How the Sabres changed their culture to change their results
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Kristen Shilton, ESPN NHL reporter
BUFFALO, NY — The Buffalo Sabres didn’t rebuild from scratch.
Don’t let the franchise’s headline-generating class of rising young stars convince otherwise.
Buffalo was reforged through strategy, embracing fundamentals and a return to the basic principle of walk before you run — or more aptly, lose (copiously) before you can win.
Yet, there was no scorched-Earth scenario. Rather, it was a pack of Sabres’ veterans — namely Kyle Okposo, Zemgus Girgensons, Jeff Skinner and Craig Anderson — quietly nurturing the club’s foundation with seeds waiting to bloom.
“Our veterans have gotten that room to the point where today, right now, the players know they should go out each night and know they’re capable of winning. It’s much different than before,” head coach Don Granato told ESPN in September. “We’ve grown from where, two years ago, we drafted Owen Power [No. 1 overall], which means we were not in a good position in the standings. The focus then was on getting our things in order. We had to get our culture in order. We had to learn to work, we had to learn to compete. We had to learn to do it every day. And then we could start talking about winning.”
That conversation has reached fever pitch, not just in Buffalo but around the NHL. The Sabres are no Atlantic Division afterthought. Despite a tough start with two losses to begin the season, they’re expected to be contenders.
That shift took patience, perseverance and a resounding all-in commitment from Buffalo, to where now reaching its full potential should include slaying a few inner demons. Chief among those is the organization’s 12-year playoff drought, longest among any team in the four major pro sports leagues. Put mildly, it has been a rocky stretch.
Since the Sabres’ most recent postseason appearance in 2010-11, they’ve finished last in the Atlantic Division five times, twice ended up 31st overall in the league (in back-to-back seasons no less, in 2013-14 to 2014-15), churned through seven different coaches, and drafted — before trading away — two top-tier talents in Sam Reinhart (picked second overall in 2014) and Jack Eichel (second overall in 2015).
It has been a long road bringing these Sabres back to contention. And Buffalo is aware of the stakes — externally, but internally, too. And if anyone forgets, Okposo will be there with a reminder. It’s what the Sabres’ captain has done since Buffalo dedicated to a long-haul retooling.
He won’t stop until they finally get it right.
“We know what’s expected; we believe that we’re a good team,” Okposo said. “And we know the standard. That’s something that hadn’t been here. We were trying to find an identity for a long time and couldn’t. And then we basically stripped it down and started something different. And we were building that identity for about two years. And now that phase of our organization and our team is over, and now it’s time to go be a good team. And that’s what it feels like.”
BUFFALO IS BANKING on long-term prosperity from here. So, before the Sabres’ season started, GM Kevyn Adams invested long term in players to make it happen.
First up was Rasmus Dahlin, and an eight-year, $88 million contract that will carry the 23-year-old through a critical bulk of his career. The Sabres drafted Dahlin first overall in 2018, and their blueliner produced a breakout campaign in 2022-23 with 15 goals and 73 points in 78 games to establish himself as one of the league’s finest emerging talents on defense.
After Dahlin, it was Power signing a seven-year, $58.45 million pact. The defenseman was selected first overall by Buffalo in 2021 and, after some early growing pains, appears ready to handle an increasingly heavy workload on the Sabres’ back end.
Simply having a pair of recent No. 1 picks playing prominent roles in the lineup would be an embarrassment of riches for most teams. Buffalo’s enviable list of 20-something talents in the prime of their careers hardly stops with them:
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There’s Mattias Samuelsson (23), drafted 32nd overall in 2018 and proving to be a reliable stay-at-home defender in his own right. He agreed on a seven-year, $30 million deal in 2022.
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Dylan Cozens — selected seventh overall in 2019 — is fresh off a 31-goal season that rightly drew attention to his solid two-way game. The 22-year-old signed a seven-year, $49.7 million extension in February.
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Jack Quinn — nabbed eighth overall in 2020 — generated excitement in his first full NHL season last year, but the 22-year-old will miss the start of this one recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon.
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And then of course there’s Tage Thompson. It wasn’t Buffalo that drafted him in the first round — St. Louis did that at 26th overall in 2016 — but the Sabres brought Thompson in as part of the Ryan O’Reilly trade with the Blues in 2018. Thompson, 25, graduated from wing to center two seasons ago under Granato’s suggestion and eventually thrived, collecting 47 goals and 94 points in 78 games last season to put the league on notice about its dynamic new scoring threat. And that was before Thompson inked his own seven-year, $50 million extension in 2022 to stick with the Sabres.
Those skaters are integral pieces of the Sabres’ core. Each one repeats the same refrain, about Buffalo being the only place for them.
It’s easy to say that now and mean it. But building Buffalo into a desirable landing spot didn’t come out of nowhere — or without critical groundwork laid by the likes of Okposo.
Before that crew of young standouts came on the scene, it was Okposo — as an unrestricted free agent in 2016 — pledging his own commitment to the team with a seven-year, $42 million agreement.
That kicked off a roller-coaster tenure for Okposo in Buffalo. He produced a set of strong seasons out of the gate, but declining play thereafter had fans calling for a buyout of his contract. Okposo bounced back in 2021-22 and was named Buffalo’s captain before the following season. Even that didn’t protect Okposo last summer from a fraught contract negotiation to stay in the fold, but he eventually settled on a one-year, $2.5 million deal.
Okposo might be in the twilight of his career now, but the 35-year-old echoes the same sentiment about Buffalo as teammates a decade his junior.
“There was nowhere else I wanted to play,” he said. “And I think that the organization recognized that, and I know that the organization wanted me back as well. So, we figured it out. And I never really considered retiring. I tried to work as diligently as I could this summer so I could get back to being the player that I wanted to be, and I know that nobody defeats Father Time, but I was just wanted to be as prepared as I could. So, I’m really looking forward to my game personally this year.”
It has been some time since Okposo felt worthy of focusing on his achievements. The past two seasons especially had been devoted to the Sabres’ bigger picture and creating traditions for the next generation to carry on.
In many ways, he believes that work has been accomplished.
“Something I’ve put at the forefront is myself, in my game, and how I feel,” he said. “It’s something I hadn’t done in the past because I’ve been worried about a lot of other things. And the mental space that’s freed up in my brain because I’m not worried about the culture really anymore at all is awesome and it’s huge, so I’m really looking forward to a good year.”
Okposo’s contributions haven’t gone unnoticed, or unappreciated, by the ones now benefiting from Buffalo’s renaissance. The team’s captain is clearly beloved.
“He’s the best leader for sure,” Cozens said. “He’s so smart, he’s so well spoken and he’s just a true leader. He leads by example. He always knows what to say about everything. We’re super grateful to have him because he’s so great.”
“Kyle’s got the respect of everybody around here and for good reason,” Granato added. “He comes to the rink and brings a lot of joy, pure love of the game, but he also works, and he works hard. And beyond that he’s competitive. So not only does he work, but he also works to win. The way he carries himself through life and then onto the ice, that’s what we want in our culture; that’s our culture driver.”
There’s no one better than Okposo to ask, then: What is Buffalo’s culture now? How can something so seemingly arbitrary even be defined?
“The culture that we created is one of respect,” he said. “That’s first and foremost from an identity piece. And then that translates into work ethic. There’s a difference between the elite teams and how they prepare and take care of themselves and work versus the teams that are in the mushy middle and on the bottom. There are teams on the bottom that are going through a rebuild that have that work ethic, but to get into the upper echelon, you need a very high work ethic, and that’s something that I think is a big part of our group.”
Another key element in getting to the top: Consistency. Okposo stresses its importance regularly to the Sabres’ through his own conduct, while still leaving the door open for collaboration with a new generation of players.
“I’m going to be that guy to make sure everybody knows the path,” he said. “There was going to be no way that [those young guys] came in and said, ‘Oh, I wonder if we’re going to do this today.’ It’s like, ‘Nope, this is what we’re doing. And this is the right thing to do.’ But if there was something that somebody else wanted to do, or [they had] an idea, they know that it goes back to that respect piece where I will respect their opinion and take it into consideration and then we’ll make a decision as a group. So that’s something that I try to do as a leader.”
CULTURE ISN’T BORN from nothing. Neither is belief.
It’s fitting then that, once Buffalo got its identity straightened out, belief began to follow. But that didn’t come easily for the Sabres, either. There have been heartbreaking outcomes in the drawn-out retooling process, the worst of which might have been falling just one point short of a postseason berth in 2022-23 after an impassioned run to end the regular season.
“In the past, you’d go in and think you believe. Everyone wants to believe that they can make playoffs and get a push,” Thompson said. “But there’s a lot of uncertainty throughout the season, a lot of ups and downs, and it’s all about how you handle those. Last season showed us we’re capable of going through that adversity. It taught us a lot. When that adversity happens this season, I think we’ll be a little better prepared for it. And I think that’s what gives us that hindsight that we know that we’re a playoff team, and I think anything short of that now is a letdown.”
Similar messaging permeated from the height of the organization on down. It had to, particularly in preparation for the season at hand. Buffalo undeniably turned heads with its strong second half, going 21-14-4 from mid-January on to nearly snag the final Eastern Conference wild-card spot. It was a surprising photo finish at the time. Comparable shock value is long gone.
If anything, that belief Buffalo has in itself is permeating elsewhere. At the NHL Player Tour in Las Vegas last month, a handful of players skating for the Sabres’ rivals told ESPN outright they were most excited to see what Buffalo could do this year. The hype is real — and it’s strongest of all in the Sabres’ dressing room.
“My expectations are to win, and we’ve gotten to where when I say that I think our players believe it,” Granato said. “There’s another level of confidence. I would say we were confident last year that we could win. This year we have the conviction that we should win. And that only happened through the process. We were one win from making the playoffs [last season], and that could have happened on any given night. We were that close. I think that really helped guys to understand that you’ve moved to that point. Now we have to put our foot down and demand a little more in that sense, and that comes in conviction. There’s confidence in conviction, and we’ve moved toward that.”
Raising the bar naturally includes added pressure, something often claimed in sports as a burden of privilege. It’s also unfamiliar territory for a majority of the Sabres’ lineup — at the NHL level, anyway. Until now the Sabres have been keeping their heads above water. In the immediate future, it’s seeing how high they can fly.
“I think the expectations are always rising and I don’t think anybody shies away from the outside noise or what we expect of ourselves,” Samuelsson said. “I think the window is open. There’s so much young talent here, so many young players that could have breakout years and take the next steps. I think there’s a lot of expectations, but I also think that’s good. Guys feed off pressure. We’re all competitive, so we all want to perform.”
“It’s not an option. We know we need to make playoffs,” Cozens added. “And we know we can make playoffs, so that’s the feel in the room. That’s what everyone thrives on.”
OKPOSO HELPED MOLD the Sabres into what they are today. He might not be around, though, for the brightest days of their tomorrow.
It’s a reality of business Okposo admits coming to terms with. His time in Buffalo has been marred by losing; to miss out on the franchise’s anticipated winning seasons ahead could be deemed disappointing.
But Okposo’s mindset, as always, is centered on something larger: legacy. It’s reasonable to predict one of those rising talents will eventually wear the “C” now emblazoned on Okposo’s chest. When that transition happens, and it’s someone else’s responsibility to uphold Buffalo’s core values, Okposo’s hope is that he has succeeded in giving the upcoming wave of leaders a firm foundation from which to start.
“I just want to make sure when I’m gone, everything is seamless, and there’s no [sense of], ‘OK, I need to try to be somebody other than myself,'” he said. “I just want everybody to make sure that they know they can be themselves and be the best that they can be every day. And that will be enough to sustain the culture here for a long time.”
Given the lengths it took Buffalo to reach this pinnacle, maintaining a standard of excellence will — in theory — become their new norm. The Sabres were stoic in navigating a fair share of hardships. Here, and now, is when they can aim to enjoy the fruits of that labor. And maybe silence a few former critics.
“For years, everyone said, ‘You can’t accept this losing, we can’t accept this losing,'” Granato said. “Well, we had to accept where we are. We couldn’t be in denial that we need to get better. And we turned our focus to that. And I know these guys have improved every day, to the point where there’s going to be a tipping point. And we’re going to make sure we get closer to that every day, and it’s going to happen.
“And when it happens, everything that was hard becomes much easier. And I think we’re close, and that’s the excitement moving forward. It’s how close are we?”
Hard-throwing rookie Jacob Misiorowski is a National League All-Star replacement, giving the Milwaukee Brewers right-hander a chance to break Paul Skenes‘ record for the fewest big league appearances before playing in the Midsummer Classic.
Misiorowski was named Friday night to replace Chicago Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd, who will be unavailable for the All-Star Game on Tuesday night in Atlanta because he is scheduled to start Saturday at the New York Yankees.
The 23-year-old Misiorowski has made just five starts for the Brewers, going 4-1 with a 2.81 ERA while averaging 99.3 mph on his fastball, with 89 pitches that have reached 100 mph.
If he pitches at Truist Park, Misiorowski will make it consecutive years for a player to set the mark for fewest big league games before an All-Star showing.
Skenes, the Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander getting ready for his second All-Star appearance, had made 11 starts in the majors when he was chosen as the NL starter for last year’s All-Star Game at Texas. He pitched a scoreless inning.
“I’m speechless,” said a teary-eyed Misiorowski, who said he was given the news a few minutes before the Brewers’ 8-3 victory over Washington. “It’s awesome. It’s very unexpected and it’s an honor.”
Misiorowski is the 30th first-time All-Star and 16th replacement this year. There are now 80 total All-Stars.
“He’s impressive. He’s got some of the best stuff in the game right now, even though he’s a young pitcher,” said Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, who is a starting AL outfielder for his seventh All-Star nod. “He’s going to be a special pitcher in this game for a long time so I think he deserved it and it’s going be pretty cool for him and his family.”
Carlos Rodón, Carlos Estévez and Casey Mize were named replacement pitchers on the AL roster.
The New York Yankees‘ Rodón, an All-Star for the third time in five seasons, will replace teammate Max Fried for Tuesday’s game in Atlanta. Fried will be unavailable because he is scheduled to start Saturday against the Chicago Cubs.
In his final start before the All-Star game, Rodón allowed four hits and struck out eight in eight innings in an 11-0 victory over the Cubs.
“This one’s a little special for me,” said Rodón, an All-Star in 2021 and ’22 who was 3-8 in his first season with the Yankees two years ago before rebounding. “I wasn’t good when I first got here, and I just wanted to prove that I wasn’t to going to give up and just put my best foot forward and try to win as many games as I can.”
The Kansas City Royals‘ Estévez replaces Texas’ Jacob deGrom, who is scheduled to start at Houston on Saturday night. Estévez was a 2023 All-Star when he was with the Los Angeles Angels.
Mize takes the spot held by Boston‘s Garrett Crochet, who is scheduled to start Saturday against Tampa Bay. Mize gives the Tigers six All-Stars, most of any team and tied for the franchise record.
Royals third baseman Maikel Garcia will replace Tampa Bay‘s Brandon Lowe, who went on the injured list with left oblique tightness. The additions of Estévez and Garcia give the Royals four All-Stars, matching their 2024 total.
The Seattle Mariners announced center fielder Julio Rodríguez will not participate, and he was replaced by teammate Randy Arozarena. Rodríguez had been voted onto the AL roster via the players’ ballot. The Mariners, who have five All-Stars, said Rodríguez will use the break to “recuperate, rest and prepare for the second half.”
Arozarena is an All-Star for the second time. He started in left field for the AL two years ago, when he was with Tampa Bay. Arozarena was the runner-up to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the 2023 Home Run Derby.
Rays right-hander Drew Rasmussen, a first-time All-Star, is replacing Angels left-hander Yusei Kikuchi, who is scheduled to start Saturday night at Arizona. Rasmussen is 7-5 with a 2.82 ERA in 18 starts.
San Diego added a third NL All-Star reliever in lefty Adrián Morejón, who replaces Philadelphia starter Zack Wheeler. The Phillies’ right-hander is scheduled to start at San Diego on Saturday night. Morejón entered the weekend with a 1.71 ERA in 45 appearances.
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David Schoenfield
We’re past due to hand out some midseason grades, so let’s hand out some midseason grades.
As we pass the 90-game mark in the 2025 MLB season, my team of the first half isn’t the well-rounded Detroit Tigers, who do get our highest grade for owning MLB’s best record, or the explosive Chicago Cubs or Shohei Ohtani‘s Los Angeles Dodgers, but a team most baseball fans love to hate: the Houston Astros. They lost their two best players from last season and their best hitter has been injured — and they’re playing their best baseball since they won the 2022 World Series.
Let’s get to the grades. As always, we’re grading off preseason expectations, factoring in win-loss record and quality of performance, while looking at other positive performances and injuries.
Jump to a team:
AL East: BAL | BOS | NYY | TB | TOR
AL Central: CHW | CLE | DET | KC | MIN
AL West: ATH | HOU | LAA | SEA | TEX
NL East: ATL | MIA | NYM | PHI | WSH
NL Central: CHC | CIN | MIL | PIT | STL
NL West: ARI | COL | LAD | SD | SF
Tarik Skubal is obviously the headline act, but the Tigers are winning with impressive depth across the entire roster.
Javier Baez is putting together a remarkable comeback season after a couple of abysmal years and will become the first player to start an All-Star Game at both shortstop and in the outfield. Former No. 1 overall picks Casey Mize and Spencer Torkelson have put together their own comeback stories, while Riley Greene has matured into one of the game’s top power hitters.
Given their deep well of prospects and contributors at the MLB level, no team is better positioned than the Tigers to add significant help at the trade deadline.
I heard someone refer to them as the Zombie Astros, which feels apropos. Alex Bregman left as a free agent, they traded Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez has been injured and has just three home runs, and the Jose Altuve experiment in left field predictably fizzled.
But here they are, fighting for the best record in the majors and holding a comfortable lead in the AL West. They’re getting star turns from Hunter Brown, Framber Valdez and Jeremy Pena, while the risky decision to start Cam Smith in the majors with very little minor league experience has paid off, as he has now become their cleanup hitter.
If we ignore the COVID-19 season, the Astros look on their way to an eighth straight division title.
This could be at least a half-grade higher based on everything that has gone right: Pete Crow-Armstrong‘s attention-grabbing breakout, Tucker doing everything expected after the big trade, Seiya Suzuki‘s monster power numbers and Matthew Boyd‘s All-Star turn in the rotation. The Cubs are on pace for their most wins since their World Series title season in 2016.
There have been a few hiccups, however, especially in the rotation with Justin Steele‘s season-ending injury and Ben Brown‘s inconsistency, plus rookie third baseman Matt Shaw has scuffled, and the bench has been weak aside from their backup catchers.
Still, this is a powerhouse lineup, and the Cubs will seek to improve their rotation at the deadline.
They just keep winning of late, going from 25-27 and seven games behind the Yankees on May 25 to taking over first place from the slumping Bronx Bombers, a remarkable turnaround over just 36 games. They went 27-9 over a 36-game stretch ending with their eighth win in a row on Sunday.
George Springer‘s recent surge has been fun to watch, a reminder of how good he was at his peak, and Addison Barger has been mashing over the past two months.
Some of the stats don’t add up to the Blue Jays being this good — they’ve barely outscored their opponents — but there might be more offense in the tank from the likes of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a healthy Anthony Santander, and the bullpen, a soft spot, is the easiest area to upgrade.
Their success is best summed up by the fact that Freddy Peralta is their lone All-Star, but they have a whole bunch of players who have contributed between 1 and 2 WAR.
Brandon Woodruff looked good Sunday in his first start in nearly two years, so that could be a huge boost for the second half.
I’m curious to see how Jackson Chourio performs as well. While his counting stats — extra-base hits, RBIs — are fine, his triple-slash line remains below last season, especially his OBP. He had a huge second half in 2024 (.310/.363/.552), and if he does that again, the Brewers could find themselves back in the postseason for the seventh time in eight seasons.
The Rays started off slow, with a losing record through the end of April, but then went 33-22 in May and June to claw back into the AL East race — as the Rays usually do, last year being the recent exception.
Two key performers have been All-Star third baseman Junior Caminero, who has a chance to become just the third player to hit 40 home runs in his age-21 season, and All-Star first baseman Jonathan Aranda.
Due to the league wanting the Rays to play more home games early in the season, the July and August slate will be very road-heavy, so we’ll see how the Rays adapt to a difficult two-month stretch, especially since their pitching isn’t quite as deep as it has been in other seasons.
No, they’re not going to be the greatest team of all time. But they might win 100 games — even though Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki, their huge offseason acquisitions, have combined for just two wins in 10 starts.
The lineup, of course, has been terrific, with Ohtani leading the NL in several categories and Will Smith leading the batting race. By wRC+, it’s been the best offense in Dodgers history.
If they can get some combo of Snell, Sasaki and Tyler Glasnow healthy, plus Ohtani eventually ramped up to a bigger workload on the mound, the Dodgers still loom as World Series favorites.
They are on pace for 95 wins, mainly on the strength of Zack Wheeler, Ranger Suarez and Cristopher Sanchez, who are a combined 23-7 with 11.8 WAR. Jesus Luzardo‘s ERA is bloated due to that two-start stretch when he allowed 20 runs, but he has otherwise been solid as well.
But, overall, it hasn’t always been the smoothest of treks. The bullpen has imploded a few times and the offense has lacked power aside from Kyle Schwarber. Bryce Harper is back after missing three weeks, and they need to get his bat going. Look for some bullpen additions at the trade deadline — and perhaps an outfielder as well.
The Cardinals have been a minor surprise — perhaps even to the Cardinals themselves. St. Louis was viewing this as a rebuilding year of sorts — not that the Cardinals ever hit rock bottom and start completely over. They had a hot May, winning 12 of 13 at one point, but the offense has been fading of late, with those three straight shutout losses to Pittsburgh and six shutout losses since June 25.
The starting rotation doesn’t generate a lot of swing and miss, with both Erick Fedde and Miles Mikolas seeing their ERAs starting to climb. Brendan Donovan is the team’s only All-Star rep, and that kind of sums up this team: solid but without any star power. That might foretell a second-half fade.
All-Star starting pitchers Logan Webb and Robbie Ray, plus a dominant bullpen, have led the way, although after starting 12-4, the Giants have basically been a .500 team for close to three months now. Rafael Devers hasn’t yet ignited the offense since coming over from Boston, and the Giants have lost four 1-0 games.
These final three games at home against the Dodgers before the All-Star break will be a crucial series, as Los Angeles has slowly pulled away in the NL West.
This was an “A-plus” through June 12, when the Mets were 45-24 and owned the best record in baseball, even though Juan Soto hadn’t gotten hot. Soto finally got going in June, but the pitching collapsed, and the Mets went through a disastrous 1-10 stretch.
The rotation injuries have piled up, exacerbating the lack of bullpen depth. Recent games have been started by Justin Hagenman (who had a 6.21 ERA in Triple-A), journeyman reliever Chris Devenski, Paul Blackburn (7.71 ERA) and Frankie Montas, who has had to start even though he’s clearly not throwing the ball well. The Mets need to get the rotation healthy, but also could use more offense from Mark Vientos and their catchers (Francisco Alvarez was demoted to Triple-A).
At times it has felt like Cal Raleigh has been a one-man team with his record-breaking first half. But he will be joined on the All-Star squad by starting pitcher Bryan Woo, closer Andres Munoz and center fielder Julio Rodriguez, who made it on the strength of his defense, as his offense has been a disappointment.
The offense has been one of the best in the majors on the road, but the rotation has been nowhere near as effective as the past couple of seasons, with George Kirby, Logan Gilbert and Bryce Miller all missing time with injuries. They just shut out the Pirates three games in a row, so maybe that will get the rotation on a roll.
They’re just out of the wild-card picture while hanging around .500, so we give them a decent grade since that exceeds preseason expectations. It feels like a little bit of a mirage given their run differential — their record in one-run games (good) versus their record in blowout games (not good) — and various holes across the lineup and pitching staff.
But they’ve done two things to keep them in the race. One, they hit a lot of home runs. Two, they’re the only team in the majors to use just five starting pitchers. The rotation hasn’t been stellar, but it’s been stable.
The Padres are probably fortunate to be where they are, given some of their issues. As expected, the offensive depth has been a problem.
Not as expected, Dylan Cease has struggled while Michael King‘s injury after a strong start has left them without last year’s dynamic 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation (although Nick Pivetta has been one of the best signings of the offseason). Yu Darvish just made his season debut Monday, so hopefully he’ll provide a lift.
The Padres haven’t played well against the better teams, including a 2-5 record against the Dodgers, but they did clean up against the Athletics, Rockies and Pirates, going 16-2 against those three teams.
For now, the Reds are stuck in neutral. Leave out 2022, when they lost 100 games, and it’s otherwise been a string of .500-ish seasons: 31-29 in 2020, 83-79 in 2021, 82-80 in 2023, 77-85 in 2024 and now a similar record so far in 2025.
The hope was that Terry Francona would be a difference-maker. Maybe that will play out down the stretch, but the best hope is to get the rotation clicking on all cylinders at the same time. That means Andrew Abbott continuing his breakout performance, plus getting Hunter Greene healthy again and rookie Chase Burns to live up to the hype after a couple of shaky outings following an impressive MLB debut.
Throw in Nick Lodolo and solid Nick Martinez and Brady Singer, and this group can be good enough to pitch the Reds to their first full-season playoff appearance since 2013.
The Yankees have hit their annual midseason swoon — which has been subject to much intense analysis from their disgruntled fans — and that opening weekend sweep of the Brewers, when the Yankees’ torpedo bats were the big story in baseball, now seems long ago.
Going from seven up to three back in such a short time is a disaster — but not disastrous. Nonetheless, the Yankees will have to do some hard-core self-evaluation heading to the trade deadline.
The offense wasn’t going to be as good as it was in April, when Paul Goldschmidt, Trent Grisham and Ben Rice were all playing over their heads. So, do they need a hitter? Or with Clarke Schmidt now likely joining Gerrit Cole as a Tommy John casualty, do they need a starting pitcher? Or both?
From the book of “things we didn’t expect,” page 547: The Marlins are averaging more runs per game than the Orioles, Padres, Braves and Rangers, to name a few teams. They’re averaging almost as many runs per game as the Mets, and last time we checked, the Marlins weren’t the team to give Soto $765 million.
An eight-game winning streak at the end of June has the Marlins going toe-to-toe with the Braves for third place in the NL East even though the starting rotation has been a mess, with Sandy Alcantara on track to become just the fourth qualified pitcher with an ERA over 7.00.
Heading into the season, I thought that if any team was going to challenge the Dodgers in the NL West, it would be the Diamondbacks. The offense has once again been one of the best in the majors, but the pitching issues have been painful.
After the aggressive move to sign Corbin Burnes, he went down with Tommy John surgery after 11 starts. Meanwhile, Zac Gallen, Eduardo Rodriguez and Brandon Pfaadt each have an ERA on the wrong side of 5.00. Rodriguez was better in June before a shellacking on July 4, while Gallen remains homer-prone, so it’s hard to tell if improvement is on the horizon. Their playoff odds are hovering just under 20%, so there’s a chance, but they need to get red-hot like they did last July and August.
It feels like it has been more soap opera than baseball season in Boston, with the Devers drama finally ending with the shocking trade with the Giants.
If you give added weight that this is the Red Sox, a team that should be operating with the big boys in both budget and aspirations and instead seemed to only want to dump Devers’ contract, then feel free to lower this grade a couple of notches, even if the Red Sox are close in the wild-card standings.
On the field, the heralded rookie trio of Kristian Campbell, Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer hasn’t exactly clicked, with Campbell returning to the minors after posting a .902 OPS in April. A big test will come out of the All-Star break, when they play the Cubs, Phillies, Dodgers, Twins and Astros in a tough 15-game stretch.
After last season’s surprise playoff appearance, it’s been a frustrating 2025 — although I’m not sure this result is necessarily a surprise.
There were concerns about the offense heading into the season and those concerns have proven correct. They were getting no production from their outfield, so they rushed Jac Caglianone to the majors to much hype, but he has struggled and might need a reset back in Triple-A. Even Bobby Witt Jr., as good as he has been (on pace for 7.5 WAR), has seen his OPS drop 140 points.
On the bright side, Kris Bubic emerged as an All-Star starter and Noah Cameron has filled in nicely for the injured Cole Ragans, so maybe they trade a starter for some offense.
Coming off a catastrophic 2024 season, nobody was expecting anything from the White Sox. Indeed, another 121-loss season loomed as a possibility. While they’re on pace to lose 100 again, they’ve at least played more competitive baseball thanks to their pitching.
Rookie starters Shane Smith and Sean Burke have shown promise, while rookie position players Kyle Teel, Edgar Quero and now Colson Montgomery are getting their initial taste of the majors.
There has been the mix of calamity: Luis Robert Jr. has been unproductive and is probably now untradable, and former No. 3 overall pick Andrew Vaughn hit .189 and was traded to the Brewers.
The Twins are one organization that might like a do-over of the past five seasons. It feels like they’ve had the most talent in the division, but all they’ve done is squeeze out one soft division title in 2023. Now, the Tigers have passed them in talent and other factors, such as payroll flexibility.
There’s still time for the Twins to turn things around in 2025, but outside of that wonderful 13-game winning streak, they haven’t played winning baseball.
Overall, it’s been yet another bad season, despite Paul Skenes‘ brilliance. Really, do we talk enough about him? Yes, we do talk about him, but he has a 1.95 ERA through his first 42 career starts. Incredible.
Here’s an amazing thing about baseball. The Pirates are not a good team, but they recently put together one of the best six-game stretches in history. That’s not stretching the description. First, they swept the Mets — a good team — by scores of 9-1, 9-2 and 12-1. Then they swept the Cardinals — a good team — with three shutouts, 7-0, 1-0 and 5-0. They became the first team since at least 1901 to score 43 runs or more and allow four runs or fewer in a six-game stretch. And then they promptly got shut out three games in a row, making them the first to win three straight shutouts and then lose three straight shutouts.
Eighteen of our 28 voters picked them to win the AL West before the season, but it’s looking more and more like the 2023 World Series might be a stone-cold fluke in the middle of a string of losing seasons. That year, nearly everyone in the lineup had a career year at the plate, and the pitching got hot at the right time.
This year’s Rangers, though, have struggled to score runs, and while some have pointed to the offensive environment at Globe Life Field, they’re near the bottom in road OPS as well. It’s been fun seeing Jacob deGrom back at a dominating level, and Nathan Eovaldi should have been an All-Star.
Put it this way: If the Rangers can somehow squeeze into the postseason, you don’t want to face the Rangers in a short series. Indeed, if any team looms as an October upset special, it might be the Rangers.
The Nationals received superlative first-half performances from James Wood and MacKenzie Gore, while CJ Abrams is on the way to his best season. But there remains a lack of overall organizational progress, which finally led to the firings on Sunday of longtime GM Mike Rizzo and longtime manager Dave Martinez. A 7-19 record in June sealed their fate, as the rotation has been bad and the bullpen arguably the worst in baseball.
Until the Nationals figure out how to improve their pitching — or, better yet, find an owner who wants to win — they will be stuck going nowhere.
That fell apart in a hurry. Sunday’s loss was Cleveland’s 10th in a row, a stretch that remarkably included five shutouts. Indeed, the Guardians have now been shut out 11 times; the franchise record in the post-dead-ball-era (since 1920) is 20 shutouts in 1968.
There’s nothing worse than watching a team that can’t score runs, so that tells you how exciting the Guardians have been. Last year, the Guardians hit exceptionally well with runners in scoring position, keeping afloat what was otherwise a mediocre offense. That hasn’t happened in 2025 (trading Josh Naylor didn’t help either). Throw in some predictable regression from the bullpen, and this season looks lost.
We can’t give this a complete failing grade due to the emergence of All-Star shortstop Jacob Wilson (the Athletics’ first All-Star starter since Josh Donaldson in 2014) and slugging first baseman Nick Kurtz, who have a chance to finish 1-2 in the Rookie of the Year voting. Plus, we have Denzel Clarke‘s circus catches in center field.
But otherwise? Ugh. The Sacramento gamble already looks like a disaster, three months into a three-year stay. The team is drawing well below Sutter Health Park’s 14,000-seat capacity, with many recent games drawing under 10,000 fans. Luis Severino bashed the small crowds and the lack of air-conditioning.
The A’s had a groundbreaking ceremony for their new park in Vegas, renting heavy construction equipment as background props. Maybe they should have spent that money on more pitching help.
Based on preseason expectations, the Braves have clearly been the biggest disappointment in the National League — fighting the Orioles for most disappointing overall.
What’s gone wrong? They haven’t scored runs, as the offense continues its remarkable fade from a record-setting performance just two seasons ago. The collapses of Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies lead the way, with lack of production at shortstop and left field playing a big role as well. Closer Raisel Iglesias has struggled, and the team is 11-22 in one-run games. Spencer Strider hasn’t yet reached his pre-injury level and Reynaldo Lopez made just one start before going down.
The Braves haven’t missed the playoffs since 2017, but that run is clearly in jeopardy.
The Orioles have a similar record to the Braves but have played much worse, including losses of 24-2, 19-5, 15-3 and two separate 9-0 shutouts.
They will spend the trade deadline dealing away as many of their impending free agents as possible, and then do a lot of soul-searching heading into the offseason. After making the playoffs in 2023 and 2024, will this season just be a blip? While the pitching struggles aren’t necessarily a big surprise, what has happened to the offense? Are some of their young players prospects or suspects?
After two months of Cleveland Spiders-level baseball, it would be easy to make fun of the Rockies. Especially since they recently announced Walker Monfort — son of the owner — was promoted to executive VP and will replace outgoing president and COO Greg Feasel.
On the other hand, the Rockies are doing something right: They just drew 121,000 for a three-game series against the White Sox.
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Jesse Rogers
CHICAGO — Former White Sox lefty Mark Buehrle was forever immortalized inside Rate Field as the team unveiled a statue in his honor Friday.
Buehrle, 46, played 16 years in the majors, including the first 12 with the White Sox, who he helped win a World Series in 2005. He won 214 games and pitched 200 innings or more in 14 consecutive seasons from 2001 to 2014.
“I can’t put it into words,” Buehrle said after the unveiling. “You don’t play the game for any of this. You never think of number retirements or statues. I can’t even wrap my head around it. It doesn’t make sense.”
The statue is an action shot of him throwing a pitch.
His wife and kids were in attendance and helped pull off the cover to unveil the statue while his 2005 teammates looked on. The event kicked off a weekend reunion for the World Series team which went 11-1 in the postseason, beating the Houston Astros in four games to take home the title.
Buehrle was a five-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove winner, finishing fifth in Cy Young voting in 2005.
“Well-deserved,” former right fielder Jermaine Dye said of the statue. “Great teammate. Great leader. Definitely someone you want on a ballclub to lead a pitching staff.”
The White Sox rotation — led by Buehrle — threw four complete games in the ALCS against the Boston Red Sox in 2005, missing a fifth complete game by two-thirds of an inning. It’s an unheard of accomplishment in today’s game since starters infrequently go the distance.
Besides being an innings-eater on the mound, Buehrle was a fast worker — a favorite trait of his catcher, A.J Pierzynski. And he wasn’t someone who threw a lot of different pitches. He caught it and threw it without much input from behind the plate.
“He was fast,” Pierzynski said. “We had Jermaine Dye calling pitches from right field some games. We did come crazy things you wouldn’t recommend to people to do nowadays.”
Buehrle is a notoriously low-key guy who hates the spotlight but even he was moved by the team’s decision to honor him with a statue, which joins former slugger Harold Baines in the right-field concourse.
“I joked with him when I saw him,” Dye said. “I told him ‘Man it takes you getting a statue to get you out of the house.'”
Buehrle added: “I was literally nervous as can be today. This is not my comfort zone but by no means am I taking it lightly. This is incredible.”
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