It was, by whatever measure you want to use, an absolutely thrilling year of baseball. We had records set. We had great teams do great things. We had the brightest stars shining on the largest stages.
Before we turn the page on a year none of us will ever forget, let’s take a look at the 10 biggest stories in baseball in 2025.
1. The Dodgers win one of the greatest World Series of all time.
Someday, you’re going to be sitting with your kids, or your grandkids, and you’re going to try to explain to them all of the absolutely jaw-dropping events that occurred during the 2025 World Series, and you’re going to sound mildly deranged.
So there was an 18-inning game that ended on a Freddie Freeman home run, a year after he hit a walk-off grand slam in the 2024 World Series … also in that same game Shohei Ohtani got on base nine times … two games later Trey Yesavage struck out a rookie-record 12 batters to put the Blue Jays within one game of a title … then Yoshinobu Yamamoto was incredible and got the Dodgers to a Game 7 via a shocking, game-ending double play in Game 6 … and then THERE WAS GAME 7 and just about everything that could possibly happen in a baseball game happened.
Your theoretical child or grandchild is going to think you have lost your marbles and try to gently put you to bed. But you will know it was true. You know it happened. Right? Right?
2. The Big Dumper breaks record after record.
Before 2025, not only had no switch-hitter ever hit 60 homers in a season, and not only had a catcher also not hit 60 homers, no one had really come all that close. And then came Cal Raleigh. The Mariners catcher had a reputation for being a power hitter coming into the year, as well as a slick defender behind the plate, but no one knew he was capable of this.
Raleigh went nuclear in 2025, hitting 60 homers, driving in 125 runs and leading the Mariners to their first division title in 24 years. He also got just about every baseball broadcaster on the continent to say the words “Big Dumper” at some point. He was a miracle. He was 2025’s signature player. It may forever be his year.
3. Shohei Ohtani has the greatest game ever.
Shohei Ohtani did so many things this year. He won his fourth MVP Award and third in a row. He won his second straight World Series title. He got back to pitching again. (And was great. Again.) He hung out a lot with his dog.
But the signature moment of Ohtani’s season, and maybe even his career, came in the clinching game of the NLCS, when he seriously might have played the best baseball game anyone has ever played. He hit three home runs, only the fourth time that had ever been done in an NLCS game. But then he also struck out 10 Brewers in six scoreless innings. It was like watching a grown man play against third graders.
We’ve never seen anything like it, though knowing Shohei, he’ll do it again sometime. Oh, he also hit 55 homers this year and led his league in slugging for the third straight time. We are not worthy.
4. The Blue Jays have an amazing turnaround and just miss.
I actually felt a little bad talking about that World Series above out of deference to those poor Blue Jays fans, who had their hearts ripped out of their chests. But the cruelty of how that series ended should not distract from how wonderful a season the Blue Jays enjoyed.
After a last-place finish in 2024 that had many Jays fans (and many people around baseball) wondering if they were going to have to break up this roster, the team signed beloved star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to a contract extension shortly after the season began … and took off not long afterward. Next thing you knew, they’d cruised to an AL East title, blitzed the Yankees in the ALDS, won an epic ALCS against the Mariners to reach their first World Series in 22 years and got this close (twice! maybe more than twice!) to winning the World Series.
The Fall Classic was a heartbreaker. But it could not erase all the glory that happened before … and could still happen again.
5. The best team in baseball is … the Brewers?
We shouldn’t have been sleeping on the Brewers. They had won the NL Central two straight years, after all, and they had more than earned the benefit of the doubt. Then again, they’d lost closer Devin Williams, and the Cubs had traded for Kyle Tucker, and no one was sure if Milwaukee had the stars to keep up, and … they couldn’t do it again, could they?
Oh, could they. The Brewers ended up having the best record in baseball, and the best record in franchise history, thanks to timely hitting, clutch pitching, great vibes and contributions from all sorts of guys you’d never heard of before the season, like Caleb Durbin and Isaac Collins and Jake Bauers and Chad Patrick and Abner Uribe and we could go on and on and on.
It ended up stalling out on them in the NLCS, but until then, the Brewers — in the year they, and we, lost Bob Uecker — were the biggest surprise in the sport. I have already heard people doubting them in 2026. Haven’t we all learned that lesson by now?
6. Nick Kurtz shows up and just wrecks everything.
Nick Kurtz was the No. 4 overall pick in the 2024 Draft and a highly regarded prospect for the A’s, so there was considerable excitement when he was called up to West Sacramento in late April. But who in the world saw this coming?
Kurtz turned into a reasonable approximation of Aaron Judge and Ohtani, smashing 36 homers in 117 games, putting up a 1.002 OPS and even playing a not-bad first base. But the true highlight came on July 25, when he had six hits and four homers … and was oh-so-close to becoming the first player ever to hit five homers in a game. He also hit the longest homer of the season, a 493-foot blast.
The best part? He is still only 22. This is going to be happening for a long, long time.
7. Aaron Judge does it again (ho hum).
What could possibly keep the Big Dumper from winning the AL MVP Award in his 60-homer season? Why, Aaron Judge, of course. Nothing Judge does is quiet, but with Raleigh and Ohtani (and Kurtz) stealing headlines, he just went about his business almost stealthily, smashing homer after homer and keeping the Yankees afloat almost entirely by himself.
Judge won the stathead Triple Crown (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage) and played more than 150 games for the second straight season. (Good thing: The Yanks would have been lost without him.) He still doesn’t have that elusive World Series ring, but perhaps being the best right-handed hitter of all time will provide some solace?
8. Two truly dominant Cy Young winners.
A debate could be had as to whether Tarik Skubal’s 2025 AL Cy-winning season was better or “worse” than his 2024 AL Cy-winning season. But that we can even compare the two speaks to how much better Skubal has been than everybody else.
Well: Almost everybody else. The Pirates’ Paul Skenes followed up his NL Rookie of the Year season with a year for the ages, putting up a 1.97 ERA and striking out 216 batters as a 23-year-old pitching a full MLB season for the first time. Skenes has thrown 320 2/3 innings over his first two years in the big leagues and still has a career ERA under 2.00, during a period of offensive resurgence. He, and Skubal, are impossible.
9. Clayton Kershaw goes out on top.
In the grand history of the Dodgers, in both Brooklyn and Los Angeles, Clayton Kershaw is the all-time leader in WAR for the franchise, and his (totally overstated anyway) postseason struggles had been pushed aside with two World Series rings.
10. Fun in both Bristol and Tokyo.
Baseball can be played anywhere, and 2025 had vivid reminders of that from the get-go. The season began with thunderous crowds at Tokyo Dome, with Ohtani and the Dodgers (alongside four of his countrymen: Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki, Shota Imanaga and Seiya Suzuki) taking two games from the Cubs as the series became the single largest standalone international event in MLB history.
And on the other side of the globe, but in no less fascinating a venue, the Reds and Braves traveled to Bristol Motor Speedway in August to play the first AL/NL game in the state of Tennessee. It was a rain-delayed-but-still-fantastic game in front of an all-time-record 91,032 people.
There’s nothing like seeing baseball in a place you’ve never been before … in a place you never imagined you’d be. And next year: The Field of Dreams game returns.
