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INSTEAD OF A bank vault or a Brink’s truck, the betting slips from what could be the largest payout in sports gambling history are being guarded by nothing more than an old, tattered Houston Astros backpack. On a recent Tuesday afternoon in Houston, with the MLB playoffs about to begin, the faded blue nylon bag — its contents worth potentially millions — sits on the floor of the massive Gallery Furniture showroom, just within arm’s reach of its owner: the Houston furniture magnate and Astros superfan Jim McIngvale, better known around these parts and in the world of high-stakes sports gambling as “Mattress Mack.”

Lanky and seemingly equal parts ears, teeth, cowboy boots and charisma, McIngvale has been a household name in Houston for decades thanks to his wacky TV commercials and his Ross Perot delivery. “I just have what you might call a high tolerance for risk,” McIngvale says. “Damon Runyon said ‘All horse players die broke.’ And I know I shouldn’t bet with my heart, but it’s hard not to and it’s a lot more fun.” In 2017, McIngvale gained national notoriety for opening his doors and sheltering hundreds of victims of Hurricane Harvey for weeks inside his furniture showroom, something he also did after Hurricane Katrina years prior. After the storm, as the Astros continued their historic run to the 2017 World Series, McIngvale was in the news yet again, this time for an only-in-Texas furniture promotion through which anyone who bought a mattress from Gallery Furniture would get it for free if the Astros won it all.

In a rather ingenious move at the dawn of the legal sports gambling era, McIngvale hedged his potential business losses by placing seven-figure bets on the Astros. Good thing. He ended up having to refund more than $10 million worth of mattresses. “We take large wagers from sports bettors of all stripes, but I’m not sure anyone does it with as much panache as Mack,” says Ken Fuchs, head of sports at Caesars Entertainment. “That’s why I bring in [Hall of Fame baseball owner and promoter] Bill Veeck as the only comparison with Mack. He’s never afraid to make a statement or take a risk and, clearly, he has fun doing it.”

By the end of the 2017 MLB season, McIngvale was such a Houston institution the Astros brought him along as one of their own for the trip to the White House. “We invited Mack because he had become such an example of everything the Astros and Houston had been through together in that year,” says Anita Sehgal, the Astros’ senior vice president of marketing and communications. “Houstonians have watched him build his life in Houston while giving back every step of the way. That’s why they have a special love for him. For Mack it’s not about words, it’s about action.”

In more ways than one.

Now, five years later, with the Astros poised to face the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series, McIngvale’s original furniture promotion — and the epic sports bets behind it — have quintupled in size to what is about to be a record-breaking $75 million World Series squeeze play. By the start of the Fall Classic on Friday, McIngvale says he’ll have around $10 million (at an average 7.5-to-1 odds) riding on the Astros. In other words, the exact kind of nerve-frying, death-defying stakes Mattress Mack, 71, has been drawing aces his whole life.

On the eve of the MLB postseason, we spent time with McIngvale for a look behind the scenes at the remarkable life and times of Mattress Mack and the moments during the past four decades that led him to take such a big swing on his hometown team.

“I just get bored to death with stability, which is why I guess I like all of these big bets,” he shrugs, even as he faces the culmination of all his business success, sports-gambling excess and Astros madness. “I thrive on chaos.”

If that’s true, with an entire furniture fortune now riding on the Astros, McIngvale is about to have the time of his life.

IT’S JUST AFTER noon inside the bustling, 110,000-square-foot original Gallery Furniture showroom on the north side of Houston, and McIngvale is where he always is and where he hopes to remain “until I die” — behind the front desk, noshing on an orange and taking customer service calls. While McIngvale, who is worth an estimated $300 million, checks on the delivery status of a bedroom set, visitors wander through the property, a mesmerizing wonderland of furniture, kitsch, memorabilia and community outreach.

The football field-sized warehouse out back is stuffed with mattresses in anticipation of another Astros title. On the north side of the building is a daycare funded by McIngvale. To the south, a trade school. (The saying around here is that since the hurricane this location has become a community center disguised as a furniture showroom.) One 360-degree panorama near the entrance includes, I swear, the customized Texas A&M presidential motor scooter that belonged to George H.W. Bush, four stuffed raccoons playing poker on top of a bar, a glass showcase overflowing with humanitarian awards, a 30-foot nutcracker doll next to a similarly ginormous Christmas tree, a series of paintings of steers relaxing on sofas, a framed excerpt from Thomas Paine’s 1776 “Common Sense,” a 5-foot wooden fish carved from a tree stump and painted like the Texas flag, a six-piece leather, reclining living room set (last one, as is — no returns), a giant slab from a 513-year-old African Bubinga tree, a signed poster from the Chuck Norris movie “Sidekicks” and an ornately framed oil painting portrait of McIngvale’s north star, his father, George Sr.

In the 1960s Jim was a prep football standout at Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas, a school his father helped found. (Jim claims his junior high coach, Bob Barrett, was among the group of officers who arrested Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas Theatre.) A few years later when a former high school teammate of McIngvale’s didn’t have the money or the means to get back to college, George McIngvale put him in his car and drove him 2,000 miles back to Dartmouth. “My father was a giver, even when he didn’t have money to give, so he died without a lot, but he died very happy,” McIngvale says. “And that spontaneity, that taking care of people, that, maybe not a lot of thinking, but more just ‘ready-fire-aim’ approach to life? That’s where it comes from.”

EVEN THOUGH McINGVALE was a member of the legendary 1969 and 1970 Texas Longhorns football teams that won 30 straight games and back-to-back national titles, you can tell the overall importance of this experience in his life by where the Longhorns team photo is displayed inside Gallery Furniture: right above the customer restrooms. “I was a great football player, I just had two small problems,” McIngvale says. “I was too small and I was too slow.” Spending all that time on the sidelines, however, McIngvale became close with another major influence in his life, Frank Medina, the Longhorns trainer from 1945 to 1978. “He was all of 4-foot-10, but he was a fireball,” McIngvale says. “He’d get right up in your face and scream ‘What are you saving it for, son? Is that all you got?’ And he taught me this line: ‘Ask, take and give no quarter.’ In other words: Never give up and never ask for anything. Do it yourself.”

Before he started selling furniture, McIngvale was a “broke failure” living at home in Dallas, trying to keep the lights on at his first business, a fitness center. Around 1978, hoping to sell some gym memberships, he attended “Muhammad Ali Appreciation Day” at Market Hall in Dallas. Late in Ali’s career, in between fights, the three-time heavyweight champ cashed in on his popularity with barnstorming-type “exhibitions” where he’d spar with local heavyweights and sign autographs for fans. After quickly dispatching a handful of local heavyweight hopefuls, Ali, always the showman, grabbed the ring announcer’s microphone and taunted the crowd: “Any y’all want to fight?”

Only one hand went up.

It was McIngvale’s.

“OK, come on up here then, Great White Hope,” Ali yelled.

Inside the ring, as a trainer laced up McIngvale’s gloves, Ali leaned in and told McIngvale the plan for the spectacle. After sparring for a round, Ali would drop his guard and McIngvale would seemingly knock his lights out, then stand over Ali and taunt the fallen champ. McIngvale did exactly as Ali told him, and when the crowd turned on McIngvale, Ali miraculously sprang back to life, grabbed the mic and confessed to choreographing the entire stunt.

And not a second too soon.

“People in the crowd were already asking my friends, ‘Hey, are you with him?’ And they were like, ‘Uh, no, no, we’re not with him,'” McIngvale says.

McIngvale’s wife, Linda, was with him at the event. “It just showed what a great personality Ali had, and of course Mack loved that side of Ali. [Ali] was obviously the greatest boxer of all time, but what Mack also loved was he was also the greatest promoter of all time, too.”

Says McIngvale, “I just seem to stumble into these things. I’m not shy, and I have a high tolerance for risk. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

“It’s like when you lose a million-dollar bet, you just say, ‘What’s next?’ That’s all you can do. But I do know we sold a lot of gym memberships that day.”

AFTER GALLERY FURNITURE opened in 1981, a Texas oil bust forced Houstonians to tighten their belts and threatened to bankrupt McIngvale. Down to his last $10,000, McIngvale spent half on inventory and half on a TV commercial shoot. After three hours in front of the camera, though, he had nothing on tape he could use. “I was stuttering and stammering and down to my last take,” McIngvale says. “I had the day’s receipts in my back pocket, so I pulled those out and waved them around and said ‘Gallery Furniture will save you … MONEEEY!’ The producer said, ‘That’s it, that’s the commercial.’ And it stuck.” The over-the-top spots started airing late at night on Channel 39 in Texas, where McIngvale enjoyed a long association with Houston Wrestling and WWE Hall of Fame announcer Paul Boesch.

Mattress Mack was born.

Combined with McIngvale’s longtime association with the Astros, it’s a character who immediately draws comparisons to legendary MLB owner and promoter Bill Veeck, the man who, in 1979, gave us Disco Demolition Night. “Someone who bets big and bets with his heart, with a colorful personality,” Fuchs says. “Like Veeck, Mack thinks about ideas in such a large way, but he’s able to act on them and execute them.”

McIngvale’s catch phrase has been flooding the Houston airwaves nonstop since the 1980s. (He has screamed it while wearing a mattress, while nearly being trampled by livestock, while fighting Chuck Norris, tumbling with Olympians, arm wrestling comedian Joe Piscopo and posing next to pretty much every B-level celeb in Texas.) Mattress Mack has become a part of the community’s subconscious. McIngvale says he recently walked past an autistic teenager shopping for furniture with his parents, and the normally nonverbal child said, “Hiya, Mack!” His mother burst into tears.

“I’ve always been bombastic and wanted to be a big promoter like W.C. Fields or Bill Veeck,” McIngvale says. “That’s what I’ve always dreamed of being, and now I’m getting to live it out.”

McINGVALE’S APPETITE FOR sports gambling started in 2006 when he says he won $250,000 on Texas and Vince Young in the national championship game. But it was two die-hard Peyton Manning fans who helped him develop the idea to hedge his furniture promos with massive sports wagers. Well, kind of. In 2014, before the Broncos played the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLVIII, two employees convinced McIngvale there was no way on Earth that their boy Peyton would ever lose to the lowly Seahawks. So — ready, fire, aim! — McIngvale announced that if the Seahawks somehow beat Manning everyone would get their furniture for free. “I didn’t hedge anything on this at all,” he says, “and it really got away from me in the last three or four days.”

By Saturday, Gallery Furniture had sold every mattress, every sofa, every ottoman and every last lamp in stock. “The damnedest promotion we ever had,” McIngvale says. “On Saturday night at 7 o’clock I’m standing on top of the desk at the front of the store screaming at the people that they have to go home now, we have no more furniture. It. Was. Unbelievable. We sold every last stick of furniture we had. Never happened in our history before.”

McIngvale knew he was on to something. He was ecstatic. Right up until he did the math just before kickoff.

“I hadn’t told my wife or anyone else about this, but we were on the hook for a whole lot if Seattle won,” he says.

Far too nervous to watch the game, McIngvale ran on the treadmill in the exercise room at the back of his warehouse for three hours. (He doesn’t have a TV at home.) When the two Peyton Manning fans were nowhere to be found, McIngvale knew he was screwed. All he could do then was wait for the postgame call every gambler dreads. “The phone rang at the end of the game, I picked it up and I said, ‘Who won?’ and my wife says ‘Seattle won you big dummy, how much money did we lose?’ And I just spit it out: ‘Nine million. We’re out nine million,'” McIngvale recalls. (McIngvale has run this story through the Mattress Mack Filter in recent years. An ESPN story from 2014 says he actually lost $7 million.) “Let’s just say, yeah, she wasn’t a happy camper. That’s when I realized I needed to find a way to hedge this stuff somehow.”

In 2017, a day after Hurricane Harvey decimated Houston, Gallery Furniture inventory control manager Anthony Lebedzinski arrived at the showroom where, he says, McIngvale was already handing out keys to the company’s fleet of delivery trucks to any able-bodied adult willing to help rescue people from the floodwaters. Later that day while trying to reach a trapped family, Lebedzinski nearly drowned when he was sucked into the filthy floodwater by an open manhole cover. “He was halfway to Galveston Bay before he saved himself,” McIngvale says. Daring rescues like Lebedzinski’s continued for days until there were hundreds of families not just sheltering but living inside McIngvale’s pristine showroom. “Mack’s always first, first in the water, first to open his doors, first to help,” says Houston schoolteacher and Astros fan Deirdre Ricketts. “All Houstonians have big hearts, but Mack’s might be the biggest.”

“People asked, ‘How can you let them sleep on the brand-new furniture like that?'” McIngvale says. “What am I going to do, let them all drown? So that was it. To me, it was nothing. It was the right thing to do. And I wanted my kids to see me doing that. At the end of the day we’re all going to be judged by our creator, and he isn’t going to ask how much money we made. Instead, he or she will ask us how much of a difference did you make?”

McIngvale’s immediate, large-scale, open-arms policy set the tone and created a path forward in the terrifying, chaotic and critical early days of the city’s recovery. It was the best of Houston, Sehgal says, the way people took McIngvale’s example and ran with it, coming together across the board to help each other.

One of the temporary residents pulled out of the floodwaters and fed, clothed and sheltered at Gallery Furniture for several days was Khanh Doan, 31. At a recent home Astros game, Doan finally got to thank McIngvale in person.

For saving his life?

“No,” he says.

“For saving my life, my mother’s life and my father’s life.”

During the past decade McIngvale has also helped raise $12 million for tsunami relief, he delivered 25,000 care packages to seniors during the COVID pandemic and he opened his showroom again during last year’s winter storm and power outages. In August when the team from nearby Pearland, Texas, made it to the Little League World Series, McIngvale and the Astros raised money to send the players’ families to Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

“Mack’s always the first to step up for anything that’s impacting Houston,” Sehgal says. “Big or small.”

IF YOU REALLY want to catch a glimpse of McIngvale’s electric Mattress Mack alter ego, don’t ask about Texas football, his Elvis memorabilia collection or even his weakness for racehorses and Ferraris. Instead, ask about his life’s masterpiece: The Promotion. By combining all of his passions — furniture sales, community, sports, gambling and Texas-sized spectacle — McIngvale has achieved a kind of gambler’s nirvana by finding a way to bet millions upon millions on his beloved Astros and other teams without ever really “losing” a cent, all while pushing his brand equity through the roof.

Here’s how it works: It starts with picking underdogs and getting favorable odds. Because, without the futures aspect, none of the math works. For example, this season McIngvale’s initial $3 million bet at Caesars for the Astros to win it all at +1000 covered him for the first $30 million in potential furniture refunds. Next, McIngvale makes the grand announcement, which is some variation of: Spend $3,000 or more on a mattress and accept delivery within 24 hours, and if the Astros go on to win it all, your purchase is free. Then, the more furniture he sells through the promotion, the more McIngvale bets on the Astros, whose line has moved from 10-to-1 to 8-to-1 to 4-to-1 to their current status as World Series favorites.

Fuchs says McIngvale’s idea to use sports gambling as a business hedge is a different angle than anyone has ever seen before. “He’s laying off the risk with these wagers, covering one big loss with one big win,” adds Patrick Everson, senior reporter for Vegas Insider. “It’s kind of a genius business move, really. And, clearly, he’s got the money to lose. He’s not losing any sleep at all.”

What McIngvale really understands better than gambling, furniture or promotion, though, is human nature. Even the slightest chance to get something for free is practically irresistible to most consumers, especially those already on the fence about needing a new mattress. The more sales increase, the more McIngvale gets to do the thing he loves most: bask in the attention and fly off to Vegas to place ridiculously large bets, sometimes with a briefcase full of cash. “It’s just like in the movies, the briefcase gets its own seat on the plane,” says Gallery’s Gerald McNeil, a former Pro Bowl returner with the Browns in the 1980s who now works with McIngvale. After the first few spur-of-the-moment trips to Vegas with McIngvale, McNeil started keeping a change of clothes in his car at work. “I guess it’s my job to save the suitcase if the plane goes down,” McNeil says.

Sports gambling is still illegal in Texas, so when he doesn’t feel like jetting to Vegas, McIngvale will simply drive roughly 125 miles east until the betting app on his phone pings to let him know he’s in Louisiana and free to drop another million or five. On the eve of the past Super Bowl, outside a rest stop in Vinton, Louisiana (and on live TV, of course — this is Mattress Mack after all), McIngvale dropped $5 million on the Cincinnati Bengals, the largest Super Bowl bet in history. And this summer, as the Astros caught fire and the promotion exploded — until July, McIngvale was refunding double the customer’s money on mattresses and furniture — McIngvale flew to sportsbooks in Iowa and Vegas to bet another $4 million in a single night.

“I sweat these games because of these promotions and it is so much anxiety,” McIngvale’s wife, Linda, says. “I don’t know how he doesn’t get anxious about it. I think he does and pretends like he doesn’t.”

“My wife says I have a gambling problem,” McIngvale says. “I say I have a promotion problem.”

They’re both probably right.

If the chosen team happens to win, great, McIngvale’s losses are covered, thousands of ecstatic customers blab for years to everyone they know about that time they won the lottery at Gallery Furniture, and many of them turn around and spend the refund on more furniture.

After the Astros won it all in 2017, McIngvale got to live out every gambler’s dream, flying home from Vegas with that raggedy old Astros backpack of his stuffed with almost 50 pounds of the sportsbooks’ money.

If the team loses, well, that’s when McIngvale really wins. For example, last season McIngvale “lost” his $3.35 million wager when the Braves beat the Astros in the World Series. McIngvale pulled out all the stops for that bet, trying to appeal to a higher power by packing a suite at Minute Maid Park with nuns from the Dominican Sisters of Mary Immaculate Province. The sisters became known as the “Rally Nuns” until a 7-0 loss at home to the Braves in a godforsaken Game 6.

It wasn’t quite as soul-shattering a defeat as you’d imagine for McIngvale, though. The odds on that bet covered McIngvale for more than $35 million in freebies. So, assuming the promotion brought in around $30 million in sales (during the fall, no less, which is typically a slow time in the furniture biz), at even a 40% markup, minus his wager, McIngvale confirms that he still came away with a cool profit, probably somewhere close to $9 million. And that’s not even counting the value of all the free advertising, promotion and goodwill that McIngvale says is “exponential,” or the fact that, according to TurboTax, itemized gambling losses can be tax deductible.

“Oh, it’s definitely a win-win,” McIngvale says. “These promotions just bring the brand to life and give us a ton of brand equity that we wouldn’t have otherwise. The customers love it so they’re totally engaged and talk about it for years. Because it runs all season long it probably ups the number of people following the Astros, too, because now they have a real vested interest in the team.”

WHEN McINGVALE WAS a panelist at a gambling conference and trade show in New Jersey this summer, Everson says he heard minor grumblings from bettors about the whole Mattress Mack phenomenon. Mainly, that it’s unfair how McIngvale is allowed to place multimillion-dollar bets while sportsbooks strictly limit what the average person can wager. Besides sounding a lot like airline passengers who blame the awful conditions in economy on the people flying first class, this really is an issue with sportsbooks policy, not McIngvale. One sports gambling industry insider said the reason sportsbooks love McIngvale so much and allow him to keep betting bigger and bigger amounts is all the free promotion they get out of it, and the fact that, well, he’s kinda terrible at it.

During a brutal losing streak in 2022, McIngvale dropped $15.4 million on the Patriots, the Titans, the Bengals and Alabama. He was about to be out another cool $5.5 million in the NCAA tournament until Kansas came back from 16 down at the half to defeat North Carolina. Just before the tip, McIngvale sneaked off to Louisiana to bet another $1 million on Kansas at -190. The wager broke all his rules about taking only underdogs and not gambling with his heart. “Stupid bet,” he says. “I see all these kids when I go to Vegas and it’s the weirdest thing because they all know me from gambling. People think I’m a great handicapper but I’m really not.”

After March Madness, McIngvale brought Jayhawks coach Bill Self into the store for the first day of the $14 million giveaway party. “First customers, a big family, comes up to say thanks to Self and I asked them, ‘How much did y’all win?'” McIngvale says, placing his hand on his forehead. “Sixty-four thousand. Sixty. Four. Thousand. It about knocked me over.”

Another reason the books love McIngvale is what Vegas Insider calls the Mattress Mack effect. McIngvale’s huge wagers on the Astros actually help defray the sportsbooks’ liability on more popular teams like the Yankees and Dodgers, teams that would normally be a loss for casinos. For the record, McIngvale doesn’t like the idea of limits, either. “I think they ought to take bigger bets,” he says. “It’s like if some customer comes in here and wants to spend a million dollars. Well? Knock yourself out. What difference does it make? Yes, the sportsbooks have to hedge it the other way, but they ought to have enough savvy to do that. They’re going to take some big losses, but they’re also going to get some big wins too if they have the numbers right.”

That math will continue to keep people like Fuchs up at night until the Astros are eliminated or sports gambling history is made. Although it’s clear he gets a kick out Mattress Mack, and the promotional mileage of his big bets, Fuchs stops short of rooting for the Astros. “It will be a lot of fun to be on this roller coaster as they progress through the postseason,” he says. “That’s the beauty of Mack’s hedge. It works out for everybody. Well, unless we lose $30 million.”

IN THE END, few things can capture the inexplicable phenomenon that is Mattress Mack better than McIngvale’s Astros game attire. About an hour before the Astros faced the Diamondbacks on Sept. 27, McIngvale shuffled into the mezzanine level of Minute Maid Park by himself, sporting his signature look: well-worn black cowboy boots, a slightly askew orange-billed Astros cap, blue business slacks and an authentic Alex Bregman home white Astros jersey over a white button-down oxford, covered in a galaxy of black dots from the Sharpie McIngvale uses to take notes and sign autographs. McIngvale always completes this ensemble with the single most egregious sports-fashion crime of them all: tucking his game jersey into his pants.

And yet, somehow, on him it works.

Apparently, $70 million in free furniture as an accent piece will do that for an outfit. McIngvale promises that number will keep climbing as long the Astros keep winning, the odds remain favorable and the sportsbooks keep taking his bets. McIngvale is close to several of the Astros, especially Bregman, who shares his passion for racehorses, and he insists the players get a kick out of his promotions and don’t feel the least bit of pressure to help remodel the living rooms of half of Houston.

“This year he’s done it right, and if the Astros win it all it’s so exciting for him and the customers,” Linda McIngvale says. “Mack has this huge connection to the team now, and he loves doing this. … The man works really hard so, you know, it’s all good.”

Mobbed by fans the second he steps into the park, it takes McIngvale an hour to walk along the mezzanine from home plate to right field. And when he does finally reach his seat about 10 rows behind the Houston dugout, Section 122 erupts in a wave of applause. The Astros’ response to McIngvale’s arrival is even more dramatic: three homers in four at-bats to blow the game open in the sixth. “He’s an icon, I love him, he’s Mack to me, not Jim McIngvale,” says Sehgal, the Astros SVP. “He’s just an authentic fan with a really big heart, the kind of person you can’t see without it putting a smile on your face.”

Outside of Houston, McIngvale has quickly become an irresistible storyline as a quirky curiosity in the burgeoning world of mega-sports gambling. Inside this city, though, he remains something completely different and far more impactful. For three straight hours inside Minute Maid Park, fans beam when they recognize Mattress Mack. Some yell out “Legend!” and keep walking to their seats. Others repeat his quirky catch phrase or reveal exactly how much free furniture they won in 2017. A little girl asks him if he’s a ballplayer. A few fans bend his ear for gambling advice on the Texans and Oklahoma State. But the vast majority of people who stop do so to offer some heartfelt variation of the same message: “Thank you for everything you’ve done for this city the last 40 years. Go Stros! Let’s get those free mattresses!”

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The All-Stars who are halfway to history in 2025

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July 15, 2025

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The All-Stars who are halfway to history in 2025

Jul 15, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

This year, the MLB All-Star Game isn’t just a collection of the game’s biggest stars, but a glimpse at baseball history in the making.

The 2025 Midsummer Classic marks the unofficial midway point of some of the greatest seasons the sport has ever seen.

Will Home Run Derby champion Cal Raleigh — aka the Big Dumper — set a new standard for slugging catchers? Will Shohei Ohtani score more runs in a season than any living person has ever seen? Will Aaron Judge … top Aaron Judge?

As Major League Baseball’s best convene in Atlanta, Bradford Doolittle and David Schoenfield break down 11 players who are halfway to history. For each player, ESPN MLB reporters Jorge Castillo and Jesse Rogers asked one of their fellow All-Stars to weigh in on their accomplishments, as they get set to take the field together at Truist Park.

Cal Raleigh: Greatest season for a catcher — ever

The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Well, we can add Home Run Derby champion to the list after Raleigh’s impressive showing Monday night. With 38 home runs through 96 team games, Raleigh is on pace for 64, which would break Judge’s American League record of 62 set in 2022. That’s the big one. There are a whole bunch of other records in play: most home runs by a switch hitter (Mickey Mantle, 54); most home runs by a primary catcher (Salvador Perez, 48); most multihomer games in a season (Raleigh has eight, the record is 11); and even highest catcher WAR in a season (Mike Piazza with 8.7 bWAR, Raleigh is on pace for 8.4; Buster Posey with 9.8 fWAR, Raleigh is on pace for 10.4). In other words, he could have the greatest season ever for a catcher.

How he’s doing it: Raleigh has always been better against right-handed pitching, but he has been absolutely crushing lefties in 2025, hitting .337/.385/.861 with 16 home runs in only 101 at-bats. Overall, he also has been much better against velocity. From 2022 to 2024, he slugged .418 against pitches 93 mph or faster; this year, he’s slugging .664. — Schoenfield

An All-Star’s take: “It’s wild. I mean, he’s having a crazy year and it’s awesome that he’s doing it from behind the plate. And what he’s doing is unbelievable. It’s hard to describe. It’s amazing to see.” — Colorado Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman

Aaron Judge: Most total bases since the Great Depression

The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Judge closed out the first half with a quiet day against the Chicago Cubs but is still on pace to record 435 total bases this season. You could pick any one of a dozen categories in which Judge is on a historic pace, but this simple old-school measure will do just fine. The record is held by Babe Ruth (457 in 1921), so Judge would have to somehow pick up the pace to surpass that. But 435 would still be epic. The last player to reach that number was Jimmie Foxx in 1932.

How he’s doing it: Judge has become more aggressive at the plate without sacrificing contact or power. But it’s not only ball-in-play volume: He’s hitting an incredible .425 when getting the bat on the ball, which fuels his MLB-leading .355 batting average. That BABIP would be the third-highest ever if Judge maintained it, which obviously affects the total bases column. So too does Judge’s intentional walks pace (41). He’d be only the fourth player to top 40. — Doolittle

An All-Star’s take: “He started off hot this year, which normally in years past, he doesn’t start off hot like he did this year. And now you see it. He always finishes strong. I mean, I don’t know what he ends up with. Hopefully he hits like 70 homers. That’d be sick.” — New York Yankees left-hander Carlos Rodon

Shohei Ohtani: One run scored for every game

The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Although his pace has slowed a bit the past couple of weeks, Ohtani has scored 89 runs in 94 games, giving him a chance at a run scored per game. Ohtani had been on pace for 160 runs, which only Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig have done since 1900. He’s still on pace for 150 runs, which only Ted Williams and Jeff Bagwell have done since World War II. The last player with more runs scored than games played, with at least 100 games played: Rickey Henderson in 1985 (146 runs in 143 games). If that’s not enough to impress you, there is the chance for a second straight 50-homer season and a fourth career MVP award. If the latter happens, he’ll join Barry Bonds as the only player with more than three MVP awards.

How he’s doing it: It helps to be a leadoff man with power, as Ohtani leads the National League in both plate appearances and home runs. The first three months, Ohtani also had a great trio hitting behind him in Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith, but his runs scored pace has dropped off in July as he has hit just .175, and Betts and Freeman have also slumped. — Schoenfield

An All-Star’s take: “As his teammate and fellow competitor, to see what he does on both sides of the field, it’s incredible. How much power he has as a hitter. He’s got 30-plus homers already at the break. He’s hitting .300 or whatever. And, yeah, he’s going out there on the mound and throwing 102, striking out the side. And these are his rehab games. He’s not even all the way back yet, full-go yet. It’s incredible to watch. Fortunately, I get to see all the work he puts in every day, which is really cool. It’s really special what he’s doing.” — Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Will Smith

Paul Skenes: Two sub-2.00 ERA seasons before turning 25

The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Skenes’ ERA at the break is an NL-best 2.01. His career mark is 1.98 over 43 starts. There is all kinds of history around this level of stifling run prevention. As it stands, Skenes joins Ed Walsh, Addie Joss and Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown with at least 40 starts and a sub-2.00 career ERA in the AL or NL. If Skenes drops his 2025 number below 2.00, he’d be the 31st pitcher to have two or more sub-2.00 ERA seasons of at least 20 starts. Only two of those pitchers did it by age 23: Walter Johnson and Ed Reulbach, both more than 100 years ago.

How he’s doing it: Skenes’ strikeout rate (9.7 per nine innings) is down 1.8 from last year. Yet his FIP (an NL-best 2.41) is actually better because of his league-best homer rate (0.4 per nine innings). Simply put, Skenes is learning how to manage the pure dominance of his arsenal, revving it up when needed. Skenes is not exactly pitching to contact — his stuff is just too good to not miss a lot of bats — but his pitch efficiency is better, and that’s getting him deeper into games. His style has evolved, but one big thing has remained steady: Nobody can score off him. — Doolittle

An All-Star’s take: “Obviously, the first thing that stands out is his stuff, right? And the second thing you look at is the composure. He’s kind of new to the league and just from watching some of his preparation, his composure on the mound, I feel like that’s what makes him successful. He started to add a couple of new pitches to his arsenal and it’s going to make him tougher. He’s got the military background, so I think that’s where he gets a lot of his discipline and everything from. He’s challenging, but it is fun to compete against him.” — St. Louis Cardinals infielder Brendan Donovan

Tarik Skubal: Top five strikeout-to-walk season of all time

The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Skubal has struck out 9.56 batters for every one he has walked. Only four qualifying pitchers have ever done better: Phil Hughes (11.63, 2014), Bret Saberhagen (11.00, 1994), Cliff Lee (10.28, 2010) and Curt Schilling (9.58, 2002). The leaderboard is dominated by wild-card era pitchers, with its heightened whiff rates. But according to FanGraphs’ plus-statistics, which compare numbers to league averages, Skubal’s index of 368 ranks 18th all time. His mastery works in any era.

How he’s doing it: Skubal has already had two games this season in which he has struck out 13 batters on fewer than 100 pitches. Simply put, his command keeps him in the zone more than any qualifying pitcher (49.7%, per FanGraphs). But it also allows him to pitch outside of it on his terms. To wit: Skubal also leads the majors in inducing swings on pitches out of the zone (37.2%). It’s a lethal combination. — Doolittle

An All-Star’s take: “Even on game days, he’s working before the game like he’s not pitching that day. Even on the off days, he’s at the field doing something. He does a whole routine. I faced him in spring training and was looking for one pitch — when that pitch came, I didn’t hit it. He knows what hitters are looking for.” — Detroit Tigers outfielder Javier Baez

The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Before the 2023 season, there had been only four 40-homer/40-steal seasons in big league history, and the 40/50 club was memberless. Now Crow-Armstrong is on a 42-homer, 46-steal pace at the break. He could join Ronald Acuna Jr. (41 homers, 73 steals in 2023) and Shohei Ohtani (54 homers, 59 steals last season) in one or both clubs, giving us a three-year run of expanding membership. This one would be the most stunning of all. PCA entered the season with 10 homers, 29 steals and an 83 OPS+ in his career. His rise has been flat-out stunning.

How he’s doing it: The steals part of Crow-Armstrong’s game was already there, though he’s picked up the pace in 2025, already matching his 27 steals from last season. Any time he reaches safely, he’s a threat to take an extra base. That is unless he’s trotting around the bags after mashing yet another homer. Crow-Armstrong is hitting the ball harder more often, getting more balls in the air and pulling it more frequently. All of this could explain an isolated power uptick, but nothing really can explain the degree to which PCA has lifted off. — Doolittle

An All-Star’s take: “He’s a much better defender than me. He has a much better arm. He’s a really complete player. I don’t think I would have guessed he would have the power numbers he’s showing this year, but I guess people would have said that about me too. His ability to pull the ball in the air has been the difference for him, I think. He hits the ball so hard, all over the stadium.” — Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Corbin Carroll

Junior Caminero: 40 home runs in age-21 season

The most impressive thing he could accomplish: In his first full season in the majors, Caminero enters the All-Star break with 23 home runs in the 97 games the Tampa Bay Rays have played, giving him a season pace of 38. Though he turned 22 earlier this month, Caminero is in his age-21 season, so he can join Eddie Mathews (47 in 1953) and Ronald Acuna Jr. (41 in 2019) as the only players to reach 40 home runs at that age.

How he’s doing it: Caminero has the second-quickest bat in the majors via Statcast’s bat tracking measurements and he uses that bat speed to punish fastballs. He’s slugging .692 against four-seam fastballs — and .793 against four-seam fastballs 95-plus mph. He has received some help from the Rays’ temporary home stadium, George Steinbrenner Field, hitting .316 with 14 home runs at home. That’s worth noting as the Rays will have a road-heavy schedule through the end of August. — Schoenfield

An All-Star’s take: “He’s a special talent. I mean, his bat speed’s insane. I saw him in spring training [with the Rays], basically, but, yeah, he’s a special talent. Hard-working kid. I’m excited to watch him. They’re mature at-bats. He came up, I was hurt during the playoffs in ’23, and I thought he had some of the most mature, calm at-bats I’d seen for a young kid. Especially to come up in the playoffs, he didn’t let the situation get too big. I think he’s going to be here for a long time, a lot of years.” — San Diego Padres (and former Tampa Bay Rays) reliever Jason Adam

Corbin Carroll: 40 home runs, 20 triples, 20 stolen bases

The most impressive thing he could accomplish: The third-year speedster is back in the All-Star Game after failing to be selected last year, and showing again why he’s one of the most exciting players in the majors. He has an outside shot at becoming the first player with 40 home runs, 20 triples and 20 stolen bases in the same season. Yes, that’s a bit of statistical free-for-all, but it displays Carroll’s power, speed and hustle. Those odds were hurt when he sat out a couple of weeks because of a chip fracture in his left wrist, but in his first 79 games, he had 21 home runs, 10 triples and 11 stolen bases. Even if those numbers are out of reach, he could be the third member of the 35/15/20 club, joining Chuck Klein and Willie Mays.

How he’s doing it: We mentioned hustle, because the triples are the key category here, and Carroll is the best triples hitter in the majors in a long time, hitting 10 as a rookie in 2023 and 14 in 2024, leading the NL both seasons. He also has tweaked his swing and is hitting the ball harder this season and hitting it more often in the air, so he should soar past his previous career high of 25 home runs. — Schoenfield

An All-Star’s take: “There is no hole, really. It’s hard to find new ways to get him out. He’s one of the best in baseball. He’s so quick and twitchy. I don’t get many fastballs by him.” — San Francisco Giants right-hander Logan Webb

The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Witt’s doubles pace has ebbed a little, perhaps in part because some of the balls that were swelling his two-bagger column earlier have been leaving the yard of late. Still, Witt is on pace for 53 doubles, which would be the most by an American Leaguer in six years. That number would also challenge Hal McRae’s franchise record of 54 doubles set in 1977. Witt’s overall numbers aren’t quite as spectacular as last season, but he remains a top-five MVP candidate in the AL. Witt hasn’t gone on a true heater yet this season, but MLB pitchers beware: He has come out of the All-Star break in each of the past two seasons and gone on an extended tear.

How he’s doing it: Everything about Witt’s game — durability, aggressiveness, contact, swing plain, speed, home venue — suggests a player who is annually going to rank near the top of the charts in doubles, among many other categories. If only he didn’t hit so many triples and homers. — Doolittle

An All-Star’s take: “I can’t get him out. It’s just a tough at-bat. And [he] plays the game really, really hard. Some of the stars look cool and play it a little bit slower. Bobby is always playing the game really hard. A single is a victory against him, but he’s going to turn it into a double most of the time.” — Detroit Tigers right-hander Casey Mize

Kyle Tucker: 30 home runs, 40 stolen bases, 120 runs scored

The most impressive thing he could accomplish: With 17 home runs, 22 stolen bases and 68 runs scored, Tucker is showing Cubs fans the all-around brilliance that earned him a fourth consecutive All-Star selection. That puts him on pace to join the exclusive club of 30 homers, 40 stolen bases and 120 runs — which has only 11 members (with Bobby Bonds having done it twice). At a minimum, Tucker would love to join the 30/30 club, which he just missed in 2023 with 29 home runs and 30 stolen bases.

How he’s doing it: Tucker’s career high in runs scored is 97, so joining the explosive Cubs offense has helped in that department. So has moving up in the lineup: He has mostly hit second for the Cubs after often hitting fifth for the Houston Astros (at least until last season). He has been a little more aggressive stealing bases to give him a shot at 40, and does it with great success, getting caught only once so far. — Doolittle

An All-Star’s take: “He stays in there against lefties, knows how to use the whole field. And knows what a strike is. He stays in the zone a long time. I got lucky this year. It was the one game he missed. He’s one of the tougher left-handed outs.” — Washington Nationals left-hander MacKenzie Gore

Byron Buxton: The perfect stolen-base season

The most impressive thing he could accomplish: Buxton just hit for the cycle and — knock on wood — he has been healthy so far, so he’s on track for a career high in many categories, including his first 30-homer season. But the fun number: He’s 17-for-17 in stolen-base attempts. Only six players have swiped at least 20 bases in a season without getting caught, with Trea Turner’s 30-for-30 with the Philadelphia Phillies in 2023 the single-season high.

How he’s doing it: Buxton has always been a terrific high percentage base stealer, including a 29-for-30 mark in 2017 and a 90% success rate in his career, but the surprising thing about his 2025 totals is perhaps that he’s even stealing bases at all, given all the injuries in his career. It would be easy for the Minnesota Twins to just shut him down on the basepaths — much like the Los Angeles Angels did years ago with Mike Trout — but the 31-year-old Buxton is running more than he has since he was 23. — Schoenfield

An All-Star’s take: “He’s one of the best players in the game when he’s healthy and when he’s playing out there. I think the biggest thing I’ve noticed from him is that it seems like his internal clock is just at a pace this year. It’s not like it flashes where he’s going crazy and then he’s backing off. It’s consistent. It’s just that consistent heartbeat. It’s like he’s running a marathon at an insane pace. He’s going to run a sub-three-hour marathon or something. He’s cruising along and it’s just fun to watch him play.” — Minnesota Twins right-hander Joe Ryan

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Is it the coach or the program? Ranking CFB coaches while factoring in expectations

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July 15, 2025

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Is it the coach or the program? Ranking CFB coaches while factoring in expectations

  • Bill ConnellyJul 15, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

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      Bill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.

Back in May, ESPN’s team of college football reporters voted on the sport’s best coaches for 2025. The results were about as you would expect: Start with the three active guys who have most recently won national titles (Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Ohio State’s Ryan Day, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney), move on to guys with recent top-five finishes or national title game appearances (Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, Oregon’s Dan Lanning, Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer, Penn State’s James Franklin), then squeeze in a couple of long-term overachievers at the end (Utah’s Kyle Whittingham, Iowa State’s Matt Campbell).

The rankings made plenty of sense, but I couldn’t help but notice that the top eight coaches on the list all work for some of the richest, most well-supported programs in the country. There are some epic pressures associated with leading these programs — just ask Day — but there are also major advantages. It might only take a good head coach to do great things in those jobs, while at programs with smaller alumni bases or lesser historic track records, it might take a great coach to do merely good things. They’re such different jobs that it’s almost impossible to even know how to compare the performance of, say, Matt Campbell to Steve Sarkisian. Could Campbell have led Texas to back-to-back CFP semifinals? Could Sark have brought ISU its first two AP top-15 finishes?

The May rankings made me want to see if there were a way to apply stats to the conversation. If you think about it, we’re basically measuring two things when we’re gauging coach performance: overall quality and quality relative to the expectations of the job. I thought it would be fun to come up with a blend of those two things and see what the results told us.

Performance versus expectation

Gauging overall performance is easy enough. You could simply look at win percentage, and it would tell you quite a bit. From 2015 to 2024, the active coaches with the best FBS win percentages (minimum 30 games) were Day (.870), Lanning (.854), Swinney (.850) and Smart (.847). All ranked high in the May rankings. I tend to want to get fancy and use my SP+ ratings whenever possible, and they tell a similar tale. Looking at average SP+ ratings for the past decade, the top active coaches are Day (30.4), Smart (27.0), Lanning (22.3), Swinney (21.9), Franklin (20.3) and Freeman (19.0). They’re all in the May top 10 too.

Again, though, all of those coaches are employed by college football royalty. (Granted, Swinney gets bonus points for helping Clemson turn into college football royalty, but still.) Isn’t it more impressive to win 11 regular-season games at Indiana, as Curt Cignetti did in 2024, than to go 10-4 like Swinney did? Isn’t it probably harder to finish 12th in SP+ at SMU, as Rhett Lashlee did in 2024, than to finish fifth like Franklin did?

I’ve begun to incorporate teams’ performance against long-term averages into my preseason SP+ projections, and it seems we could use a very similar concept to evaluate coach performances. For each year someone is a head coach, we could compare his team’s SP+ rating for that season to the school’s average from the 20 previous years. (If the school is newer to FBS and doesn’t have a 20-year average, we can use whatever average exists to date. And for a program’s first FBS season, we can simply compare the team’s SP+ rating to the overall average for first-year programs.)

By this method, the 10 best single-season coaching performances of the past 20 years include Art Briles at Baylor in 2013-14, Jim Harbaugh at Stanford in 2010, Mark Mangino at Kansas in 2007, Bobby Petrino at Louisville in 2006, Greg Schiano at Rutgers in 2006 and Jamey Chadwell at Coastal Carolina in 2020 — legendary seasons of overachievement — plus perhaps lesser-remembered performances such as Gary Andersen at Utah State in 2012, Matt Wells at Utah State in 2018 and Brian Kelly at Cincinnati in 2007.

As far as single-season overachievement goes, that’s a pretty good list. And if we look at a longer-term sample — coaches who have led FBS programs for at least nine of the past 20 years — here are the 15 best performance versus baseline averages.

(Note: I’m looking only at performances within the past 20 years, so Nick Saban’s work at LSU (2000-04) or Michigan State (1995-99), for instance, isn’t included. I also went with nine years instead of 10 so Smart’s current nine-year run at Georgia could be included in the sample.)

Best performance vs. historic baseline averages for the past 20 years (min. nine seasons):

1. Chris Petersen, Boise State (2006-13) and Washington (2014-19): +12.8 points above historic baseline

2. Art Briles, Houston (2005-07) and Baylor (2008-15): +12.8

3. Gary Pinkel, Missouri (2005-15): +12.5

4. Nick Saban, Alabama (2007-23): +10.7

5. Jeff Monken, Army (2014-24): +10.3

6. Willie Fritz, Georgia Southern (2014-15), Tulane (2016-23) and Houston (2024): +10.0

7. Lance Leipold, Buffalo (2015-20) and Kansas (2021-24): +9.5

8. Bobby Petrino, Louisville (2005-06), Arkansas (2008-11), Western Kentucky (2013) and Louisville (2014-18): +9.5

9. Gary Patterson, TCU (2005-21): +8.6

10. Jim Harbaugh, Stanford (2007-10) and Michigan (2015-23): +8.5

11. Blake Anderson, Arkansas State (2014-20) and Utah State (2021-23): +8.5

12. Steve Spurrier, South Carolina (2005-15): +8.2

13. Greg Schiano, Rutgers (2005-11 and 2020-24): +7.8

14. Jeff Brohm, Western Kentucky (2014-16), Purdue (2017-22) and Louisville (2023-24): +7.7

15. David Cutcliffe, Duke (2008-21): +7.7

If we are looking for pure overachievement and aren’t in the mood to reward coaches for winning at schools that always win, this is again a pretty good list. Petersen was spectacular at both Boise State and Washington, while Briles, Pinkel, Monken and Patterson all won big at schools that hadn’t won big in quite a while. (Monken, in fact, is still winning big.) Blake Anderson’s presence surprised me, but most of the names here are extremely well regarded. And Saban’s presence at No. 4, despite coaching at one of the bluest of blue-blood programs, is a pretty good indicator of just how special his reign at Alabama was.

Still, looking only at performance against expectations obviously sells coaches like Saban and Smart short. Saban is probably the best head coach in the sport’s history but ranks only fourth on the above list. Meanwhile, Smart has overachieved by only 6.0 points above the historic baseline in his nine seasons at Georgia thanks to the high bar predecessor Mark Richt set. But he has also won two national titles, overcoming Georgia’s history of falling just short and at least briefly surpassing Saban as well. If our goal is to measure coaching prowess, we need to account for raw quality too.

The best coaches of the past 20 years

If we combine raw SP+ averages with this performance versus baseline average, we can come up with a pretty decent overall coach rating. We can debate the weights involved, but here’s what an overall rating looks like if we use 60% performance versus baseline and 40% SP+ average:

I always like to say that numbers make great starting points for a conversation, and this is a pretty good starting point. Anyone reading this would probably tweak this list to suit their own preferences, and while it probably isn’t surprising that Pinkel is in the top 20, seeing him fourth, ahead of Meyer, Harbaugh and others, is a bit jarring. (I promise that this Mizzou alum didn’t put his finger on the scales.) Regardless, this is a fun mix of guys who won big at big schools and guys who won pretty big at pretty big schools. That was the goal of the exercise.

Maybe the most confusing coach in this top 20 is Dabo Swinney. Clemson had enjoyed just one AP top-five finish in its history before he took over 16 years ago, and he has led the Tigers to 2 national titles, 6 top-five finishes and 7 CFP appearances. And while they haven’t had a true, title-caliber team in a few years, they’ve still won two of the past three ACC crowns. How is he only 10th?

The main culprit for Swinney’s lower-than-expected ranking is his recent performance — it has been inferior to both national title standards and his standards. Since we’re using a team’s performance against 20-year averages, a lot of this rating is basically comparing Swinney to himself, and he hasn’t quite measured up of late.

From 2012 to 2020, Swinney’s average rating was an incredible 17.0, which would have ranked second to only Saban on the list above. But his average over the past four seasons is only 3.6.

Part of what made Saban so impressive was how long he managed to clear the bar he himself was setting in Tuscaloosa. Per SP+, his best team was his 14th — the 2020 team that won his sixth and final title at Bama. While Swinney was basically matching Saban’s standard 12 years into their respective tenures, Saban continued at a particularly high level for at least three more years while Swinney fell off the pace.

Comparing Saban, Swinney and Smart year by year, we see that Smart was hitting Saban-esque levels seven seasons into his tenure, but his rating has fallen off each of the past two seasons. Even Saban slipped starting in Year 15, even though he still had nearly the best program in the sport for a couple more years.

The best coaches of 2025

Six of the top seven coaches on the list above are either retired or coaching in the NFL now, so let’s focus our gaze specifically on the guys who will be leading college teams out onto the field in 2025. Using the same 20-year sample as above — which cuts off the tenure of Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz but includes everything else — here’s how the current crop of FBS head coaches has performed at the FBS level. We’ll break this into two samples: the guys who have coached for at least four years in this sample and the guys who have coached between one and three years.

Our May top 10 list featured eight guys who have been head coaches for at least four years; all eight are represented on this list, including four of the top five. (Sarkisian has averaged a 13.8 rating over the past two seasons, which is a top-five level, but his overall run as head coach at Washington, USC and Texas has featured a number of ups and downs.)

Maybe the name that jumps out the most above is Josh Heupel. I think anyone would consider him a very good coach (he’s 37-15 overall), but he doesn’t exactly draw any “best in the game?” hype. He benefited from a positive situation at UCF, where he inherited a rising program from Scott Frost in 2019 and produced big ratings in his first couple of years on the job. But his average rating at Tennessee has been a solid 14.0 as well; the Volunteers had been up and down for years, but he has produced four top-20 SP+ ratings in a row and two top-10s in the past three years. He might not be getting the credit he deserves for that.

All in all, I enjoy this list. We’ve got mostly predictable names at the top, we’ve got some oldies but (mostly) goodies spread throughout, and we’ve got room for up-and-comers like Jeff Traylor too. This 60-40 approach probably doesn’t give enough respect to the Chris Creightons of the world — the Eastern Michigan coach has overachieved against EMU’s baseline by 7.2 points per season, which is a fantastic average, but at such a hard job, his Eagles have still averaged only a minus-14.4 SP+ rating during his tenure. Still, this is a mostly solid approach.

Now let’s talk about some small-sample all-stars.

Four of the top six of this list coached in the College Football Playoff last season, and while the guys ranked fifth and sixth made our May top 10 list, the guys who won big at SMU and Indiana, not Oregon and Notre Dame, take priority here. I was honestly floored that Curt Cignetti didn’t make our top 10 list; he led James Madison to one of the best FBS debuts ever, going 19-4 in 2022-23, then he moved to Bloomington and led Indiana — INDIANA! — to 11 wins in his first season there.

On this list, however, Rhett Lashlee tops even Cignetti. I’m not sure we’ve talked enough about the job he has done at SMU. He, too, inherited a rising program, as Sonny Dykes had done some of the nitty-gritty work in getting the Mustangs back on their feet (with help from an offensive coordinator named Rhett Lashlee). SMU hadn’t produced a top-50 ranking since 1985 before Dykes did so for three straight seasons (2019-21). But after holding steady in his first year replacing Dykes, Lashlee’s program has ignited: 12-2 and 24th in SP+ in 2023, then 11-3 and 12th in 2024. Looking specifically at the 2021-24 range, as the game has undergone so much change, Lashlee’s 16.8 average rating ranks second overall, behind only Smart (18.0) and ahead of Kiffin (15.1), Cignetti (15.0), Odom (15.0), Heupel (14.0) and Day (13.9).

Along with quite a few others here, Lashlee made my 2024 list of 30 coaches who would define the next decade; he’d definitely still be on the list — along with new additions like GJ Kinne and perhaps Fran Brown — if I remade that list today.

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It’s MLB Home Run Derby Day! Predictions, live updates and takeaways

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July 15, 2025

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It's MLB Home Run Derby Day! Predictions, live updates and takeaways

Jul 14, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

It’s 2025 MLB All-Star Home Run Derby day in Atlanta!

Some of the most dynamic home run hitters in baseball will be taking aim at the Truist Park stands on Monday (8 p.m. ET on ESPN) in one of the most anticipated events of the summer.

While the prospect of a back-to-back champion is out of the picture — 2024 winner Teoscar Hernandez is not a part of this year’s field — a number of exciting stars will be taking the field, including Atlanta’s own Matt Olson, who replaced Ronald Acuna Jr. just three days before the event. Will Olson make a run in front of his home crowd? Will Cal Raleigh show off the power that led to 38 home runs in the first half? Or will one of the younger participants take the title?

We have your one-stop shop for everything Derby related, from predictions to live updates once we get underway to analysis and takeaways at the night’s end.

MLB Home Run Derby field

Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners (38 home runs in 2025)
James Wood, Washington Nationals (24)
Junior Caminero, Tampa Bay Rays (23)
Byron Buxton, Minnesota Twins (21)
Brent Rooker, Athletics (20)
Matt Olson, Atlanta Braves (17)
Jazz Chisholm Jr., New York Yankees (17)
Oneil Cruz, Pittsburgh Pirates (16)

Live updates

Who is going to win the Derby and who will be the runner-up?

Jeff Passan: Raleigh. His swing is perfect for the Derby: He leads MLB this season in both pull percentage and fly ball percentage, so it’s not as if he needs to recalibrate it to succeed. He has also become a prolific hitter from the right side this season — 16 home runs in 102 at-bats — and his ability to switch between right- and left-handed pitching offers a potential advantage. No switch-hitter (or catcher for that matter) has won a Home Run Derby. The Big Dumper is primed to be the first, beating Buxton in the finals.

Alden Gonzalez: Cruz. He might be wildly inconsistent at this point in his career, but he is perfect for the Derby — young enough to possess the stamina required for a taxing event that could become exhausting in the Atlanta heat; left-handed, in a ballpark where the ball carries out better to right field; and, most importantly, capable of hitting balls at incomprehensible velocities. Raleigh will put on a good show from both sides of the plate but will come in second.

Buster Olney: Olson. He is effectively pinch-hitting for Acuna, and because he received word in the past 72 hours of his participation, he hasn’t had the practice rounds that the other competitors have been going through. But he’s the only person in this group who has done the Derby before, which means he has experienced the accelerated pace, adrenaline and push of the crowd.

His pitcher, Eddie Perez, knows something about performing in a full stadium in Atlanta. And, as Olson acknowledged in a conversation Sunday, the park generally favors left-handed hitters because of the larger distances that right-handed hitters must cover in left field.

Jesse Rogers: Olson. Home-field advantage will mean something this year as hitting in 90-plus degree heat and humidity will be an extra challenge in Atlanta. Olson understands that and can pace himself accordingly. Plus, he was a late addition. He has got nothing to lose. He’ll outlast the young bucks in the field. And I’m not putting Raleigh any lower than second — his first half screams that he’ll be in the finals against Olson.

Jorge Castillo: Wood. His mammoth power isn’t disputed — he can jack baseballs to all fields. But the slight defect in his power package is that he doesn’t hit the ball in the air nearly as often as a typical slugger. Wood ranks 126th out of 155 qualified hitters across the majors in fly ball percentage. And he still has swatted 24 home runs this season. So, in an event where he’s going to do everything he can to lift baseballs, hitting fly balls won’t be an issue, and Wood is going to show off that gigantic power en route to a victory over Cruz in the finals.

Who will hit the longest home run of the night — and how far?

Passan: Cruz hits the ball harder than anyone in baseball history. He’s the choice here, at 493 feet.

Gonzalez: If you exclude the Coors Field version, there have been just six Statcast-era Derby home runs that have traveled 497-plus feet. They were compiled by two men: Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. James Wood — all 6-foot-7, 234 pounds of him — will become the third.

Olney: James Wood has the easy Stanton- and Judge-type power, and he will clear the Chophouse with the longest homer. Let’s say 497 feet.

Rogers: Hopefully he doesn’t injure himself doing it, but Buxton will break out his massive strength and crush a ball at least 505 feet. I don’t see him advancing far in the event, but for one swing, he’ll own the night.

Castillo: Cruz hits baseballs hard and far. He’ll crush a few bombs, and one will reach an even 500 feet.

Who is the one slugger fans will know much better after the Derby?

Passan: Buxton capped his first half with a cycle on Saturday, and he’ll carry that into the Derby, where he will remind the world why he was baseball’s No. 1 prospect in 2015. Buxton’s talent has never been in question, just his health. And with his body feeling right, he has the opportunity to put on a show fans won’t soon forget.

Olney: Caminero isn’t a big name and wasn’t a high-end prospect like Wood was earlier in his career. Just 3½ years ago, Caminero was dealt to the Rays by the Cleveland Guardians in a relatively minor November trade for pitcher Tobias Myers. But since then, he has refined his ability to cover inside pitches and is blossoming this year into a player with ridiculous power. He won’t win the Derby, but he’ll open some eyes.

What’s the one moment we’ll all be talking about long after this Derby ends?

Gonzalez: The incredible distances and velocities that will be reached, particularly by Wood, Cruz, Caminero, Raleigh and Buxton. The hot, humid weather at Truist Park will only aid the mind-blowing power that will be on display Monday night.

Rogers: The exhaustion on the hitter’s faces, swinging for home run after home run in the heat and humidity of Hot-lanta!

Castillo: Cruz’s 500-foot blast and a bunch of other lasers he hits in the first two rounds before running out of gas in the finals.

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