Inside Iowa State’s chase for its first conference title in 112 years
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Max Olson, ESPN Staff Writer
AMES, Iowa — Matt Campbell stood before his Iowa State football team on a Tuesday morning in October and asked the Cyclones if they were tough enough to stay the course.
They had surprised everyone during a 7-0 start and rise into the AP top 10. Three nights earlier, they had rallied for a last-minute victory over UCF. The Cyclones hadn’t been dominant but sure had a flair for the dramatic.
The head coach preached with passion for 30 minutes about what it would take to continue playing to their potential. He said he was looking for decisive excellence. No more leaving things up to chance. When you get to November, he says, great teams go for the kill.
“I ain’t flinching from this,” Campbell declared. “We’ve got more talent and we’ve got better players right here, right now, than we’ve ever had. You’re better than any of those teams the last seven or eight years that have tried this. So there’s no excuse. We’re not saying, ‘Nah, we’re not good enough.’ That’s a bulls— excuse.”
He reminded them of the history they were determined to overcome.
“One hundred and 33 years, men,” Campbell said. “Nobody before you has ever touched what you’re trying to do. You want to talk about legacy? You want to talk about creating change? Real hope for the future? Oh, buddy, it’s big-time.”
Nobody inside that room is shocked by where Iowa State stands today. For the first time in program history, the Cyclones have achieved a 10-win season. They’ll play for a Big 12 championship Saturday against Arizona State (12 p.m. ET, ABC) with a College Football Playoff bid on the line. Their senior leaders had big dreams at the beginning of the year: They wanted to be champions. Now they’re one win away.
The squad is chasing Iowa State’s greatest season of all time and its first conference title since 1912. The Cyclones aren’t led by big-name stars like Brock Purdy and Breece Hall. In fact, they have only one first-team All-Big 12 player. But it’s their most cohesive, selfless and resilient team yet. Iowa State got this far with tireless work and close wins. This is five-star culture at its finest.
The Cyclones got this far during the COVID-19 season in 2020 with NFL-caliber talent. They couldn’t live up to great expectations the following year. The program backslid hard in 2022. The fallout of a gambling probe left the team too young to contend last season. There were moments when Campbell feared he might not be able to get it fixed. But this season, he has built something special.
“Everything that’s happened has not been a surprise for everyone in this building,” defensive lineman J.R. Singleton said.
THE MESSAGE IS found all over Iowa State’s Bergstrom Football Complex, and it’s posted prominently above the gated entrance to the practice field.
WE BEFORE ME
That’s easy to say but hard to achieve in this transactional era of college football. Campbell has long believed that if you can recruit enough players who get it, who genuinely love football and put the team first, you’ve got a chance. And when those players develop into seniors who are your best leaders and playing their best football, you can achieve great things.
“If it’s not about the team, then you shouldn’t be here,” Campbell said. “When we maybe were off-kilter, it’s become more about you than about the team. That has paralyzed us here. That just doesn’t work.”
Before the season kicked off, Campbell told his players that if they hoped to do something special in 2024, it would take “leadership for the ages.” That’s what he’s seeing week after week from this team. He calls the 10-win season a byproduct of one of the greatest displays of senior leadership he has ever witnessed.
Wide receiver Jaylin Noel, safety Beau Freyler, cornerback Darien Porter and Singleton have led the way among the Cyclones’ 20-man leadership committee. The group meets with Campbell every Monday night to talk through players’ questions and concerns. Coaches point to Noel as one of the best leaders they’ve ever had.
“I just hate losing,” Noel said. “We’ve been through it so much in the past here. At some point, you’re gonna get tired of it. Guys don’t want to lose and aren’t willing to lose, so they’re willing us to victory.”
The roster Campbell and his staff have assembled in their ninth year in Ames is about as low-ego as it gets. One of the themes this team embraced throughout the year is the Buddhist concept of “mudita,” the joy one feels when another person succeeds.
“We’ve got the most boring, lame football team ever in history,” offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser joked. “They’re just the best, most behaved kids of all time.”
It’s a collection of players whose success was hard-earned. Leading receiver Jayden Higgins had only FCS offers coming out of high school in Miami and began his career at Eastern Kentucky. Jarrod Hufford, Iowa State’s sixth-year center from small-town Ohio, has played almost every spot on the offensive line. Porter, a converted receiver, has become an impact corner. Stevo Klotz, a former walk-on linebacker, is one of the Big 12’s best H-backs. Another walk-on, Carson Brown, emerged as the Cyclones’ No. 3 receiver this season.
Few are more beloved, though, than Freyler. The senior safety has dealt with a seriously damaged right shoulder throughout his career. Team doctors didn’t know how much longer he could keep playing. Freyler refuses to give up.
“Any day I get to suit up and play football is a great day,” Freyler said. “I’m gonna play ’til the wheels fall off.”
“He’s a warrior,” Campbell said. “He’s as great as we’ve ever had.”
Those mentally tough players define the Cyclones’ culture. And their young quarterback, Rocco Becht, is the one who brings everybody together. Coaches and teammates love his poise and ultracompetitive nature. Becht had to grow up quickly last season as a redshirt freshman starter but is comfortable leading now. Campbell says the 3,000-yard passer brings unbelievable humility, almost to a fault.
“He doesn’t think he’s a great player,” Campbell said. “He has truly outworked people to earn the right to be a really good football player.”
This Iowa State team doesn’t have a “Corn Jesus,” as former Iowa State tight end Charlie Kolar liked to call Purdy, now the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers. It’s not all on the QB or any one star player to deliver week after week. This season, the team truly needed everyone.
Entering the Big 12 title game, 95 Cyclones players have earned playing time this season. That’s out of necessity, not luxury, as they’ve battled injuries and tested their depth. Longtime defensive coordinator Jon Heacock said he has never experienced anything like the issues they endured at linebacker. Six have missed significant time with injuries, including projected starters Carson Willich, Caleb Bacon and Will McLaughlin. For weeks, they were just trying to survive at those spots. By midseason they were starting Rylan Barnes, a redshirt freshman walk-on from Britt, Iowa, whose farmer parents had to miss his first career start due to the fall harvest.
What people didn’t see, though, is how hard Willich and Bacon worked behind the scenes to prepare those young backups daily, from position meetings and film sessions to the practice field.
“Nobody really realizes that stuff,” Becht said, “but it’s why this team is so great.”
They’re all here because of Campbell. Becht, Higgins and plenty more teammates have been offered more money to transfer elsewhere. They stay for the brotherhood and for a coach who focuses all his energy on creating the best possible environment for his players’ growth.
If the Cyclones do get into the College Football Playoff, they’ll run into foes like Oregon, Texas and Ohio State who’ve assembled the best teams money can buy. Campbell couldn’t care less. He knows what works at Iowa State.
“Team and culture matters,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if somebody’s paying $32 million for a team in college football and somebody’s paying $1 million for a team. Culture matters. If you can get aligned and you can get the most out of your team, you still have a chance to win on Saturday, no matter what your budget is.”
EVERY MONDAY AFTERNOON, Campbell sits at the head of a conference room table surrounded by his trusted cabinet.
The head coach added this directors meeting to the calendar two years ago. He reserves this time each week to gather the leaders of Iowa State’s support staff and discuss the progress of every player in the organization. Players are sorted into a full depth chart, written in Campbell’s neat, tiny handwriting, and everyone gets a chance to chime in.
Campbell is flanked by director of strength and conditioning Reid Kagy and director of football performance ops Aaron Hillmann. Throughout the hourlong session, he takes in feedback from Nicole Kiley (sports nutrition), Amber Giese (academic services), Mark Coberly (sports medicine), Catelyn Fix (mental health & well-being), Justus Jones (student-athlete development), Mikie Schiltz (equipment), Derek Hoodjer (player personnel) and Skip Brabenec (chief of staff) on everything his players are dealing with.
How the players performed on Saturday is often immaterial to these conversations. They discuss not just injuries and grades but also mental health and personal or family problems. They’re paying attention to the strengths and struggles of every player, scholarship and walk-on. Who needs more help? Who needs to be challenged? Who had a good week or is heading in a bad direction?
Campbell began convening these meetings in the aftermath of a gut-wrenching 2022 season that prompted him to reconsider how he was leading this program.
“I felt like I was so down the rabbit hole on X’s and O’s in the season that I wasn’t doing a good enough job of being the head football coach,” Campbell said. “It was a great reminder that the alignment of the whole football program is my responsibility.”
From that standpoint, the past four years have been deeply challenging for Campbell. The Cyclones broke through in 2020 with a 9-3 run that ended with a Fiesta Bowl win over Oregon and their first ever top-10 finish. They were expected to be even better in 2021, with 19 starters returning and more than enough NFL-caliber players — including Purdy, Kolar, Hall, Xavier Hutchinson and Will McDonald IV — to field a serious CFP contender.
How does a team with that much talent go 7-6? Campbell spoke constantly during the program’s rapid rise about embracing “the process” and developing his players into the best version of themselves. He can’t say they achieved that in 2021. He learned so much from what he did wrong that year. “Instead of really challenging that ’21 team, I kind of was just grateful they came back,” he said. By focusing on catering to those proven players and keeping them healthy, he started to drift away from the mission of developing a bigger, faster, stronger team.
Iowa State paid the price for that during a brutal 4-8 season in 2022. A two-month stretch of painfully close losses exposed the need for serious repairs to the program culture. “There was a lot of ego, entitlement and selfishness,” Becht said. Campbell needed to make significant changes to his coaching staff and the day-to-day approach.
At the conclusion of Iowa State’s first losing season since 2016, as he weighed the difficult next steps, Campbell asked Mouser: “Can we get this back on track?”
He fired offensive coordinator Tom Manning, his longtime assistant and best friend, and brought in three new coaches on offense. He fired strength coach Dave Andrews and hired Kagy away from Boise State. He kept his player leaders heavily involved in the process, even bringing them onto Zoom interviews to ask questions.
“We had to revamp everything,” Singleton said. “I think that’s a credit to the head ball coach and his humble approach. I think a lot of head coaches that have success at the Division I level struggle to look at themselves in the mirror.”
In August 2023, Campbell had to confront another unanticipated issue. Quarterback Hunter Dekkers and four more senior starters were charged in a state investigation into illegal sports wagering by Iowa and Iowa State athletes. Four of the five players exited the program. Freyler called it an “uncomfortable time,” one that forced several players to step into leadership roles for an inexperienced team during an up-and-down 7-6 season.
“Last year was a really tough thing that happened, but I think it really galvanized this building,” Heacock said. “It was very difficult on everybody.”
From Heacock’s vantage point, Iowa State winning 10 games this season didn’t start with its offseason training in January. This current run was sparked by how the locker room and coaching staff responded to that moment of truth last season. Campbell refers to their difficult three-year stretch as a period of “implosion and rebirth.” Leaders such as Freyler, Noel and Singleton were the reason they survived it.
“We knew good things were going to come from this season,” Freyler said, “because of all the work, sacrifice and scars this team has.”
The history of Iowa vs. Iowa State during the Campbell era has been mostly heartbreak. His teams lost five consecutive Cy-Hawk games after he took over. These rivalry games typically come down to which team made more mistakes. And that team is almost always Iowa State.
But this year was different.
The Cyclones made plenty of mistakes in the first half and trailed 13-0 as they walked into the visitors locker room inside Kinnick Stadium. Campbell read the room. The moment didn’t call for a fiery halftime speech. His guys were locked in.
“What I appreciate about every one of you is there’s not panic,” Campbell told the team, “nor should there be.”
They’d been in plenty of these games before. They knew what to do. Iowa State’s offense got hot; the defense got five fourth-quarter stops; and the Cyclones outscored the Hawkeyes 20-6 the rest of the way, rallying for a 20-19 win on a last-second, 54-yard field goal by Kyle Konrardy.
“Everybody believed we were able to win that game,” Becht said.
From that point forward, these Cyclones didn’t just believe they could compete with anybody; they proved they could play fearless. They’ve faced double-digit deficits several times since. Against UCF, they needed an 80-yard touchdown drive with no timeouts in the final two minutes and Becht delivered.
“When we’ve been down a touchdown or two, no one has freaked out on the sideline,” Freyler said. “No one is cursing each other out.”
Campbell became the winningest coach in program history this season by once again constructing a team that can win close games. Almost half of the games Iowa State has played during his tenure have been decided by one score. The Cyclones have won 22 — including 10 against ranked opponents — and have lost 31. For this program, the margin for error has always been razor-thin. This season, they’ve had what it takes to win four of their five close calls.
“Magical seasons have magical moments,” Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard said. “I liken it back to when TCU had their year [in 2022]. I remember distinctly watching a couple games where you’re like, ‘How did they do that?'”
Campbell embraced a more aggressive mentality on offense this year when he promoted Mouser from tight ends coach to offensive coordinator. The 33-year-old staffer has worked under Campbell for the past decade and got his start stuffing envelopes as a recruiting intern at Toledo. When OC Nate Scheelhaase joined the Los Angeles Rams‘ staff this offseason, Campbell wanted continuity and handed the keys to one of his most trusted assistants.
Mouser had a clear vision for the offensive identity from the start: feared and fearless. Iowa State’s offensive operation has been another testament to internal alignment, a collaborative effort between coaches and analysts all season to put together the best possible plan. But Mouser hasn’t been hesitant to fire away. The first thing he told Becht upon taking the job? It’s time to let it loose.
On the first play of the season against North Dakota, Becht connected on a 54-yard vertical shot to Noel. They went tempo, and, on his next throw, Becht tossed a 21-yard touchdown to Higgins. Message sent. The Cyclones have two 1,000-yard receivers with bright NFL futures. Their coach knows how to get them the ball.
“We have the people to be aggressive, and that’s gonna make us different,” Mouser said. “I think being creative, being ballsy, being bold and just being different has helped get us here.”
“He’s not scared to call anything,” quarterbacks coach Jake Waters said.
Mouser reached deep into his bag against Utah in one of the most high-pressure moments of the season. The Cyclones trailed 28-24 with two minutes left and faced a third-and-1 at the Utes’ 29-yard line. And Mouser called a halfback pass.
“Honestly, there was a lot of crickets when I brought that play up at the time,” he said with a laugh.
High risk, high reward. Becht ran a toss right to Carson Hansen, who stepped back and floated a 26-yard pass to tight end Gabe Burkle. Hansen punched in the go-ahead score on the next play to win it.
Can’t be tamed🌪️🌪️#Big12FB | @CycloneFB pic.twitter.com/95s9BDXFqP
— Big 12 Studios (@big12studios) November 24, 2024
After back-to-back losses to Texas Tech and Kansas, the Cyclones had no choice but to win out if they hoped to reach the Big 12 title game. They ripped off three consecutive wins and got some fortunate help in the form of BYU and Colorado losses. But the way this team responded after a 7-0 start fell apart was telling. In this gauntlet of tight Big 12 games, Noel believes the more desperate teams win. That’s how Iowa State has played. The way Mouser sees it, the contests the past three weeks have been playoff games.
The payoff is a return trip to Arlington, Texas, and a shot at a Big 12 title. The last time the Cyclones played inside AT&T Stadium, they came up one drive short in a 27-21 loss to Oklahoma. The head coach is the same. Much of the staff is, too. Iowa State still has a few seniors who were freshmen back then. But the story of this season isn’t that the Cyclones finally recaptured the magic of 2020.
To Campbell, Iowa State is a completely different program today than the one that just felt lucky to get this far last time. Coaches say the toughness of this group is unmatched. They have the scars to prove it.
“He’s rebuilt the program twice,” Mouser said, “which a lot of people can’t say. And he’s done it the right way.”
When he accepted the Iowa State job back in November 2015, he told Mouser he was aspiring to do something that had never been done before. Nine seasons later — and 133 years after the program started — they’re one win away.
“We’re probably the closest to being what we envisioned this program being,” Campbell said.
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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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