‘There was just no precedent:’ The inside stories behind the start of the USNTDP
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Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter
There was infighting within USA Hockey. There was a heated physical altercation over recruiting a player. There was the agent who got fired for buying kegs and hiring exotic dancers to recruit teenagers.
There were parents who signed guardianship of their sons over to people they had never met. There was a boxing ring. There was a trip to Russia, where political protesters and armed soldiers surrounded a game’s rink.
Then there was the legacy that came from all those events.
The United States National Team Development Program has become well known among hockey fans. The NTDP, as it’s more commonly known, has become the proving ground for some of America’s top underage male talents before they reached the NHL.
In total, 91 first-round picks and 380 NHL draft picks have come through the NTDP since the program started in 1996 and began play in 1997. Those NHL players include Jack, Luke and Quinn Hughes; Patrick Kane; Auston Matthews; Seth Jones; Brady and Matthew Tkachuk; Tage Thompson; James van Riemsdyk; Trevor Zegras.
While those players and the program that helped foster their development have become familiar, the origin story behind the NTDP itself isn’t well known.
ESPN spoke with more than 20 people, including the NTDP’s creators, its first coaching staff and the players from the first class about the beginnings of a program that forever changed the face of men’s hockey in America.
“Even now, and it’s more than 20 years later, I have a 14-year-old son who plays with a phenom and I know that kid’s goal is to get invited to the NTDP,” said former NHL defenseman Jordan Leopold, who was part of the NTDP’s first class. “That was nice to hear and it validates what the program is supposed to be. If you want to get there and take advantage of the opportunity, you can do a lot.”
AN OVERALL LACK of international success forced USA Hockey to confront why it was struggling to even reach the podium, let alone win tournaments. The U.S. combined for three podium appearances between the IIHF U20 World Junior Championships and the IIHF Men’s World Championships from 1981 to 1996.
Ron DeGregorio, a former USA Hockey president who was involved with USA Hockey in numerous roles for more than 40 years, said they wanted to find a national team coach to work with high-performing players and accelerate their development.
That coach would oversee the national junior team, the men’s national senior team and be an assistant for the men’s Olympic team for the 1998 Games, the first year the NHL allowed professionals to play at the Olympics.
They hired Lake Superior State University head coach Jeff Jackson.
Jackson was an assistant who took control of the Lake Superior State program at the start of the 1990-91 season and turned it into a national powerhouse. The Lakers reached six straight NCAA tournaments, advanced to three national title games and won two championships.
Jackson said he wasn’t looking to leave LSSU. But he was drawn to the new job due to USA Hockey’s need to improve upon its poor results at international competitions.
He knew from personal experience, having coached the USA at the 1995 World Juniors, where the team struggled due to a lack of continuity between players. Jackson described it as “one of the most disheartening experiences” of his career.
DeGregorio said Jackson came up with the concept that became the NTDP. Jackson presented USA Hockey with a plan: They would take the strongest American male talents between 16 and 18 years old and develop them into players who could excel at the next level.
Jackson said doing “it the right way” meant hiring a staff that could recruit players, find billet families (local families who players live with) and enroll the teenagers in high school. It also meant refurbishing the Ann Arbor Ice Cube. The Cube, which was the home of the NTDP until 2015, was already established, but the arena and USA Hockey worked together to add more space for the NTDP.
Jackson hired Michigan Tech head coach Bob Mancini and University of Maine interim coach Greg Cronin. He also hired Lake Superior assistant athletic director Scott Monaghan to be the program manager.
Jackson said the biggest unknown they faced in creating the NTDP was the number of people who spoke out against the program.
“Someone said to me that no one knew what we were doing. That’s not true,” said Mancini, who is now USA Hockey’s assistant executive director of hockey development. “It’s not that we didn’t know what we were doing. There was just no precedent.”
Jackson and his staff heard how the program should be a six-week summer course. Jackson said the only way to make change was if the NTDP were a year-round program with two teams separated by age in the form of a U-17 and a U-18 squad.
Jackson said there was infighting among different factions of USA Hockey, high school hockey and those at USA Hockey’s headquarters who were against doing a year-round program. There were states that held meetings with their high school associations about the NTDP. Herb Brooks, coach of the legendary 1980 U.S. Olympic Team, urged Jackson to not go through with the NTDP.
Leopold said he remembers going on a Minneapolis radio show and having one of the guest panelists criticize him for joining the NTDP.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. What did I get myself into?'” Leopold said.
“We were fighting against it those first two or three years,” Jackson said. “When I left, I was almost broken at that time. It was that intense and negative. The kids never saw it and that was a positive.”
Being in Ann Arbor was also an issue. Mancini said the logic for using Ann Arbor as the home base is that it was centrally located. But he said there were college coaches who felt like the NTDP being in Ann Arbor was a recruiting tool for schools like Michigan and Michigan State.
The NTDP also threatened the traditional American development model. Cronin explained how, traditionally, a player stayed in one community until it was time to go to college. Even then, they could still be close to home by choosing a nearby school.
That approach provided a sense of community pride for those local programs. They saw the NTDP as a deviation from that.
“We were looked at like pirates and the bounty was the player,” Cronin said. “You spin it as, ‘It’s good for the country. It’s good for the kid and their development.’ They knew that. But it was also like, ‘We’ve had this kid in our program for 13 years and now you are going to take him?!'”
The caliber of player the NTDP recruited for the first U-18 and U-17 class included future NHL first-round picks Rick DiPietro, Ron Hainsey, Barrett Heisten and David Tanabe, along with players taken in the later rounds who reached the NHL such as John-Michael Liles, Brad Winchester and Leopold.
Mancini said his first real inkling that the NTDP had its detractors came when he had an altercation with an assistant coach of a Triple A hockey team.
“I was physically assaulted. I’ll never forget it was Andy Hilbert’s father, Scott, who had to come in and stand between us,” Mancini said. “He had to come and stop what was going on. That assistant coach saw me, walked around the rink and tried to physically remove me from the building.”
Hilbert joined the NTDP, became a second-round pick and played in more than 500 professional games between the NHL and AHL.
Jackson said recruiting players came with the challenge of competing against agents, major junior teams or even some colleges that may have wanted a player to develop elsewhere before coming to their school.
He remembers when a low-level agent held a party for 16-year-old players at an airport hotel where there were kegs and exotic dancers.
“The one positive thing for me with that airport hotel story is we had a young man, his name was Joe Goodenow on the U-18 team,” Jackson said. “His dad was the executive director of the NHLPA and all it took was one phone call and that agent got fired. But there are multiple stories like that. Some are funny and some are not so funny.”
AN ALL-CONSUMING ENVIRONMENT with daily practices, off-ice conditioning, strength training with the promise of playing better, older and more physically mature competition over the span of more than 80 games, all while meeting the grade-point average standards to remain eligible.
These were the main points pitched by the NTDP to recruit players.
“I played 100 games my senior year or something like that,” said Liles, a former NHL defenseman who played on the first U-17 team. “You’re playing junior, you’re playing out of your comfort zone. … You go from playing 45 games at prep school to anywhere between 80 to 95 games and playing against amazing competition.”
Enter Daniel and Henrik Sedin.
Leopold said Minnesota high school hockey had good competition. But it was nothing like facing the Sedins at international tournaments. Brett Henning recalled receiving specific instructions about what to do against the Sedins on a faceoff — only to have the plan fall apart.
“There were eight seconds left on a D-zone draw and Jeff said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t let them win the draw,'” said Henning, who was drafted by the New York Islanders. “I don’t remember all the details but I remember [Henrik] tapped it through my legs and they scored. Jeff said to me, ‘That was the exact opposite of what I wanted you to do.'”
Watching the Sedins left Liles thinking, “That’s some amazing talent!” Tanabe asked himself, “How am I going to close that gap?” only to have Mancini tell him during his recruitment that he was not as far along as he should be.
Tanabe saw that as motivation.
“You’re thinking, ‘How much better were they than us?’ They were so far in front of us,” said Tanabe, who became an NHL defenseman. “They were producing in the Swedish professional league and I feel like they were playing in the pro league at 16 and then producing at 16 and 17. That’s a wake-up call when you are a 17-year-old kid and excelling in a pro league.”
Coming to the NTDP also meant leaving home, leaving family and friends behind while also attending a new high school. Every player needed their parents to sign a power of attorney letter transferring limited guardianship over to their sons’ billet parents.
In order for the NTDP to provide an official local address so their players could attend school in Ann Arbor, they needed to be compliant with Michigan state law. That’s why billet parents had to be granted limited guardianship.
Monaghan said the NTDP still follows that process to this day.
“If you are doing junior hockey and are creating a program, you are going to need to find a place to house kids,” Monaghan said. “You can never be far enough ahead on housing. You are asking someone to take someone else’s teenage son into their house, be their guardian and take care of them.”
The NTDP’s first class arrived in Ann Arbor to a facility that was still under construction. They were limited to mainly doing off-ice workouts before construction was finished, which allowed them to finally see what Jackson and his staff had planned for them.
“I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be,” Leopold said. “We practiced almost every day or did something. You try to have a social life, but you don’t have much of one.”
Among the skills they learned in the first year at the NTDP was boxing.
While today’s game has become more about skill, fighting played a major role in the sport back when the NTDP began. Cronin said the NTDP’s schedule saw them play Ontario Hockey League (OHL) teams, which meant they’d be facing older competition with more size and strength who were also looking to fight if necessary.
Henning said those OHL teams thought the NTDP players were “entitled” and the games were “pretty nasty” in nature.
“Our first meeting was at the end of August and there were 60-something kids in the room,” Cronin said. “I asked, ‘How many of you guys have been in a street fight before?’ Two guys put their hands up and I was like, ‘Uh oh.'”
Liles explained how Cronin’s boxing class went well beyond players learning self-defense.
“Cro was huge on body language,” Liles said. “It was always, ‘Johnny, your body language is terrible!’ with his South Boston accent. Looking back, it made a difference in who I was and who I became and the confidence I had going forward.”
Another item that left an impression on the first class was playing in the Six Nations Tournament in Russia.
Henning said they traveled for “36 straight hours,” a trip that involved flying to Moscow before driving what Leopold said felt like three hours to Yaroslavl. Monaghan said the team stayed at an old training center for one of the nation’s former military teams.
“There were German Shepherds, armed guards and it was creepy,” Leopold said. “We had one phone in the whole place to call home every night. … It was really eye-opening with where we were in society.”
Leopold said they drank bottled water because they were told to not drink the tap water. Henning and Tanabe said the team ate the same meal every day, but didn’t agree on what it was. Henning said it was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while Tanabe said it was pickled fish.
Political protesters met players at the game and held signs that read, “Get out of Iraq” and “Go home Americans. Our eyes are on you.” And there were more armed guards surrounding the rink.
“I remember playing in front of 10,000 people dressed in black clothing, smoking cigarettes with armed guards,” Tanabe said. “That’s the type of stuff being in Russia, where you are getting pushed psychologically and emotionally to perform well in a hostile environment.”
Monaghan said the NTDP lost every game at the tournament.
“We got our tails handed to us,” he said. “Two of the guys we played against were the Sedin brothers. We ran into them again and they used us as a turnstile on the way to a European junior championship.”
THE NTDP’S ORIGINAL coaching staff was together for two years. Cronin left first as he was hired to be an NHL assistant. Jackson left after three years to coach in the OHL with Mancini leaving after four seasons to become an NHL scout.
Even after its first staff left, the NTDP continued to face skepticism. But it also started to see results.
In 1999, Tanabe made history by being the first NTDP player to be drafted when he went in the first round, while DiPietro went No. 1 a year later. Altogether, the NTDP had 29 players drafted from that first class over a two-year cycle.
Soon first-round picks and large draft classes became common. In 2006, Erik Johnson went No. 1 to lead a class with six first-rounders. A year later, Kane and van Riemsdyk went first and second in a class with five first-rounders.
As of Nov. 1 this season, all but two NHL teams had at least one NTDP alum on their active rosters.
Even with the NTDP’s success, Monaghan said people may not fully understand what it took for the program to get there. He pointed out the work done by the NTDP’s first coaching staff, DeGregorio, former USA Hockey executive director Dave Ogrean and the late Jim Johannson, who was the assistant director of USA Hockey and also helped pave the way.
“Those people can never get enough credit,” Monaghan said. “I have to remind people here when I bring them on board that if Jeff Jackson is going to be here watching a game, they need to take care of him. He is the father of the program.”
The NTDP still has its critics. It also had converts, like that radio show guest panelist who criticized Leopold for leaving Minnesota high school hockey to attend the NTDP.
That man was former NHL forward Dave Snuggerud. His son, Jimmy, went to the NTDP and was a first-round pick of the St. Louis Blues in 2022. Snuggerud said he was critical of the NTDP because he was a Minnesota high school hockey coach at the time and felt like what was being done in Minnesota needed to be protected.
Snuggerud said he reached a stage when he decided to find out more about the NTDP and after learning more about the program, he began telling more of the young players he worked with about it because he wanted them to have opportunities. Snuggerud said he respected how the NTDP had its players taking high school classes while also teaching character development.
“The last piece was the hockey development,” said Snuggerud, the co-founder of Breakaway Academy, a hockey school that has had players go to the NTDP. “They do a fantastic job-building skill work and they are more interested, and still are to this day, in developing the athletes as being highly skilled and being a good teammate.”
Jackson returned to college hockey in 2005 and has been the head coach of Notre Dame since then. Cronin is a first-time NHL head coach as he was hired by the Anaheim Ducks in 2023 to oversee a roster featuring NTDP alumni Cam Fowler, John Gibson, Troy Terry and Trevor Zegras. Mancini returned to USA Hockey and is the assistant executive director of hockey development.
Leopold, Liles and Tanabe all made it to the NHL. Leopold now helps his wife run their family business, an event center for corporate gatherings and weddings in the Twin Cities. Liles is a television studio analyst for the Colorado Avalanche, while Tanabe, whose career was cut short by a concussion, is an attorney in the Twin Cities.
While Henning didn’t play in the NHL, he is the director of professional scouting for the Vancouver Canucks, where he works with the Sedin twins.
“To wear that jersey for me and everyone else on the team, it was something to be prideful about,” Henning said. “It meant something. The program being new could have gone the other way if the Minnesota kids had stayed or the East Coast kids had stayed. It was never said out loud, but everyone understood we were lighting a torch and we had to pass it on.”
Leopold said playing in the NHL didn’t feel like a realistic option until the NTDP. He grew up in Minnesota at a time when he felt there weren’t a lot of Americans in the NHL, and the North Stars had left for Dallas. Going to the NTDP gave Leopold more than just a place to develop. It gave him a place to get exposed to experiences that let him know the NHL was possible.
“When we got there, it was the second month, Billy Guerin was in a contract holdout with the New Jersey Devils,” Leopold said. “He practiced with us for a week or two. I was like, ‘Who the hell is this guy?’ I didn’t really follow hockey outside of Minnesota. But you look at the guy who put USA Hockey on the map. It’s him. It’s [Brett] Hull, [Chris] Chelios, [Mike] Modano and [Doug] Weight.”
Tanabe said another under-discussed aspect of the NTDP is the life experiences and structure it can provide. He said he had an appreciation for the billet families who take in players, along with the international competitions, which give teenagers who may have never left the country a chance to see what life is like elsewhere.
It’s why he said he’s forever grateful to Jackson, Mancini and Cronin for telling players to be mindful of how they represent the USA.
“We’ve heard clichés about ‘the ugly American’ or ‘the arrogant American.’ That is a lasting thing,” Tanabe said. “To this day, it still sticks with me to represent your country well and show respect for other cultures. Those things are lasting positives I learned from being at the NTDP. From how you behave at airports to how you behave at restaurants to when you are interacting with citizens from foreign nations.”
Every week, we gather a panel of our MLB experts to rank every team based on a combination of what we’ve seen so far and what we knew going into the season. Those power rankings look at teams as a whole — both at the plate and in the field.
But, how different would those rankings be if we were to look only at major league offenses?
We’ve seen a number of offensive explosions so far in the 2025 season — from torpedo bats taking the league by storm on opening weekend thanks to the Yankees’ barrage of home runs to Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani each putting together yet another all-time campaign at the plate.
The latest offensive shake-up came in the form of a blockbuster trade, with the Red Sox sending All-Star slugger Rafael Devers to the Giants in a deal that reverberated around the league. How did it impact the two teams’ offensive outlooks?
Our MLB power rankers came together to sort baseball’s lineups based on what they’ve seen so far and where teams currently stand. We also asked ESPN MLB experts Jeff Passan, David Schoenfield and Bradford Doolittle to break down the top 10 offenses in baseball, from each team’s catalyst to the lineup’s biggest weakness.
Top 10 lineups
Why it’s so fearsome: You start with the second-best hitter in the world in Shohei Ohtani, add in the National League’s leading hitter for average in Freddie Freeman and the NL’s OBP leader in Will Smith, mix in Mookie Betts, and finish with power up and down the lineup — and you might have the best lineup in Dodgers history. Indeed, their current wRC+ of 124 would be the highest in franchise history. There is just no room for opposing pitchers to breathe, and the Dodgers have a nice balance of left- and right-handed hitters who make it difficult for opposing managers to optimize their bullpen matchups.
One weakness: Michael Conforto has been a big disappointment as a free agent, hitting .170 with only four home runs while playing nearly every game so far. The bench was weak to start the season, but the Dodgers jettisoned longtime veterans Chris Taylor and Austin Barnes and called up Hyeseong Kim and top prospect Dalton Rushing. Kim has been outstanding, hitting .382 in his first 30 games, while Rushing has played sparingly as the backup catcher.
Player who makes it all click: As the leadoff hitter, Ohtani’s presence sets the tone from the first pitch of the game — and he already has hit seven first-inning home runs in 2025. With 73 runs in the Dodgers’ first 72 games (he sat out two of them), Ohtani is on pace for a remarkable 164 runs scored, which has been topped only twice since 1900 — once each by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. (They also each have the only other seasons with at least 160 runs scored.) With Ohtani making his 2025 pitching debut Monday, we’ll see if that affects his offense, but it didn’t during his final season with the Angels in 2023 when he posted a 1.066 OPS while pitching. — Schoenfield
Why it’s so fearsome: The Yankees homer more than any team in the American League. They walk more than any team in all of MLB. They don’t strike out excessively. They punish fastballs. Judge, the best hitter in baseball, anchors their lineup. Seven other regulars are slugging at least .428 in an environment where the leaguewide slug is under .400. There are 100 more reasons the Yankees’ lineup induces such anxiety in opposing pitchers, but it can be encapsulated this way: It’s a lineup without a real weak link, filled with professional hitters who take quality at-bats, at a time when so few make that a priority.
One weakness: Calling this a weakness is a stretch, because the most important point about the Yankees’ lineup is that it doesn’t have a weakness, but they have been worse with runners in scoring position than in situations without runners on second or third. The Marlins have more home runs with players in scoring position than the Yankees. New York’s slugging percentage in such situations dips from .451 to .407 — good for 13th in MLB. It’s also 140 points below the Dodgers’ mark. But fear not: Slugger Giancarlo Stanton, who epitomized clutch for the Yankees last postseason, is back after sitting out the season’s first 2½ months. As if the rich need to get any richer.
Player who makes it all click: What, were you expecting J.C. Escarra? The answer, of course, is Judge, the two-time AL MVP whose combination of power and plate discipline is gifting the Yankees another potential all-time season. It’s not simply the .378 batting average — which is 56 points higher than his career best — or the resplendent home runs he hits, to left and center and right, making the whole field his playground. Even after a miserable series against the Red Sox over the weekend, there is an expectation that Judge will rebound because he hits the ball so hard and so consistently makes contact. The Yankees without Judge are good; the Yankees with him are undeniable. — Passan
Why it’s so fearsome: The lineup depth has been ridiculous, and that trait has been even more stark since Matt Shaw returned from an early-season demotion and began contributing. The Cubs’ collective OPS from spots seven through nine in the batting order is more than 50 points better than the second-best team. Some of that stems from Pete Crow-Armstrong hitting seventh early on, but Chicago has maintained its top-to-bottom consistency all season. This keeps the plate full for run-producers Crow-Armstrong, Kyle Tucker and Seiya Suzuki.
One weakness: The Cubs have been good at just about everything that goes with producing runs. They rank in the top 10 in all three slash categories, are fifth in homers and second in steals. You really have to squint to find a weakness. You can point to a big disparity in road production (.808 OPS) compared to what the Cubs have done at Wrigley Field (.702 OPS). But that too might even out as the weather factors in Chicago work more consistently in favor of hitters.
Player who makes it all click: Crow-Armstrong might be the Cubs’ best MVP candidate, but Tucker is the best hitter and the best exemplar of Chicago’s good-at-everything attack. Tucker leads the team in runs created and OPS+, and though he’s not Crow-Armstrong on the bases, he has swiped 18 of 19 bags. None of this is out of scale with Tucker’s track record. This is who he is — except maybe a little better, as he has walked more than he has struck out. If Tucker’s power bat heats up with the summer weather, look out. — Doolittle
Why it’s so fearsome: The Diamondbacks do a little bit of everything. They already have two 20-homer hitters in Corbin Carroll and Eugenio Suarez, plus Ketel Marte, who sat out a month because of injury but could still reach 30 home runs. They are fourth in the majors in walks and fifth in on-base percentage, so they get on base. Geraldo Perdomo has been a solid contributor the past two seasons but has added some power. He has more walks than strikeouts and has already established a career high in RBIs, adding depth. Josh Naylor is hitting around .300 while replacing Christian Walker’s production at first base.
One weakness: Center fielder Alek Thomas is the only regular with a below-average OPS+, and even then, he’s not awful. The bench is a little thin beyond Tim Tawa and Randal Grichuk, as backup catcher Jose Herrera has provided little offense. The Diamondbacks’ biggest potential weakness is their struggle against left-handed pitchers. (They have an OPS more than 100 points lower than against right-handers.) Carroll, Naylor and the switch-hitting Marte have each been significantly better against righties.
Player who makes it all click: As explosive as Carroll has been at the top of the order, Marte is the team’s best all-around hitter. Like Perdomo, he has more walks than strikeouts, making him a tough out with his ability to put the ball in play and also take free passes. He has the power (36 home runs in 2024) to clear the bases, but he also excels as a baserunner and can have Naylor and Suarez drive him in. When the Diamondbacks reached the World Series in 2023, Marte was the offensive leader, hitting .329/.380/.534 that postseason. — Schoenfield
Why it’s so fearsome: The Mets’ lineup runs sneaky deep, boasts a combination of average and power, and has the fourth-lowest strikeout rate in the major leagues. Low strikeouts often equate to decent batting averages, but the Venn diagram with contact orientation and power is sparsely populated. Beyond the overall numbers, the Mets’ lineup is packed with stars: Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor and the team’s best hitter this season, Pete Alonso. A resurgent Jeff McNeil deepens a group that hasn’t received quite the expected output from Soto. He’s starting to find his rhythm, though, and once that happens, the Mets are bound to be even better.
One weakness: Considering the Mets have multiple options at third base, the quest for an internal solution isn’t banking on the fortunes of a single player. It could be Mark Vientos, the postseason star last year who’s set to begin a rehab assignment next week after a disappointing start to the season. It could be Brett Baty, who has shown plenty of power but still sports a .267 on-base percentage. It could be Ronny Mauricio, the rookie whose pop — and allergy to getting on base — is similar to Baty’s. Regardless of who it is, manager Carlos Mendoza has time to figure out how to maneuver his lineup so that other offensive holes at catcher and center field (when Jeff McNeil isn’t playing there) aren’t nearly as glaring.
Player who makes it all click: The Mets have been clicking without the best version of Soto, so it’s no surprise that in the past 16 games — in which Soto has hit .333/.507/.685 with five home runs — they have scored at least four runs 15 times. As good as New York is without Soto performing, he is their double-click — the catalyzer who brings about action. Even at his lowest points this season, he was managing to get on base, and that’s what makes Soto such a transformative player: His floor is extremely high. When he’s feeling his swing and unleashing shots to all fields, he’s capable of reaching a ceiling higher than all but a handful of hitters in the game. — Passan
Why it’s so fearsome: The Phillies have veterans with big names who have all been productive hitters at various points in their careers — although not necessarily in 2025. Kyle Schwarber has been the lynchpin so far, moved out of the leadoff spot and leading the team in home runs, runs scored and RBIs. Trea Turner is having his best season since joining the Phillies in 2023, with a .364 OBP that would be his highest since 2021. Alec Bohm has been on his usual roller coaster — homerless in April but hitting .331 with seven home runs since the beginning of May.
One weakness: Catcher J.T. Realmuto has carried a huge workload through the years but is now 34 years old and showing some signs of age with career lows in batting average, slugging and OPS. Bryson Stott was an above-average hitter in 2023 before dipping last season, and he has been even worse in 2025 with an OPS+ of just 75. Part-time center fielder Johan Rojas provides speed and defense, but not much offense, and as usual, the bench is pretty weak. Yes, that’s more than one weakness.
Player who makes it all click: As important as it is to have Turner getting on base, this lineup will always revolve around Bryce Harper and his ability to go on hot stretches. He hasn’t had one yet this season and is currently on the injured list because of a right wrist injury. His .446 slugging percentage and .814 OPS are his lowest since 2016. Harper has always been an outlier of sorts — he ranks in the second percentile in swing-and-miss rate in 2025 but in the 67th percentile in strikeout rate — so these aren’t necessarily signs of a decline. Philly just needs him to get hot once he returns. — Schoenfield
Why it’s so fearsome: It’s not. That’s the thing about the Tigers. One gander at their lineup cards — manager AJ Hinch has used 60 different variations over 71 games — and it doesn’t exactly strike fear. And yet that’s the beauty of the 2025 Tigers: They’re managing to score oodles of runs without a single hitter sporting a slugging percentage higher than .500. It’s not like the Tigers are particularly good at avoiding the strikeout (24th in MLB) or taking walks (18th). They don’t hit home runs in bunches (10th) or steal bases at all (30th). They’re simply solid, almost from top to bottom, replete with enough hitters who are league average or better to cobble together runs.
One weakness: The strikeouts are problematic — and a third of Detroit’s regulars struggle to counterbalance them with walks. Kerry Carpenter (52 strikeouts, seven walks), super-utility man Javier Baez (48 strikeouts, eight walks) and catcher Dillon Dingler (56 strikeouts, five walks) constitute one-third of players in all of MLB with at least 48 punchouts and fewer than 10 walks. Riley Greene’s 93 strikeouts lead MLB. And in the postseason, where the pitching gets better and every out is valuable, giving away at-bats by swinging and missing too much is a distinct no-no. Even with the strikeouts, the Tigers won’t be an easy out in October. But among the teams with legitimate playoff aspirations, only Boston punches out more, and it’s the sort of thing that could haunt Detroit.
Player who makes it all click: There isn’t one player, per se. One night it might be outfielder Greene, and another one first baseman Spencer Torkelson, and sometimes outfielder Carpenter, and maybe even infielder Zach McKinstry or outfielder Wenceel Perez. But if there’s one player whose skills differ from his teammates’ and set the table, it’s second baseman Gleyber Torres. Operating on a one-year deal, Torres has been the Tigers’ most consistent hitter this season, getting on base at a .377 clip and walking more than he strikes out. He exemplifies Detroit’s lineup — its team, really — in that nothing he does is particularly sexy but it’s unquestionably effective. — Passan
Why it’s so fearsome: “Fearsome” might be a stretch, but after a horrible April (.656 OPS), the Blue Jays did follow up with a strong May (.785 OPS). June has so far split the difference (.709 OPS), so maybe that’s the true level here, which makes this more of a league-average offense — and, indeed, that’s where the Jays currently stand in runs per game. But there is potential for more here, with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Anthony Santander, Bo Bichette and Andres Gimenez all capable of more offense than they’ve offered so far.
One weakness: Power. George Springer leads the team with 10 home runs, and the Jays have been outhomered by their opponents 99-70. Left field has been a problem all season, as seven different players have started there, combining to hit .223 with only four home runs. Gimenez was acquired for his defense at second base, but he has been a flop at the plate, hitting .212/.291/.327 with four home runs (and that’s after homering three times in the first five games). Lately, he has even been benched against left-handers.
Player who makes it all click: The $500 million man is hitting more like a $50 million man right now (.275/.375/.414, eight home runs) — but when he’s hot, the offense runs through him. Guerrero had a monster season in 2021 — but that was the year the Jays played more than half of their games in minor league parks because of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Guerrero had a 1.418 OPS in their spring training park and a 1.180 OPS in Buffalo (and a .935 at Rogers Centre). He was great again last season — thanks to a .342 BABIP. This season, it’s back down to .299, right around his career mark, but even that doesn’t explain the decline in power. The Jays need Guerrero to start mashing. — Schoenfield
9. Athletics
Why it’s so fearsome: They hit home runs and they hit for average, ranking in the top 10 in the majors in both categories. Jacob Wilson has been the breakout star with a .362 average in his rookie season, Brent Rooker is on his way to a third straight 30-homer season, Lawrence Butler is heating up and looking like the hitter he was in the second half of 2024, and rookie first baseman Nick Kurtz has also added another power bat to the lineup (after a slow start, he has hit .286 with six home runs in his past 11 games). What we don’t fully know yet, based on a small sample size, is how Sutter Health Park is helping. The A’s have hit for a higher average at home (.268 to .240) but have hit more home runs on the road (53 in 38 games compared to 39 in 36 games at home).
One weakness: JJ Bleday had a solid 2024 season, with 20 home runs and a 120 OPS+ in 159 games, but struggled out of the gate in 2025, earning a short demotion to Triple-A. Rookie Denzel Clarke replaced him, and though he has been a defensive wunderkind, he has been overmatched at the plate, hitting .209 with 34 strikeouts and one walk. Overall, the A’s rank 29th in the majors in OPS from their center fielders, ahead of only the Guardians.
Player who makes it all click: Wilson has been amazing, showcasing rare bat-to-ball skills with only 18 strikeouts in 289 plate appearances. The big surprise has been the 23 extra-base hits, including eight home runs, after going homerless in 92 at-bats during last season’s call-up. He has also been drawing a few more walks after beginning the season without one in his first 22 games, so his OBP is over .400. Now that he appears entrenched in the No. 2 spot, he’s going to give the middle of the order a lot of RBI opportunities. — Schoenfield
Why it’s so fearsome: In the Cardinals’ case, the fear factor is probably pointed in the wrong direction — as in their own fear of regression. I suspect their ranking is more a product of what they’ve done than what they are likely to do going forward. Ultimately, a team like the Braves, or even the reshuffled Giants or Red Sox, might be better placed here — but you never know. It’s a lineup with batting average and baserunning as the standout traits. The average part of it can be a house of cards — no pun intended — but the underlying expected stats backstop St. Louis’ offense so far.
One weakness: Only six clubs have a lower secondary average than the Cardinals — mostly a who’s who of the worst offenses in the majors. Secondary traits tend to be more stable than BABIP-related indicators, so St. Louis will need to continue to churn out its admirable strikeout and line-drive rates — a good formula for an average-based offense. But if the average falls, the Cardinals don’t draw enough walks or mash enough homers to make up the difference.
Player who makes it all click: Brendan Donovan‘s career year serves as an avatar for what the St. Louis offense is all about. He leads the Redbirds in runs created, and because he’s doing that while mostly playing in the middle of the infield (which boosts positional value), he’s far and away the team leader in offensive bWAR. The question is will it last? On one hand, even though Donovan has a career BABIP of .319, his 2025-to-date figure of .355 is going to be tough to maintain. On the other hand, Donovan’s 31% line drive rate is tied for second in the NL with teammate Willson Contreras. — Doolittle
Teams 11-30
11. Boston Red Sox
12. Seattle Mariners
13. San Francisco Giants
14. Atlanta Braves
15. Tampa Bay Rays
16. San Diego Padres
17. Cincinnati Reds
18. Minnesota Twins
19. Houston Astros
20. Baltimore Orioles
21. Milwaukee Brewers
22. Los Angeles Angels
23. Washington Nationals
24. Cleveland Guardians
25. Texas Rangers
26. Kansas City Royals
27. Miami Marlins
28. Chicago White Sox
29. Pittsburgh Pirates
30. Colorado Rockies
NEW YORK — Ryan Yarbrough was put on the 15-day injured list with a strained right oblique in another blow to the Yankees rotation, and rookie Allan Winans will make his New York debut Monday night at Cincinnati after going 7-0 with an 0.90 ERA at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Yarbrough, a 33-year-old right-hander who joined the rotation in May, is 3-1 with a 3.90 ERA in eight starts and eight relief appearances. He last pitched on Wednesday, getting a no-decision in a loss to the Los Angeles Angels.
“Something that’s been kind of coming on a little bit in his second-to-last start and then a little more sore towards the end of this last start,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Sunday. “After his last start was pretty sore the next day and then before he was getting ready to throw his side the other day felt like couldn’t quite do it.”
Boone said a scan indicated a low-grade strain. New York made the IL placement retroactive to Friday and recalled left-hander Jayvien Sandridge from the RailRiders.
New York already was missing ace Gerrit Cole (Tommy John surgery), 2024 AL Rookie of the Year Luis Gil (lat strain) and Marcus Stroman (left knee inflammation).
Winans will become the Yankees’ eighth starting pitcher this season, matching their 2024 total.
A 29-year-old right-hander originally selected by the New York Mets in the 17th round of the 2018 amateur draft, Winans made his big league debut with Atlanta in July 2023 and was 1-4 with a 7.20 ERA in eight starts over two seasons. The Yankees claimed him off waivers on Jan. 23.
Winans’ fastball has averaged 90 mph this season. In a 4-3 win at Louisville on Tuesday, he threw 23 sinkers, 19 changeups, 18 sliders, 10 fastballs and seven curveballs.
“He’s been tremendous. To be this deep in the season as a starting pitcher, have sub-1 [ERA], it’s been really, really excellent,” Boone said. “So, hopefully, he brings some of that up here with us tomorrow.”
Stroman last pitched for the Yankees on April 11 and is to make a third minor league rehab start Tuesday.
“Hopefully around 70 pitches or so and then be in the mix,” Boone said.
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