Travis Hunter’s rise to college football immortality
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Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Writer
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — There are massive concrete barriers blocking what were once entrances to the Metro Extended Stay hotel. The empty and cracked parking lot has patches of overgrown weeds sprouting from the asphalt, and the ditches surrounding the property are covered in overgrown brush and littered with trash.
The hotel is gone, but a single black mailbox still stands on the large lot not far from Georgia Route 316, a lone, somber reminder of the three-story building that once housed numerous families and residents.
In high school, University of Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter lived at the hotel with his mother, stepfather and three siblings in a single room. There were two beds, a bathroom and little privacy for schoolwork or anything else.
Hunter’s coaches at nearby Collins Hill High weren’t aware of his circumstances when he showed up unannounced during the summer before his freshman year in 2018. They only knew that Hunter, who had moved to the Atlanta suburb with his family from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was different.
“His dad said he was a day one starter on varsity,” said Collins Hill High coach Drew Swick, who was the team’s outside linebackers coach when Hunter enrolled. “We all kind of chuckled and laughed. We hear that all the time.
“When we saw him for the first time in practice, we’re like, ‘Damn, he isn’t lying. This kid is legit.'”
Hunter has been different from nearly everyone else at each stop of his football career. It’s why the 21-year-old receiver and cornerback — a rare two-way player — is a massive betting favorite to win the Heisman Trophy on Saturday (-2250 on ESPN BET) and might be a top-five pick in next year’s NFL draft.
Hunter said winning the Heisman Trophy was his dream as a kid, but the idea of hoisting the stiff-armed trophy as the best college football player in the land seemed attainable only in video games. Hunter played EA Sports NCAA Football with his cousin, filling his roster with players with 99 grades and “trying to make them win the Heisman and all the good trophies,” he said. Now Hunter is tied for the highest rating in the current version of the game.
“I never envisioned this would happen for me, but I’m so happy to be sitting right here,” Hunter said in a news conference last month.
Hunter’s path to the Heisman Trophy ceremony in New York was anything but orthodox. After becoming one of the country’s most coveted recruits at Collins Hill, he shunned college football blue bloods Alabama, Florida State, Georgia and others to sign with Jackson State, becoming the first five-star recruit to choose an HBCU program.
After one season with the Tigers, Hunter followed his coach, Deion Sanders, to Colorado, where he became one of the sport’s most electrifying players.
This season, Hunter has 92 receptions for 1,152 yards with 14 touchdowns (No. 2 in the FBS) on offense, while allowing just 22 catches, 1 touchdown and 6 first downs on defense. He logged 1,356 snaps on offense and defense in 12 games — 434 more than any other FBS player.
Hunter has already collected the Walter Camp Award as the top overall player in the FBS, along with the Chuck Bednarik Award as the top defensive player and the Biletnikoff Award for the best wide receiver.
It’s a workload that would leave most players gasping for air. “There hasn’t been a game this year or last year where I felt like I’m too tired, I need to take a break, or I’m taking two minutes now to cool out,” Hunter said. “I don’t ever feel that way.”
With his blazing speed and playmaking ability as a receiver and lockdown cover skills as a cornerback, Hunter is considered a generational talent who wants to play on both sides of the ball in the NFL.
“I’m super confident, and I believe that I can do it at the next level,” Hunter said. “I’m not going to let anyone tell me that I can’t do something that I already done. They said I couldn’t do it in college, and I ended up doing it in college.
“A lot of people tell me I can’t do it in the NFL, but I’m going to still do it in the NFL. You know, a lot of people just let other people get in their ear, so they don’t let them do it, and some people don’t have the body type to be able to go both ways full time.”
When Hunter was asked about being described as a unicorn by a reporter, he said, “A unicorn is just different, different from everybody else. It’s just hard to do what the unicorn can do.”
SHIRLEY HUNTER, HIS paternal grandmother, who lives in Boynton Beach, Florida, isn’t surprised by her grandson’s success. She would tell anyone who would listen that “he was going to be the one” when he was 4 years old. She remembers Hunter throwing a football with both hands when he was 5; he says he can throw one 70 yards now.
“Everything about him was different,” said Shirley Hunter, who will be in New York to watch the Heisman Trophy ceremony. “His demeanor was different. When he was playing little league football and they’d take him off the field, he’d get upset. He wasn’t like the other kids. He wanted to play all the time.”
Hunter didn’t start on the Collins Hill varsity team as a freshman, but he played quite a bit in the secondary. As a sophomore, he had seven interceptions and 49 catches for 919 yards with 12 touchdowns.
The next season, Hunter exploded as a star player on both sides of the ball, finishing with eight interceptions and 51 tackles on defense and a whopping 137 catches for 1,746 yards with 24 scores on offense. He helped lead the Eagles to the 2020 Class 7A state title game.
By then, Hunter was living with Collins Hill secondary coach Frontia Fountain and his wife and daughter, Mitoya and Peyton. One weekend while Hunter’s mother was out of town, he asked Fountain if he could stay with him. Hunter lived in the Fountains’ home for more than a year until shortly before leaving for college.
Hunter’s mother, Ferrante Harris, told ESPN that she left behind a three-bedroom house in Florida in hopes of obtaining a better life for herself and her family when they moved to Georgia. For a while, they slept on the floor of a friend’s house before moving to the hotel.
“In order for you to have something, you got to actually see it,” Harris said. “So I knew that this was just us passing through, and that was something that we had to go through. We went through it. We endured it, but it also made us stronger. Not just one of us, but all of us. Sometimes the tests and the trials that you go through can make you stronger, make you wiser, and make you that much hungrier.”
Fountain, who played cornerback at Savannah State, had two rules in his house: Hunter had to wake himself up for school, and he had to finish his homework before playing video games or going fishing.
There was one drawback while living with Fountain: He was one of the first employees to arrive at Collins Hill, at around 5:20 a.m. each school day. Hunter curled up in a blanket in Fountain’s office until classes started at 7:20 a.m. He kicked off school days by hugging the administrative assistant and secretary in the front office.
“He was not only special on the football field, he was a special kid,” Fountain said. “Travis never had any discipline [problems]. He was never in trouble. The worst thing he did was watching film in class.”
Hunter could be seen walking the halls at Collins Hill with a stuffed wolf draped over his shoulders to stay warm. His diet in high school included hot (and extra wet) chicken wings, Chipotle and tons of candy. He skipped pregame meals and consumed a bag of gummy bears instead.
“The personality that you see, from the celebration dances to the onesies on his social media, I can’t think of him and not smile,” said Heather Childs, an assistant principal at Collins Hill. “Because to be around him, it was just joy.”
AFTER HUNTER INITIALLY committed to play football at Florida State in March 2020, the Seminoles asked him to graduate from high school a semester early.
Childs took on the task of helping Hunter try to do it. As a junior, Hunter took a block course, completing an entire year of language arts in one semester. He enrolled in summer school courses before his senior year, and then tackled block classes in math, science and language arts and three extra online courses that fall. Childs helped Hunter with study strategies and pacing plans.
“He worked at home,” Fountain said. “He’d come home, get a snack, and then he would sit there and work on his homework. He knew what it was going to take, and Travis is a very smart kid. He needed structure.”
As a senior, Hunter missed five games because of an ankle injury. He returned in time for the state playoffs, helping Collins Hill win its first state title with a 24-8 victory against Milton High in December 2021. Hunter had 10 catches for 153 yards and one touchdown and forced a fumble on defense. He tied a state record with 46 career touchdown receptions.
Before the early signing period opened that month, Hunter quietly took an official visit to the Jackson State campus in Mississippi. Tigers quarterback Shedeur Sanders, the head coach’s son, had been urging him to come, and they hooked up for brunch during his visit.
“He was trying to make a TikTok,” Sanders said last month. “I said, ‘Bro, if I make the TikTok, you got to commit, man.'”
One assistant coach whose Power 5 team was involved in Hunter’s recruitment until the end remembered walking out of his final visit at Collins Hill and calling his head coach.
“This kid is going to Jackson State,” the assistant told the coach.
“No f—ing way,” the coach responded.
“He talked about Deion Sanders the entire time,” the assistant said. “He knew everything about him. We’re wasting our time.”
On Dec. 15, 2021, Hunter flipped his commitment from Florida State to Jackson State. Swick didn’t know where his star player was going to go until Hunter walked into his signing ceremony wearing Nike Air Force shoes that were navy blue, one of the Tigers’ team colors.
“He was trying to kill two birds with one stone,” Swick said. “He wanted to make HBCUs popular … [and] Deion Sanders, the greatest to ever play his position, was going to be his head coach.”
During his stunning announcement, Hunter thanked Fountain for believing in him.
“Since day one, Coach Fountain, you have seen something in me that no one else has seen,” Hunter said. “Always coming to pick me up and making sure that I had something to eat and a place to stay every night. When I first got up here, we didn’t really have any friends. I came up here and it was just football, and I thank my teachers for challenging me and helping me get my grades up.”
Fountain and Childs traveled to Miami Gardens, Florida, with their families to watch Hunter play in his first college game, a 59-3 victory against Florida A&M in the Orange Blossom Classic on Sept. 5, 2022. Childs attended a game at Colorado, and Fountain watches his former student play on TV every week.
They’re especially proud that he was named an Academic All-American last year with a 3.7 grade-point average.
“When you have a child, it takes a village to help with that child,” Harris said. “It doesn’t just be the parent. It also takes other people that can reach your child just as well as you can. In some areas that you won’t be able to reach your child, there is always someone that God will place in that child’s life or your life, they’ll be able to reach that child for you. So they did exactly what I was not qualified to do. We all have different roles, and the roles they played with my son were amazing.”
Earlier this year, Hunter donated $10,000 from an NIL deal with Cheez-It to Collins Hill High to help teachers purchase supplies for their classrooms.
In July 2021, the Lawrenceville City Council unanimously agreed to purchase the Metro Extended Stay hotel for $7.2 million. It had become a crime-ridden property, and Mayor David Still told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that purchasing the hotel would save taxpayers money in the long run. The city demolished the hotel in 2022.
In March, Hunter and his fiancée, Leanna Lenee, surprised his mother with a five-bedroom home outside Savannah, Georgia, purchased with money he earned from lucrative NIL deals with United Airlines and NerdWallet, among others. He revealed the surprise in a video on his YouTube channel.
“We went through our tests and our trials for a purpose,” Harris said. “The purpose was this merry moment. Had we not gone through what we went through, how strong would he actually be? When people come at him and say crazy stuff, it doesn’t matter, because he’s been through a lot of storms. We’ve been through a lot of storms, but the outcome is so much greater than the storm that we were in.”
Now that we’re two months into the 2025 MLB season — and past Memorial Day, when baseball fans traditionally say you can finally check the standings — the top of our rankings have started to become more consistent.
Each week, you can find the usual powerhouses atop our list — but what does change from week to week is which one sits at No. 1, with the Philadelphia Phillies taking that honor for the first time this season in Week 9. They are the fifth team to take the top spot so far in 2025, despite the preseason expectation that the Los Angeles Dodgers would rule that spot for the majority of the season.
How does the rest of the top five play out? And where do other clubs stand in our final May edition?
Our expert panel has ranked every team based on a combination of what we’ve seen so far and what we already knew going into the 162-game marathon that is a full baseball season. We also asked ESPN MLB experts Buster Olney, Jesse Rogers and Alden Gonzalez to weigh in with an observation for all 30 teams.
1. Philadelphia Phillies
Record: 35-19
Previous ranking: 3
The Phillies are who we thought they were coming into the season, led by their starting pitching. As the Dodgers continue to try to find enough pitching until their stars are activated off the injured list around the All-Star break, a case can be made for the Phillies as the best team in the majors because of their rotation. Since April 26, the Phillies are 21-6 and getting contributions from all over their staff. Zack Wheeler has a 1.08 ERA in his past five starts, as he, Tarik Skubal and Paul Skenes vie for the title of best pitcher on the planet. — Olney
Record: 37-20
Previous ranking: 1
Tarik Skubal put together a masterpiece Sunday, shutting out the Guardians with a two-hit, no-walk, 13-strikeout performance that went down as one of the best pitched games in franchise history. Skubal won the American League’s Cy Young Award unanimously last year, and he looks just as dominant — if not more so — this year. But we knew Skubal was good. And this Tigers season has also been defined by what we didn’t know. Namely, that Spencer Torkelson (.864 OPS, 13 home runs) and Javier Baez (.276/.313/.456 slash line while transitioning to center field) would be integral parts to a championship contender. — Gonzalez
3. Los Angeles Dodgers
Record: 34-22
Previous ranking: 2
Three key members of their starting rotation reside on the injured list, as do five (five!) high-leverage relievers. Shohei Ohtani, meanwhile, is navigating through his pitching progression methodically. The Dodgers keep winning nonetheless — largely because their offense is just that deep. Ohtani has been every bit as impactful as he was while becoming the first full-time designated hitter to win MVP last year; Freddie Freeman is off to one of the best starts of his illustrious career, and the likes of Teoscar Hernandez, Will Smith, Andy Pages and Hyeseong Kim have been major contributors. Only the Yankees boast a higher OPS than the Dodgers. Only the Cubs have scored more runs. — Gonzalez
Record: 35-20
Previous ranking: 4
Call them the Plan B Guys — the group of players the Yankees pivoted to after Juan Soto took the Mets’ $765 million-plus-perks offer over the Yankees’ $760 million deal. Max Fried, signed to a record-setting $218 million contract, is in the conversation for AL Cy Young. Paul Goldschmidt has had an excellent bounce-back season. Cody Bellinger has played effectively, both defensively and offensively. The Yankees aren’t as dynamic without Soto, but they might have more depth — and are better suited for the postseason. — Olney
Record: 35-21
Previous ranking: 6
A relentless offense has defined the Cubs’ first two months as the team has averaged six runs. That would be the most over the course of a season since the 2007 Yankees. Chicago ranks as a top-three team in almost every offensive category, including batting average, OBP, slugging, triples, doubles and stolen bases. In fact, the Cubs’ stolen-base percentage is also the best in baseball. They’ve been great at both jumping on opponents and coming from behind — and it has led to one of the best records in the game as May comes to a close. — Rogers
Record: 34-22
Previous ranking: 5
The Mets’ defining characteristic is their pitching, but Juan Soto’s slow start is getting the most attention. With Soto drawing enormous scrutiny — especially in New York — others in the organization are working to provide some layer of protection for him. On Saturday, manager Carlos Mendoza seemingly hijacked an in-game interview to cover for the fact that Soto made it only a third of the way up the first-base line before peeling off to the dugout. Then on Sunday, de facto captain Francisco Lindor told ESPN before the game that he wanted to talk about Soto when he wore the microphone in-game for “Sunday Night Baseball.” And Lindor did just that, lauding his new teammate. — Olney
Record: 31-23
Previous ranking: 7
The Padres will face the Dodgers for the first time in a week and a half, when they host them for what should be a captivating series at Petco Park. In the meantime, they’ve continually applied pressure to the team many expected to run away with the National League West. They’ve done so mostly behind their best players. Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill have combined to slash .301/.363/.501. Robert Suarez has looked like one of the best closers in baseball, leading the NL with 17 saves. In the rotation, Nick Pivetta and Michael King dominated in April, Dylan Cease started to round into form in May and Yu Darvish is expected back in June. — Gonzalez
Record: 30-24
Previous ranking: 8
Seattle has been defined by an unexpectedly productive offense led by early MVP candidate Cal Raleigh and out-of-nowhere thumper Jorge Polanco. Polanco’s work at home is particularly impressive. T-Mobile Park has been known as a tough hitters’ park in recent years — but that has not been the case for Polanco. He has an OPS over 1.000, including eight home runs in only 19 games. Raleigh also has eight home runs at home. Manager Dan Wilson has pushed the right buttons, providing confidence for a group of hitters who seemingly lacked it when performing at home in previous years. — Rogers
Record: 31-25
Previous ranking: 9
The first iteration of Buster Posey’s Giants has proved to be a persevering bunch, already stringing together 14 come-from-behind wins. And their bullpen has sure helped that cause. Giants relievers boast the lowest ERA in the majors. A handful of rough outings have inflated Ryan Walker‘s ERA, forcing him out as closer. But the bridge to him had been absolutely dominant. Camilo Doval, Tyler Rogers, Erik Miller and Randy Rodriguez have combined for a 1.28 ERA and a 0.85 WHIP in 95 appearances. Opposing hitters are slashing just .167/.237/219 against them. — Gonzalez
Record: 32-24
Previous ranking: 12
Resiliency might be the defining character trait of the Cardinals this season, as they were behind the eight ball from the get-go when St. Louis said it might be taking a step back this season to reassess and reimagine the team. Early on, it looked as if the standings would dictate as much — St. Louis finished April three games under .500 and in fourth place in the division. But the veterans seemingly wouldn’t give in to this narrative and the Cardinals began a climb up the standings highlighted by a nine-game win streak in May. It vaulted them into the playoff race. — Rogers
Record: 30-25
Previous ranking: 10
The 2025 Twins have been defined by two distinctly different chapters. They sat at just 13-18 at the end of April, but since then they’ve won 17 of 24 games to surge back into the playoff mix in a wide-open American League. Royce Lewis and Carlos Correa are back and healthy but have yet to fully click offensively. In the meantime, the Twins’ pitching staff has carried the team of late, boasting the third-lowest ERA in the majors since the start of May. Jhoan Duran is dominating the ninth inning, and Joe Ryan, Chris Paddack, Bailey Ober and Pablo Lopez are holding it down in the rotation. — Gonzalez
Record: 30-25
Previous ranking: 15
While mainstays such as Jose Altuve, Framber Valdez and Yordan Alvarez (though injured) are still leading the way in Houston, new faces have emerged to keep the Astros in the hunt. At the top of the rotation is Hunter Brown, who gives up only 5.8 hits per nine innings pitched and has a 2.00 ERA and 0.916 WHIP over the first two months. At the plate, newcomer Isaac Paredes has proved that his pull-side tendencies work well at Daikin Park, where he has hit seven of his team-leading 11 home runs. — Rogers
Record: 27-29
Previous ranking: 11
The D-backs can hit, but (somewhat surprisingly) they’ve really struggled on the mound. Their pitchers rank 24th in ERA, ahead of only the Rockies, Orioles, A’s, Marlins, Nationals and Angels — the types of teams with which they really don’t want to keep company. Most surprising of all is that their rotation — a deep and talented group that was further bolstered by the surprise signing of Corbin Burnes this offseason — ranks 24th in ERA. Zac Gallen is off to a brutal start, posting a 5.54 ERA in his first 66⅔ innings. And Eduardo Rodriguez had a 7.05 ERA through his first nine starts before going down because of shoulder inflammation. — Gonzalez
Record: 30-25
Previous ranking: 18
In recent years, the Guardians continually remained competitive despite a tight budget because of their ability to develop starting pitching. But that hasn’t necessarily been the case lately. Guardians starters rank 23rd in ERA this season, on pace to finish in the bottom 10 for the third time in the past five years. They also have the sport’s highest walk rate. Ben Lively, the team’s Opening Day starter, recently underwent season-ending Tommy John surgery. And the homegrown trio of Tanner Bibee, Gavin Williams and Logan Allen hasn’t been as impactful as many would have hoped. — Gonzalez
Record: 25-28
Previous ranking: 14
As they continue to dig themselves out of that season-opening streak of seven straight losses, the Braves have made major changes to their roster. It’s pretty rare that a pennant-contending team makes changes at shortstop and catcher during a season, but that’s what they’ve done, installing Nick Allen at short and Drake Baldwin as part of their catching platoon. Now Atlanta needs more from the players signed to long-term deals, including Austin Riley, Michael Harris II and Spencer Strider. — Olney
Record: 28-27
Previous ranking: 22
The AL is a mud bog, with 11 teams carrying at least a 20% chance of reaching the playoffs (according to FanGraphs), meaning that a lot of clubs are still largely undefined. Count the Rays among those — we won’t really know what they’re capable of until they get ace Shane McClanahan back, perhaps sometime in July or August. Jonathan Aranda is hitting over .300 and might be a leading candidate to represent Tampa Bay at the All-Star Game. — Olney
Record: 30-27
Previous ranking: 13
The Royals have stayed in the mix despite struggling to do what virtually every contender must in this era: hit the ball over the fence. Royals hitters have accumulated only 30 home runs this season, worst in the majors. Bobby Witt Jr. has totaled only five, but he has also slashed .290/.349/.480 while stealing 20 bases and accumulating a major league-leading 21 doubles. He is not the problem; the problem is that Royals outfielders have totaled only seven home runs. And that outside of Vinnie Pasquantino, no individual Royals hitter has produced even six. Only five teams have a lower slugging percentage than the Royals. — Gonzalez
Record: 27-31
Previous ranking: 16
Fair or not, the Rafael Devers situation is defining Boston’s season so far. The highest-paid player in the organization’s history, moved to designated hitter against his will, has declined to take ground balls and build more flexibility into the roster. Instead, everyone else is expected to move — more specifically, rookie Kristian Campbell, who is learning to play a corner infield position on the fly and taking grounders before games. Devers, meanwhile, has played a corner spot his whole career. Is it shocking that Campbell might be overwhelmed as he tries to hit as a rookie? He’s batting .120 in May. — Olney
Record: 28-29
Previous ranking: 19
Cincinnati has been led by starting pitching that has kept the team afloat in the NL Central and wild-card race. The Reds’ rotation ranks in the top half of the NL in ERA and has both power and finesse throughout. Hunter Greene is the unquestioned ace of the staff, but his supporting cast has been pretty good. Andrew Abbott is sneakily good, though he’s limited to facing hitters only two times through the order. Nick Lodolo and Nick Martinez both have an ERA under 3.50, and newcomer Brady Singer had one really bad outing but has kept the Reds in games more often than not. So has the whole rotation, really. — Rogers
Record: 29-28
Previous ranking: 20
Pitching injuries and an underachieving offense have defined the Brewers so far. After showing some pop during spring training — OK, it is spring training, after all — they’ve done anything but at the plate. The team ranks in the bottom five in home runs and has been shut out in back-to-back games three different times in May. Struggling individuals include catcher William Contreras, who finished fifth in MVP voting last season. He has only five home runs and a .695 OPS. But Milwaukee still runs well, and that has helped the team stay afloat in the wild-card race. — Rogers
Record: 27-30
Previous ranking: 17
Losing Corey Seager definitely hurt, but even with that, Texas is performing a lot like last year at the plate — and it already has cost the team a hitting coach. The Rangers rank 27th in OPS, which is actually worse than their 2024 mark (23rd). The list of underperformers is lengthy: Marcus Semien, Jake Burger and Adolis Garcia come to mind while others, such as Wyatt Langford, have been OK — but none has an OPS over .800. The return of Seager this week could be monumental for the Rangers moving forward. — Rogers
Record: 27-28
Previous ranking: 21
Even with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. locked down with a long-term deal worth $500 million, the Jays’ offense has been shockingly poor, ranking in the bottom third of the big leagues in runs and home runs. In his walk year, Bo Bichette has an on-base percentage a little over .300 and a slugging percentage a little under .400. If he continues to slog along in this way, the Jays’ best option in the offseason might be to extend him a qualifying offer, which will probably be in the range of $21 million, creating the possibility he could be back for 2026. — Olney
Record: 25-30
Previous ranking: 24
Defining these Angels is a bit difficult: They’ve had moments when they’ve hit and pitched well but always seem to take a step backward after taking one forward. Ultimately, they’ve hung around thanks to a couple of streaks, most notably a recent eight-game winning streak that included an impressive sweep of the Dodgers during rivalry weekend. Who the Angles are might not yet be determined, but so far there has been a nice resiliency to Ron Washington’s squad. His leadership in his second year as manager has proved to be a bit more steadying. — Rogers
Record: 25-30
Previous ranking: 25
With this rebuilding franchise a member of one of MLB’s toughest divisions, the Nationals’ season will be judged on the evolution of their youngest big leaguers — and, so far, they’ve had a mixed bag of performances. James Wood is hitting well with a .950 OPS, and MacKenzie Gore has 93 strikeouts in 62⅓ innings. But Dylan Crews has struggled overall, hitting under .200, and Mitchell Parker has given up four earned runs or more in five of his past six starts. — Olney
Record: 23-33
Previous ranking: 23
Only the Orioles have a worse home ERA than the Athletics, who vowed to make Sutter Health Park in Sacramento an advantage for them. It has been anything but as the A’s are 9-19 there, serving up 50 home runs while hitting only 31. Less than a month ago, their outlook was bright thanks in part to a solid road record that had them in both the division and wild-card hunt, but their inability to pitch well at home has become their Achilles’ heel. To wit: Not one even semi-regular starter has a home ERA under 5.50. — Rogers
Record: 22-32
Previous ranking: 26
Miami is not contending, so this must be a year of small successes, like the one the Marlins have experienced with outfielder Kyle Stowers. Acquired in a trade with Baltimore last summer, Stowers has become perhaps the front-runner to be their All-Star representative this year. The Orioles’ second-round pick in 2019, Stowers is hitting .291 — and .375 against left-handed pitching — with a .362 on-base percentage and 10 homers. He is exactly what the Orioles thought they were getting when they signed Tyler O’Neill to a $49.5 million contract this past offseason. — Olney
Record: 19-36
Previous ranking: 27
Baltimore is baseball’s most disappointing team of 2025, and evaluators with other teams say that the Orioles’ pitching problems might continue into next year and beyond. Zach Eflin has been good for them when healthy — save for a mid-May outing in which he gave up four homers and eight runs against the Nationals — and would probably fetch a decent trade return. But it’ll be interesting to see if Baltimore tries to sign Eflin to an extension, at a time when it has to rebuild its pitching. — Olney
Record: 21-36
Previous ranking: 28
His strikeout totals aren’t as eye-popping as they were last season, but nonetheless, Paul Skenes is still the must-watch attraction of the Pirates. He has made every turn in the rotation, has a masterful complete-game loss against the Phillies and gives up only 6.2 hits per nine innings pitched. Skenes seems to be finding his stride as he has gone at least six innings in each of his past four starts, giving up only one run in each of the past three. And remember, he has to be near perfect as Pittsburgh is averaging an MLB-worst three runs per game. Skenes is the sole hope for a Pirates turnaround — though it won’t come this season. — Rogers
Record: 18-38
Previous ranking: 29
The White Sox are still really bad, on pace to finish with the AL’s worst record for the second straight year. And their most valuable trade option, Luis Robert Jr., is off to a dreadful start, making it unlikely that he’ll bring back anything close to the type of return they were hoping for. But one major bright spot has emerged of late: Miguel Vargas, acquired from the Dodgers in last summer’s Michael Kopech trade, has finally gotten going. The 25-year-old infielder was slashing just .139/.236/.203 on April 21. Since then, it’s .316/.382/.607. — Gonzalez
Record: 9-47
Previous ranking: 30
The 2024 White Sox — you know, the team that lost a modern-day record 121 times — won their 10th game of the season on May 9. It’s May 29 now, and the 2025 Rockies still haven’t won their 10th game. Through their first 56 games, the Rockies sit at 9-47, six games worse than the 2024 White Sox were at that point in their season. That’s how bad the Rockies have been. Their run-differential is a whopping minus-175, and no other team is even at minus-100 at this point. Their offense ranks 29th in OPS, 29th in strikeout rate and 30th in runs per game. Their pitching staff has the worst ERA and the second-worst strikeout-to-walk ratio. — Gonzalez
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David Schoenfield
The Detroit Tigers were going nowhere on Aug. 10, 2024, headed for another losing season, which would have been their eighth in a row, and their 10th consecutive non-playoff season. They were 55-63, 10 games out of the third wild-card spot and behind five other teams in the wild-card standings. They had dealt starting pitcher Jack Flaherty at the July trade deadline, and their lineup in a 3-1 loss to the San Francisco Giants that day featured Akil Baddoo batting leadoff (hitting .125), Gio Urshela at cleanup (.605 OPS) and Bligh Madris playing first base and batting fifth (career OPS in the majors of .560). The bottom four hitters all finished the game hitting under .200.
FanGraphs pegged Detroit’s playoff odds at 0.2%, which seemed generous.
The Tigers won the next day, beating the Giants 5-4. Maybe the biggest win of their season came on Aug. 15, though, when Javier Baez hit a two-out, two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning off tough Seattle Mariners closer Andres Munoz to lift the Tigers to a 2-1 victory. The Tigers would go on to an improbable 31-13 run to finish the season at 86-76 and capture a wild card — one win more than Seattle — before eventually being eliminated in the American League Division Series.
The winning has carried over into 2025 as the Tigers are 36-20, the best record in the American League. Tuesday was their 100th game since the transformation began Aug. 11, and they have the best record in the majors since that date:
Detroit Tigers: 67-33, .670
Los Angeles Dodgers: 64-36, .640
New York Mets: 62-38, .620
Philadelphia Phillies: 61-38, .616
What has led to this dominance? Let’s break down some of the numbers behind Detroit’s astounding turnaround over the past 100 games.
1. Tarik Skubal is 10-2 with a 2.22 ERA, 149 strikeouts and just 14 walks
The 2024 AL Cy Young winner dominated down the stretch in 2024 and has apparently raised his game to an even higher level. This season, Skubal boasts a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 92-to-7, or 13.14 K’s for every walk — which would be the best ever for a qualified pitcher:
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Skubal, 2025: 13.14
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Phil Hughes, 2014: 11.63
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Bret Saberhagen, 1994: 11.00
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Cliff Lee, 2010: 10.28
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Curt Schilling, 2002: 9.58
Skubal shut out the Cleveland Guardians on Sunday, allowing just two hits and striking out 13, registering a game score of 96, the highest game score since Domingo German also scored a 96 in his perfect game in 2023. Skubal’s final pitch: a blazing 102.6 mph fastball to strike out Gabriel Arias, the fastest strikeout pitch by a starting pitcher of the pitch-tracking era.
That pitch capped a historic performance for Skubal. Not only was it his first career complete game, but he did it throwing just 94 pitches. A shutout with fewer than 100 pitches is known as a Maddux, in honor of Hall of Famer and king of efficiency Greg Maddux (who had 13 Madduxes in his career). But Maddux never had a game quite like this one: Since pitch counts began in 1988, Skubal is the first pitcher to throw a shutout with fewer than 100 pitches and at least 13 strikeouts.
As he walked out to the mound for the ninth inning, he received a standing ovation from the home crowd chanting his name.
“Little teary-eyed out there, honestly, before the inning started,” Skubal said after the game. “It was pretty cool. I just thought to myself 12-year-old me wouldn’t believe that was an opportunity to have the fan base support you the way it does and be in that moment.”
Guardians manager Stephen Vogt called him the best pitcher in baseball. It’s hard to argue with that description.
2. A major-league-leading 2.78 bullpen ERA
Let’s break down the Tigers’ relief pitching over the past two seasons:
Start of 2024 season through Aug. 10: 4.16 ERA (20th in majors)
Aug. 11 to end of season: 2.35 ERA (second in majors)
2025: 3.31 ERA (seventh in majors)
The bullpen hasn’t been quite as dominant as it was those final seven weeks of 2024, but it has been effective enough. Manager A.J. Hinch and pitching coach Chris Fetter deserve a lot of credit for mixing and matching here. Changeup specialist Tommy Kahnle, signed as a free agent, has split closer duties with Will Vest, with Kahnle recording six saves and the hard-throwing Vest locking up four wins and seven saves.
This has been the result of necessity more than some master plan. Jason Foley led the team with 28 saves in 2024 but was sent down to Triple-A to begin this season after struggling in spring training. In mid-April, Foley talked to the Detroit News about his shock and frustration in getting sent down, but after allowing one hit over 6⅔ scoreless innings in five games for Toledo, Foley was placed on the injured list before undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery earlier this month.
This could be an area in which the Tigers eventually look to add some depth. Kahnle has succeeded in throwing changeups 84% of the time but also hasn’t pitched 50 innings in a season since 2019. Beau Brieske had a 3.18 ERA a season ago as a reliever but is at 5.29 in 2025 with just 12 strikeouts in 17 innings. Overall, the pen ranks just 22nd in the majors in strikeout rate, so it is more of a pitch-to-contact pen.
3. A .726 OPS that ranks top 10 in the majors
Let’s break this down into the same three splits:
Start of 2024 season through Aug. 10: .674 OPS (27th in majors, 4.12 runs per game)
Aug. 11 to end of season: .714 OPS (13th in majors, 4.45 runs per game)
2025: .736 OPS (eighth in majors, 5.07 runs per game)
For the first four-plus months of 2024, the Detroit offense was bad — much like it had been for each season since 2017. In those years, the Tigers ranked 10th or worse in the AL in runs, consistently ranking near the bottom in both on-base percentage and slugging percentage. The offense perked up down the hot stretch to finish 2024 but has been even better this season — Detroit last averaged at least 5.0 runs per game for an entire season in 2008.
The Tigers have also improved their OBP from .300 last season to .325 so far in 2025. Two keys here: Free agent Gleyber Torres and 2020 No. 1 pick Spencer Torkelson. Torres, signed to a one-year, $15 million contract, has a .380 OBP, well above his career mark of .334 entering the season. There’s reason to believe he might keep this going as he ranks in the 99th percentile in chase rate, continuing a two-year improvement from a 25.9% chase rate in 2023 to 21.4% in 2024 to 16.0% in 2025. That has helped him to more walks than strikeouts and a solid .277 average.
Torkelson, meanwhile, is hitting .238/.351/.513 with 13 home runs and 40 RBIs — a big improvement from last year’s .219/.295/.374 line that led to a two-month demotion to Triple-A. He hit 31 home runs in 2023, so he has produced power numbers before, but this time he’s doing it with fewer strikeouts and more walks. His timing has been better, especially as he has pulled more balls in the air (and fewer on the ground). His defensive metrics are also much improved. So far, this is a much better player than we saw even in 2023, let alone 2024.
4. Javier Baez is hitting .280/.315/.459 in 2025
Hinch has done a terrific job of mixing up his lineups, especially since Matt Vierling, who was second to Riley Greene in WAR among position players in 2024, just returned for his first action of 2025. The Tigers have also been without outfielders Parker Meadows and Wenceel Perez all season. With Vierling and Meadows both injured, they were left without a center fielder. The initial plan featured light-hitting infielder Ryan Kreidler plus a little Greene, but Kreidler didn’t hit and Greene is best suited for a corner position.
So the Tigers got creative — with Baez, of all players. Despite that key home run against the Mariners, Baez was one of the worst players in the majors in 2024, hitting .184/.221/.294 with minus-1.1 WAR. They made their late run last year mostly without Baez, who played his last game on Aug. 22. With three years and $73 million left on his contract and the Tigers looking to give the shortstop job to rookie Trey Sweeney, they appeared stuck with one utility infielder on an expensive contract.
After working out in center field in spring training, Baez got his first start there April 22.
“One of the things that Javy has always been invested in is winning,” Hinch said at the time. “And he asked what he needed to do to help this team win. You can go to adjustments at the plate, play clean defense, the baserunning that he brings. But the reality is, the biggest message was: We’re going to need you at multiple positions. And he was all-in, and I think he’s taken it in stride because he saw that our team was winning.”
Baez’s offense had gone downhill in his three seasons with the Tigers, so he’s finally producing at the plate for the first time since 2021. His defense in center has been more than acceptable. Can he keep it going? Probably not. He’s the same ultra-aggressive hitter, with a chase rate that’s still over 40%. His hard-hit rates remain well below where they were during his best seasons with the Chicago Cubs. Meadows has just started a rehab assignment and will likely take over in center when he returns, but Baez has at least shown he can help out as a utility player.
Throw in Vierling — another player who can play all over the field — and suddenly Detroit’s lineup is not only versatile, but deep from one to nine with a good bench.
5. Casey Mize and Jackson Jobe are a combined 10-2 with a 3.23 ERA in 2025
The continued success of Mize and Jobe might be the key to whether the Tigers run away in the AL Central and keep this win pace going over 162 games. Mize is 6-1 with a 2.45 ERA but has a 3.90 FIP, as he has allowed a .215 average and .255 OBP despite averaging a below-average 7.7 K’s per nine innings. Jobe is 4-1 with a 4.03 ERA but a 5.02 FIP as he has a poor 35-to-24 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Despite the difference between their ERA and FIP, there is reason to believe in both pitchers. In Mize’s case, he throws strikes (with just 10 walks in nine starts), and his expected stats show a .208 average and .369 slugging percentage, almost a perfect match for his actual results — so he has done a good job of limiting hard contact and inducing an above-average groundball rate.
For Jobe, it’s all about projection improvement. We’ve seen that in his past three starts, as the highly rated rookie starter induced a few more swing-and-misses — 14, 11 and 11, respectively, after not reaching double figures in his first six starts. His changeup has been effective, giving him a nice weapon against left-handed batters. The issue is that his four-seam fastball, while averaging 96.6 mph, doesn’t miss a lot of bats. Since he doesn’t get much extension in his delivery, his “effective” velocity is just 93.0 mph, so it plays down a bit despite a fairly high spin rate (81st percentile). Bottom line: He’s nine starts into his career and has shown the potential that made him a top prospect.
And the bottom line for the Tigers overall? They’re clearly for real, with improved offensive depth, a dominant No. 1 starter and a top manager who knows how to use his roster. Detroit also has a strong farm system — No. 3 on ESPN’s preseason ranking — that will allow it to be one of the teams most likely to add significant help at the trade deadline.
The Tigers haven’t won 100 games since 1984, which happens to be the last time they won the World Series. This team has the roster to make you believe both of those things could happen again in 2025.
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