Miami Marlins GM Kim Ng’s journey to the postseason
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Xuan Thai, ESPN Senior Writer
MIAMI — Down a brightly lit hallway that leads to a section of luxury suites at the Miami Marlins‘ stadium, where each room is filled with fans cheering on the home team, the door to the last suite is closed. Inside sits Kim Ng. No entourage, no buddies from college, no staff checking in. With a laptop, an iPad and a water bottle, the Marlins’ general manager sits with the lights off, watching the game alone.
It’s just before the MLB All-Star break, and second baseman Luis Arraez is chasing a .400 batting average, a feat not accomplished at the July break since 1999. It was Ng who traded for Arraez in her first full season without Derek Jeter in the Marlins’ front office. Already, there are whispers that the team could reach its first full-season postseason in 20 years.
I walk into the suite and attempt to break the ice, recounting a quote attributed to Ng’s mother about the “return on investment” of a University of Chicago degree and Ng’s decision to take an unpaid internship with an MLB team. I can relate. I tell her how my father once asked about the “cost-benefit analysis” of my decision to stop practicing law to take an unpaid internship at a cable news network. Aren’t Asian parents funny that way, I ask? She kindly laughs, perhaps more out of courtesy than comedy. I quickly pivot to baseball.
Ng’s journey to this place has been well chronicled — more than 30 years of management and executive experience that includes stints with MLB, the Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, and the New York Yankees, with whom she won three World Series. She’s often included on those “most powerful women in sports” lists, and has grown accustomed to answering the inevitable questions about the “first” and “only” career labels — the first and only woman hired as general manager of a men’s major pro sports team in North America, the first East Asian American to do it in baseball.
It can be lonely being the first and only, and it’s clear those are things she doesn’t like to discuss. Less than three years into her first GM job, she’d much rather talk about baseball, the team and the “culture of winning” she’s trying to cultivate — to focus on anything other than her own story. It’s hard to break through. Over the course of several interviews this past regular season, Ng sticks to her talking points.
When we meet again three months later, with just six games left in the regular season, Ng is once again having a first-and-only moment. This time she’s in a Citi Field box for visiting general managers, and the Marlins are in close pursuit of a National League wild-card spot. Winning a series against the New York Mets would feel particularly fitting for the GM who grew up playing stickball on the streets of Queens. But it also could help Ng become the first and only female GM to lead a team to the postseason.
To be on the brink of a playoff spot is an accomplishment for any GM. For Ng, who is cautious by nature, this requires focus.
“It definitely hit me around the All-Star break when the team was sitting in a very good position,” she says. “Now we’re down to the last week and it’s starting to hit again, that you’re realizing that you’re just in a great position to do things that you’ve wanted to do for a really long time, and that is get to the postseason. And I’ve been there before with some of my other clubs, but certainly not in this chair. And that obviously makes this different.”
She says she’s tried to avoid feeling stress up to this point.
“Now,” she says, “I’m allowing myself to stress a little bit.”
This is a big admission. She knows that her reactions could affect the rest of the organization, and wants to keep things positive in the clubhouse.
“For a while,” she says, “I was playing the same playlist over and over, as I went into work every day and I was playing it in my suite each night during the game. Probably just to divert my attention from being so stressed.”
I ask, “What’s on this playlist?”
“Oh, yeah,” she says, laughing, “You’re not getting that out of me!”
After opening the second half of the season on an eight-game losing streak, the Marlins dipped below .500 in late August and appeared headed for another disappointing end. But series wins against the Washington Nationals, the Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies, plus a sweep of the Atlanta Braves, helped them finish 84-77 in the regular season. They clinched a wild-card spot with a win Saturday in Pittsburgh, where Ng joined the celebration on the field.
The Marlins are playoff-bound in a full season for the first time since 2003, when they went on to beat the New York Yankees in the World Series. (The Marlins reached the playoffs during the pandemic-shortened postseason in 2020.) They open play Tuesday at Philadelphia (8 p.m. ET on ESPN).
For Ng, who is 54, getting to this historic moment started in 1990, three years before the Marlins became an expansion team. She’d graduated from the University of Chicago and joined the Chicago White Sox as an intern. The White Sox hired her full-time the next year and by 1995 had promoted her to assistant director of baseball operations. When she became an assistant GM of the Yankees in 1998, she was the second youngest person ever in that role at the time.
It would take another two decades for her to land a GM job. Publicly, she remained upbeat when asked about that. She’s joked that she was always a bridesmaid. Today, she acknowledges that some of those GM interviews were more performative than purposeful.
I ask how she dealt with the frustration, how she kept going after a half dozen or so attempts to advance.
She says she’s been asked that question often, and that the answer has been, and will always be, “What am I supposed to do, quit?”
“You just keep trying,” she says. “And it was incredibly frustrating, there’s no doubt about that. But you just keep at it.”
Joe Torre, who worked with Ng during their time with the Yankees and Dodgers and was her boss in the MLB offices, is more blunt, saying some of those teams just “checked a box.”
“I just think that they just never wanted to pull the trigger. Nobody had the courage to do it,” Torre says. “There’d be teams that would call me about interviewing her. And I said, ‘It’s all well and good, but just don’t do it just to cover your ass. I mean, you have to be serious.'”
After years of disappointments for her, another former Yankee, Derek Jeter, made the move. As chief executive and a minority owner of the Marlins, Jeter was known as an advocate for diversity in baseball. Jeter, who declined an ESPN interview request, called Torre when the Marlins first considered Ng for the job.
“[Jeter] had called me about her, and the one thing he said to me because he knows, he said, ‘Just tell Kim I’m not checking a box here. I’m seriously interested in her ability to do this job,'” Torre recalls.
The Marlins named her GM in November 2020.
“When she came in, she inherited almost the entirety of the front office,” says longtime Marlins assistant GM Brian Chattin. “She kind of walked into already an organizational dynamic that had been operating for a few years, which is challenging to do, to come in the leadership role and inherit everyone.”
There were no wholesale firings of front-office staff during Ng’s first two seasons. Ng reported to Jeter, who reported to majority owner Bruce Sherman. The executives in place were largely Jeter’s team, and like Ng, several were former Yankees.
According to some with knowledge of her time with the Marlins, many of the people she worked with continued to look to Jeter for guidance or approval. Ng had one position she could fill in her first months — team travel director. A year later, in January 2022, she brought in her first big hire, Stan Conte, as senior director of medical services. They’d worked together in Los Angeles, and his job was to overhaul the Marlins’ medical unit.
When Ng first approached Conte, who resigned as the Dodgers’ vice president of medical services in 2015, he was living in Arizona with no intention of returning to baseball full-time. As Conte recalls it, he was less than enthusiastic when Ng called.
“I said, ‘No, I don’t want to help. I want to be retired,'” Conte recalls.
He says Ng wasn’t having it. Eventually, he relented.
“This is part of her personality,” Conte says. “She’s very politely in a lot of different ways, wears you down and you don’t even know it’s happening. She isn’t who you think she is, and she does that on purpose. She’s methodical, attentive and deliberate.”
When Jeter left the Marlins in February 2022, again there were no wholesale firings of front office staff, but positions did open up and Ng took the opportunity to make methodical and deliberate moves. To create what she calls “the culture of winning.”
Longtime manager and former Yankees great Don Mattingly left after the 2022 season. The opening allowed Ng to bring in first-time manager Skip Schumaker, who at the time was a bench coach for the St. Louis Cardinals. A major league player for 11 seasons, Schumaker won a World Series with the Cardinals in 2011.
“She definitely took a chance on me, that’s for sure, being a rookie manager. I’m grateful for that,” Schumaker says. “I think she did a really good job of acquiring a staff that also knows what winning looks like and holds people accountable.”
She brought in another assistant GM, Oz Ocampo, from the Houston Astros. Ocampo is known for his expertise in scouting international talent. He was instrumental in bringing in key players to help the Astros win three World Series.
During the interview process, Ocampo says, he needed to figure out whether the Marlins were as committed to winning as he was.
“The history of the Marlins was that they would win and then they would disband the team and then they would be followed by long periods of losing,” he says. “And I don’t tolerate losing very well, and neither does Kim and neither does Skip.”
She also took hold of key player decisions. After trading for Arraez before the start of the 2023 season, she was criticized by some observers for sacrificing too much talent to acquire the hitter. This season, Arraez chased .400 for half the season and has become a driving force on the team.
Before the Aug. 1 trade deadline, Ng knew what the team needed. Those in the room recall the day in awe.
“The trade deadline this year, unbelievable. I was in that room all day long from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and everyone had different opinions, but she knew exactly what she wanted,” Conte says. “What she needed was runs, and she went out and scouted the right people and got them.”
She brought in infielders Josh Bell and Jake Burger. Perhaps just as important, she let go of those in the organization who were not on board with her vision. One of those was Gary Denbo, vice president of player development and an early Jeter hire.
But she also kept people who were put in place before her, and gave everyone a chance to prove themselves. Mel Stottlemyre Jr. has been the team’s pitching coach since 2018. He is one of the few coaches to stay through the changes.
Junior, as he is called by those who know him well, always suspected Ng would become a GM. His father — the late Mel Stottlemyre, a legendary pitcher and coach — told him she would some day.
“I remember when my pops was alive and still working with the Yankees,” Stottlemyre Jr. says. “He mentioned Ng’s name to me, and he talked about the toughness within her. And he finished his conversation and said that this woman was going to be a GM.
“And for him to say that, and then for me to go to work for her in what is her first job?” Stottlemyre Jr. points to goosebumps on his arm.
“Full circle,” I add. He nods. We let it sink in.
I bring up that moment with Ng. She pauses, too.
“When Mel told me the story, it surprised me because I definitely was not there making my mark,” she says. “That wasn’t my personality either, but it was certainly humbling to hear it for sure.”
Not yet three years into being a GM, Ng’s impact on baseball remains undeniable. At an MLB “Take the Field” event, a program designed to promote women working in baseball this past December, Ng gave the keynote address.
“Kim walks up and [my friends] are like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s Kim! That’s Kim!'” says Jennifer Brann, a 25-year-old Marlins data analyst whose friends were eager for an introduction. “People see her as like a larger-than-life figure. I think that she’s more popular than some of the [players] sometimes.”
Ng is aware she’s a role model, which also kept her going through all those GM interviews over the years.
Over the course of our interviews, I’m almost apologetic for asking what it means to be a woman in baseball. It is the year 2023, after all. But Ng is a woman and Asian American, like me, and those facts still matter. Visibility matters.
“Given my understanding of where I was in the universe, and that a lot of people looked up to me, whether it was women in the industry or young women wanting to get in the industry,” she explains. “You just never wanted to just fade off into nowhere. That wasn’t really an option.”
When Burger joined the team in August, his younger sister, Ellie Burger, retweeted a post the third baseman shared in November 2020, celebrating Ng’s historic hire. He tweeted that his sister, who always wanted to be a GM, now saw it was possible for a woman to have the top job. I asked Ellie what Ng’s role as GM means to her.
“It was just kind of breathtaking and wow, it actually happened.” Ellie says. “It was at like 52 [years old] she got hired as GM, and you take a Theo Epstein, for example, who gets hired at 28. And it’s like, why is there this difference? This is long overdue, but finally there’s movement.”
Eve Rosenbaum, a former MLB intern who worked for Ng and is now an assistant GM with the Baltimore Orioles, says Ng has huge weight on her shoulders.
“I think once one team hired a woman and then everyone can sort of exhale and say, ‘OK. Oh look, it happens,'” Rosenbaum says. “And, ‘Oh, look, she’s doing a good job,’ and then everyone else feels more comfortable to be the next person to hire a woman to lead their baseball ops department.”
Still, Ng is somewhat surprised to hear that her colleagues describe her as collaborative, kind, deliberative and smart.
“That’s the external, but the internal is quite a bit different,” Ng says. “It’s interesting that that’s the way they perceive me.”
“What’s the internal?” I ask.
“Very competitive, doesn’t quit,” Ng says, reflecting on her journey, but adding she wonders whether she “should let my personality come out a little more.”
Ng can be guarded about what she says, and careful about how she presents. But the few who know her well say she is fiery, too.
“It would annoy me when writers would ask [if I wanted to be GM]. Because are you asking the guys that? If you’re not asking the guys that, then don’t ask me that,” Ng says, slightly agitated. She rarely gets animated during our interviews. “[Are you asking] because I shouldn’t have that ambition, or it would be odd if I did have that ambition?”
It’s early September, and on this day, I’m back in Ng’s box at the Marlins’ stadium, in the dark, watching what is undeniably a sloppy game. The Marlins are losing badly to the Dodgers. Suddenly, a ball boy mistakes a ball in fair play for a foul ball and costs the Marlins a run. I react in disbelief. Ng is silent.
“Do you wish the game was already over?” I ask.
“Yeah, like five innings ago,” she says wryly.
In nearly every interview with Ng and those in the organization, the phrase “culture of winning” appears. Shortly after sitting down next to her, she says she wants to revisit the “culture of winning” idea again. She doesn’t think she explained it very well the last time we spoke.
“The culture of winning means the process and the preparation,” Ng explains. She then goes into detail about playing smarter baseball. Surprisingly, she says this night’s 10-0 rout by the Dodgers is not disappointing.
“This is execution. And sometimes you just don’t execute,” she says. “Physical mistakes happen. But last year, we might’ve thrown to a wrong base. That is not acceptable. That’s a mental mistake. That’s the mistake you have to learn from.
“We’ve been much better this year. And those are the signs of improvement and building that foundation.”
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Bradford Doolittle
Something has to change.
Of course, much has already changed since we last convened with our final preseason projections. But for each MLB team, playing five weeks of a new season will inevitably expose additional shifts that are needed. Every team, no matter how splendid or how dreadful the start, has something.
One thing the forecasts suggested that has borne out so far is the relative levels of stratification between the leagues. The National League, led by the champion Dodgers, looked top-heavy, and while not all of the teams we thought would make up that elite tier are a perfect match with the forecasts, the overall dynamic is very much one of dominance. Meanwhile, the American League figured to be a whole bunch of teams in spitting distance of break even, with little separation among the top 12-13 teams in the circuit.
How will these dynamics hold up until we Stock Watch again in June?
Each team’s ability, or lack thereof, to make the following changes might determine that.
Win average: 104.5 (Last: 102.4, 1st)
In the playoffs: 98.8% (Last: 97.7%)
Champions: 28.5% (Last: 28.4%)
What must change: Rotation health
There were actually some bumpy moments in the early weeks of the season for the Dodgers but nothing has happened to really knock them out of the favorite’s perch as we think ahead to late October. One thing that could change that is L.A.’s ever-growing injured list, especially its collection of 60-day IL assignments. For all the depth the Dodgers seemed to build up in their rotation over the winter, they’ve still gone with two bullpen games already. And this doesn’t even include Shohei Ohtani, who’s still building up so he can take his turns in the rotation. Given their recent history of starter injuries … maybe he shouldn’t? Including the two openers, the Dodgers have already had 10 different pitchers start games.
Win average: 96.0 (Last: 90.2, 3rd)
In the playoffs: 88.6% (Last: 73.5%)
Champions: 10.5% (Last: 6.0%)
What must change: Middle relief instability
There hasn’t been much to complain about with the Mets. Though New York hasn’t overtaken the Dodgers in the simulations from a going-forward perspective, the Mets have probably been the better team to this point. The Dodgers have the better winning percentage, but the Mets’ Pythagorean pace (109.7) is the National League’s best. With not much to nitpick about, the relief contingent in front of Edwin Diaz needs to coalesce a little more. Ryne Stanek has the pen’s second-highest average leverage index but has struggled, and the two top lefties (A.J. Minter and Danny Young) have already been lost to injury. Still, if this is a team’s biggest worry at the beginning of May, it’s in a good place.
Win average: 95.8 (Last: 84.3, 13th)
In the playoffs: 92.7% (Last: 51.2%)
Champions: 7.8% (Last: 1.5%)
What must change: Ninth-inning drama
The Cubs have mostly bludgeoned their opposition so far with a breakout offense that ranks among baseball’s best in pretty much every major category. Assuming Chicago won’t average over six runs per game all season, eventually its thin bullpen is going to move into the spotlight. The Cubs have blown seven of their first 15 save opportunities. Closer Ryan Pressly has managed to white-knuckle his way through most of his outings but has struck out fewer than four batters per nine innings, with more walks than K’s. Overall, Chicago’s relievers rank 28th in swing-and-miss percentage, underscoring the general lack of dominance in that unit. The Cubs have been strong in every other facet but for them to establish themselves as a true front-runner, the relief leaks will need to be shored up.
Win average: 93.7 (Last: 83.0, 16th)
In the playoffs: 91.7% (Last: 41.2%)
Champions: 10.1% (Last: 1.8%)
What must change: Shortstop play
You hate to pick on Trey Sweeney, who accounts for most of Detroit’s starts at shortstop, but there just aren’t many shortcomings for the Tigers so far. No team has improved its forecast more since the start of the season. Detroit is now landing a No. 1 playoff seed more often than any other AL team in the simulations, though the Yankees’ pennant odds are still a tick better because of a higher baseline. (New York has a lower regular-season win forecast because of schedule differences.) Sweeney hasn’t hit (.234/.317/.355)* and the Tigers’ shortstop defensive rating, per FanGraphs, ranks 20th. It’s the most obvious blemish on what is shaping up as a pristine season in Detroit.
* These numbers were .202/.282/.303 entering Sunday, but Sweeney must have had spies watching over my shoulder. Against the Angels, he went 4-for-5 with a homer and six RBIs. That’s more like it.
Win average: 92.9 (Last: 84.5, 12th)
In the playoffs: 76.9% (Last: 44.4%)
Champions: 4.0% (Last: 1.8%)
What must change: Lineup depth
The Padres are off to a great start, largely on the strength of a bullpen that has been off the charts. The relievers have racked up 14 saves (they’ve blown only one) and 27 holds while compiling a collective 1.73 ERA. Those numbers are both unbelievable and unsustainable. When some regression sets in, a top-heavy lineup will need to get production from spots like catcher (21st in OPS) and left field (27th) to offset the difference. We kind of knew this was how the Padres were constructed, but still — San Diego has given too many plate appearances to too many players in what we’ll call the post-productive phases of their careers.
Win average: 91.4 (Last: 84.3, 13th)
In the playoffs: 85.4% (Last: 46.8%)
Champions: 8.1% (Last: 2.5%)
What must change: First base production
Generally speaking, the more specific the issue we choose to worry about, the better off the team. For Seattle, the primary concern the past couple of years has been more wide-lens than specific: offense. For now, that problem has apparently been largely solved. The Mariners’ offense has been one of the hottest in baseball and over the past couple of weeks, with its hitters even managing to mash at T-Mobile Park. So rather than worrying about the offense, writ large, we can point out that at first base, the Rowdy Tellez–Donovan Solano combo is mostly responsible for Seattle’s .518 OPS (tied for 29th in MLB) at the position. This projected to be a major hole before the season, so the chances of self-correction are limited. Now, the stakes are higher to shore up the weak spots, since the Mariners have emerged as the early front-runner to win the AL West.
Win average: 90.8 (Last: 88.7, 5th)
In the playoffs: 84.5% (Last: 68.3%)
Champions: 9.3% (Last: 6.5%)
What must change: Rotation depth chart
For a first-place team, there is plenty to worry about when it comes to the Yankees. They’ve had the best position player (Aaron Judge, by far) and arguably the best pitcher (Max Fried) in baseball. The relief staff has dealt with the struggles of demoted closer Devin Williams, but the bullpen still ranks sixth in relief ERA and with only 14% of inherited runners scoring. But the rotation has been below average (4.07 ERA and only eight quality starts) despite Fried’s great beginning. Even worse, with Gerrit Cole out for the season and Luis Gil and Marcus Stroman currently on the shelf, it’s not immediately clear how this is going to get better. This issue might really start to mushroom if and when Fried regresses from his hot start.
Win average: 90.3 (Last: 89.2, 4th)
In the playoffs: 66.2% (Last: 68.9%)
Champions: 4.1% (Last: 4.8%)
What must change: Slumping stalwarts
The Phillies’ roster was constructed on star power, not depth, and while that has worked well enough the past few years, they need the stars to produce. The “it’s still early” caveat applies, but so far, Bryce Harper hasn’t hit like Bryce Harper, Alec Bohm‘s production has gone missing, Aaron Nola just earned his first win but remains under league average (91 ERA+) and key bullpen acquisition Jordan Romano has gotten shelled. If the Phillies don’t want to lose sight of the front-running Mets in the NL East race, they’ll need their main cogs to start firing.
Win average: 89.7 (Last: 79.9, 20th)
In the playoffs: 59.7% (Last: 24.6%)
Champions: 2.5% (Last: 0.6%)
What must change: Team batting average
The Giants have inserted themselves into a top-heavy NL postseason chase that they didn’t figure to be a part of when the season began. The pitching and defense has been stellar, but the offense hasn’t kept up. San Francisco ranks eighth in walks percentage but 24th in batting average. That can work in a take-and-rake general approach to offense, but the Giants are only middle of the pack in homers. Since they aren’t very athletic and rarely steal bases, this leads to uneven production. The Giants can hang in contention with a league-level batting average, but they simply don’t hit enough homers to do so if they continue to hover around .230. That puts the onus on low-average hitters such as Matt Chapman (.198), LaMonte Wade Jr. (.141, ouch) and Willy Adames (.230 and now four homers after hitting two on Sunday) to up the ante.
Win average: 87.1 (Last: 87.1, 8th)
In the playoffs: 44.2% (Last: 58.4%)
Champions: 1.7% (Last: 3.0%)
What must change: Bullpen health
In what’s shaping up as a historically good NL West (save for the Rockies), little problems can quickly become big ones. For the Diamondbacks, a shiny start has lost its luster a bit as they have battled bullpen problems in both the performance and health categories. The unit scuffled badly during a 5-9 stretch, posting a 5.61 collective ERA while blowing six of 10 save opportunities. Closer A.J. Puk (elbow) is on the 60-day IL and Justin Martinez (shoulder) hit the 15-day IL after two concerning outings with diminished velocity. Both are expected to help later this season but for that to matter, the likes of Kevin Ginkel, Shelby Miller and Ryan Thompson need to step up in high-leverage spots.
Win average: 86.8(Last: 88.7, 5th)
In the playoffs: 66.6% (Last: 68.7%)
Champions: 3.7% (Last: 5.4%)
What must change: Homer count
It has been a mixed bag for the Astros. Hunter Brown has been one of the game’s best pitchers and Josh Hader is having a vintage season at the back of the bullpen. The relief staff, in general, has been strong. But the lineup has been below average with a lack of power at the root of the issue. No Astro has homered more than four times and Houston ranks 21st in home run and overall slugging percentage. It’s an issue up and down the lineup but things would look a lot more promising if Christian Walker and Yordan Alvarez were going deep at their usual rates.
Win average: 86.7 (Last: 96.5, 2nd)
In the playoffs: 43.5% (Last: 91.1%)
Champions: 2.2% (Last: 14.4%)
What must change: IL roster
An 0-7 start threatened to sink the Braves’ season before it began. They recovered — nearly climbing to .500 at one point — but they have a lot of work to do. Hopes that the Braves can still reach their ceiling hinge on the longed-for returns of Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuña Jr. In the meantime, they need underperforming stalwarts such as Matt Olson, Michael Harris II, Chris Sale and Raisel Iglesias to hit their stride. Atlanta can’t keep plodding along under .500 in this year’s NL while waiting for its stars to get healthy, but if the Braves can stay above water until then, they might be able to really take off. Considering what we’ve seen so far, the fact that they won’t see the Dodgers again during the regular season certainly helps.
Win average: 83.6 (Last: 84.6, 11th)
In the playoffs: 47.4% (Last: 48.8%)
Champions: 1.3% (Last: 2.3%)
What must change: Outfield production
The Royals’ offense, in general, has been missing, with only Bobby Witt Jr. producing all season. But the outfield ranks 29th in bWAR as a group — the continuation of a problem that hovered over the roster last season. MJ Melendez was sent to the minors to find himself. His initial results in Omaha suggest he’ll be searching for some time. Hunter Renfroe has produced less than a good-hitting pitcher. Mark Canha has helped in a big role and Drew Waters has had some nice moments. But the Royals need some stable offense from the corner outfielders, making this a must-get as the trade deadline starts to loom.
Win average: 82.9 (Last: 77.7, 22nd)
In the playoffs: 40.9% (Last: 19.0%)
Champions: 0.9% (Last: 0.5%)
What must change: Emmanuel Clase
You figured the Guardians’ bullpen would fall off a bit after last season’s off-the-charts showing. That has happened even though set-up relievers Cade Smith and Hunter Gaddis have been every bit as good as they were in 2024. No, the problem has been a mystifying start by Clase, who has already given up more runs (11) than he did all of last season (10). He already has won four games, matching a career high, but of course that’s not necessarily a good sign for a closer. Clase’s dominance was the biggest differentiator on last year’s team. The 2025 squad, which has been outscored by 23 runs despite a 20-14 record, needs him to approximate that performance.
Win average: 82.8 (Last: 84.1, 15th)
In the playoffs: 43.6% (Last: 45.6%)
Champions: 1.8% (Last: 2.5%)
What must change: Bullpen depth
Despite an elite offense, the Red Sox have hovered around .500 because of a thin bullpen. The relievers have blown as many saves (eight) as they’ve converted and only one team has seen a higher rate of inherited runners score. Closer Aroldis Chapman has been fine, but he hasn’t had enough situational help. Boston ranks in the middle of the pack with a 4.11 relief ERA and its 10 holds are tied for the fewest of any bullpen. The rotation has been solid, but it’ll need more support to remain that way.
Win average: 81.9 (Last: 87.1, 8th)
In the playoffs: 38.1% (Last: 61.0%)
Champions: 1.1% (Last: 5.2%)
What must change: The offense
Even after an eight-run outburst against the division-leading Mariners on Sunday, Texas ranks 29th in run scoring. Only the Rockies have scored fewer. It’s a stunning turnaround for an offense that kept scoreboards spinning in 2023 on the way to a World Series title. Last year’s falloff was steep, and based on what we’ve seen so far, hopes for positive regression are fading. Adolis Garcia is having another down season. Marcus Semien is below replacement. And the key additions from the winter — Joc Pederson and Jake Burger — have hurt more than they’ve helped. Pederson is hitting a remarkable .094 with a .334 OPS, and Burger (.561) was sent to the minors. Not good. The Rangers’ brass has taken note: Offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker, who was with the club during its 2023 run, was fired after Sunday’s game.
Win average: 79.5 (Last: 85.1, 10th)
In the playoffs: 25.7% (Last: 52.4%)
Champions: 0.7% (Last: 2.7%)
What must change: Carlos Correa
For once, we don’t have to cite the availability of the Twins’ stars as their primary problem. That’s still an issue, too, as Royce Lewis has yet to make his season debut — but the larger problem has been the star who has stayed on the field, Correa, is off to a miserable start. He’s hitting .216 with a lone homer and a .560 OPS to begin the season, hamstringing a Twins lineup that has struggled. Everything is off, even Correa’s plate discipline, as he has walked at a rate less than half his career norm. The Twins need more to turn around than just Correa, but no one else on the roster has fallen as far below expectation as he has.
Win average: 79.4 (Last: 82.9, 17th)
In the playoffs: 25.0% (Last: 39.2%)
Champions: 0.6% (Last: 1.6%)
What must change: Powerless stars
After the formerly punchless Royals hammered seven homers in Baltimore on Sunday, the Blue Jays sank to last in the majors with 23 homers. The power trio of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Anthony Santander and Bo Bichette have hit nine of those dingers between them — and that’s just not enough. Guerrero will be fine. Bichette has recovered most of the batting average he lost during last year’s .225 season, but he has homered only once. This is a player in his age-27 season who topped 20 homers in each season from 2021 to 2023. Finally, Santander has flailed during his first Toronto season, hitting four homers with a 67 OPS+. This can’t continue if the Jays are to contend.
Win average: 79.1 (Last: 79.9, 20th)
In the playoffs: 11.4% (Last: 28.9%)
Champions: 0.1% (Last: 0.5%)
What must change: The pitching
The Brewers are built to win on pitching and defense. Every year, they overperform their projections because of an organizational ability to find, or produce, quality pitchers. But so far, they just haven’t found enough of them in 2025. The overall run prevention has been off. In the first season after Willy Adames’ departure, the team defense has been more decent than elite. The rotation has received good work from Freddy Peralta, Jose Quintana and upstart Chad Patrick, but the falloff after that has been steep. Brandon Woodruff might return to the mix soon and that will certainly help. More troubling is Milwaukee’s normally airtight relief staff, which has struggled to finish games and strand inherited runners.
This all needs to turn around — and fast. With the Cubs emerging as a potential powerhouse in the NL Central, being an above-average team is no longer the bar to clear in the division. And it’s unlikely the Central’s second-place club is going to have a chance at a wild-card slot — not in this league.
Win average: 78.8 (Last: 80.3, 19th)
In the playoffs: 22.3% (Last: 27.1%)
Champions: 0.5% (Last: 0.8%)
What must change: Home-field disadvantage
No matter what happened, this was going to be a strange season for the Rays. Playing in a minor league facility owned by a division rival was going to take some getting used to. The problem for the Rays is that they need to get used to it quickly, because of a schedule heavy on early home games. When the Rays depart for a six-game trip on June 8, they will have played nearly twice as many games in Tampa (43) as on the road (22). That means, of course, that the Rays will have a road-heavy schedule after that, which would be fine if the Rays were playing well at George M. Steinbrenner Field — but they aren’t. When the Rays return to Florida on Tuesday, they’ll be 9-13 at their temporary venue. With a lot more games in Tampa coming up, it’s an issue they need to fix fast. If they don’t, they’ll be looking at an uphill battle for playoff contention, and most of those hills will be confronted away from home.
Win average: 78.8 (Last: 75.9, 23rd)
In the playoffs: 10.6% (Last: 14.6%)
Champions: 0.2% (Last: 0.2%)
What must change: Lead protection
The Reds might be good. The pitching staff (122 ERA+) ranks third in the NL. The rotation and the bullpen have contributed even though presumed closer Alexis Diaz floundered so badly that he was sent to the minors. Emilio Pagan has been OK in Diaz’s place, but he’s better suited for set-up work. Diaz’s trouble started last season, so it’s hard to say where his trajectory is headed. Recently recalled Luis Mey has electric stuff, but he’s unproven and prone to lapses of command. However it happens, manager Terry Francona needs someone to step up to lock down the ninth because the overall pitching is contention-worthy. The lineup … well, it’s another reason why the Reds can’t afford back-of-the-bullpen inconsistency.
Win average: 77.5 (Last: 73.5, 26th)
In the playoffs: 16.1% (Last: 8.4%)
Champions: 0.2% (Last: 0.1%)
What must change: The defense
This is shaping up as an exciting first season in Sacramento for the Athletics. The offense has been productive and looks legit, especially if rookie Nick Kurtz hits the ground running. The pitching is going to be more of a scramble, but what would help if the Athletics could field. They rank last or second to last in the leading defensive metrics. Only the Red Sox have committed more errors. Some teams can overwhelm opponents by favoring offense over defense at most positions, but the Athletics aren’t likely to be one of them. Key spots to shore up are second base and third base, positions that aren’t producing at the plate, either, so at the very least the Athletics could favor a glove.
Win average: 76.8 (Last: 81.0, 18th)
In the playoffs: 6.4% (Last: 33.9%)
Champions: 0.1% (Last: 0.7%)
What must change: Ryan Helsley
The Cardinals are perfectly mediocre, owning a run differential that has hovered around break even. Their record is a little worse than the expectation the so-so differential portends, largely because of a 4-5 record in one-run games — two of those coming in Sunday’s doubleheader against the Mets. This is not exclusively because of Helsley, but he has not been on his game so far with two blown saves in seven chances and walking nearly as many batters as he has struck out. The strikeout and walk rates are alarming, as they reflect what Helsley was early in his career before he ascended to All-Star status. If the mediocre Cardinals are going to do better than middling, they need their star closer to help them close out more than their share of close games. The kicker, though, is that if the Cardinals go into offload mode, this version of Helsley isn’t going to look nearly as alluring in the trade marketplace.
Win average: 75.7 (Last: 88.0, 7th)
In the playoffs: 11.7% (Last: 64.7%)
Champions: 0.2% (Last: 5.9%)
What must change: Right-handed hitting
No team has lost more from its preseason projection than Baltimore, so it’s very difficult to boil it down to one big thing. The problem with right-handed hitting could also be framed as a problem with hitting left-handed pitchers. The Orioles rank fifth with a .774 OPS against righties but are dead last against lefties (an anemic .502). Their righty hitters (Tyler O’Neill, Jordan Westburg, Gary Sanchez, et al.) are hitting a collective .200/.261/.319. This of course comes after the Orioles moved in the left-field fence at Camden Yards over the winter. How’s that going? Opposing righty hitters have a .972 OPS there, while their Baltimore counterparts are at .586. The visitors have outhomered Baltimore’s righty swingers 20-8 at Oriole Park.
Win average: 70.5 (Last: 67.7, 27th)
In the playoffs: 0.9% (Last: 1.9%)
Champions: 0.0% (Last: 0.0%)
What must change: Dylan Crews
The Nationals are competitive already and often fun to watch. Actual contention seems like a longshot, though, especially given the current state of their bullpen. Still, the more long-term questions the Nationals can answer in the affirmative, the better they will be able to set themselves up for a real push in 2026. At some point, infield prospect Brady House should join the big league fray. Until that happens, eyeballs remain on Crews, the touted second-year player whose MLB career has sputtered at the beginning. Crews looked lost early, going 5-for-47 with zero extra-base hits to start. Then came a two-week splurge with four homers and a 1.026 OPS over 13 outings. He’s 1-for-21 since. More than anything, Crews needs to get off the roller coaster and enjoy a nice, prolonged run of good, solid consistency.
Win average: 66.8 (Last: 73.8, 25th)
In the playoffs: 0.9% (Last: 8.9%)
Champions: 0.0% (Last: 0.1%)
What must change: Roster make-up
What do I mean by “roster make-up”? Remember the glory days of April 12, when L.A. was 9-5 and it seemed its floor-raising project from the winter was going to work? Since then, the Angels have a minus-65 run differential, 14 runs worse than any other team and, yes, that includes the Rockies. And also, Mike Trout is back on the injured list. The Angels are in the bottom five in OPS, ERA and defensive runs saved. This incidentally isn’t a tanking team. So how to change the roster makeup? Maybe just go young and lose big? The losing might happen anyway and, besides, what the Angels are doing now is not working.
Win average: 66.0 (Last: 74.2, 24th)
In the playoffs: 0.2% (Last: 10.4%)
Champions: 0.0% (Last: 0.1%)
What must change: Oneil Cruz‘s defense
According to baseball-reference.com, Cruz’s offense has been nine runs better than average, once you combine his hitting (.243/.377/.505 with eight homers) and baserunning (14 steals). His defensive performance in center field is minus-9 runs, erasing all of that offensive value. His bWAR (0.5) is a product of accounting — positional value and replacement value. Cruz is now minus-12 in fielding runs over the past two seasons in center. His career figure at shortstop was minus-9. Given his speed and arm strength, wherever Cruz plays, this cannot continue to happen. For all that athletic ability and offensive output, to this point he’d have produced almost as much value as a DH.
Win average: 63.6 (Last: 62.9, 28th)
In the playoffs: 0.1% (Last: 0.4%)
Champions: 0.0% (Last: 0.0%)
What must change: Sandy Alcantara‘s command
It’s great to have Alcantara back after Tommy John surgery. But so far, he has been a little tough to watch. It’s often said that command lags behind stuff for many surgery returnees, and that certainly seems to be the case for the 2022 NL Cy Young winner. His walk ratio (5.9 per nine innings) is more than double his career norm and his strikeout rate (15.8%) is the lowest of his career. Alcantara threw strikes nearly 69% of the time during the three years before he was injured; this season he’s at 62%. His velocity isn’t quite all the way back either, but he’s still averaging 97.4 mph with his fastball. He’s just not putting it where it needs to be.
Win average: 54.9 (Last: 54.1, 30th)
In the playoffs: 0.0% (Last: 0.0%)
Champions: 0.0% (Last: 0.0%)
What must change: Fan patience
To paraphrase Timothée Chalamet, now ain’t the time for your tears, Sox fans. That was last year. The White Sox are the team nearest to me — less than two miles from my keyboard — so I get a good sampling of fan feedback as I get out and about, plus plenty from the local media. This isn’t a scientifically-informed observation, but it feels as if many are missing the point. The White Sox tore the team down to the studs — last year — and this is the aftermath. The bounce-back was never going to be immediate. This year’s team stinks, sure, but it’s playing a much better brand of baseball than it did last year. There are players on the roster now who might be around for awhile and more are on the way. The rebuild isn’t even 20% complete and another 100-plus losses is a near certainty, but things are better. They had to be. Watching a team come together required patience, but it’s better than what White Sox fans dealt with a year ago.
Win average: 44.6 (Last: 57.1, 29th)
In the playoffs: 0.0% (Last: 0.1%)
Champions: 0.0% (Last: 0.0%)
What must change: Everything
The Rockies’ saves leader (Zach Agnos with two) has struck out one of the 26 batters he has faced. Their wins leader (Chase Dollander, a legitimately exciting prospect) has a 6.48 ERA. The team OPS+ is 62. Their leader in plate appearances (Ryan McMahon with 136) has an OPS of .574. Did the Rockies tear down? If so, how long have they been rebuilding? It’s really hard to make sense of the last half-decade or so of this franchise, and at this point, there seems to be no relief on the horizon. They did change hitting coaches.
With the final game of the first round of 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs completed Sunday night, there’s no rest for hockey fans. The second round begins Monday.
The first series to get rolling features the two remaining teams from the Atlantic Division, as the Florida Panthers visit the Toronto Maple Leafs (8 p.m. ET, ESPN).
Read on for a game preview with statistical insights from ESPN Research, a recap of what went down in Sunday’s game and the three stars of the first round from Arda Öcal.
Matchup notes
Florida Panthers at Toronto Maple Leafs
Game 1 | 8 p.m. ET | ESPN
ESPN BET has installed the Panthers as the favorites in the series at -175, while the Maple Leafs are +150 to win the series against the defending Stanley Cup champions.
The Panthers won the regular-season series 3-1 by an aggregate score of 13-7. A major factor in those four games was the Panthers’ power play, which converted five of 11 chances (45.5%). For comparison, the Leafs’ power play converted only one of nine opportunities (11.1%).
This is the second time these clubs have met in the postseason; the other time was also the second round in 2023. Florida eliminated Toronto in five games, punctuated by an overtime win in Game 5. (Nick Cousins scored the goal.)
Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Steven Lorentz and Anthony Stolarz won the Stanley Cup with the 2024 Panthers. The only previous playoff series in NHL history in which three players dressed against a team with which they won a Cup during the previous season was when Los Angeles Kings teammates Wayne Gretzky, Mike Krushelnyski and Marty McSorley skated against the Edmonton Oilers in 1989.
The Panthers have won more playoff games (39) since 2021 than they did in their first 26 seasons (19). Their 39 wins and 66 games played in the postseason since 2021 lead the NHL.
Florida’s postseason goal-scoring leaderboard features current players through the top four spots: Carter Verhaeghe (28), Sam Reinhart (23), Aleksander Barkov (20), Matthew Tkachuk (20).
This is the Leafs’ ninth straight postseason appearance, which is the longest active streak in the NHL and tied for the second longest in franchise history. That other nine-year streak ended in 1967 with a Stanley Cup win.
Toronto captain Auston Matthews is tied with Darryl Sittler for seventh in franchise history in playoff goals, with 25. His next goal will push him into a tie for fifth, with Steve Thomas and George Armstrong. Wendel Clark is atop the leaderboard, with 34.
Arda’s three stars from Round 1
Rantanen had 12 points in the first round to help the Stars eliminate his former team the Avalanche. He had multiple Stanley Cup playoff firsts along the way, including the first Game 7 with a third-period hat trick (“The Rantanen Game”).
McDavid put the team on his back many times during the series against the Kings, especially early. He finished with 11 points in the series, as the Oilers sent the Kings home in the first round for the fourth straight season.
The netminder allowed two goals or fewer in four of the Caps’ five games against the Canadiens, earning a .922 save percentage.
Sunday’s score
Winnipeg Jets 4, St. Louis Blues 3 (2OT)
WPG wins 4-3, plays DAL in Round 2
The Blues raced out to a quick 2-0 lead in the first period — on goals by Jordan Kyrou and Mathieu Joseph — and many thought this could be another bad playoff memory for Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck. Though the Jets got one back in the second off the stick of Cole Perfetti, Blues center Radek Faksa scored with under a minute left in the period, giving them a 3-1 lead heading into the third.
St. Louis carried that lead into the final two minutes, when the Jets furiously rallied; Vladislav Namestnikov scored at 18:04, and Perfetti deflected in the game-tying goal with three seconds remaining. The teams fought hard through the first 36 minutes of OT, before Adam Lowry tipped Neal Pionk‘s shot from the point past Jordan Binnington for the series-clinching tally. Full recap.
0:35
Jets score tying goal in final seconds of regulation
Cole Perfetti knocks in the tying goal for the Jets with one second remaining in regulation.
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Andrea Adelson
ORLANDO, Fla. — Scott Frost walks into the UCF football building and into his office, the one he used the last time he had this job, eight years ago. The shades are drawn, just like they used to be. There are drawings from his three kids tacked to the walls. There are still trophies sitting on a shelf.
He still parks in the same spot before he walks into that same building and sits at the same desk. The only thing that has changed is that the desk is positioned in a different part of the room.
But the man doing all the same things at the University of Central Florida is a different Scott Frost than the one who left following that undefeated 2017 season to take the head coach job at Nebraska.
UCF might look the same, but the school is different now, too. The Knights are now in a Power 4 conference, and there is now a 12-team College Football Playoff that affords them the opportunity to play for national championships — as opposed to self-declaring them. Just outside his office, construction is underway to upgrade the football stadium. The same, but different.
“I know I’m a wiser person and smarter football coach,” Frost said during a sit-down interview with ESPN. “When you’re young, you think you have it all figured out. I don’t think you really get better as a person unless you go through really good things, and really bad things. I just know I’m where I’m supposed to be.”
Out on the practice field, Frost feels the most at home — he feels comfort in going back to the place that has defined nearly every day of his life. As a young boy, he learned the game from his mom and dad, both football coaches, then thrived as a college and NFL player before going into coaching.
He coaches up his players with a straightforwardness that quarterbacks coach McKenzie Milton remembers fondly from their previous time together at UCF. Milton started at quarterback on the 2017 undefeated team, and the two remained close after Frost left.
“I see the same version of him from when I was here as a player,” Milton said. “Even though the dynamic in college football has changed dramatically with the portal and NIL, I think Coach Frost is one of the few coaches that can still bring a group of guys together and turn them into a team, just with who he is and what he’s done and what he’s been through in his life. He knows what it looks like to succeed, both as a coach and a player.”
Since his return, Frost has had to adjust to those changes to college football, but he said, “I love coming into work every day. We’ve got the right kids who love football. We’re working them hard. They want to be pushed. They want to be challenged. We get to practice with palm trees and sunshine and, we’re playing big-time football. But it’s also just not the constant stress meat grinder of some other places.”
Meat grinder of some other places.
Might he mean a place such as Nebraska?
“You can think what you want,” Frost said. “One thing I told myself — I’m never going to talk about that. It just doesn’t feel good to talk about. I’ll get asked 100 questions. This is about UCF. I just don’t have anything to say.”
Frost says he has no regrets about leaving UCF, even though he didn’t get the results he had hoped for at his alma mater. When Nebraska decided to part ways with coach Mike Riley in 2017, Frost seemed the best, most obvious candidate to replace him. He had been the starting quarterback on the 1997 team, the last Nebraska team to win a national title.
He now had the coaching résumé to match. Frost had done the unthinkable at UCF — taking a program that was winless the season before he arrived, to undefeated and the talk of the college football world just two years later.
But he could not ignore the pull of Nebraska and the opportunities that came along with power conference football.
“I was so happy here,” Frost said. “We went undefeated and didn’t get a chance to win a championship, at least on the field. You are always striving to reach higher goals. I had always told myself I wasn’t going to leave here unless there was a place that you can legitimately go and win a national championship. It was a tough decision because I didn’t want to leave regardless of which place it was.”
Indeed, Frost maintains he was always happy at UCF. But he also knew returning to Nebraska would make others happy, too.
“I think I kind of knew that wasn’t best for me,” he said. “It was what some other people wanted me to do to some degree.”
In four-plus seasons with the Cornhuskers, Frost went 16-31 — including 5-22 in one-score games. He was fired three games into the 2022 season after a home loss to Georgia Southern.
After Frost was fired, he moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, where his wife has family. He reflected on what happened during his tenure with the Cornhuskers but also about what he wanted to do with the rest of his career. He tried to stay connected to the game, coaching in the U.S. Army Bowl, a high school all-star game in Frisco, Texas, in December 2022. Milton coached alongside him, and distinctly remembers a conversation they had.
“He said, ‘It’s my goal to get back to UCF one day,'” Milton said. “At that time, I was like, ‘I pray to God that happens.'”
If that was the ultimate goal, Frost needed to figure out how to position himself to get back there. While he contemplated his future, he coached his son’s flag football team to a championship. Frost found the 5- and 6-year-olds he coached “listen better than 19-year-olds sometimes.”
Ultimately, he decided on a career reboot in the NFL. Frost had visited the Rams during their offseason program, and when a job came open in summer 2024, Rams coach Sean McVay immediately reached out.
Frost was hired as a senior analyst, primarily helping with special teams but also working with offense and defense.
“It was more just getting another great leader in the building, someone who has been a head coach, that has wisdom and a wealth of experience to be able to learn from,” McVay told ESPN. “His ability to be able to communicate to our players from a great coaching perspective, but also have the empathy and the understanding from when he played — all of those things were really valuable.”
McVay said he and Frost had long discussions about handling the challenges that come with falling short as a head coach.
“There’s strength in the vulnerability,” McVay said. “I felt that from him. There’s a real power in the perspective that you have from those different experiences. If you can really look at some of the things that maybe didn’t go down the way you wanted to within the framework of your role and responsibility, real growth can occur. I saw that in him.”
Frost says his time with the Rams rejuvenated him.
“It brought me back,” Frost said. “Sometimes when you’re a head coach or maybe even a coordinator, you forget how fun it is to be around the game when it’s not all on you all the time. What I did was a very small part, and we certainly weren’t going to win or lose based on every move that I made, and I didn’t have to wear the losses and struggle for the victories like you do when you’re a head coach. I’m so grateful to those guys.”
UCF athletics director Terry Mohajir got a call from then-head coach Gus Malzahn last November. Malzahn, on the verge of finishing his fourth season at UCF, was contemplating becoming offensive coordinator at Florida State. Given all the responsibilities on his desk as head coach — from NIL to the transfer portal to roster management — he found the idea of going back to playcalling appealing. Mohajir started preparing a list of candidates and was told Thanksgiving night that Malzahn had planned to step down.
Though Frost previously worked at UCF under athletics director Danny White, he and Mohajir had a preexisting relationship. Mohajir said he reached out to Frost after he was fired at Nebraska to gauge his interest in returning to UCF as offensive coordinator under Malzahn. But Frost was not ready.
This time around, Mohajir learned quickly that Frost had interest in returning as head coach. Mohajir called McVay and Rams general manager Les Snead. They told him Frost did anything that was asked of him, including making copies around the office.
“They said, ‘You would never know he was the head coach at a major college program.” Mohajir also called former Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts to get a better understanding about what happened with the Cornhuskers.
“Fits are a huge piece, and not everybody fits,” Mohajir said.
After eight conversations, Mohajir decided he wanted to meet Frost in person. They met at an airport hotel in Dallas.
“He was motivated,” Mohajir said. “We went from coast to coast, talked to coordinators, head coaches, pro guys, all kinds of different folks. And at the end of the day, I really believe that Scott wanted the job the most.”
The first day back in Orlando, Dec. 8, was a blur. Frost woke up at 3:45 a.m. in California to be able to make it to Florida in time for his introductory news conference with his family.
When they pulled into the campus, his first time back since he left in 2017, Frost said he was in a fog. It took another 24 hours for him and his wife, Ashley, to take a deep exhale.
“Rather than bouncing around chasing NFL jobs, we thought maybe we would be able to plant some roots here and have our kids be in a stable place for a while at a place that I really enjoyed coaching and that I think it has a chance to evolve into a place that could win a lot of football games,” Frost said. “All that together was just enough to get me to come back.”
The natural question now is whether Frost can do what he did during his first tenure.
That 2017 season stands as the only winning season of his head coaching career, but it carries so much weight with UCF fans because of its significance as both the best season in school history, and one that changed both its own future and college football.
After UCF finished 13-0, White self-declared the Knights national champions. Locked out of the four-team playoff after finishing No. 12 in the final CFP standings, White started lobbying for more attention to be paid to schools outside the power conferences.
That season also positioned UCF to pounce during the next wave of realignment. Sure enough, in 2023, the Knights began play in a Power 4 conference for the first time as Big 12 members. This past season, the CFP expanded to 12 teams. Unlike 2017, UCF now has a defined path to play for a national title and no longer has to go undefeated and then pray for a shot. Win the Big 12 championship, no matter the record, and UCF is in the playoff.
But Frost cautions those who expect the clock to turn back to 2017.
“I don’t think there’s many people out there that silly,” Frost said. “People joke about that with me, that they’re going to expect you go into undefeated in the first year. I think the fans are a little more realistic than that.”
The game, of course, is different. Had the transfer portal and NIL existed when Frost was at UCF during his first tenure, he might not have been able to keep the 2017 team together. The 2018 team, which went undefeated under Josh Heupel before losing to LSU in the Fiesta Bowl, might not have stayed together, either.
This upcoming season, UCF will receive a full share of television revenue from the Big 12, after receiving a half share (estimated $18 million) in each of his first two seasons. While that is more than what it received in the AAC, it is less than what other Big 12 schools received, making it harder to compete immediately. It also struggled with NIL funding. As a result, in its first two years in the conference, UCF went 5-13 in Big 12 play and 10-15 overall.
Assuming the House v. NCAA settlement goes into effect this summer, Mohajir says UCF is aiming to spend the full $20.5 million, including fully funding football.
“It’s like we moved to the fancy neighborhood, and we got a job that’s going to pay us money over time, and we’re going to do well over time, but we’re stretching a little to be there right now, and that requires a lot of effort from a lot of people and a lot of commitment from a lot of people,” Frost said. “So far, the help that we’ve gotten has been impressive.”
Mohajir points out that UCF has had five coaching changes over the past 10 years, dating back to the final season under George O’Leary in 2015, when the Knights went 0-12. Frost says he wants to be in for the long term, and Mohajir hopes consistency at head coach will be an added benefit. Mohajir believes UCF is getting the best of Frost in this moment and scoffs at any questions about whether rehiring him will work again.
“Based on what I’m seeing right now, it will absolutely work,” Mohajir said. “But I don’t really look at it as ‘working again.’ It’s not ‘again.’ It’s, ‘Will it work?’ Because it’s a different era.”
To that end, Frost says success is not recreating 2017 and going undefeated. Rather, Frost said, “If our group now can help us become competitive in the Big 12, and then, from time to time, compete for championships and make us more relevant nationally, I think we’ll have done our job to help catapult UCF again.”
You could say he is looking for the same result. He’s just taking a different route there.
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