How Kirby Smart built Georgia into college football’s next dynasty
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Mark Schlabach
CloseESPN Senior Writer- Senior college football writer
- Author of seven books on college football
- Graduate of the University of Georgia
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Alex Scarborough
IT WAS FINALLY over. Staying on as Alabama’s defensive coordinator for a month after becoming the head coach at Georgia was more stressful than Kirby Smart had imagined. But a promise was a promise, and he kept it, reminding himself during sleepless nights that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. And it wasn’t a train, it was a jubilant Crimson Tide locker room in Arizona, having just beaten Clemson to win the national championship.
Smart’s hair was still wet from a postgame shower when a group of reporters crowded around him after the 45-40 victory on Jan. 11, 2016 — a 40-year-old getting ready to tackle his first head-coaching job, which happened to be at his alma mater. A bus was waiting. A private plane would take him to Athens, Georgia, early the next morning. He looked exhausted, happy and anxious all at once. It wasn’t a perfect ending, as one reporter suggested. “It would have been perfect if we shut ’em out,” Smart said.
His boss, Alabama coach Nick Saban, had the same fundamental aversion to satisfaction. For two former defensive backs, allowing 40 points was a mortal sin. But a win’s a win, and no one turns down a trophy. It was poignant, too. This was the end of 11 long years together. Smart seemed in awe of his mentor, specifically a “hell of a call” to go for an onside kick with the game tied in the fourth quarter, but more broadly what it took to win four championships since arriving in Tuscaloosa in 2007. “Nobody realizes how much mental effort, execution and ideas this guy puts into it,” Smart said. “He lives, sleeps and breathes football.”
Smart said he’d take wisdom from Saban. He’d also take the secrets to evaluating and recruiting at the highest level. In a word, it was everything.
Although it might have been stressful to pull double duty at Alabama, Smart said he thought winning a championship would help Georgia with national signing day rapidly approaching. Being on TV was valuable exposure. It creates momentum, he explained. “But at the end of the day,” he said, “you have to build your own [momentum]. You have to win yourself and you have to get good players and we have to build a good program.”
Saban could have his so-called 24-hour rule, enjoying the championship for one day before flushing it and moving on. Smart said he was giving himself only five hours before he moved on to the full-time job of turning Georgia into a playoff contender. Michail Carter, whom Smart visited days later, picked Georgia over Alabama, and the Bulldogs signed the No. 7 class in the country — a culmination of an all-out effort that began the moment Smart took the job. At his introductory news conference, Smart told reporters he wanted to use every minute he had toward recruiting. He then looked down at his watch and said, “As a matter of fact, I’m ready to go right now.”
Smart took what he learned under Saban, put his personal spin on it and created a powerhouse underpinned by toughness, competition and top-shelf talent. Fittingly, Georgia beat Alabama to win its first championship under Smart this past January. Fifteen players were drafted off that team, including a record-setting five first-round picks on defense, and nothing changed. The Bulldogs went undefeated during this year’s regular season, beat LSU by 20 points in the SEC championship game and advanced to play Ohio State in Saturday’s College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in Atlanta (8 p.m. ET, ESPN).
With Saban and the Crimson Tide sitting at two losses and outside the playoff, Smart appears to have built the sport’s next budding dynasty. One that is looking more like vintage Alabama than Alabama does right now — physically imposing, stingy on defense and possessing a relentless attitude that’s a reflection of its head coach.
Smart said players could expect a culture shock once he took over. He delivered that and so much more.
GEORGIA ATHLETIC DIRECTOR Greg McGarity didn’t need a primer on Smart when he was looking to replace Mark Richt as head coach late in 2015. They were already acquainted, and not just because Smart had gone to school at Georgia and was a running backs coach there in 2005. “I knew when he was recruiting against Georgia, for years and years the best players in the state were going to Alabama,” McGarity said. One of the top recruiters in the country, Smart had signed about two dozen players from his home state, including future NFL running backs Kenyan Drake and Alvin Kamara.
Beyond Smart’s connections, McGarity was impressed by his résumé — specifically how long he lasted working for the famously demanding Saban. While the Alabama staff was in a constant state of churn, Smart was a fixture for nine years.
When McGarity and Smart finally spoke face to face after the SEC championship game that December, there weren’t many unknowns. The meeting was more about determining fit, hearing Smart’s vision for the program and understanding the commitment it would require. “He knew what he needed,” McGarity said, “and it was our job to make that happen.”
At one point, Smart handed McGarity a flowchart containing all the positions and reporting responsibilities within the organization. The recruiting department would roughly double in size. The chart was so big and complex that it couldn’t fit on McGarity’s tablet. Positions were color-coded to distinguish salaried from hourly employees.
McGarity wasn’t put off by the dollar figures, though, not even when they lured offensive line coach Sam Pittman away from Arkansas by giving him a $525,000 raise and paying a $250,000 buyout. McGarity said he was determined to empower Smart, rather than being a “helicopter” AD questioning him at every turn. But he does remember looking over the flowchart and wondering, “What are all these people going to do?”
“Once you saw a recruiting weekend in action, you said, ‘I get it,'” McGarity said. It wasn’t just the number of people required to pull off Smart’s vision of an official visit that impressed McGarity but also the coordination that took place, all the way down to the janitorial staff. From the moment a player set foot on campus, he and his family had a Georgia representative with them the entire time — a driver, a tour guide, a coach. There were no large groups where someone could get lost or let their mind wander. Everything was personalized.
“I’m always gonna have a presence because I think it shows the players, it shows the people in the organization, that everything we do is important,” Smart said. “And if you’re not there and you’re not relevant, you know, what does that say you’re saying about that part of the organization? And I just think it’s too important to be involved.”
And everyone was called upon to pitch in. Jere Morehead, the school president, would give up his Saturday mornings to come talk to recruits. When Morehead couldn’t make it, McGarity, who retired in 2020, would step in.
Smart was a constant presence, displaying an outgoing personality that doesn’t often show up in interview settings. A former staff member said Smart has an uncanny ability to connect with players. A prankster, the staffer explained, “He’s messing around with everyone, all the recruits and their parents.”
Given a full year to forge relationships, in 2017 Georgia signed the No. 3-ranked class, according to ESPN, including future first-round picks Isaiah Wilson and Andrew Thomas. A year later, Smart and the Bulldogs finished No. 1. And it’s no coincidence that, since Smart’s arrival, no team has assembled a slate of mammoth defensive linemen like Georgia has.
Smart recalled going to the NFL combine as an assistant with the Miami Dolphins in 2006 and being told by Saban, “I want you to come here and sit by Bill.” To which Smart asked, “Bill who?” It was Belichick, whom Saban had worked with as defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns. Saban said to listen and learn. But as they followed Belichick, positioning themselves behind the defensive linemen getting ready to run the 40-yard dash, Smart was confused. “Why are we here?” he asked. “You can’t time the finish.” Saban explained, “No, Bill likes to look and see how big their ass is when they get down in the 40-yard stance because he wants to sign the biggest ass defensive linemen that he can.” Saban accounts for a number of critical factors when evaluating players: straight-line speed, short-area quickness, arm length, ankle and hip flexibility. But sometimes a big can is what’s required, “Because those ‘backers want to … be protected.”
Last year, Travon Walker was the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft and Jordan Davis and Devonte Wyatt also were first-rounders. Current junior tackle Jalen Carter is a potential No. 1 pick in 2023.
From 2016 to 2018, Georgia spent $7 million on recruiting — $1.5 million more than any other public university in the Power 5, according to a USA Today Network study. And that’s not to mention the millions of dollars that went toward the kind of infrastructure recruits notice: new locker rooms, a new players lounge, a new indoor practice facility.
Robby Discher spent one season as a quality control coach at Georgia before taking the special teams coordinator job at Tulane. A former Group of 5 and FCS assistant, he marveled at the resources Smart had assembled. He singled out director of player personnel Matt Godwin for his skill in overseeing a robust recruiting operation. He called associate director of recruiting operations Angela Kirkpatrick a “stud.” He said director of recruiting relations David Cooper is incredible, working the phones day and night, connecting with prospects and coaches.
That’s all before you get to on-field assistants Smart hired, such as Dell McGee and Todd Hartley, who are some of the best recruiters in the country.
“I think it starts with him,” Discher said of Smart. “He’s a relentless recruiter. … He’s on you about it. If he asks [about a prospect], you better know.”
THERE’S A PHRASE Smart uses often to describe his job as a leader: confront and demand. Discher said Smart does a good job of setting a clear standard, whether it’s in recruiting or any other facet of the program. And, apparently, he misses nothing. “If a random guy on punt return should be inside of the guard and he’s head up on the guard, he sees it,” Discher said. “Not only is that player going to hear about it, so is the assistant coach. You can’t be soft and make it through that program.”
“He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met,” Discher added. “He’s incredibly intelligent, and he’s gonna be on your ass.”
During the summer of 2016 — a month before his first game as head coach — Smart visited the Athens Country Club and spoke to fans about what to expect: the health of the team, the transfers added during the offseason and how Saban had called Georgia one of the best jobs in college football. Smart laughed and said his old boss was pulling a fast one with that comment, setting him up for high expectations.
But then Smart got on the subject of movies, specifically the decision to show the team “Friday The 13th” and “Nightmare on Elm Street” before the last two scrimmages, and he gave a glimpse into the team psyche he was attempting to foster.
“That’s who we want them to be,” he said. “We want them to be scary. Just like the guy in the mask; you can’t kill him. He keeps coming back. As soon as you do kill them, well, here comes the sequel.”
Jeb Blazevich graduated and left Georgia after the 2017 season, but the former tight end kept a memento at his new job selling insurance. It was a printout of the Tuesday practice schedule, which he pinned to a wall in his office. So whenever he had a bad day, he said, he could turn to the schedule and remember old times.
“Especially in August,” he recalled, “we would all sit around and be like, ‘Well, boys, I just got chewed out at work, I screwed something up, client’s pissed. But it could be worse.'”
It could be Bloody Tuesday.
When Smart arrived, Tuesday stopped being just another practice during the week. It became a two-hour test asking, essentially, how tough can you possibly be? They’d run as a team and practice in full pads. It would be ones vs. ones, full go. No special teams, no red zone. No stopping to catch your breath while they change out personnel every 5 minutes. “No special situations, you’re just playing fast football,” Blazevich said. “A super physical day.”
It was a shock, too, because Monday — the first day of practice after a game on Saturday — was usually light. Tuesday was the “heaviest day” by far, Blazevich said, and every day after that tapered off in terms of intensity. Coaches would emphasize its importance, telling players they took care of them the rest of the week for a reason. “How you practice,” they’d say, “is how you play.”
“The whole day is about setting your jaw,” quarterback Stetson Bennett said. “It’s a mindset day. That’s when we go good on good, and we try to shove it up the defense and they try to spit it right back out. And it’s competitive, and we’re talkin’ trash, and Coach Smart’s on the microphone, and it’s almost like a game.”
Smart doesn’t need a microphone to get his point across, but boy oh boy does it add an exclamation point on things when his voice is booming out of a speaker. Last month, someone was able to record Smart from across the street when he ripped into cornerback Kelee Ringo ahead of Georgia’s game against Tennessee. “Kelee, all this finger-pointing bulls—?” Smart was heard saying. “Every other team in America, you know what they do? They say, ‘It’s his fault! It’s his fault! It’s his fault!’ Why do they get f—ing layups? Because people don’t concentrate!”
“That was nothing,” Discher said. “That was a normal Tuesday.”
For the record, Ringo, who signed with Georgia in 2020, loves Tuesdays. He said it “molds you into a good player” and “gets you ready for Saturday.” They bring up Bloody Tuesday during pregame, he said, as a reminder to “impose our will and just be physical.”
Is it difficult to endure that kind of mental and physical toll every week? Of course it is. Ringo said he warns recruits all the time, “If you come to Georgia, it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be painful. There are going to be some days where it’s really hard to keep your chin up.”
Other coaches have adjusted to the current climate, not wanting to run off players who can easily leave via the transfer portal. It’s been suggested by the media and some of Saban’s former players that the 71-year-old is a kinder, gentler version of his younger self.
Smart is 46 and seems just as ready to run through a wall as he did during his playing days. Smart jumped higher than Ringo did for his game-sealing pick-six against Alabama during last year’s national championship game.
Being tough, being physical, practicing ones vs. ones, Bennett said, “It’s at the foundation of this place.”
Those Tuesday practices set the tone. Co-defensive coordinator Will Muschamp called them “a thing of beauty” and “the way you’re supposed to get after it.” Offensive lineman Sedrick Van Pran said it gets chippy and fights are common. But it’s OK. It’s like building calluses, he said. “It gets you acclimated to what they expect in the game, because honest, football isn’t easy.”
“We hit,” Smart said. “We promote toughness. And it’s not just by me. It’s done by the leaders on the team. And I think they embody that. They embrace that. And when you talk to people after you play ’em, they [say], ‘Man, y’all are a really physically tough team. And we respect that.'”
LOOKING BACK, the thing Blazevich appreciated about Smart was his consistency. There was a point during their first season in 2016, he said, when it felt as if the wheels were getting ready to come off. The Bulldogs had just lost to Vanderbilt and dropped to 4-3. The media was tearing them apart and everyone was dreading the bye week when Smart called a group of veteran players into his office.
Blazevich, who was part of the group, remembered Smart being calm and starting out by saying, “I know everyone’s scared.” But he said that nothing had changed just because they had lost a game. The bye week wouldn’t be altered. “That gave me a lot of confidence that, all right, we’re not just acting emotionally, we’re not figuring this thing out as we go,” Blazevich said. “Like, there is a plan in place that we can trust.”
They lost to Florida the next week but didn’t collapse. Instead, they went on to win four of their final five games, including beating TCU in the Liberty Bowl, which helped set the tone for the next season.
Despite starting 2017 off with nine straight wins and reaching No. 1 in the AP poll, Smart didn’t let off the gas. In fact, he pushed harder, worried about the effect of so much positive press.
On Mondays, Smart wanted to set the tone. So at the start of every practice, during stretch period, he played a song by The O’Jays. It was a little on the nose and way too old for the audience, but he dialed up “Back Stabbers.” Early on, there’s this passage:
Blades are long, clenched tight in their fist
Aimin’ straight at your back
And I don’t think they’ll miss
What they do? They smilin’ in your face
All the time, they want to take your place
The back stabbers (Back stabbers)
So that was the soundtrack the first time Georgia reached the playoff, beat Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl and lost to Alabama in the national championship game. Four years later, the Bulldogs got their revenge.
The song is still in rotation. Linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson said Smart plays it to remind them “They’re not with us.”
Bennett gladly recites all the ways in which “they” are wrong.
First, look at the defense, he said, which lost five first-round picks and hasn’t missed a beat.
“You know, that’s why you recruit good players,” he said. “They just come in, and now all these guys on defense are hungry because everybody [during the] preseason is tellin’ ’em that they’re not gonna be this, they’re not gonna do that.”
Now look at the offense. “Everybody on offense is hungry and ready to go,” Bennett said, “because everybody said, ‘Oh, well, the only reason you won last year was because of your all-world defense,’ as if that’s some sort of slight to our championship ring.” Now look at the entire team. “We’re hungry,” Bennett said. “We’re sittin’ over here and sayin’, ‘Oh, you’re saying that about us. Really? Blah, blah, blah.'” Talking to players, there’s no sense of entitlement. There’s no letdown. Dumas-Johnson said they enjoy feeling like underdogs. They enjoy the feeling of disrespect — all because they weren’t ranked No. 1 at the beginning of the season. No. 1 in the preseason was, of course, Alabama, which seemed to play not to lose. At one point, Saban questioned his team’s emotion, wondering why players had stopped chanting in the tunnel before games as they had in the past. Alabama used to have an edge, manufacturing it through competition and slights in the media, real or imagined. But that edge appears to have dulled in recent years, with the Tide struggling to put away teams late (see: losses at Tennessee and LSU) and playing down to competition (see: Texas A&M and Texas). The edge belongs to Georgia now. Jim Nagy runs the Senior Bowl, which is equal parts college all-star game and NFL draft showcase. When he watches Georgia, he sees the Alabama blueprint in action — the high-end talent, specifically on defense. Saban used to load up on big, strong linemen, Nagy said, but now it appears Smart has “cornered the market on those guys.” There’s even a parallel on offense. Remember when Alabama used to have game-manager quarterbacks and multiple bruising running backs? It’s flipped to where that’s now Georgia with the ultimate blue-collar QB in Bennett and a trio of hard-nosed backs in Kenny McIntosh, Daijun Edwards and Kendall Milton. “You’ve gotten full recruiting classes that have cycled through now, right? And they’re just building on each other,” Nagy said. “So the culture is established. There’s a hunger there. I think where Alabama kind of ran into it was after they’d won a bunch — and this is just hearing this from the coaches on the staff there — after they’d won multiple national championships, they would have kids come on the recruiting visits and see all the trophies and then they would sign. And part of them felt like they already helped win those trophies when they didn’t. I don’t think there’s that, um, what’s the word I’m trying to use?” Entitlement? “Right,” he said. “I don’t think there’s that entitlement yet in the Georgia program. I think they still seem like a hungry group.” When Smart left Alabama seven years ago, he didn’t carry those four championships out the door and onto the plane to go home. No one at Georgia inherited that success the moment he arrived in Athens. All he got from beating Clemson was momentum in recruiting. All he got from Saban was a blueprint. And even then it was his job to build on both and make them his own. He did that and so much more. Even former Florida and South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier — a constant thorn in the Bulldogs’ side who once joked that he liked playing them early in the season because he could count on 2-3 players being suspended — had to admit that Georgia will be “hard to catch.” They’re so much bigger along the line of scrimmage than they were in the past, he said, and every year they’re around the top of the recruiting rankings. Last week, Georgia landed a seventh consecutive top-three signing class. “They’re a big, good-looking team,” Spurrier said. “Kirby’s done an excellent job with their attitude and the way they play, the way they prepare each week. They don’t get full of themselves. They get ready to play every week, and they have a plan, and plan is to win ’em all. And, so far, they’re on schedule to do that.”
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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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