Kiley McDaniel covers MLB prospects, the MLB Draft and more, including trades and free agency.
Has worked for three MLB teams.
Co-author of Author of ‘Future Value’
The Los Angeles Dodgers are the overwhelming favorites to win the 2025 World Series and become the first repeat champion in a quarter century.
That doesn’t mean they’ve cornered all the talent in this year’s Fall Classic.
In fact, the American League champion Toronto Blue Jays feature two of the top three players heading into the series and nearly half of our top 20.
Let’s dig into the stars — ranking the best of the series participants on how good I think they’ll be in this series and predicting who will take home some superlatives by the time the dust settles.
Ohtani put up a combined 9.4 WAR in the regular season and is a huge favorite to win the National League MVP again. Then, he one-upped himself with one of the greatest athletic performances of all time: six scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts and three home runs in the clinching game of the NL Championship Series.
Guerrero had a big regular season — 3.9 WAR despite the sixth-worst ball-in-play luck in the league — but has been white-hot in the playoffs, leading postseason players in most major offensive categories.
All four of the Dodgers’ starting pitchers are on a heater, but Yamamoto was the best of the group in the regular season by a lot and one of the top five pitchers in baseball.
Snell missed the first two-thirds of the season with shoulder inflammation but came back looking as good as ever. He might be on the best run of his career right now, with a 0.86 ERA in three playoff starts and the second-best underlying numbers (xFIP and xERA) in the playoffs among starters, behind Detroit’s Tarik Skubal.
Kirk was quietly the second-best all-around catcher in the league this year behind Seattle’s Cal Raleigh, but isn’t a huge star since his value is largely driven by on-base skills and pitch framing.
Glasnow’s walks crept up during the regular season and the playoffs, but he has been missing bats as always and is inducing weak contact during his current hot streak.
Smith hasn’t been very good offensively in the playoffs but had the third-best WAR amongst catchers in the majors this season, behind only Raleigh and Kirk.
Clement posted a quietly solid 3.2 WAR this season, driven mostly by contact and defense, but has gone to another level in the postseason, hitting .429 with almost no ball-in-play luck, due to his 4% strikeout rate. He’s on a heater, but the Dodgers’ staff is the type to possibly end that streak.
Varsho is above average at basically everything on the baseball field but isn’t truly elite at much. He missed time with shoulder and hamstring issues this year but was on track for a career-best 4-ish WAR season.
Gausman posted the 10th-best pitcher WAR in baseball this season but has one of the lowest fastball velocities of pitchers in that range and has been hit around in the playoffs, though his career playoff performances are close to his regular-season quality.
Edman is a good defender at almost any position but had the 12th-unluckiest ball-in-play outcomes this regular season. That luck has turned around in the playoffs.
Like Gausman, Yesavage’s splitter is his best secondary pitch, and he doesn’t have standout fastball velocity or breaking ball quality. That said, Yesavage’s splitter has been confounding hitters in his six career big league appearances, half of which have been in the playoffs.
It sounds like Bichette will be able to return to the Jays’ lineup for the World Series, but he has been out the past six weeks with a knee injury and it’s hard to know what he’ll look like in the short term.
Pages hasn’t been terrible at the plate this postseason, but he was a standout hitter (.272 average, 24 homers) and defender (plus-7 runs in 117 starts in center field) in the regular season, en route to 4.0 WAR.
Hernandez hit for power in the regular season (25 homers) but didn’t draw many walks or stand out defensively. This postseason, he has been hitting for even more power on a rate basis, so he sneaks on this list.
Superlatives
Fastest pitch of the World Series will be thrown by: Roki Sasaki
Sasaki narrowly wins this matchup with the hardest-thrown pitch among these teams in the playoffs at 100.8 mph, and he’s fresher than Louis Varland (100.7 mph) and can go more max effort than Ohtani (100.3 mph).
Sheehan’s slider was, per pitch thrown, the best pitch on the Dodgers’ staff this season. It doesn’t have a gaudy spin rate or crazy movement, but he throws it hard and hitters can’t seem to track it.
Best changeup/splitter will be: Yesavage’s splitter
Yesavage offers a unique combination of movement profile (his slider moves to his arm side), a very high arm slot, and short extension which brings his release even higher. Hitters haven’t seen something like this before. Then add in a killer splitter (which he barely threw at East Carolina, where he was last season) and hitters don’t know what to do.
Others in the mix: Yamamoto’s splitter, Gausman’s splitter, Snell’s changeup
Most whiffs will be thrown by: Snell
Snell has been red-hot in the postseason (I explain why here) and should get two starts, but there are a number of strong candidates for this.
Others in the mix: Yamamoto, Yesavage, Glasnow
Hardest hit ball in play will be hit by: Guerrero
The odds for this are as close to 50/50 as you can get. Guerrero (120.4) and Ohtani (120.0 mph) were second and third in max exit velo during the regular season behind Cincinnati’s Oneil Cruz (122.9). Ohtani has a slight edge in playoff max EV at 117.7 to Vlad’s 116.0. I’ll lean to Vlad because he has been running hotter at the plate and thus will get a few more chances to smoke one at a gaudy number, but Ohtani will be facing a weaker pitching staff, so this is still a coin flip.
Also in the mix: Ohtani
Highest sprint speed will be recorded by: Clement
The other main candidates are part-time players who might get only some chances to open it up on the bases, but I expect Clement to be on base often in the series.
The batter who will record the most hits: Guerrero
Clement (second in postseason hits with 18) might be held back a bit by the quality of the Dodgers’ pitchers while Guerrero (first in postseason hits with 19) also makes a ton of contact but gets the margin for error of having huge power, too.
Others in the mix: Clement, Nathan Lukes, Betts, Freeman, Springer
Best defender will be: Kirk
If you consider framing to be a part of defensive value (you definitely should) and also factor in positional difficulty (I think you should), then Kirk is the answer. He’ll be impacting roughly half of the pitches in the series and he was the second-best framer in the league behind San Francisco’s Patrick Bailey this regular season.
After the game, Cornhuskers coach Matt Rhule told reporters that Raiola wanted to return to the game, but the sophomore couldn’t run so Rhule decided it was unsafe to send him back in.
Raiola completed 10 of 15 passes against the Trojans for 91 yards and a touchdown before the injury. He was replaced by true freshman TJ Lateef, who went 5-of-7 for 7 yards and rushed for 18 yards on six carries.
Raiola had completed 72.4% of his passes for 2,000 yards and 18 touchdowns through nine games this season. He has been intercepted six times.
The Huskers (6-3, 3-3 Big Ten) lost their 29th consecutive game to an AP Top 25 opponent, a streak that dates to 2016. They will go on the road to face UCLA next Saturday.
ESPN’s Max Olson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Big 12 had two teams — BYU and Texas Tech — in the top 10 of the Associated Press Top 25 college football poll for the first time in two years Sunday, while Notre Dame was back in the top 10 after a two-month absence.
Oklahoma and Texas made the biggest upward moves in this week’s poll, rising seven spots to No. 11 and No. 13, respectively.
The top seven teams were unchanged in the final poll before the College Football Playoff committee releases its first rankings Tuesday night to kick off the run-up to the CFP bracket release Dec. 7.
No. 1 Ohio State, which pulled away in the second half to beat Penn State on Saturday, is at the top of the AP poll for a 10th straight week. Indiana, which scored 50-plus points against a Big Ten opponent for the third time while hammering Maryland, is No. 2 for a third straight week.
Losses by Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt and Miami shuffled the Nos. 8, 9 and 10 spots, now held by BYU, Texas Tech and Notre Dame.
Miami’s losses to two then-unranked opponents in three weeks have caused a 16-spot plummet, from No. 2 to No. 18.
The distribution of first-place votes was the same as last week. Ohio State received 54, Indiana got 11 and Texas A&M one.
The Buckeyes are in the Top 25 for a 90th straight poll, third most on the active list. Notre Dame is in a 50th straight time, fifth on the active list. Texas, meanwhile, made its 800th appearance in the poll, seventh all time.
No. 8 BYU and No. 9 Texas Tech gave the Big 12 two teams in the top 10 for the first time since Oct. 29, 2023. The Cougars, who were idle, have their highest ranking of the season. The Red Raiders won at Kansas State and reentered the top 10 for the first time in three weeks. The two teams face each other this weekend.
BYU has risen in the poll six straight weeks since making its debut Sept. 21. The Cougars have gone from No. 25 to No. 8 over that span.
Notre Dame, a winner of six straight, was pushed by one-win Boston College on the road before winning 25-10, helping the Irish move up two spots to No. 10. The Irish were last in the top 10 in Week 3, at No. 8, before a home loss to Texas A&M dropped them to 0-2 and No. 24.
No. 11 Oklahoma and No. 13 Texas received seven-spot promotions for their wins Saturday. The Sooners beat Tennessee on the road, and the Longhorns knocked off Vanderbilt at home. Tennessee took the biggest fall, dropping nine spots to No. 23.
No. 24 Washington, which was idle, is in the poll for the first time since it finished the 2023 season at No. 2 following its loss to Michigan in the national championship game. The Huskies’ only losses are to No. 1 Ohio State at home and to a then-unranked Michigan on the road.
Houston, whose No. 22 ranking last week was its first Top 25 appearance since 2022, dropped out after losing at home to West Virginia.
No. 8 BYU (8-0, 5-0 Big 12) at No. 9 Texas Tech (8-1, 5-1): The game of the year in the Big 12. The Red Raiders have lost 16 straight against top-10 teams.
No. 3 Texas A&M (8-0, 5-0 SEC) at No. 19 Missouri (6-2, 2-2): The Aggies embarrassed Missouri in College Station last year, jumping out to a 34-0 lead and winning 41-7.
Football coach Hugh Freeze, whose 15-19 record in his two-plus seasons at Auburn was capped by a listless home loss to Kentucky on Saturday, has been fired, athletic director John Cohen announced Sunday.
Freeze, 56, will be owed $15.8 million in buyout money, with no mitigation, after he signed a six-year, $49 million deal to replace Bryan Harsin in 2022. He is the eighth Power Four coach to be fired this season.
“I have informed Coach Freeze of my decision to make a change in leadership with the Auburn football program,” Cohen said in a statement. “Coach Freeze is a man of integrity, and we are appreciative of his investment in Auburn and his relentless work over the last three years in bolstering our roster. Our expectations for Auburn football are to annually compete for championships and the search for the next leader of Auburn football begins immediately.”
Defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin has been named interim head coach of the Tigers.
Much of the SEC offseason spotlight focused on Freeze, only heightening the need for a strong start for the Tigers. In his time at Auburn, he had a 6-16 mark in the SEC, and his tenure was marked by excruciating home losses to New Mexico State, Cal, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State and Oklahoma.
The program’s offensive issues continued under Freeze, with the Tigers scoring 24 or fewer points in 17 of his 22 SEC games. He also ended up on the wrong end of too many close matchups, including twice this season thanks partly to questionable calls.
Freeze, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer earlier this year, improved the roster heading into this season, landing consecutive top-10 recruiting classes. He also added key transfers such as quarterback Jackson Arnold (Oklahoma) and wide receiver Eric Singleton Jr. (Georgia Tech). Combined with a manageable 2025 schedule and a contract that ran through the 2028 season, it seemed the pieces were in place for Freeze to author a breakthrough.
“I think it’s as settled as we’ve been as a program, the continuity of our staff, the pieces of our staff that we’ve added and what we’ve been able to do in building our roster in high school recruiting and in the portal,” Freeze told ESPN in April. “Now, we’ve got to go compete and win some more games, but I don’t feel any sense of panic. We’re on our way to getting where we want to be and where we should be.”
The Tigers never got there. A 3-0 start in the nonconference portion of the schedule, including an impressive 38-24 win over Baylor on opening night, quickly fizzled in league play. The Tigers were competitive in their first four SEC games but were on the losing side of all four, including a deflating 23-17 loss at home to Missouri on Oct. 18, a game Auburn led 17-10 in the fourth quarter in front of a prime-time audience.
A comeback win on the road at Arkansas soon followed, but the Tigers were unable to maintain momentum. Saturday night’s 10-3 loss at home to Kentucky, which came complete with “Fire Hugh!” chants in the second half, ultimately proved to be the end as the Tigers fell to 4-5 (1-5 SEC).
“At the end of the day, I’m frustrated too,” Freeze said after the loss. “We all know that when we sign up for this. We accept it. I love what we’re doing here, but we haven’t gotten the results.”
Freeze ends his run without recording a winning season at Auburn in three tries. In fact, the Tigers last had a winning season in 2020, when they were 6-5. And they have won more than eight games only twice (2017, 2019) since playing for the national championship in 2013.
Freeze also went 1-12 against ranked teams.
“I wish I could ask for patience, but that’s not something that people want to give in this day and time, and I understand that,” Freeze said Saturday night. “I just think we’re so dang close.”
Auburn will be looking for its fourth football coach in seven seasons. The Tigers fired Gus Malzahn in 2020, Harsin in 2022 and now Freeze. Combined, the school will end up paying $52.5 million in buyout fees.