Power Rankings for week of Sept. 21, 2025

This is, if you can believe it, the final Power Rankings of the regular season with all 30 teams listed. One week from now, we will be down to 12 teams, just a day away from the start of the Wild Card Series. For 18 of these teams, we wonâ€t see them again in the Power Rankings, after this week, until the offseason. Thus, to make sure everybody gets their due, weâ€re going to to look at the best player on each team, the one who, when we look back at this season, will be the player who stands out. Hereâ€s to every teamâ€s MVP. And then we say goodbye to 18 teams … and to the other 12, well, weâ€ll see you next week.

These rankings, as always, are compiled from MLB.com contributors whose names you can find at the bottom of this (and every) piece, but the words are mine. If you dislike the rankings, yell at all of us. But if you dislike the words, feel free to yell at me.

1. Brewers (previously: 1)
Freddy Peralta. The fun of the Brewers this season is that no one player stands too far among all the others. Youâ€ve got so many options to choose from here; it could be anyone as their MVP. Iâ€ll go with the guy who has given them 30-plus starts with a 2.65 ERA.

2. Phillies (previously: 2)
Kyle Schwarber. The Phillies, and the rest of us, have gotten the best possible Kyle Schwarber this year. And donâ€t forget: He hasnâ€t missed a game all season either. Trea Turner has been better than people realize, and Bryce Harper is Bryce Harper, but this has been Kyleâ€s year.

3. Dodgers (previously: 4)
Shohei Ohtani. He leads in just about every offensive category, and now heâ€s pitching again – and getting himself worked into perfect shape for the postseason. (Unlike last year.) What more could we possibly want?

4. Blue Jays (previously: 3)
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. The Blue Jays†2025 WAR leader is, surprisingly, George Springer, but Vlad Jr. is always the center of everything here. The seeds for this season were planted with that contract extension: It has been nothing but happiness ever since.

5. Cubs (previously: 5)
Kyle Tucker. There was a stretch in the first half of the season that you wondered if the Cubs would have three MVP candidates. Big fall-offs from Pete Crow-Armstrong and Seiya Suzuki, along with Tuckerâ€s injury, eliminated that notion, but Tucker still sure feels like heâ€s going to make himself a lot of money this offseason.

6. Mariners (previously: 8)
Cal Raleigh. Aaron Judge may – may – end up winning the MVP, and Shohei Ohtani may end up with more WAR, but when we look back at this season, I bet the one player who comes to mind first is Cal Raleigh.

7. Yankees (previously: 7)
Aaron Judge. Heâ€s a homer away from his fourth 50-homer season, the fourth player to do that, but this season he has actually had a higher batting average, and soon a higher run total, than any other season of his career.

8. Red Sox (previously: 11)
Garrett Crochet. The Red Sox have gotten everything they could have possibly hoped for from Crochet. Not only has he been fantastic, leading the Majors in strikeouts, he has always been durable: He also leads MLB in innings pitched and the AL in batters faced.

9. Guardians (previously: 15)
José Ramírez. Itâ€s another 30-30 season for J-Ram – I am glad this nickname has finally stuck – and itâ€s sure starting to look like the Hall of Fame is in his future. One of these years, theyâ€re going to get hot in the postseason and heâ€ll have a chance to be a full-on legend. Maybe itâ€s this year.

10. Tigers (previously: 6)
Tarik Skubal. Heâ€s not going to win the pitching Triple Crown like he did last year, but his ERA+ is actually about 12 points better: This has probably been the best season of his career.

11. Padres (previously: 10)
Fernando Tatis Jr.. Manny Machado is, as always, the team leader, but Tatis returning to his pre-suspension MVP self is the best possible thing that could happen to the Padres moving forward.

12. Astros (previously: 9)
Hunter Brown. Iâ€ll hear the case for Jeremy Peña here, but Brown has become the pitcher the Astros have long believed he could be. On a team that always seems to have pitching somewhere, heâ€s the best one.

13. Mets (previously: 13)
Juan Soto. The Mets have had a wildly fluctuating season, to say the least. But there hasnâ€t been anything fluctuating about Soto: Heâ€s just doing what Juan Soto does, over and over, like he always has.

14. Reds (previously: 16)
Elly De La Cruz. Andrew Abbott hit a little bit of a skid come late August, dropping him out of this spot, but still: It feels like De La Cruz still is just starting to scratch the surface of what heâ€s capable of.

15. Diamondbacks (previously: 17)
Geraldo Perdomo. Corbin Carroll is fourth in baseball in extra-base hits, but Perdomo has been a revelation. An above average defensive shortstop with a .390 OBP. Those do not grow on trees.

16. Rangers (previously: 12)
Nathan Eovaldi. That his season ended early shouldnâ€t distract from how magical it was. He ended up with a 1.73 ERA! Heâ€s 35 years old!

17. Royals (previously: 18)
Bobby Witt Jr. Witt hasnâ€t quite gotten the attention for his 2025 season that he did for his 2024 season – likely because he didnâ€t just sign a contract extension and because the Royals havenâ€t quite been as good – but he has been, easily, the third-best player in the AL this year. The defense keeps getting better and better, too.

18. Giants (previously: 14)
Logan Webb. This has been just another year for Webb: Itâ€s his fourth straight year of 192 or more innings pitched and an ERA under 3.50. Webb has to be the most underrated pitcher in the sport.

19. Rays (previously: 19)
Junior Caminero. Heâ€s only two homers behind Carlos Peña for the franchise all-time single-season mark (46), and he just turned 22 years old in July.

20. Marlins (previously: 23)
Kyle Stowers. Connor Norby might have been the headliner of the Trevor Rogers trade, but Stowers, before injuries wiped out the last month of their season, has been the Marlins†breakout star. This team is finishing strong in 2025 and will have Stowers back in full effect for 2026.

21. Cardinals (previously: 20)
Masyn Winn. In a year where the Cardinals had troubles getting their young players to step up and establish themselves as big league regulars, Winn was a notable exception. The bat still has a bit to go, but Winn may well be the best fielder in baseball – only a late-season injury dropped him out of the top spot on the Outs Above Average Leaderboard. Heâ€ll be a part of everything the Cardinals are doing for a long time.

22. Aâ€s (previously: 22)
Nick Kurtz. If Kurtz had been up on Opening Day and hitting the way he has hit all season, forget Rookie of the Year: You could have made a serious case for him to be AL MVP. Now you just have to save it for 2026.

23. Braves (previously: 25)
Matt Olson. Drake Baldwin may win NL Rookie of the Year, and Ronald Acuña Jr. is the superstar, but in a rough year, the happiest story might have been Olson getting back to his MVP-level self after a difficult 2024. He might not hit 54 homers again, but he leads the NL in doubles and put up the second highest OBP of his career.

24. Orioles (previously: 21)
Trevor Rogers. Speaking of Trevor Rogers, raise your hand if you saw the Orioles left-hander being the team leader in WAR after his nightmare stint in Baltimore last year and an injury that kept him out until late May. Since then, he has maybe been one of the best five pitchers in baseball. The Orioles could use that again next year.

25. Angels (previously: 24)
Zach Neto. This is probably the second consecutive season Neto has been the best player on the Angels, which says a little about Mike Trout and a lot about the young talent the Angels have compiled on this roster. Both Nolan Schanuel and Jo Adell are right there with Neto … and above Trout.

26. Pirates (previously: 27)
Paul Skenes. This is, uh, not a difficult call. Perhaps just as encouraging as his likely Cy Young-winning season is his willingness to call out the organization, saying he doesnâ€t want this to be a “wasted season.†Skenes may, already, be the Pirates†leader. Will everyone follow?

27. Twins (previously: 26)
Byron Buxton. Obviously things got pretty dark for the Twins after the Trade Deadline, but one unquestioned positive was a (mostly) full season from Buxton, who made his second All-Star team and will end up playing 125 games or so, the second-most he has ever played in his career. This is now two straight years he has played more than 100 games and had an OPS over .859, the only two times he has done that in his career.

28. Nationals (previously: 28)
CJ Abrams. James Wood gets most of the prospect hype, but the strikeouts got so out of control by the end of the year that Abrams, who was a 20-20 shortstop in 2024 and is two homers shy of that mark this season at the age of 24, ended up passing him. The Nationals still need to turn the corner, but when they do, Abrams will be a primary reason why.

29. White Sox (previously: 29)
Kyle Teel. Teel wonâ€t end up reaching 80 games this year, but the 75 or so he has played has shot him to the top of nearly every White Sox statistical leaderboard. (He leads them in WAR, playing less than half a season.) The White Sox have some young exciting position players in Colson Montgomery, Chase Meidroth and Miguel Vargas. But Teel is the best of them.

30. Rockies (previously: 30)
Hunter Goodman. Speaking of catchers, Goodman made his first All-Star team this year, but he was even better in the second half than he was in the first, raising his OPS nearly 30 points. Heâ€s a 30-home run hitter, heâ€s a terrific defensive catcher and heâ€s only 25 years old. The Rockies, quietly, have themselves one of the most valuable commodities in baseball.

Voters: Nathalie Alonso, Jason Catania, Mark Feinsand, Will Leitch, Travis Miller, Brian Murphy, Arturo Pardavila, Andrew Simon, David Venn, Zac Vierra.

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