The 30 key moments in Gary Bettman’s 30 years in the NHL
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ESPN staff
Gary Bettman took office as the NHL’s first-ever commissioner on Feb. 1, 1993. It’s been an eventful three decades since.
League owners tapped Bettman — a New York-born, Ivy League-educated lawyer who previously served as the NBA’s general counsel and senior vice president — to succeed outgoing president Gil Stein at a critical juncture for potential NHL growth. They believed Bettman could help the then 24-team league expand further into U.S. markets (particularly in southern states), broker more lucrative media deals and even stabilize labor relations.
Bettman has done all that, and then some.
Under his watch, the NHL has become a 32-club operation in which most teams bring in more revenue than ever before. There also have been periods of instability, from multiple lockouts to unpopular decisions the league is dealing with even now. Bettman has been a polarizing presence through it all, an executive regularly drowned out by booing fans each time he makes a public appearance.
It’s a reaction that Bettman seems to enjoy.
His impact on the NHL is impossible to ignore. Bettman’s place in league history was solidified when the Hockey Hall of Fame inducted him as a “builder” with the class of 2018, and as of Feb. 2, he’ll be the longest-serving commissioner of the four major men’s professional sports leagues in North America.
Here’s a look at the highs and lows of Bettman’s tenure, capturing how the league has changed during his 30-year tenure.
Sept. 1994: The NHL makes TV deal with Fox
Bettman has overseen four major television network moves for the NHL during his tenure. The first was a five-year deal with Fox that started in the 1994-95 season, giving the league regular exposure on a broadcast network for the first time in nearly 20 years. It was a bid to reach a wider — and younger — audience, one that yielded such innovations as cartoon robots and the Glow Puck, which added a CGI blue haze and an occasional comet tail to the puck on-screen. (Initially a failure, the technology was later successfully applied to NASCAR and NFL broadcasts.)
A deal with ABC and longtime cable partner ESPN followed from 1999-2004. Bettman’s next bold move was a post-lockout partnership with NBC and the Outdoor Life Network, which later became Versus and then NBCSN. That partnership lasted until 2021, when the NHL went back to a multi-network deal with TNT and ABC/ESPN that included the league’s first U.S. streaming deal with ESPN+. — Greg Wyshynski
1994-95: 103-day lockout pushes season start to Jan. 1995
Cost controls were at the center of the NHL’s first work stoppage on Bettman’s watch, which reduced the 1994-95 season to 48 games. The owners framed the key cost-control proposal as a luxury tax. The players viewed it as a salary cap. In the end, the players held ranks while some large-market teams lost their resolve to see a full season potentially canceled.
There would be no overarching salary controls, although the owners did win a rookie salary cap and other small tweaks to the system. This lockout is remembered most for its inopportune timing: delaying the season that followed the New York Rangers‘ 1994 Stanley Cup championship, and eliminating a chance to capitalize on that surge in interest. — Wyshynski
1995-96: Third jerseys are born
For years, the NHL jersey was treated like a sacred shroud. There was a home jersey, there was an away jersey, there was the occasional special anniversary jersey and that was that … until 1995, when the NHL greenlit “third jerseys” for its teams.
While it allowed for some creative designs, the main motivation was to open up a previously untapped revenue stream. The program produced some of the most memorable designs in sports history — for better or worse — such as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim’s “Wild Wing” jersey, the Boston Bruins‘ “Pooh Bear” jersey, and the Tampa Bay Lightning‘s “rain drops” jersey. Almost three decades later, many of these designs were resurrected as “Reverse Retro” jerseys.
While alternate NHL jerseys have since become commonplace, they were born in the early years of Bettman’s tenure. — Wyshynski
Sept. 1995: The NHL joins the Olympics
Inspired by the NBA’s “Dream Team” success at the 1992 Summer Olympics, Bettman and the owners wanted to send NHL players to the Winter Olympic men’s ice hockey tournament for the first time. They couldn’t get things in order quickly enough for the 1994 Lillehammer Games, but Bettman received approval from the NHL Board of Governors to send players to the 1998 Nagano Games. Unlike the NBA, the NHL would have to shut down its regular season to accommodate player participation, and Bettman negotiated a tighter Olympic tournament schedule to get the owners on board.
The NHL would participate in five Winter Games, but its players haven’t appeared in one since Sochi in 2014. The owners’ lack of enthusiasm over breaking for the PyeongChang Olympics without IOC or NHL player concessions compelled them to not participate in 2018. An interruption in the NHL regular season schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic caused Bettman to opt out of the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
There’s hope that the NHL will return to play in the 2026 Olympics in Italy, as was collectively bargained with the players. — Wyshynski
1995-96: The Canadian Assistance Plan
The 1990s were not kind to the finances of Canadian teams. As Bettman told MacLean’s in 2009: “There was a point in the early 1990s when some said there was only going to be one team left in Canada.”
One of the NHL’s solutions to this crisis was the Canadian Assistance Plan, which bolstered small-market teams during a time when the Canadian dollar was worth $0.62 USD. Franchises like the Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Ottawa Senators and Vancouver Canucks were subsidized with revenue-sharing payments between $2 million and $3 million from 1995 to 2004.
While U.S. teams protested, Bettman was steadfast in trying to keep those franchises operating in Canada, especially in the wake of Winnipeg’s relocation to Arizona in 1996. — Wyshynski
1996: The instigator rule debuts
There have been calls for the NHL to “ban fighting” during Bettman’s tenure, especially as other levels of hockey created more severe punishments for on-ice fisticuffs. But Bettman never wavered from his belief that fighting “has been a part of the game,” albeit an illegal one within the rules.
Instead, Bettman has endorsed incremental reductions in certain types of fights. In 1996, the NHL changed its penalties for a player who instigates a fight to a two-minute minor, a five-minute major and a 10-minute misconduct — not only removing that player from the ice but giving an opponent a power play. Get two instigators in a game and it’s a game misconduct; get three in a season and it’s an automatic one-game suspension.
Bettman also oversaw a rule that made it illegal for a player to remove his helmet before a fight and a crackdown on “staged” fights at the start of a game or in its final moments. By 2019, the NHL dipped under 200 games with a fighting major for the first time in the modern era. — Wyshynski
1995-97: The Quebec Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets and Hartford Whalers all relocate
One of the trends that came to define Bettman throughout his tenure was the changing geographic landscape, with the hopes of finding more financial success.
It started with the Nordiques relocating to Denver in 1995, becoming the Colorado Avalanche and winning the Stanley Cup in their first season. They were followed by the Winnipeg Jets moving to Arizona in 1996, becoming the Phoenix Coyotes and reaching the playoffs in five of their first six seasons. Then came the decision to move the Hartford Whalers to North Carolina in 1997, creating the Carolina Hurricanes. The Canes reached the Cup final in their fifth season and eventually won it in 2006. — Ryan S. Clark
June 25, 1997: Nashville Predators begin new wave of NHL expansion
By the time Bettman took control, the league had expanded to create the San Jose Sharks (1991), Ottawa Senators and Tampa Bay Lightning (1992), as well as the Florida Panthers and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (1993). The league continued that growth into new markets on Bettman’s watch, which included a new revenue stream with the franchise fee being set at $80 million.
The NHL entered into a new millennium by adding four teams to bring the total to 30: the Nashville Predators (1998), Atlanta Thrashers (1999), Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild (2000). The Thrashers would relocate to Winnipeg in 2011 to become the second iteration of the Jets. — Clark
1999-2000: The NHL introduces the overtime loss and 4-on-4 overtime
Tie games had been a part of the NHL for decades. The problem, as Bettman saw it, was that too many teams were “playing for the tie,” going for a guaranteed point in the standings rather than going full throttle for a two-point victory late in regulation or in sudden-death 5-on-5 overtime.
So he backed an effort to change the overtime rules in 1999-2000: Both teams would be assured one standings point for a “regulation tie” before playing a kinetic 4-on-4 overtime trying to secure an additional point. While further overtime changes would come, this was an important step toward encouraging teams to reconsider their conservative approach. — Wyshynski
2000-2001: The NHL adopts a two-referee system for all games
Enforcing the rulebook during a fast-paced NHL game is a tough gig for one referee, yet that was the norm for decades. But in the late 1990s, there was a push to add an additional referee to the ice. The NHL experimented with that setup during the regular season and the playoffs in the 1998-99 season before making the two-referee system permanent in the 2000-2001 season.
According to the league’s data, the extra referee made a difference, as penalties dropped under that system. “Players are more cautious, and they stick to playing hockey when there’s an extra set of eyes out there,” Bettman said at the 1999 Board of Governors meeting — Wyshynski
Nov. 22, 2003: Commonwealth Stadium hosts the first Heritage Classic
For just the fourth time in NHL history, the league held an outdoor game. The inaugural edition of the Heritage Classic featuring the Edmonton Oilers and Montreal Canadiens was played in front of more than 57,00 fans at Commonwealth Stadium, home of the CFL’s Edmonton Elks.
It became the NHL’s first outdoor game since 1991 when the Los Angeles Kings played the New York Rangers in a preseason contest at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. But the impact of the Heritage Classic became a launch point for the league to start having more outdoor games going forward. — Clark
Feb. 16, 2005: The NHL cancels the 2004-05 season
It was the bitter end to two years of failed collective bargaining talks between the NHL and NHLPA: There would be no 2004-05 hockey season. The league locked its players out for the second time in nine years on Sept. 16, 2004; by February, the NHL became North America’s first pro sports league to lose an entire season to a labor impasse.
Both sides were dug in on the merits of a hard salary cap and concepts like “cost certainty,” which the league didn’t feel there was enough of with only 11 profitable franchises at the time. Every arena remained shuttered until the situation was resolved on July 15, 2005. The season’s cancellation also meant the Stanley Cup went unawarded for the first time since the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1919. — Kristen Shilton
Apr. 26, 2005: Bettman reinstates Todd Bertuzzi to the NHL after a 17-month suspension
In March 2004, Vancouver Canucks forward Todd Bertuzzi tried to fight Colorado Avalanche forward Steve Moore, continuing the Canucks’ revenge mission for Moore having injured their captain Markus Naslund with a hit in a previous meeting. When Moore declined to fight, Bertuzzi sucker-punched him in the back of the head. Moore collapsed to the ice and suffered three fractured vertebrae in his neck and a grade-three concussion, among other injuries.
The incident made global headlines and led to a charge of assault causing bodily harm in Canadian criminal court, for which Bertuzzi received a conditional discharge. Moore filed multiple lawsuits seeking financial compensation, claiming he was premeditatively targeted by the Canucks. Bettman and Daly acted as mediators at one point.
As for Bertuzzi, Bettman suspended him for the rest of the Canucks’ 2003-04 season (13 regular season games, seven playoff games). He remained suspended through the NHL’s canceled 2004-05 season. Bettman reinstated him on Aug. 8, 2005, citing his attempts to apologize to Moore and over $850,000 in lost salary and endorsements. Bettman made it clear that Bertuzzi was “on probation” for the 2005-06 season, and was forbidden to play in games involving Moore, who would never appear in the NHL again. — Wyshynski
July 22, 2005: The NHL changes its draft lottery rules after the canceled season
The NHL’s canceled 2004-05 season forced the league to get creative in how it would approach the 2005 draft, an event headlined by the generational talent of 17-year-old Sidney Crosby. Without standings from the previous campaign, the NHL landed on a weighted lottery that gave every team a chance at the No. 1 overall pick.
The best odds — three entries each — were given to four teams (the Buffalo Sabres, Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Rangers and Pittsburgh Penguins) that had gone three consecutive seasons without making the playoffs and hadn’t won the last four lotteries. Ten teams received two balls each for making one of the last three postseasons or winning one lottery. The rest of the field received one ball.
The Penguins had a 1-in-16 shot at the top selection, and that 6.25% was all they needed to draw first and take Crosby. The Penguins won three Stanley Cups (2009, 2016, 2017) during the Crosby Era. — Shilton
2005: The “Shanahan Summit” ushers in a bunch of post-lockout rules
During the lockout, Detroit Red Wings star Brendan Shanahan hosted 26 players, coaches, owners, agents and executives in what would become known as the “Shanahan Summit.” This brainstorming session produced a slew of new ideas for the NHL: the shootout to end games, allowing two-line passes, cracking down on obstruction, restricting line changes for teams guilty of icing and the creation of a competition committee that included active players.
Shanahan pitched those ideas to Bettman, and they helped shape an “NHL 2.0” when the league returned in 2005-06. This fostered a relationship between Bettman and Shanahan that would result in him joining the NHL after retirement and heading up its Department of Player Safety, as well as an NHL-backed “Research and Development Camp” in 2010 that helped finetune 3-on-3 overtime and hybrid icing, among other innovations. — Wyshynski
Jan. 1, 2008: Ralph Wilson Stadium is the stage for the first Winter Classic
Nearly five years had passed since the Heritage Classic. The conversation around the need for more outdoor games turned into reality when the Buffalo Sabres played the Pittsburgh Penguins in front of 71,217 fans at what is now known as New Era Field (then Ralph Wilson Stadium), the home of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park, N.Y.
The New Year’s Day game was the first regular-season outdoor game that was played in the United States. Between the snowy conditions, vintage sweaters and the thrilling shootout ending, the game was a big success. It became a springboard for the NHL to start hosting the Winter Classic on an annual basis, while also seeing the more regular return of the Heritage Classic and the introduction of the Stadium Series.
As of the 2023 Winter Classic, there have been 36 outdoor games played during Bettman’s tenure. — Clark
May 9, 2009: The Phoenix Coyotes file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Mounting financial challenges led to then-Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes filing for bankruptcy just 13 years after the team formerly known as the Winnipeg Jets relocated to Arizona. Moyes tried to sell the team to Blackberry founder Jim Balsillie, whose intention would have been to relocate it to Hamilton, Ontario.
Both the NHL and the City of Glendale fended off Balsillie, with the league buying the Coyotes with the hopes of finding an owner who would keep the team in Arizona. After a number of failed attempts to sell the team to potential owners, the NHL finally found a new owner in 2013 (IceArizona) that would change the team’s name to the Arizona Coyotes beginning in the 2014-15 season. Controlling interest in the team would be sold to Alex Meruelo in 2019. — Clark
June 2011: The NHL Department of Player Safety is created
For years, the NHL’s supplemental discipline was handled by its hockey operations department and headed up by VP Colin Campbell. But in June 2011, Bettman deputized Brendan Shanahan with creating the first Department of Player Safety, naming him the first NHL Senior Vice President of Player Safety in the process.
The new department had three primary missions at the start:
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To tackle illegal hits to the head and reduce concussions using the NHL’s Rule 48
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To specifically target repeat offenders with lengthier suspensions and multiplicated losses in salary
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To better educate players, teams, media and fans about the justification for suspensions through detailed video breakdowns
Today’s young stars grew up watching the video breakdowns, resulting in an NHL that’s more about speed and skill than it is injurious hits. “The next generation is only about four or five years down the road. These kids that were between 14 and 16 would be impacted by these videos,” Shanahan told ESPN. — Wyshynski
2011: Atlanta Thrashers move to Winnipeg
Expanding to non-traditional areas became one of the focal points of Bettman’s tenure. A number of those markets found long-term success, fiscal sustainability or both. Atlanta was not one of them.
The NHL’s desire to grow its footprint meant returning to Atlanta — a metropolitan area that was going through a period of growth at the time — with the hopes this reboot would have more success than the league had with the Atlanta Flames, who relocated in 1980 to become the Calgary Flames just eight years after their inception.
The NHL’s second attempt at Atlanta resulted in one playoff appearance in 12 seasons. Attendance issues coupled with financial challenges ultimately led to the Thrashers leaving Atlanta for a second time and relocating to Winnipeg, which lost the Jets after a relocation to Phoenix in 1996. — Clark
Jan. 12, 2013: The 2012-13 lockout ends
The NHL locked its players out for the third time in 19 years when their collective bargaining agreement expired on Sept. 16, 2012. The sides had failed to agree on a new deal before arriving at the impasse, with more issues than ever remaining unresolved.
Among the issues: Owners wanted to reduce the players’ share of hockey-related revenue from 57% to 46%, set a four-year maximum term on all future contracts, eliminate signing bonuses and extend the length of entry-level contracts from three to five years.
It would take months of further talks and independent mediation for a final 16-hour negotiation to result in a new CBA being tentatively agreed upon at 4:45 a.m. on Jan. 6, 2013. The NHL’s Board of Governors ratified that document on Jan. 9, and three days later the NHLPA did the same to end the lockout. A shortened, 48-game season followed that resolution. — Shilton
2013-14: The NHL realigns from six divisions to four
The Thrashers had moved to Winnipeg in 2011, and the NHL saw a need to adjust even further. In October 2013, the league rolled out a new four-division format and playoff system that would debut in the 2013-14 season.
The realignment made the NHL more geographically appropriate based on time zone; the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets shifted into the Eastern Conference and the Jets went to the Western Conference, while the Dallas Stars slid into the Central Division.
When it came for postseason play, there would still be 16 teams in the field, but now the top three teams in each division would secure a spot, and the final slots would be wild-card berths for the next two highest-ranking teams in the conference regardless of division. While more teams have since been added to further even out the conferences, that wild-card playoff format remains. — Shilton
2015: Video review is expanded to include a coach’s challenge
The NHL borrowed a play from the NFL when it introduced the coach’s challenge in 2015-16. Hockey’s version would be limited in scope, with only two scenarios allowed to be reviewed: if a goal-scoring play was offside or if a scoring play involved goaltender interference. Additionally, a coach could challenge a goal being waived off for goalie interference, if they believed there was no interference on the play. Teams had to have a timeout remaining in order to use a challenge, and would lose that timeout if the challenge was unsuccessful. (They would retain the timeout if the challenge was correct.)
This was another small step toward the NHL ensuring calls were being made correctly and outcomes weren’t decided on potential human error. It’s been the subject of debate over the years — especially when long reviews slow down a game’s pace — but the coach’s challenge is here to stay. — Shilton
Sept. 4, 2015: The league ends its moratorium on expansion bids
After accepting Atlanta into its fold in 1999, the NHL wouldn’t begin entertaining expansion team bids again until 2015. The league opened a formal expansion process that summer, with Bettman setting the minimum cost of a new team at $500 million. That was well above what the Thrashers paid — $80 million — and despite rumors that several cities were interested in acquiring an NHL club, only two actually entered the ring: Quebec City and Las Vegas.
The latter seemed like a slam dunk to be approved, given that prospective owner Bill Foley had already collected more than 13,000 season ticket deposits for a team that didn’t exist, and the arena Foley was building would be completed in 2017 — coinciding with the first possible season (2017-18) that an expansion team would take the ice. And so it was on June 22, 2016, the NHL accepted Vegas’ bid for a club, but deferred Quebec’s request.
The expansion would continue in 2018, when Seattle’s bid for expansion was approved, and the Kraken would debut in 2021-22. — Shilton
Sept. 21-23, 2017: The NHL plays two exhibition games in China
Like a number of leagues, the NHL was seeking to break new ground in a different part of the world in the hopes of capturing an even larger audience. That process began in 2007 when the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings played two regular-season games at the O2 Arena in London, and continued with appearances in Sweden, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Czechia, Latvia, Slovakia and other European countries in ensuing years.
In 2017, the effort extended to China, where hockey has managed to carve its own place with examples such as HC Kunlun Red Star, the only Chinese team in the predominantly Russian Kontinental Hockey League. The NHL created the “China Games” in 2017 and 2018. There was a plan for the league to return in 2019, but logistical issues prevented what would have been a third consecutive year of games in China. — Clark
2018: NHL reaches settlement in concussion lawsuit
More than 146 former players filed a lawsuit against the NHL that alleged negligence for dealing with head injuries and claimed that the league concealed their long-term risks. In Nov. 2018, after months of court mediation, the NHL reached a settlement in which it did not acknowledge any liability for the plaintiffs’ claims in these cases. The settlement called for cash payments, neurological testing and assessment for players and a fund to support retired players.
Concussion awareness and prevention had been a major topic during Bettman’s tenure — in particular, the relationship between contact sports and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease that had been found posthumously in former NHL players. In 2019, Bettman told a commons subcommittee on sports-related concussions on Parliament Hill in Ottawa that “other than some anecdotal evidence, there has not been that conclusive link” made by medical experts between concussions and CTE. That stance, which Bettman has reiterated through the years, stands in contrast with that of the NFL, which stated for the first time in 2016 that it believed there was a link between football and degenerative brain disorders like CTE. — Wyshynski
July 10, 2020: The NHL and NHLPA ratify a new CBA, ushering in some labor peace
This was a ray of hope in otherwise dark times: As NHL operations remained shuttered against the COVID-19 pandemic, the league and its players ratified a new collective bargaining agreement that would bring labor peace through 2025-26.
Highlights of the new CBA included a flat salary cap (of $81.5 million) for the following year (and possibly beyond depending on league revenues), a 20% cap on escrow for 2020-21, a player salary deferral to account for financial losses due to the pandemic and an option to extend the CBA by a season if desired. At the same time, the sides announced a return-to-play plan for the following month in bubble locations (Toronto and Edmonton) to try to salvage something from the stalled 2019-20 season. — Shilton
Aug. 1, 2020: The COVID pandemic hits, the NHL goes to the bubble
More than two months after pausing the season because of COVID-19, the NHL announced its “Return to Play” plan. It led to the creation of a 24-team tournament in which the 12 Eastern Conference teams played in the Toronto bubble while the Western Conference teams played in the Edmonton bubble with no fans in attendance.
NHL clubs gradually reopened their facilities and eventually held a second training camp before flying to their respective bubble locations. Play resumed Aug. 1 with the qualifying round and concluded Sept. 28 with the Tampa Bay Lightning winning the Stanley Cup. — Clark
2020: The NHL responds to the Black Lives Matter protests
The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was an international event that sparked a conversation around race and racism. The NHL created the “We Skate For” initiative within the Edmonton and Toronto bubbles, which drew criticism from those who felt the league could have been more direct with its message as well as from those who felt the NHL didn’t need to wade into the discussion.
The conversation also led to a number of players standing in solidarity to postpone games, a historic speech from Matt Dumba that was followed by him kneeling for the anthem and the creation of the Hockey Diversity Alliance, a group founded by current and former NHL players with the aim of eradicating racism. — Clark
2020-21: The NHL introduces helmet sponsors
For years, the NHL resisted using players as billboards. Like so much else, COVID-19 changed that. In an effort to recoup lost revenue following the league’s forced shutdown, Bettman gave the green light for helmet advertisements throughout the 2020-21 season.
It was meant to be a one-off, so clubs could broker one-year, break-even deals with advertisers wanting their money’s worth from the previously shortened campaign. Teams suspected the experiment would stick — some even negotiating longer-term contracts for helmet ads before the league had approved the practice past 2021 — and that turned out to be good business.
The NHL allowed helmet ad sales to continue, making for a smooth transition towards jersey sponsors to debut in 2022-23. Each club was permitted to add a single patch — and nothing more — to their sweaters, protecting the value of a single ad from being diluted through multiple sponsors — Shilton
Nov. 2021: Bettman, Daly address the Chicago Blackhawks sexual assault case
In Oct. 2021, an investigation by the law firm Jenner & Block detailed how the Blackhawks mishandled sexual assault allegations made by former player Kyle Beach against former video coach Brad Aldrich, claiming Aldrich sexually assaulted and harassed him during the team’s 2010 Stanley Cup run. The NHL indicated that while the team let the league know about the allegations in Dec. 2020, it wasn’t until Beach filed a civil lawsuit in May 2022 that the league became aware of the full extent of the allegations.
The NHL fined the Blackhawks $2 million. Bettman met with Florida Panthers head coach Joel Quenneville, who coached the Blackhawks in 2010; he said during that two-hour meeting “all parties agreed that it was no longer appropriate that he continue to serve as Florida’s head coach” and Quenneville resigned.
As of June 2022, Bettman said he wasn’t sure if he’d ever reinstate Quenneville. Bettman met with Beach, apologized and “discussed a path forward with him.” Two months later, the NHL unveiled plans for a mandatory 90-minute training program for all personnel that focused on “anti-bullying, abuse, harassment and discrimination.” — Wyshynski
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Mark Schlabach
Florida might be without three of its top defensive linemen when it tries to end a two-game losing streak at No. 4 Miami on Saturday night.
The Gators (1-2) will be without defensive tackles Caleb Banks and Michai Boireau, and potentially starting defensive end George Gumbs Jr., sources told ESPN’s Pete Thamel on Saturday.
Gumbs made the trip to Miami (3-0) for Saturday’s game at Hard Rock Stadium (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC) and will try to play, but sources told ESPN that he’s unlikely to go.
Gumbs has 10 tackles and a half-sack in three games.
Sources told ESPN that Boireau didn’t travel to Miami and won’t play against the Hurricanes. He has five tackles in two games and missed last week’s 20-10 loss at LSU with an undisclosed injury.
Banks has already been ruled out of the Miami game after suffering a foot injury against LSU. After missing the first two games, Banks played 29 snaps against the Tigers.
Swamp247 reported Wednesday that Banks had surgery on his foot in Birmingham, Alabama, and a timeline for his return wasn’t known.
Brendan Bett, Brien Taylor Jr. and Jamari Lyons will likely continue to get the majority of playing time up front for the Gators.
“We got a really good group. I’m excited about what I see out of the young players in the group,” Gators coach Billy Napier said. “Still enough players there to have a very effective group.”
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Bradford Doolittle
Despite a bumpier-than-expected path, the Los Angeles Dodgers might still repeat as World Series champions, becoming the first team to do so since the New York Yankees of the late 1990s. If that comes to pass, few would be surprised. At the same time, based on what we’ve seen since Opening Day, few would be surprised, also, if they fall.
Thus the Dodgers’ season can’t yet be labeled a success or a failure. If the Dodgers win another title, that’s an obvious success. Failure is a little harder to define, but consider that L.A. is one of five teams on pace to finish more than 10 games under their preseason baseline forecast. They’re also leading the tough National League West. Success or failure?
The answer is complicated. Baseball is the most quantifiable and projectable of the major sports, and forecasts are invaluable in setting our expectations for what might happen, and how to react to what actually comes to pass. Yet baseball is also paradoxically and wonderfully unpredictable.
Teams and pundits alike enter the season with a good idea of what each club’s strengths and weaknesses are, yet those observations tend to fly out the window when confronted by the reality of an actual season.
Using preseason expectations as our guide, we’re going to identify the biggest success — and failure — for all 30 teams. Plan and project all you want. In the end, the fates will have their way.
Jump to a team:
AL East: BAL | BOS | NYY | TB | TOR
AL Central: CHW | CLE | DET | KC | MIN
AL West: ATH | HOU | LAA | SEA | TEX
NL East: ATL | MIA | NYM | PHI | WSH
NL Central: CHC | CIN | MIL | PIT | STL
NL West: ARI | COL | LAD | SD | SF
Biggest success: Geraldo Perdomo
Most of the good news for Arizona this season has been on the position player side, led by a career year for Perdomo. After signing a four-year extension that doesn’t kick in until next year, the 25-year-old went out and put up the best season by a shortstop in franchise history. Already a defensive standout, Perdomo entered this season with 14 career home runs. This year, he has 19 and is on pace to drive in 100 runs. He also might get to 100 runs scored and 30 steals. It has been an MVP-level showing.
Biggest failure: The rotation
Arizona entered the season with an on-paper rotation that looked loaded — Corbin Burnes, Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Eduardo Rodriguez and Brandon Pfaadt. That quintet has gone 47-39 with a 4.37 ERA. Burnes went down for the season in June. Kelly was traded. And the other three all have ERA+ figures well below league average. The Arizona bullpen has been even worse, but the roster and the payroll were built on a foundation of elite starting pitching that has not held up.
Biggest success: Nick Kurtz
That Kurtz is good isn’t a surprise. That he’s this good this fast is stunning and exhilarating. After an aggressive promotion in late April, Kurtz didn’t hit his first homer until his 17th big league game. He then went deep 19 times over 49 games with a 1.078 OPS and that was only the lead-up to his 6-for-6, four-homer outburst on July 25 in which he tied the MLB record for 19 total bases in a game. In his age-22 season, Kurtz is on track to become the eighth rookie with an OPS over 1.000 (minimum 400 plate appearances) and of the eight, only Ted Williams and Albert Pujols had a younger baseball age. The A’s have found their cornerstone player.
Biggest failure: Luis Severino
The A’s made a rare splurge in last winter’s free agent market, inking Severino to a three-year, $67 million deal. Year 1 has been disappointing. Severino has gone 6-11 with a 4.82 ERA and an 87 ERA+ while posting the lowest strikeout rate (17.6%) of his career. His struggles in Sacramento have been epic: Severino is 1-9 with a 6.51 ERA over 14 starts at Sutter Health Park.
Biggest success: Hurston Waldrep
Successes have been few and far between for the Braves, but Waldrep’s trajectory seems to be one of them. The sample remains small, but Waldrep went 4-0 with a 1.33 ERA over his first seven starts in 2025 before being roughed up by Houston. He looks like a keeper, if the Braves can keep him healthy.
Biggest failure: The entire season?
The Braves are on pace to miss their forecast by 24 games, a plummet so severe that it’s hard to blame it on any one thing. Injuries have played a part, but other teams are headed to the postseason with plenty of those — the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers and Brewers among those with worse health metrics than the Braves. The collapse on the pitching side has been more acute than on offense, but no one is without culpability. Perhaps worst of all, the Braves have baseball’s second-worst organizational record. Things haven’t been any better in the minors.
Biggest success: Trevor Rogers
The Orioles have underperformed across the board, so it could be that we’re damning Rogers with faint praise here, but he has been a genuine revelation. Rogers began the season in the minors and wasn’t that great there, going 0-3 with a 5.51 ERA in eight starts. In the majors? The former Marlin is 8-2 with a 1.43 ERA over 16 starts with solid peripherals. Go figure. Going into what Baltimore hopes will be a bounce-back 2026 season, the Orioles’ rotation needs a lot more success stories like this.
Biggest failure: Adley Rutschman
You hate to pick on one player when the Orioles have disappointed in so many areas, but Rutschman is an avatar for a number of shortcomings. He has underperformed: Baltimore entered the season with the third-best WAR projection at the catcher position but instead rank 25th. He has been injured: According to an injury impact metric based on data from Baseball Prospectus, the Orioles rank 29th in baseball. After two straight disappointing seasons for Rutschman, and considering the arrival of elite prospect Samuel Basallo, the future of the Orioles at catcher looks a lot different than it did a couple of years ago.
Biggest success: Pitching acquisitions
You really can’t choose between Cy Young candidate Garrett Crochet or reliever of the year candidate Aroldis Chapman, neither of whom was with Boston at this time last year. Crochet has blossomed with the Red Sox, matching the dominance he showed per inning with Chicago with the workload of a true ace. Chapman, at 37, is on pace to record a career-best ERA (1.26) and his second-best bWAR (3.3, just shy of his 3.4 in 2012).
Biggest failure: In-season roster work
The Red Sox have received great production from their rookie class, headlined by Roman Anthony and Carlos Narvaez. But a team in position to challenge for the American League East title ranks 29th in my in-season acquisition index, a metric that looks at the quality and quantity of the production from players signed or traded for during the season. Boston has dealt with a lot of injuries (27th in injury impact) but has been too passive about compensating for them.
Biggest success: The offense
Things have slowed over the second half, but the Cubs’ attack has been one of baseball’s most productive and exciting over the course of the season. Chicago leads the majors in secondary average (patience and power), isolated power and team-level power-speed number. The production has come from up and down the lineup, giving the Cubs one of their deepest offenses in years.
Biggest failure: The bullpen
The Cubs’ rotation has picked up the pace over the second half, which has helped pick up the slack from the regressing hitters. But as October nears, the Cubs still lack clarity in the bullpen. With Daniel Palencia out, the relievers still lack a clear end-of-game hammer. Since the All-Star break, the Cubs’ relief ERA (4.40) is middle of the pack. For the most part, Craig Counsell has pieced things together, but the lack of impact acquisitions during the season, with the exception of Andrew Kittredge, might undermine the Cubs once the postseason arrives.
Biggest success: The rookies
According to my rookie contribution metric — basically adding up the consensus WAR figures for first-year players — the White Sox (11.61 rookie WAR) have four more wins than any other team. In Kyle Teel, Colson Montgomery, Chase Meidroth, Mike Vasil, Shane Smith, Edgar Quero and Wikelman Gonzalez, Chicago has graduated some bona fide building blocks to the majors. With a decent finish, the White Sox can avoid another 100-loss season. That might seem like a low bar for excitement, but when you’re coming off a 121-loss debacle, that’s a huge improvement.
Biggest failure: Luis Robert Jr.
The season began with reports of Roberts’ revamped approach at the plate, but 2025 proved to be another step back for one of the game’s most talented players. Robert did improve his strike zone indicators, but it didn’t pay off at the bottom line, as his OPS+ dropped two more points off his career-low of 86 in 2024. And it looks as if he’ll end the season where he has spent far too much time during his career: on the injured list. Whether you view Robert as a White Sox building block or the team’s last-best chance to generate impactful return in the trade market, none of this is good.
Biggest success: The rotation
The Reds’ pitching, in general, has kept the team on the fringe of the playoff chase all season, but the starters, in particular, have been rock solid. According to my AXE metric used in the Awards Watch series, six of the top nine Reds performers this season have been starting pitchers, led by Andrew Abbott, Nick Lodolo and Hunter Greene. Only three teams have compiled more quality starts.
Biggest failure: The flagging offense
Cincinnati’s hitters are on track to finish around their preseason forecast of 660 park-neutral runs scored. But at the midway point of the season, the Reds were on pace to finish at 693, and during the span of the regression, a trade deadline passed. Miguel Andujar has helped, when he has played, but it hasn’t been enough. The Reds rank 19th or worse at five of the nine positions by OPS, and that’s with the baked in boost of Great American Ballpark.
Biggest success: The stretch-run rotation
After years of forging a reputation as a starting pitcher factory, the Guardians’ actual performance in that area over the past couple of years hasn’t lived up to it. Until recently, that is. After ranking 18th with a 4.17 rotation ERA through Aug. 25, Cleveland is second with a 2.78 mark since. The Guardians have hung in the playoff race with a 14-5 record during that span, despite ranking 22nd with only 4.16 runs scored per game.
Biggest failure: The offense
Take your pick, really. Whatever the offensive metric, the Guardians stink in it. They’re 29th or worse in each of the slash columns, last in BABIP and 24th in isolated power. They rank 29th in OPS at catcher and shortstop, and 30th in center field and right field. There is only so much Jose Ramirez can do.
Biggest success: Attendance
The Rockies are in the pack, drawing 29,676 fans per game, down just 1,211 over last season. They are outdrawing the first-place Detroit Tigers. The world is a very strange place sometimes.
Biggest failure: Everything else
Assuming the Rockies don’t lose out — which could happen, of course — they won’t end up matching or surpassing the 2024 White Sox’s season record for losses. Still, this marks the Rockies’ third straight 100-loss season, fourth straight last-place finish and seventh straight season of finishing fourth or worse in the NL West. The Rockies are long overdue when it comes to asking hard questions about how they do things.
Biggest success: Tarik Skubal
The Tigers are closing in on their first division title in 11 years and second straight playoff berth. They are built largely on internally developed players and hold baseball’s best overall organizational record. In other words, lots more talent is on the way. Still, Skubal stands out on a team full of success stories by replicating or even bettering his Cy Young-winning 2024 campaign. He has become one of baseball’s biggest stars and the face of what Detroit has been building — and this edifice has a lot of faces.
Biggest failure: The rotation depth
Skubal’s is but one turn through the rotation, and the Tigers’ run prevention has lagged over the second half of the season. Since the break, Skubal has a 2.31 ERA with eight quality starts in 10 outings. The rest of the Detroit rotation has a 5.32 ERA with only 10 quality starts in 43 outings. If this bites the Tigers in the postseason, there will be questions about why Detroit didn’t take a bigger swing at the trade deadline.
Biggest success: Front office improvisation
The Astros are almost right at their preseason forecast, but their path to those 87-88 wins has been less than predictable. Because of that, much of the story of Houston’s season can be told in two of the measures we keep mentioning. First, the Astros rank last in the injury impact metric, meaning no team has been more affected by player absences (Yordan Alvarez especially). Second, the Astros rank first on the in-season acquisition leaderboard. Carlos Correa, Jesus Sanchez, Ramon Urias, Craig Kimbrel and others have helped keep Houston’s contention window ajar as we enter the home stretch.
Biggest failure: Christian Walker
The Astros’ offense is much less dynamic than it has been in a long time. No one player is to blame, and Alvarez’s long stay on the IL has to be kept in mind. But things wouldn’t be quite so severe if Walker had plugged what has become a longstanding hole for Houston at first base. It’s always dicey signing free agent hitters who are well into their 30s, and so it has been so far for Walker, whose OPS+ has slipped from a three-year average of 123 in Arizona to 95 in Houston. He has been better since the All-Star break, so we should hold off final judgment on the signing for now, but the bottom line is that, at the moment, Walker is barely over replacement level on the season.
Biggest success: The starting pitching
Last season, the Royals got 151 starts from their top five starters. This season, they’ve had 12 pitchers make at least two starts and depending on when, and if, Michael Wacha returns before the end of the season, none of them might qualify for an ERA title. The injuries have affected the rotation performance during the second half, but it hasn’t fallen off a cliff, and for the season, Kansas City has MLB’s sixth-best rotation ERA. Whether it’s converting relievers (Kris Bubic), developing midlevel prospects (Noah Cameron) or identifying trade targets (Ryan Bergert), the Royals have become adept at finding rotation answers that fit their system.
Biggest failure: The offense
Bobby Witt Jr. remains a superstar. Maikel Garcia has been one of baseball’s most improved players. Vinnie Pasquantino remains a high-level run producer. But other than a midseason surge, the Royals have just not been able to score consistently enough to hang in the playoff chase, despite their elite pitching-and-defense combo. They’ve tried to paper over their holes with trades during the season, but the baseline for the lineup is just too low to fix on the fly.
Biggest success: Zach Neto
With a second straight five-WAR season, Neto has become one of baseball’s top shortstops at age 24. He sat out time early in the season and his numbers for the most part are similar to 2024, save for a non-trivial uptick in slugging. As he has matured, Neto has hit the ball harder more often, while still shining in the field and on the bases.
Biggest failure: Mike Trout
During the four-year period from 2021 to 2024, Trout averaged just 66.5 games per season. But on a per-162-game basis, he had rates of 46.3 homers, 109 runs and a 160 OPS+. If he could only stay in the lineup. With a move to DH this season, Trout has indeed been more available, but his impact has ebbed. Trout’s OPS+ is 115 — solid, but not Trout-like — and his slugging percentage is a shocking .417. Maybe it’s just the adjustment to DHing, which isn’t always smooth. Trout, after all, is still only 34 years old.
Biggest success: Yoshinobu Yamamoto
Remember, we’re dealing with expectations here, so Shohei Ohtani doesn’t get credit in this context for doing the incredible things he already was doing. But it has been a banner season for Yamamoto, the most stable part of a deep Dodgers rotation that has again been riddled with injuries. Yamamoto has lived up to his pre-2024 hype but ramping up the volume, at least for a Dodgers pitcher. Already over the 162-inning minimum, Yamamoto is the first Dodgers pitcher to qualify for the ERA title since 2022.
Biggest failure: Health
Health has continued to be a general problem for the Dodgers, but it continues to be especially bad on the pitching side. L.A. is baseball’s deepest team but despite that, the injuries have come so frequently that the Dodgers have kept the transaction wire spinning all season. They’ve used 39 different pitchers, 16 of whom have started at least one game and 10 of whom have earned at least one save. How does manager Dave Roberts keep it all straight?
Biggest success: An emerging lineup
Between young players who have hit the ground running (Agustin Ramirez, Jakob Marsee) and young veterans improving as they enter their primes (Otto Lopez, Xavier Edwards and, especially, Kyle Stowers), the Marlins increasingly look like a team that can field an exciting lineup in 2026.
Biggest failure: The rotation
Injuries over the past couple of years have rocked a talented group of Marlins starters. Other than a midseason surge when the Marlins’ pitchers got hot as a group, Miami’s starters have been lit up for most of 2025, ranking 28th in rotation ERA with the second-lowest total of quality starts. Yet the talent of Sandy Alcantara, Eury Perez, Edward Cabrera, Max Meyer and an interesting wave of coming prospects remains tantalizing. Maybe next season it’ll all come back into focus.
Biggest success: Brice Turang
Turang’s ascension into an All-Star-caliber player is undeniable now that he has added power to an already full toolkit. He’s one of the game’s best second basemen, but more than that, he typifies Milwaukee’s transformation into MLB’s top regular-season club. He’s young, athletic, great on defense and gets on base. And he’s exciting, standing out as one of baseball’s most aesthetically pleasing players to watch.
Biggest failure: Reliever health?
Most everything has gone right for the Brewers, so it’s hard to term anything as a failure. Even the bullpen has been excellent over the course of the season. But a spate of late-season injuries has made things a wee bit more interesting as we edge toward the playoffs.
Biggest success: Joe Ryan
The Twins’ right-hander made the leap from solid midrotation starter to top-of-the-rotation ace this season. Ryan will finish with a career-high innings count and will likely match that volume with his best ERA+ (currently 126) and bWAR (4.5). Ryan’s season isn’t out of line with what he has done before on a per-inning basis, but he has done it more often. Now, as Ryan stands to earn a jump in pay per the arbitration system, we’ll see if the frugal Twins pay him or trade him.
Biggest failure: The midseason unloading
The Twins pulled the plug on their season at the trade deadline and the results since have not been pretty, on the field or off the field in terms of fan reaction. Since then, Minnesota has baseball’s second-worst record and has been drawing attendance figures lately indicative of a fan base that entered the season already annoyed by the Twins’ passive offseason. News that the franchise is no longer on the market hasn’t helped. The trajectory is bad.
Biggest success: Juan Soto
No, Soto hasn’t reinvented baseball during his first season as a Met, but he has been Juan Soto, and that has been a reminder of why he was so coveted. Soto is having a down season in the average category thanks to the vagaries of BABIP, but everything is vintage Soto. And it feels as if we forget this part: He still hasn’t turned 27. Soto has more seasons like this ahead of him, but he has some even better than this in his hip pocket. In any event, any concerns that Soto’s huge contract would be his ruination ought to be alleviated by now.
Biggest failure: The collapsing rotation
The Mets’ pitching free fall has been one of the most stunning stories of the season. Through the end of July, the Mets had baseball’s fifth-best rotation ERA (3.44). The starters ranked 27th in quality starts and 25th in innings, so they weren’t going deep, but they were effective while out there. Since then, New York’s starters have a 5.40 ERA (24th), further taxing a bullpen that has arguably been just as bad or worse. The avatar is Kodai Senga, who went from Cy Young candidate to minor leaguer in about six weeks. Maybe the rookie trio of Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong and Brandon Sproat will save the day, but this is not how the Mets drew it up.
Biggest success: Bronx bombing
This isn’t a perfect Yankees team, but they’ve bashed their way back into the World Series picture in a very literal way. A stunning 59% of the Yankees’ runs this season have come via the home run. When Anthony Volpe hits his next homer, the Yankees will feature a regular lineup in which every slot is occupied by a player with at least 20 homers this season. That includes Ryan McMahon, who hit most of his dingers for Colorado, but it’s still going to be amazing to see.
Biggest failure: Devin Williams
Across the past three seasons before coming to New York, Williams gave up 26 earned runs over 148 games with a 1.66 ERA. In his first Yankees season, he has given up 33 earned runs in 61 games with a 5.30 ERA. With a strikeout rate down around 5% off his career figure and 10% from last year, Williams just hasn’t been the same pitcher, and as the season has progressed, the numbers just keep getting worse.
Biggest success: Kyle Schwarber
Already one of baseball’s most dangerous sluggers, at 32 Schwarber has never been better. He already has joined Ryan Howard as the only Phillies in the 50-homer club and leads the majors with 128 RBIs, 24 above his previous career best. He has done this with his best strikeout rate in six years and his typically high walk rate. Good timing, too: Schwarber will be a free agent this winter.
Biggest failure: Aaron Nola
Nola has always been a little up and down, but his downs have never been like his injury- and performance-plagued 2025 showing. Nola’s 6.44 ERA over 15 starts has him under replacement level, and while the Phillies’ overall rotation has been dynamite, Nola’s struggles are more pressing with Zack Wheeler gone for the season. Nola has shown flashes and remains in the rotation, but he’s running out of time before a playoff season that the Phillies will enter as one of the favored teams.
Biggest success: Paul Skenes
Yes, we expected Skenes to be this good, but who else are we going to put here? Skenes has been even better in Year 2, somehow bettering (so far) his sub-2.00 rookie ERA, dropping from 1.96 to 1.92 even while ramping up his innings total. The Pirates are 27-17 when Skenes starts so far in his career, which translates to a 99-win team over 162 games. In the non-Skenes games, they’ve won at a rate of 69 games per 162. He’s pretty good.
Biggest failure: An anemic offense
The Pirates’ lack of any kind of spending or success in developing hitters has left them with a tragic attack. The median run total for a team in a game is four. Let’s say any time a team scores more than four, it’s a win for the offense and a loss for the defense. Finishing at exactly four runs represents a push, or a tie. Using this framework, the Pirates’ pitchers have a record of 77-55-18, giving them the fifth-best winning percentage in the majors. The hitters are 44-88-18, ranking last. That’s your 2025 Pittsburgh Pirates.
Biggest success: Winning the deadline
The Padres haven’t launched since A.J. Preller’s frenetic activity at the trade deadline, but his work then was still crucial. Rather than finishing the roster as Preller probably hoped, the newcomers have helped cover for drop-offs and injuries from those already on hand. That has been especially true for the bullpen, where Jason Adam was injured and Jeremiah Estrada has hit some speed bumps. But acquisition Mason Miller has been even more electric than expected. Meanwhile, Freddy Fermin has solidified the catcher spot and Ramon Laureano, brought in to raise the floor of a struggling outfield slot, has been San Diego’s best percentage hitter since arriving.
Biggest failure: Xander Bogaerts
At 32, Bogaerts has posted his second straight subpar offensive season. His OPS+ (98) is up from last season’s 92 but remains well off the 130-ish level he reached in Boston. The change in ballparks has been more severe for Bogaerts than expected. His career slugging percentage at Fenway Park is .496 but is just .402 at Petco Park. This season, only three of Bogaerts’ 10 homers have come at home.
Biggest success: A revamped lineup
The Giants were subtractors at the trade deadline, particularly when it came to emptying out the back of the bullpen. Yet San Francisco remains on the cusp of a wild-card slot, and it’s not all because the Mets went into a spiral. The Giants have featured a top-10 offense since the end of July, featuring a stable everyday lineup that has coalesced into a nice unit. After a slow start, Willy Adames has come on strong, Rafael Devers had adapted to his post-Boston life, and Matt Chapman has been mashing. A new outfield mix featuring ex-Met Drew Gilbert and Jung Hoo Lee has become a gas to watch. The Giants are fun.
Biggest failure: Defensive range
You have to get specific, because the Giants’ overall defensive metrics are above average because of Patrick Bailey‘s off-the-charts work behind the plate. But out in the field, the Giants rank 27th in Statcast’s outs above average, a disappointing result for a club with flashy defenders up the middle and at third base with Chapman.
Biggest success: Cal Raleigh
This is perhaps the most obvious selection on the board. Raleigh is having one of the most shockingly historical seasons we’ve ever seen. To be sure, Raleigh had been plenty good before this season, one of the best all-around backstops in the game. But this? The best homer season ever by a catcher? The best by a switch-hitter — even Mickey Mantle? It’s unreal. Using the FanGraphs version of WAR, which is more laudatory of Raleigh’s framing skills, his 2025 total (8.0) ranks seventh all time among primary catchers, and he’s still going.
Biggest failure: The rotation
Again, let’s remember that we’re keeping preseason expectation at the forefront of our minds. Seattle’s rotation has been solid, very consistent. The M’s rank 17th in rotation ERA (4.08) and fifth in quality starts. But before the season, Seattle figured to have a top-five rotation at the very least. The group was supposed to be the strength of the roster. Bryan Woo has been great, but everyone else has been worse than projected, either because of injuries, performance drop-off or both. Yet the Mariners regained first place with two weeks to go. If the rotation had been what we thought it would be, they would have already clinched the AL West.
Biggest success: Matthew Liberatore
Well, we have to put something down. Frankly, even though the Cardinals have managed to stay around baseball’s middle, this has felt like a disheartening season. With just a little boost from the front office, the low bar of postseason contention in this year’s NL might have been cleared. St. Louis hasn’t received much in terms of breakout performances, though some of the younger players have shown progress. That pretty much describes Liberatore, the touted prospect St. Louis acquired way back on Jan. 9, 2020, from Tampa Bay for Randy Arozarena. Until 2025, Liberatore hadn’t been able to establish himself as a rotation regular, but he has made 27 starts and stayed within shouting distance of league average. His strikeout rates don’t scream “untapped upside!” but you never know.
Biggest failure: Season approach
Nothing about St. Louis baseball has made much sense for about a year. If the Cardinals had truly reset, that at least would have been a clear direction. As it stands, it’s still completely unclear why the Cardinals didn’t just try to build the best possible roster they could for the 2025 season. After this finally ends, the baton will pass to Chaim Bloom and perhaps he can paint a more coherent portrait. Let the Ray-ification of the Redbirds begin.
Biggest success: Junior Caminero
This has been a mildly disappointing season for Tampa Bay, but not so for its powerhouse, 21-year-old third baseman. Caminero’s 44 homers already rank second in Rays history, and he needs only two more to tie Carlos Pena’s 18-year-old franchise record. The only other age-21 player to reach 44 homers is Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews, who hit 47 in 1953. Caminero still has a shot at that mark.
Biggest failure: Close games
This has been a strange season for Tampa Bay, and not only because the Rays have had to call the Yankees’ spring training facility their home park. Tampa Bay has had a couple of stretches where it looked like one of baseball’s top teams but has been thwarted by close losses — which is the antithesis of what the last few good Rays teams have been like. This season, Tampa Bay is just 33-40 in games decided by one or two runs. Because of that, the Rays are on pace to fall 7.3 wins shy of the record predicted by their run differential, tied with Texas for the biggest shortfall in baseball.
Biggest success: Overcoming injuries
Over their past 20 games coming out of the weekend, the Rangers had won 15, the best last-20 mark in baseball. This has allowed Texas to close its sizable gap with Houston and eke closer to the Mariners. The postseason remains very much in play. During that 20-game stretch, Texas got five games from Corey Seager, zero from Marcus Semien, 10 from Adolis Garcia and zero from Evan Carter. Ace starter Nathan Eovaldi made his last appearance of the season the day before that 20-game window began. The more beat-up the Rangers are, the more they seem to thrive.
Biggest failure: Home offense
The Rangers have just a .676 OPS at Globe Life Field, while they’re at .724 on the road. Last season, they were 34 points better at home. The season before, when the Rangers won the World Series, they were 107 points better. It is a baffling thing. In his first Texas season, DH Joc Pederson has hit .155 with a .559 OPS at home. He hasn’t been great on the road, either, but his OPS is 103 points better while traveling. All of this is too bad for the hitters, but while bemoaning their fate at GLF, we should also note that the Rangers have been baseball’s best home team this season (by run differential) thanks to an absurdly-low 2.77 home ERA by the pitching staff.
Biggest success: Ernie Clement
No, really. The Blue Jays have the AL’s best record. Among all teams, they are 10th in OPS+ and 15th in ERA+, solid but not No. 1-seed solid. There are some facts that align with the standing — a 50-25 home record, and a 40-28 mark in games decided by one or two runs. Toronto leads all teams in FanGraphs’ DEF metric, suggesting the Jays have a strong claim as baseball’s best defensive team. For all that, it just feels as if there is something intangible going on with this club, and no one typifies that more than Clement, a jack-of-all trades infielder who contributes on both offense and defense. Clement is a very different kind of player than Ben Zobrist — and not as good — but there is something reminiscent of Clement on Toronto to Zobrist’s roles with championship teams in Kansas City and Chicago last decade.
Biggest failure: Jeff Hoffman
It’s hard to believe Toronto’s record in close games is as good as it is given Hoffman’s up-and-down season as the Blue Jays’ primary closer. Hoffman has 30 saves but he has blown seven games and somehow has a 9-7 win-loss record, which isn’t the kind of thing you expect to see from a 2025 closer. Heck, if he blows a couple of more saves that the Jays rescue him from, he could tie for Toronto’s team lead in wins. Seriously, though, Hoffman has been barely replacement level this season. He has been on a nice roll of late, until he gave up a ninth-inning homer to Houston’s Yainer Diaz that resulted in his seventh loss last Wednesday. If Toronto’s feel-good season is going to last deep into October, the Jays really need Hoffman to be part of the happy tidings.
Biggest success: James Wood
It hasn’t been a happy season for the Nats, who are likely to lose more games than the 91 they dropped in 2023 and 2024. That’s not how rebuilding is supposed to work. Wood has been the best player in a bad situation, adding some power to his solid rookie season percentages and improving his defensive metrics. He has struggled at home, though, and his first-half OPS — a star-like .915 — has dropped to .663 since the All-Star Game. Even the Nats’ good news is bad.
Biggest failure: The rebuild
It will continue, of course, because there is no other choice. But the post-championship reset embarked upon by the old regime of Mike Rizzo and Dave Martinez is officially kaput, and those two were put out of work on the same day in July. This offseason represents a fresh start for a franchise that very much needs one.
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