{"id":1587,"date":"2025-03-30T20:34:13","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T03:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1587"},"modified":"2025-03-31T06:10:29","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T13:10:29","slug":"2025-season-preview-part-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1587","title":{"rendered":"2025 Season Preview:  Part III"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id=\"PZVfWyNISaFMDpAo1cGWgw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2207414270\" 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:'PZVfWyNISaFMDpAo1cGWgw',sig:'cqC1kAN3DmNtcR-54tThPr0FzhYU_iJKSUBmZvVcyg4=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2207414270',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The first weekend of the 2025 MLB season has come to an end.\u00a0 Early indications are the Yankees might torpedo the record book if they keep up their current home run pace.\u00a0 Nothing like an equipment controversy to get the season started!<\/p>\n<p>This brings us to the final installment of our 2025 DTBL season preview series.\u00a0 My cutoff decision for which teams will be covered in which sections is generally determined by grouping teams that are all expected to finish closely bunched in the standings.\u00a0 That was true of both of the first two parts this year.\u00a0 That is not exactly the case for this last one though.\u00a0 The team that is projected to win the league this year has no peer according to these rankings.\u00a0 They would have deserved their own article if my grouping rule was strictly enforced.\u00a0 That&#8217;s not to say these other two teams don&#8217;t look strong in their own right though.\u00a0 This final group contains last year&#8217;s top two teams joined by what would be the team with the biggest jump in the standings this year if these numbers turn out correct.\u00a0 These are the teams projected to finish in the top three spots in the standings.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>David&#8217;s Darkhorses<\/h2>\n<p>Category &#8211; Projected Rank (2024 Rank)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Batting Average &#8211; 4th (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Home Runs &#8211; 9th (10th)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Batted In &#8211; 8th (10th)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Scored &#8211; 9th (9th)<\/li>\n<li>Stolen Bases &#8211; 9th (3rd)<\/li>\n<li>Earned Run Average &#8211; 1st (7th)<\/li>\n<li>WHIP Ratio &#8211; 1st (8th)<\/li>\n<li>Wins &#8211; 4th (5th-T)<\/li>\n<li>Saves &#8211; 1st (2nd)<\/li>\n<li>Strike Outs &#8211; 2nd (7th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Batting Points &#8211; 9th (7th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Pitching Points &#8211; 1st (7th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Points &#8211; 3rd (8th)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Summary:<\/p>\n<p>Here we have the biggest movers relative to their 2024 finish in this preview series.\u00a0 It makes some sense because last year was a bit of an aberration for the Darkhorses who fell to eighth place a year after finishing a close second.\u00a0 Their fall can almost entirely be pinned on being without arguably their best two starting pitchers and best relief pitcher for almost the entire season.\u00a0 These projections show them returning to their prior spot as the top pitching staff in the league.\u00a0 Whether or not you believe such a turnaround is possible depends on the belief in Spencer Strider, Jacob deGrom and Felix Bautista returning to their pre-injury form and doing it for most of the season.\u00a0 Logan Webb, Hunter Greene and Sonny Gray join Strider and deGrom to make up what projects to be the best rotation in the league.\u00a0 But it remains to be seen if Strider and deGrom will be able to recapture their prior stuff and remain healthy throughout the season.\u00a0 Justin Steele and Brandon Woodruff were nice insurance adds in the draft, though the latter is also coming back from his own major injury.\u00a0 The Darkhorses managed to finish second in the league in saves last year even without Bautista.\u00a0 So having him back in the mix along with Andres Munoz, Robert Suarez, Chris Martin and maybe even Calvin Faucher make them the favorites to lead the way in saves this year.\u00a0 Unless injuries ravage the Darkhorses again, the pitching staff is too good for them to finish near the bottom of the standings again this year.\u00a0 Whether or not they can contend for a title will depend on if the offense is able to take a big step forward.\u00a0 Interestingly, the Darkhorses have an overall third place projection despite also having one of the poorest batting point projections in the league.\u00a0 That&#8217;s because only two players are projected for Batting PAR totals over 3:\u00a0 Bryce Harper and third overall draft pick Jackson Merrill.\u00a0 Merrill provides the most hope for an improved offense.\u00a0 He will supplement a mostly veteran lineup.\u00a0 In the outfield, Merrill is joined by Christian Yelich, George Springer, Taylor Ward and Cedric Mullins.\u00a0 The infield is also full of veterans like Harper, Xander Bogaerts, Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa.\u00a0 The infield youth injection is second round pick Jackson Holliday, who had a rough introduction to the big leagues last year.\u00a0 But at this time a year ago, he was the consensus top prospect in the game, so enormous upside still remains.\u00a0 Another pre-prime infielder on the roster is shortstop Masyn Winn.\u00a0 This third place projection does make sense for a talented Darkhorses roster.\u00a0 Their most likely path to this sort of finish though will require more offensive production because there are just too many health concerns on the pitching front to be confident of them racking up 46 out of 50 possible pitching points.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Mike&#8217;s Moonshiners<\/h2>\n<p>Category &#8211; Projected Rank (2024 Rank)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Batting Average &#8211; 2nd (5th)<\/li>\n<li>Home Runs &#8211; 3rd (2nd)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Batted In &#8211; 4th (2nd)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Scored &#8211; 3rd (3rd)<\/li>\n<li>Stolen Bases &#8211; 8th (8th)<\/li>\n<li>Earned Run Average &#8211; 2nd (3rd)<\/li>\n<li>WHIP Ratio &#8211; 5th (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Wins &#8211; 2nd (1st-T)<\/li>\n<li>Saves &#8211; 6th (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Strike Outs &#8211;\u00a03rd (5th)<\/li>\n<li>Total Batting Points &#8211; 3rd (3rd)<\/li>\n<li>Total Pitching Points &#8211; 3rd (2nd)<\/li>\n<li>Total Points &#8211; 2nd (2nd)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Summary:<\/p>\n<p>The Moonshiners are the only team projected to finish within shouting distance of the top dog.\u00a0 They are similarly one of only two teams that are projected to be above average in both batting and pitching points.\u00a0 Most years a roster like this might even come out on top of such an exercise.\u00a0 Of course, it would be pretty hard *not* to have an above average offense with Shohei Ohtani on the squad.\u00a0 He comfortably leads the league in projected Batting PAR at an incredible 10.6, two points higher than any other player.\u00a0 He&#8217;s not doing it alone though.\u00a0 Kyle Tucker and Vladimir Guerrero Jr are also among the top hitters in the league.\u00a0 Ohtani and Tucker are joined in the outfield by a couple underappreciated performers in Ian Happ and Riley Greene.\u00a0 Guerrero and Rafael Devers will continue to anchor the corner infield spots.\u00a0 The spring controversy over what position Devers will play shouldn&#8217;t be too much of an issue for the Moonshiners as long as he keeps hitting.\u00a0 The middle infield was perhaps a bit if a weakness, so they traded for Bo Bichette to unite him with Guerrero in this league as well as Toronto.\u00a0 Bichette joins Ezequiel Tovar at shortstop.\u00a0 Tovar is another guy on this team whose production easily exceeds the hype.\u00a0 Perhaps the top breakout candidate on the roster is third baseman Junior Caminero who had a nice cameo in the big leagues at the end of last season and is now ready to do it for a full campaign for the first time.\u00a0 Tarik Skubal was a bit of a one man show in the Moonshiners rotation a year ago.\u00a0 The Cy Young winner was the only standout performer of the group, but was so dominant that the team finished second in pitching points.\u00a0 He is the only pitcher who was a member of that rotation for a majority of last season who is back this year.\u00a0 But now he has some help in the way of first round draft pick Garrett Crochet.\u00a0 The Red Sox new ace gives the Moonshiners the nastiest pair of left handed pitchers in the league.\u00a0 A potential third nasty left hander on this staff is MacKenzie Gore who got his season off to a grand start on Thursday.\u00a0 And of course they added Robbie Ray in the draft too because you just can&#8217;t have enough nasty lefties.\u00a0 Kodai Senga was added as well, but last I checked he throws with his right hand.\u00a0 The Moonshiners bullpen has an interesting mix right now with Tanner Scott and Edwin Diaz likely to keep them afloat in saves.\u00a0 They added Edwin&#8217;s brother Alexis Diaz, however he is starting the season on the injured list.\u00a0 They also return Clay Holmes in a relief slot, while he is now a starting pitcher and Opening Day starter for the Mets, which could provide an avenue for extra strikeouts and wins.\u00a0 There is a lot to like about this entire roster.\u00a0 They do not appear to have any of the flaws that plague the teams that have been covered to this point.\u00a0 However, despite that, they are also quite a ways behind the predicted champions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Marc&#8217;s Mavericks<\/h2>\n<p>Category &#8211; Projected Rank (2024 Rank)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Batting Average &#8211; 3rd (1st)<\/li>\n<li>Home Runs &#8211; 1st (1st)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Batted In &#8211;\u00a01st (1st)<\/li>\n<li>Runs Scored &#8211;\u00a01st (1st)<\/li>\n<li>Stolen Bases &#8211;\u00a03rd (1st-T)<\/li>\n<li>Earned Run Average &#8211; 5th (2nd)<\/li>\n<li>WHIP Ratio &#8211; 2nd (6th)<\/li>\n<li>Wins &#8211; 1st (4th)<\/li>\n<li>Saves &#8211; 5th (8th)<\/li>\n<li>Strike Outs &#8211;\u00a01st (1st)<\/li>\n<li>Total Batting Points &#8211; 1st (1st)<\/li>\n<li>Total Pitching Points &#8211;\u00a02nd (3rd)<\/li>\n<li>Total Points &#8211; 1st (1st)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Summary:<\/p>\n<p>Is anybody actually surprised the Mavericks are the projected champions?\u00a0 I did them a disservice by never getting around to writing about their incredible title winning squad from a year ago, particularly the historic performance by their offense.\u00a0 They led the league in all five offensive categories, only falling a stolen base short of achieving the maximum 50 batting points.\u00a0 The only team to ever accomplish that feat was the 2010 Naturals who actually had to share the championship with the Darkhorses that year.\u00a0 The 1994 Cougars also had the max batting points, but it was only 30 at the time with just six teams in the league.\u00a0 By the looks of things, the Mavericks should have a shot at chasing that record again this season.\u00a0 They are projected to finish atop three batting categories and top three in the others.\u00a0 As has been the case for quite some time now, the Mavericks have by far the best outfield in the league.\u00a0 All time great Mike Trout is now quite clearly the fifth best player in this group.\u00a0 Well ahead of him are perennial MVP candidates Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, last year&#8217;s breakout star Jarren Duran and Jazz Chisholm who figures to move out of this crowded outfield back to the dirt next year.\u00a0 If the first weekend of the season is any indication, we&#8217;re going to be talking about Judge in particular an awful lot this year.\u00a0 The infield is only weak in comparison to the outfield, not other teams&#8217; infields.\u00a0 Bobby Witt Jr leads the way at shortstop, a MVP candidate in his own right.\u00a0 Ozzie Albies, Manny Machado and Willy Adames are the other mainstays here.\u00a0 William Contreras may be the best offensive catcher in the game now.\u00a0 He&#8217;s joined behind the plate by newcomer Austin Wells who could be a fantasy stud as well.\u00a0 It is truly an embarrassment of riches up and down the Mavericks lineup.\u00a0 The scary thing for the rest of the league is that the pitching staff looks a decent bit better than last year&#8217;s squad which was already quite good.\u00a0 They used their first two draft picks on starting pitchers with big upside:\u00a0 Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Spencer Schwellenbach.\u00a0 They will join reigning NL Cy Young award winner Chris Sale, Pablo Lopez, Hunter Brown and Freddy Peralta.\u00a0 Not only does this staff have several potential aces, it is also quite deep now.\u00a0 The bullpen is the only spot on the roster where you could maybe make a case they aren&#8217;t elite.\u00a0 Mason Miller is though.\u00a0 In addition to saves, he could put up a strikeout total that more closely resembles that of a starter with twice as many innings thrown.\u00a0 He is the only certain closer on the team though.\u00a0 Liam Hendriks and A.J. Puk are potential wild cards to add on here.\u00a0 In total, the 87 projected standings points are easily the most ever since I&#8217;ve started doing this over a decade ago and the 15 point gap over all other teams is also unprecedented.\u00a0 To say the Mavericks are the team to beat this year is an understatement.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>That brings us to the conclusion of this consolidated 2025 DTBL season preview series.\u00a0 Here are the full projected standings and team point totals for the ten categories:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/e\/2PACX-1vR9jrel_OfU9EV5rzGDYZlKRCjBosYcJeqKNTMF3agp06PHyOE9wet0QayExyyg_FimaAlIzyrTZl3y\/pubhtml?gid=13&amp;single=true&amp;widget=true&amp;headers=false\" width=\"440\" height=\"510\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Good luck to all this season.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s have another great year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images The first weekend of the 2025 MLB season has come to an end.\u00a0 Early indications are the Yankees might torpedo the record book if they keep up their current home run pace.\u00a0 Nothing like an equipment controversy to get the season started! This brings us to the final installment of our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-darkhorses","category-mavericks","category-moonshiners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587","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=1587"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1592,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587\/revisions\/1592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}