healthier form.\u00a0 Returning after missing all of 2024 is Sandy Alcantara.\u00a0 He figures to pick up right where he left off in 2023 as the ace of this staff.\u00a0 Jack Flaherty is the one new piece to the rotation and has the next best projections behind Alcantara.\u00a0 Nathan Eovaldi and Chris Bassitt are solid veterans, but not star producers at this stage of their careers.\u00a0 The Dogs could really use breakout seasons from one or both of Shane Baz and Mitch Keller to raise the ceiling of this staff.\u00a0 The bullpen figures to be one of the league&#8217;s best again after topping the league in saves a year ago.\u00a0 Josh Hader and Ryan Helsley are back to lead the way, while Ryan Pressley figures to return to a closing role now that he is no longer a teammate of Hader&#8217;s in real life.\u00a0 Although the final projection is for the Diamond Dogs to drop a couple places in the standings this season, I would still consider this an arrow up franchise that just needs to get better starting pitching in order to reach contender status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images We&#8217;re just hours away from the real start of the 2025 MLB season, after last week&#8217;s two game appetizer in Japan.\u00a0 So it&#8217;s probably about time I start the DTBL season preview series.\u00a0 Because I&#8217;m so tardy getting started, I&#8217;m going to consolidate this down to a three part series, covering [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8,34,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-choppers","category-cougars","category-diamond-dogs","category-jackalope"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1577"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1583,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1577\/revisions\/1583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}