MLB Power Rankings: Agita reigns, even for the playoff teams, as regular season winds down

The 2025 Major League Baseball season has been the season of the tailspin. We’ve seen so many contending teams going through just absolutely wretched stretches of baseball. The Mets won on Sunday, but before that had lost eight in a row and were getting in danger of falling out of the playoff picture, but they were merely the latest entrant on the collapse train. 

We don’t need to rehash it for each individual team. Every single contender except probably the Brewers has gone through stretches where the fan base probably had that desperate, “we’re never gonna win another game!” feeling. And Brewers fans have been tortured enough in postseason play that I feel pretty confident in saying the following: 

I don’t think we’ve ever had a season where fans of every single contending team will have such a low level of confidence heading into the playoffs. 

Seriously, every single week in Power Rankings, I feel like fans of a handful of contenders are going to yell at me for having their favorite team too high. When does that ever happen? Usually it’s that I’m too low on their favorite team and need to give them more credit. In this bizarro season, fans are lining up to tell me, “hey man, you don’t realize how much they suck.” 

Check New York. There’s no way any Mets fan has faith in the team right now. Ask a Yankees fan how good the Yankees are and you’ll get something back about how they are actually bad and the rest of the teams behind them are extra special terrible. 

How about the reigning champion Dodgers? Their fans are fully ready to accept the gut punch as the bullpen blows the season. We can stay out west, where Padres fans have given up on the season multiple times. How are Astros fans feeling right now? Do you think Mariners fans trust the Mariners? In the playoffs? If they even make it? 

The Tigers fan base cannot possibly have any faith right now. I can speak from experience on the Cubs‘ end. Without looking at the possible playoff matchups, the feeling is, “I guess it’s cool that we’ll make the playoffs, but we won’t win a game.” Of course, right now, the Padres are lined up to visit the Cubs in the Wild Card Series and there’s no way Padres fans think they’re winning at Wrigley. 

On and on we could go. Is any fan base confident heading into the playoffs> My best guess was maybe the Phillies. But I’m sure there are plenty of people in Philly worried about the injuries to Zack Wheeler and Trea Turner and thinking of doom-and-gloom scenarios after last season’s quick exit. 

Even the Brewers are just 14-14 since Aug. 16. 

It’s remarkable, really. The general vibe with this baseball season is basically just, “my team will find a way to fail.” The thing is, when two playoff teams are trying out-fail one another, the potential for fireworks is high. 

Is there chaos on the horizon? I’m ready to embrace it. 

Biggest Movers

Rk	Teams		Chg	Rcrd
1	Brewers	There seems to be an overarching lovefest for the Tampa Bay Rays and how they run a consistently good team despite a shoestring budget. After missing the playoffs again this season, the Rays will have made the postseason five of the last seven years. The Brewers, in the smallest market in baseball, mind you, are headed to the playoffs for the seventh time in the last eight years. That organization deserves more love than the Rays.	—	91-59
2	Phillies	Kyle Schwarber is now up to 52 home runs, having become only the second Phillies player ever to reach 50 in a season. Ryan Howard’s 58 in 2006 is the franchise record. Schwarber’s 127 RBI is also a big number, but don’t worry about the franchise record here because it’s 170 (Chuck Klein, an excellent Immaculate Grid play, in 1930).	—	89-61
3	Blue Jays	George Springer has never hit .300 in a season before. He’s at .303 right now.	1	87-62
4	Cubs	Through struggles from Seiya Suzuki, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Kyle Tucker (and his injury after he finally got hot), Ian Happ has picked up some of the slack. In his last 15 games, he’s hit .362 with five doubles, six homers, 12 RBI and 13 runs.	2	85-64
5	Dodgers	Freddie Freeman leads the league in doubles, again, with 39. He now has 547 career doubles, good for a tie for 34th all time with Manny Ramirez. How high can Freeman climb? Well, he can’t get to Tris Speaker’s record of 792, but 600 seems doable, a benchmark only 18 players have ever hit. Getting to 606 would put him 15th in MLB history.	2	84-65
6	Tigers	It appears they avoided disaster with the Tarik Skubal injury, but there are still a lot of reasons to be concerned about this team heading toward the playoffs.	1	85-65
7	Yankees	I don’t think they’ll win the division, but it isn’t out of the question. The Yankees only play the Twins, Orioles and White Sox the rest of the way.	4	83-66
8	Mariners	The Mariners are white hot! They haven’t lost since Sept. 5. Their first division title since 2001 is within reach.	5	82-68
9	Padres	I know that a lot of people say the batting order doesn’t matter enough to get worked up over it, but I don’t think there’s anything on lineup cards this season more maddening than the Padres continuing to stick with Luis Arráez in the two hole. He’s great at making contact and hitting for a pretty good average (.286), but it’s an empty average with no walks or power. He has a 95 OPS+. That is not a hitter in this era who should be anywhere even close to the two hole.	2	82-68
10	Red Sox	Garrett Crochet has 240 strikeouts. If (when) he gets to 250, he’ll join Pedro Martinez, Chris Sale, Roger Clemens and Smoky Joe Wood as the only Red Sox to ever do so.	2	82-68
11	Rangers	The Rangers had won 16 of 20 before Sunday’s loss. Now they get three games against the Astros.	1	79-71
12	Astros	The Astros have now lost eight of Framber Valdez’s last nine starts. Since the beginning of August, he has a 6.41 ERA.	2	81-69
13	Guardians	The AL Central race has felt like it was over since, what, mid-June? Well, the Guardians are 6 ½ games out and that still seems like it’s impossible, doesn’t it? But consider this: The Guardians face the Tigers six more times. If they sweep those six games? You never know. They’re certainly within “so you’re telling me there’s a chance” range.	4	78-71
14	Mets	They’re still going to make the playoffs (I think?) and then it’s a clean slate. Maybe they’ll upset the Dodgers? (I think I just heard all of Queens burst out laughing when I typed that).	5	77-73
15	Giants	Did they hit a wall? It’s possible. They were probably playing way over their heads. They’ve now lost five of eight.	—	75-74
16	Royals	Last week, I went through every team, trying to guess who the franchise record-holder is for career home runs off the top of my head. I correctly guessed George Brett was the Royals’ leader. Salvador Perez, though, is coming. Perez’s home run on Sunday was his 301st. Brett’s record is 317.	2	75-75
17	Diamondbacks	Through all the bad stuff that has happened this season, not to mention trading two of their biggest bats, the Diamondbacks are just two games out of a playoff spot.	2	75-75
18	Reds	That last wild card spot was sitting right there for the taking and the Reds went into Sacramento and got swept.	2	74-75
19	Rays	Shane Baz has now made 52 career starts. He has a 5.15 ERA this season. He’s 26 years old. The clock is ticking here.	1	73-76
20	Cardinals	The Cardinals went 14-14 in June, 8-16 in July, 13-15 in August and are 5-7 in September. They are still only five games out of a playoff spot. This has been an argument that we have too many playoff teams.	—	73-77
21	Athletics	Rookie Nick Kurtz homered again on Sunday and he’s now slugging .628. The only A’s players in history to slug at least .625 with at least 400 plate appearances are Jimmie Foxx, Mark McGwire, Al Simmons, Jason Giambi and Nap Lajoie. What a season for the kid.	1	70-80
22	Orioles	Coby Mayo has homered in back-to-back games. If he can close the season strong, maybe he’s in line for a breakout season in 2026?	1	69-80
23	Marlins	The Marlins could have a very good rotation next season if things break right. Will Sandy Alcantara be a part of it? He has a 2.48 ERA in his last six starts. Part of me wonders if maybe the Marlins would be better off just trading him after a strong finish. They’ll have enough depth to shed him.	1	70-80
24	Angels	Just a reminder that Anthony Rendon is due $38,571,429 next season. It is finally the last year of the contract, so there’s that.	1	69-81
25	Braves	Good sign for next year: Ozzie Albies has been a lot more like his old self here in the second half, particularly the last month or so.	—	66-83
26	Nationals	The Nats closed August with an eight-game losing streak. They are 9-4 in September. Oh, baseball, you fickle mistress.	1	62-87
27	Pirates	Here’s a decent illustration of how bad the offense is: Bryan Reynolds hits third. He’s batting .242/.310/.398 this season.	1	65-85
28	White Sox	I’ve always said there can be successes in awful seasons. For the White Sox, they’ve had a few really good things. Included would be the emergence of catcher Kyle Teel, who is having a very nice rookie season and looks like he can be a part of the future nucleus.	—	57-93
29	Twins	The Twins have the worst record in baseball since the All-Star break.	—	65-84
30	Rockies	They can “catch” last year’s White Sox if they lose out. I don’t think it’ll happen. Even as bad as the Rockies are, they haven’t lost more than eight straight games all season.	—	41-109