Just Google him: There’s more to Curt Cignetti than his viral moments
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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — About two hours before kickoff against Michigan, Indiana fans lined The Walk, a path from Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall to Memorial Stadium that the team traverses before games. Two fans standing near the start of The Walk wore T-shirts that read “Google Me” on the front and “Football School” on the back.
The areas south of the stadium were filled and festive, which was nothing new. Indiana has had a good tailgating scene before games. Getting those fans inside the stadium, meanwhile, has often been a chore.
Curt Cignetti has changed that and just about everything at Indiana. He came in saying things that would make even the most ardent Indiana fans blush as crimson as their sweaters. But he has backed up the bluster, not just winning games at a historic rate, but changing how people feel about Indiana football, where confidence is at an all-time high entering this week’s clash at No. 2 Ohio State.
“This is going to sound so cheesy,” said Cignetti’s son, also named Curt, “but just to see the sentiment change on Twitter, how these fans have gone from being doom and gloom or doubting to, suddenly, they’re super confident we’re winning every game, it’s unbelievable.”
Curt Jr. stood outside of the stadium before the Michigan game, tailgating with his mother, Manette, sisters Carly and Natalie and other family and friends. Not since 1968 had Indiana, the team with the most losses in FBS history (713), been favored against Michigan, the team with the most wins (1,009). But Indiana opened as a two-touchdown favorite — befitting a team that had won its first nine games by 14 points or more and leading the FBS in scoring margin.
Late at night, Curt Jr., 33, who lives in Ohio, and Carly, 31, who lives in New Orleans, will occasionally search the family name on Twitter. The scrolling doesn’t come from vanity or a search for validation. They knew their father was a great coach long before he stepped foot on the Indiana campus 356 days ago and lit it ablaze.
Cignetti’s kids aren’t the only ones doing vibe checks.
“I know for a fact he does, too, not Googling himself, but the Indiana community,” Curt Jr. said of his dad. “He sends stuff to our group chat. He sees that it’s not just players that are buying in, but the community, and that’s been his goal the whole time.”
This fall, college football has discovered Cignetti, a 63-year-old lifer in the sport, who was at Elon six years ago, IU-Pennsylvania eight years ago, has never had a losing season and has Indiana at 10-0 for the first time and in the College Football Playoff hunt.
“I think he’s been a good coach for a long time,” former Alabama coach Nick Saban said on “The Pat McAfee Show” before IU played Washington. Cignetti was on Saban’s first staff from 2007 to 2010. “He just had success at programs that … people didn’t pay that much attention to. But if you evaluate his success rate, it was very, very good. Now he’s at someplace people notice.”
Cignetti’s results aren’t new, but two things are: The stage he occupies at IU and the soundtrack to his success, the viral quotes that have sent shock waves through Bloomington and beyond.
“Hey, look, I’m super fired up about this opportunity. I’ve never taken a back seat to anybody and don’t plan on starting now. Purdue sucks! But so does Michigan and Ohio State! Go IU!” — Curt Cignetti, Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, Bloomington, Dec. 1, 2023
With 33 words in 25 seconds, interrupted by increasing bursts of roars, Cignetti changed the tenor at Indiana. Newly hired football coaches are often introduced at basketball games. They usually begin their remarks like Cignetti did that night. Sometimes they will poke at a rival.
But the pivot Cignetti made, not just to put down Purdue, which leads the all-time series with Indiana 77-42-6, but Big Ten heavies Ohio State and Michigan, which at the time were a combined 88-4-1 against the Hoosiers since 1968, was exceptionally bold.
“I was just shocked,” said Manette Cignetti, who joined her husband that night. “I did not expect anything like that. I just laughed. It was fun to be in the moment.”
Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson, a former student manager for Bob Knight’s basketball teams at the school, had heard a few spicy things said inside Assembly Hall through the years. Dolson had known Cignetti for only five days, connecting with him hours after announcing a coaching change.
During the interview and hiring process, Cignetti came across as “not arrogant, not cocky, but he’s extremely confident, he’s extremely authentic,” Dolson recalled. The declaration at center court didn’t directly connect with Cignetti’s personality, but it was done for a reason.
“Afterwards, he came up to me and said, ‘Hey, I got a little carried away, because I just wanted to see if our fans were asleep or were they dead,'” Dolson said. “And he said, ‘It’s good to see that they were just sleeping.’ From the start, he wanted to set a tone that it’s not the same doom and gloom. We can get this done.”
Cignetti needed only a few hours on campus earlier that day to assess the “hopeless” mood at IU. He had taken over a struggling program before, at Elon, an FCS team that was 12-45 in the five years before he arrived in 2017 and then proceeded to record consecutive top-20 finishes. When he arrived with Saban at Alabama in 2007, the program was coming off of a 6-7 season, and would go 7-6 in Saban’s first year before beginning its historic run.
Indiana seemingly had a steeper climb, both in its performance and confidence levels.
“It created a lot of buzz in Hoosier Nation,” Cignetti said of his basketball court battle cry. “I’m sure some people didn’t like it, and I’m sure people in Big Ten country thought I was a nut. But I think there was an excitement level before the season started. They were starving for success.”
Indiana offensive lineman Mike Katic wasn’t at Assembly Hall for Cignetti’s introduction, but he and his teammates soon got word of what their new coach had said. Cignetti’s message was for the fans — “something to turn their heads,” Katic said — but he struck a similar tone inside a locker room that had gone 9-27 during the previous three seasons.
Seven or eight players didn’t show for his first team meeting. Many had or would soon enter the transfer portal.
“I told them, ‘We’re going to win. We’ve won everywhere we’ve been. There will be no self-imposed limitations on what we can accomplish,'” Cignetti said. “They were listening. They were kind of slouched down in their chairs. They were probably beaten down a little bit.”
Katic and his teammates soon learned Cignetti-isms, phrases like “fast, physical, relentless” and “every play has a life of its own,” which the coach would pepper them with during the offseason.
“He took Saban’s process and made it his own,” one former Cignetti assistant said. “It’s a lot of the same foundational principles that Saban had. He’s not going to worry about anybody’s feelings.”
Cignetti brought seven assistants from James Madison, including all of his coordinators, and would add several key JMU transfers, including defensive linemen James Carpenter and Mikail Kamara, linebackers Aiden Fisher and Jailin Walker, wide receiver Elijah Sarratt, cornerback D’Angelo Ponds and running back Ty Son Lawton.
The newcomers helped shift the mood, but it started at the top.
“He had this swagger and this moxie to him that I hadn’t seen from a head coach in my career,” Katic said. “He didn’t say a whole lot, but we knew there was going to be a standard here, that it’s not going to be the old Indiana. This is a new Indiana. This is a whole new recipe and a whole new mantra to Indiana football.”
“It’s pretty simple. I win. Google me.” — Cignetti, signing day news conference, Bloomington, Dec. 23, 2023
Cignetti’s most famous line at Indiana, delivered in response to a question about how he would compile his first roster with key holdovers and talented transfers, is also instructive in understanding his life and career.
His father, Frank Cignetti Sr., is a 2013 College Football Hall of Fame inductee who went 182-50-1 at IU-Pennsylvania, twice reaching the Division II national title game. Frank was a high school coach before serving as an assistant at Pitt, Princeton and West Virginia, where he worked under Bobby Bowden and then replaced Bowden as head coach. Saban served as Frank Cignetti’s defensive backs coach at WVU in 1978 and 1979.
“We loved going to practice, we loved the games, oh my God, we loved being on the sideline, being in the locker room, being in the office,” said Frank Cignetti Jr., Curt’s younger brother and a longtime college and NFL coach. “Think about the people we were around, Bobby Bowden and Bowdens, Tommy, Terry and those guys.”
The Cignetti home on Dogwood Avenue in Morgantown, West Virginia, was a hub for athletic activity and competition. Frank Sr. never pushed his sons toward football, but they rushed to the sport.
In late 1978, Curt’s senior year of high school, Frank was diagnosed with lymphoid granulomatosis, a rare form of cancer.
“He was given his last rites twice,” Curt recalled. “But he beat it and lived 43 more years.”
Frank was fired after the 1979 season, despite a strong finish. He stayed out of football for two years to secure life insurance, Curt said, before taking the job at IUP, his alma mater, in 2011. Frank taught Curt that preparation breeds confidence, while lack of preparation breeds doubt and anxiety. Curt is a football grinder, arriving at his office before dawn, and ending his days watching film and devising schemes in the 35-year-old, teal beaded recliner that he has brought to his different coaching stops.
Frank Cignetti Sr. also taught the importance of positive energy and hope, which helped him as a coach and during his illness.
“We grew up in a household where there wasn’t much doom and gloom,” Frank Jr. said. “We had great belief in each other and ourselves.”
Curt has taken the Cignetti philosophy to the extreme at Indiana.
“If he was alive last year when I took this job, he’d have called me up [and said], ‘What are you doing?'” Curt said of Frank Sr., who died in 2022. “But my dad was a confident guy, hard worker, high character guy, would say what was on his mind. He’d think I’m half-crazy with some of the things I’ve said. I’d have been scolded. But it probably comes from him.”
After playing quarterback at West Virginia, Curt began his coaching career, making stops at Pitt, Davidson, Rice, Temple, Pitt again and NC State before joining Saban’s first Alabama staff in 2007 as wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator. He had jobs that he chose to pass up and was passed over for others.
As he approached his 50th birthday, he knew he didn’t want to be a career assistant, even for someone like Saban. The first opportunity to lead was a familiar one, IU-Pennsylvania, where his dad was a legend, his brother had played and where his wife had grown up. But there were risks.
“We had two kids that were in college, and it was a 60 percent [pay cut],” Manette Cignetti said. “It’s not about the money with me, but it’s: How do I make what [the kids] want to do happen?”
She told Curt: “You can’t take that job.'”
Saban had a similar reaction. You can get lost down there, he warned. But Cignetti had absorbed enough from the great coaches — Saban, Johnny Majors at Pitt, Frank Sr. — to know he was ready to be one. The pull eventually brought him back to IUP.
“You don’t see that move in this business,” he said. “I took a chance on me, and I woke up many mornings wondering what I’d done. But I was going to make it work.”
“Normally at these things, I stand up here and we’re picked to win the league. It’s just usually how it’s been. I have been picked next-to-last twice. We’re picked 17th out of an 18-team league, and I get it. The two times we were picked next-to-last, in 2022, we won the conference championship, and in 2017, we inherited an 8-45 team and … played for the conference championship. Now, I’m not into making predictions. That’s just a historical fact.” — Cignetti, July 25, Big Ten media days, Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis
Curt Cignetti didn’t always exude so much confidence. When he first got to IUP, he would come home after games and ask his family about players, playcalling and in-game strategy.
“I used to love that as a kid,” Natalie Cignetti, 28, said. “I feel like over time, he asked us less questions, because he gets it now and he doesn’t need anyone else’s opinion.”
Cignetti took over an IUP program that had slipped a bit, but quickly started winning. He won 12 games and reached the Division II quarterfinal in his second season and then won nine or more games in three of his final four seasons before leaving for Elon.
His next stop brought him to James Madison, a top FCS program. Percy Agyei-Obese, a James Madison running back for Cignetti from 2019 to 2022, remembered Cignetti saying how he had beaten JMU while at Elon, which had never defeated a top-5 team at the Division I level. Cignetti then led James Madison to the national final in his first season and then made the semifinals in consecutive years.
“Every year, he had the mindset of, ‘We’re going to win it all,'” Agyei-Obese said. “Whoever’s in front of us, we’re going to beat them, every single game. Even when we moved up to the FBS, it’s just like any team, we will beat them. He was not afraid, and that’s how my mindset was. Just him saying that game after game, that ‘We will beat this team, we’re going to win it all. They can put whoever they want. They can put Alabama in front of us. We will get the job done.'”
Former James Madison quarterback Cole Johnson said the Indiana version of Cignetti is the same guy who won big at JMU. The difference: Cignetti “wasn’t so outwardly confident” before.
“So much of that was kind of kept within the program,” Johnson said. “To see some of the stuff, ‘I win. Google me,’ I don’t think it’s him being cocky. It’s just the type of person he is.”
In 2022, James Madison transitioned to the FBS and the Sun Belt, and was picked to finish sixth in the seven-team East Division. The Dukes went 6-2 in league games, winning four by 22 points or more, and tying for first place.
Jeff Bourne, the longtime James Madison athletic director who hired Cignetti, recalled a decisive road victory in a game where the Dukes entered as a significant underdog. Before the bus ride home, Bourne approached Cignetti.
“We gave each other a big hug, and it’s like, ‘Can you believe that?'” Bourne said. “People didn’t give us a lot of credit that we could play at that level, and to dominate the way that we did was amazing.”
Bourne describes Cignetti as disciplined and organized, a “lifelong learner.” Cignetti didn’t hassle Bourne or complain about what JMU lacked, but spoke up about the things he really needed.
“He was never arrogant about it,” Bourne said. “It was just, ‘We need to be prepared in order to win.’ I just don’t think they come along often like him. He’s a really good leader, and good leaders can make some really special things happen.”
Cignetti thought he could keep winning at JMU and retire there. But when conversions accelerated at Indiana, including with Dolson and university president Pamela Whitten, he sensed the school wanted to change its trajectory.
The Big Ten’s media rights deal had caught his eye, and he believed that the mix of Indiana’s resources and his method and résumé would guarantee success. Indiana’s alumni network, one of the world’s largest, also got Cignetti’s attention.
“He said, ‘Scott, if I just have average resources, I will win,'” Dolson said.
There was another draw, too.
“People were like, ‘Don’t touch that job, you can’t win there,’ and that lit a fire in him,” Manette Cignetti said. “He was like, ‘Why can’t you win there? It doesn’t make any sense.’ He had a really good record, he likes his record, so that’s motivation to win, too.”
“I figured I had to make this trip up here, since we’ll be playing in this game next year.” — Cignetti, Dec. 1, Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, to Big Ten Network ahead of the 2023 league championship game
When the Hoosiers took the field against Michigan, a sellout crowd waved towels with Cignetti’s motto: “Fast, physical, relentless.” Many wore T-shirts and hoodies with “CIGNETTI,” modeled with the Marlboro cigarette logo and font, which are flying off the shelves at apparel stores near campus.
The scene looked different for Cignetti’s IU debut on Aug. 31. Indiana drew 44,150 for its opener but many left after the Hoosiers built a big halftime lead, leading Cignetti to wonder, “What’s going on here?”
The crowd actually dipped below 40,000 the following week but has swelled during Big Ten play. Indiana’s past three home games have been sellouts. The Michigan game drew 53,082 people.
“It just continues to grow and build,” Cignetti said. “It’s way over the top. It’s like a movement.”
Several hours later, Indiana clung to a 20-15 lead over Michigan, facing its first nail-biter of the season. Dolson and Whitten stood together on the Hoosiers sideline, watching nervously as fans roared and whipped their Cignetti-themed towels. The game carried extra tension for Cignetti and his family. Natalie’s boyfriend, Trent VanHorn, planned to propose to her on the field, ideally after a win. Curt learned of the plan the night before and, according to Manette, knew the pressure was on.
The Hoosiers prevailed, Natalie said yes and Curt tweeted a picture of the videoboard, which read: “Natalie, every day with you is 10-0. Will you marry me?” The good news continued during Indiana’s open week, as Cignetti agreed to a new eight-year, $72 million contract that more than doubled his annual salary.
Great way to cap off a gritty win!#GOIU pic.twitter.com/8xyr9Yov6H
— Curt Cignetti (@CCignettiIU) November 10, 2024
The coach reacted to the contract with another gem, telling Fox, “We’re the emerging superpower in college football. Why would I leave?”
Cignetti’s zingers are intertwined with his Indiana tenure, but, according to his family, also a bit misleading.
“You read people on the internet and they’re like, ‘I can’t stand Curt Cignetti. What an egomaniac,'” Carly Cignetti said. “That is like the complete opposite. But I get that it’s their impression of him if they’ve only seen the viral clips.”
Curt Jr. puts it this way: “When he got here, he just realized that everybody had this disproportionately negative view of what was possible. I honestly think it pissed him off. He’s very aware of: You need to change how people think. That’s why he did what he did.”
Curt Sr. also continues to be proven right. His proclamation with the Big Ten Network crew in December 2023 was greeted with chuckles and a clarification from host Dave Revsine, who asked Cignetti, “Are you willing to go on record with that prediction?”
“I am on record!” Cignetti replied.
No one is laughing now about Indiana getting to Indianapolis. The Hoosiers can essentially punch their title game ticket Saturday. Ohio State has won 29 straight against Indiana, the longest streak by a Big Ten team against a conference opponent. The Hoosiers are 12.5-point underdogs.
A win will all but guarantee Indiana’s first College Football Playoff berth. Even a competitive loss would make it tough for the selection committee to keep Cignetti’s crew out. Cignetti should sweep the national coaching awards.
The night before the Michigan game, Natalie Cignetti found her dad in his room, unplugging for a few minutes to eat dinner and watch TV. She asked him if he started to get excited about the playoff possibility. In typical coach fashion, Curt replied that he was only focused on the Michigan game.
If Indiana makes the CFP, though, Curt Cignetti won’t be surprised. He expected it and predicted it, and Hoosiers everywhere have listened.
“I’ve been around here a long time, and we’ve had some unbelievable moments,” Dolson said. “But relative to football, this is different. And it’s different because people’s confidence is different.”
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Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani‘s second start saw him record his first two strikeouts, but he did not advance beyond the first inning despite throwing only 18 pitches — a sign of how careful the Los Angeles Dodgers are being with his pitching progression.
“That was the original plan,” Ohtani, speaking through an interpreter, said after the Dodgers’ 13-7 win over the Washington Nationals on Sunday. “I look forward to adding more and more pitches.”
Ohtani worked around a wild pitch and a dropped popup from outfielder-turned-shortstop Mookie Betts to throw a scoreless top of the first inning, while making his second start in seven days. He struck out the game’s third batter, Luis Garcia Jr., on a sweeper that dropped toward his shoe-tops, then executed a tight, arm-side slider to strike out Nathaniel Lowe and end the inning. Ohtani’s fastball topped out at 98.8 mph after reaching triple digits in his pitching debut Monday.
Ohtani, who called his own pitches through a PitchCom device, said he was “able to relax much better” in his second outing. The biggest improvement, Ohtani added, was “the way my body moves when I pitch.”
“It’s something that I worked on with the pitching coaches, and I felt a lot better this time.”
Offensively, Ohtani went 2-for-19 with nine strikeouts in the five days between his starts. Ohtani has remained at the leadoff spot on his start days, which has meant rushing to put on his helmet, elbow pad and batting gloves in the middle of the first inning, then walking toward the batter’s box without hardly being able to take any practice swings.
In his pitching debut Monday, that was followed by a strikeout. The same occurred Sunday. But his bat came alive later in the game, after the Dodgers had finally broken through against Nationals starter Michael Soroka. With the bases loaded, no outs and his team leading by a run in the seventh, Ohtani laced a 101.3 mph bases-clearing triple to break open the game. An inning later, he added a two-run homer — his National League-leading 26th — on a ball that just barely made it over the fence in left-center.
“He’s a unicorn,” Dodgers rookie catcher Dalton Rushing said. “He does it all.”
The Dodgers have considered moving Ohtani out of the leadoff spot on his start days, particularly at home, to avoid the shorter preparation time before his first plate appearance. But they are adamant about continuing to be methodical with his pitching progression. He’ll make his third start at some point in the next six to eight days and could extend into the second inning then, but it’ll be a while until he is built up like a traditional starting pitcher again.
“It’s going to be a gradual process,” Ohtani said. “I want to see improvements with the quality of the pitches that I’m throwing and then also increasing the amount of pitches.”
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
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