You should not be surprised to be reading this.
Going into the 2025 season, we expected to again have a late-season roundup of the year’s “biggest surprises,” because that’s an annual conversation in baseball.
Maybe one of these years we will master the art of predicting everything that will happen in the MLB season and then have to come up with some other content in this space.
But that would be boring, wouldn’t it?
Here are some big-picture topics that have helped make the 2025 season captivating … and surprising!
The Year of the Big Dumper
Having averaged 30 homers over the previous three seasons and won the Platinum Glove in the American League last year, Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh had already made a name for himself … to go with one of the best nicknames in the sport.
But in leading the Majors in home runs, winning the Home Run Derby and having arguably the greatest offensive season for a catcher in history (he passed the previous single-season high for homers by a primary catcher before the calendar even flipped to September, for crying out loud), the Big Dumper has had the kind of momentous year that could earn him an MVP award. (Something a catcher hasn’t done since Buster Posey in 2012.)
Milwaukee’s magnificence
It’s hard for a team to exceed expectations in consecutive seasons. That’s why the Manager of the Year honor, which is so oriented around exceeding expectations, has only had back-to-back winners twice (the Braves’ Bobby Cox in 2004-05 and the Rays’ Kevin Cash in 2020-21).
Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy could join that short list this year on a Brewers team that, yes, was a division winner last year but lost one of its best bats (Willy Adames), traded one of its best arms (Devin Williams) and just generally entered 2025 looking like a retooling team. A brutal 0-4 start in which they were outscored 47-15 only reduced expectations.
But here we are in late August, with the Brew Crew in possession of the best record in the Majors, thanks in no small part to several factors that absolutely no one could have seen coming. That includes the impact from low-profile, in-season trade pickups Andrew Vaughn and Quinn Priester, from Minor League Rule 5 Draft pickup Isaac Collins, from 14th-round Draft pick and Division III product Caleb Durbin and from Minor League free agents Jared Koenig and Blake Perkins.
The Blue Jays’ jump
Toronto’s commanding position in the AL East is surprising relative not just to what many of us expected going into the year but also to what we saw when we looked at the standings on May 28, when the Jays were a game under .500 and eight back.
To be frank, we had grown too accustomed to letdowns in this era of the Blue Jays, who reached the postseason three times between 2020-23 but never won a playoff game and then finished in fifth in the AL East last year. They were able to extend Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to fend off any talk of an outright rebuild, but their recent offseasons had been marked by their inability to reel in the market’s biggest fish.
This 2025 team, though, has been a fun watch. Even though their biggest offseason acquisition, Anthony Santander, has been on the injured list since May 30, they’ve fielded a deep and rotating lineup that produces high contact and runs the bases well. The jolt of upside from the recently acquired and activated Shane Bieber adds to the potential for this to be the first Jays team to advance in October since the 2016 AL Championship Series squad and maybe the first to go the distance since Joe Carter touched ‘em all in 1993.
The Dodgers are just … normal
The Dodgers have a good record. They’ll be a playoff team. They might win their division, as expected. And for all we know, they might waltz to their second consecutive World Series.
But anyone who thought this was a capital-S Superteam with an unfair payroll advantage, capable of cruising past 100 wins and maybe even challenging the all-time wins record (and looking at the internet archives, that sure was a lot of us) has been proven wrong by a Dodgers club that at times has looked like it’s sleepwalking through the season.
Injuries have intervened, as they tend to do. But the Dodgers have also dealt with surprising regression from Mookie Betts’ bat, bullpen foibles, defensive issues and other setbacks. They’ve been a sub-.500 team since the start of July. The 1906 Cubs and 2001 Mariners are safe and sound.
Kyle Schwarber’s MVP bid
Designated hitters aren’t supposed to be true MVP candidates … unless, as Shohei Ohtani taught us last season, they hit 50 homers AND swipe 50 bags.
Schwarber looks as though he’ll hit 50 homers. He definitely won’t steal 50 bags. But he’s arguably been the most valuable National League player this side of Ohtani because of his unusual combination of elite power and high on-base ability. (Schwarber, Ohtani and Aaron Judge are the only players this year with an OBP of at least .360 to go with 40 homers.)
Schwarbs has been an elite power hitter the bulk of his career, but you wouldn’t expect him to have a career-best year at age 32.
Detroit’s dominance, via unexpected impact
After their rousing run to a playoff spot and then their upset of the Astros in the Wild Card Series last year, we shouldn’t be surprised to see the Tigers leading the AL Central this season.
But it’s fair to be surprised by exactly how they’ve done it.
Javier Báez, who wasn’t even a part of the late-season run last year and was generally seen as washed, filled an unexpected need in center field early in the season and had an All-Star first half. Spencer Torkelson and Casey Mize once looked like failed first-rounders but this year have been linchpins. The Yankees seemed content to get rid of Gleyber Torres, but he’s been one of the better pickups of the offseason. Catcher Dillon Dingler has broken through, and Colt Keith has gone from man without a position at the start of the year to a key contributor at a variety of positions, most recently third base.
The Tigers did hit a midseason rut, but they seem to have recovered from it and haven’t been fewer than five games up in the AL Central at any point since May 25.
A bummer in Baltimore and anguish in Atlanta
The Braves entered the season with a 93.4% chance of reaching the playoffs and a 64.2% chance of winning the NL East, per FanGraphs. After an underwhelming offseason that didn’t definitely address their pitching needs and in a deep division, the Orioles’ odds weren’t quite as strong -- 45% for the playoffs and 16.6% for the AL East -- but they were still considered a clear contender.
Turns out, the fall from grace was swift for both of these squads. The Braves started out 0-7, while the O’s went 9-16 in April and 9-18 in May. Baltimore changed managers midyear, while Atlanta entered the week looking up at Miami in the NL East. Both of these clubs will spend the offseason coming to terms with what went wrong and which direction to go from here.
Rafael Devers ditched by Boston; Carlos Correa returns to Houston
These were undoubtedly the two biggest swap surprises of the season.
Boston’s Devers divorce was preceded by plenty of positional drama, first with him unhappy about moving to DH to accommodate Alex Bregman and then with him unwilling to try out first base after a season-ending injury to Triston Casas. Devers was the Red Sox’s best hitter, and trading him was viewed by some as a potential punting of the 2025 season. But while the Giants team that took on his large contract (and has him playing some first base!) has struggled and Devers has not found Oracle Park to be as suitable to his swing, the Red Sox have moved on from the salary dump and played better baseball than they did with Devers. Go figure.
The Correa swap was more straightforward but still a stunner. The Twins were mired in mediocrity and looking for a reset, while the Astros were trying to account for the sudden absence of third baseman Isaac Paredes. So Correa was able to return to the team that he really never wanted to leave in the first place.
We had an All-Star swing-off!
MLB’s plans to settle any All-Star ties with a home run swing-off were negotiated as part of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement prior to 2021 and made public at that year’s Midsummer Classic. But by the time we actually had a tie after nine innings, fans could be forgiven if they had forgotten about this post-ninth-inning possibility.
There was genuine curiosity as to how this would look and work. But lo and behold, the remaining players from both squads came out of the dugout to root on their tater-hunting teammates. Kyle Schwarber heroically hit three dingers in three swings and the National League prevailed in what was widely considered an awesomely entertaining ending for an exhibition. (As for any suggestion that regular season extra-inning games should be satisfied via swing-off … um, no.)
Nick Kurtz’s runaway rookie year
Going into the season, Kurtz wasn’t even widely considered to be the top Rookie of the Year candidate on his own team. That was Jacob Wilson, who did wind up starting for the AL in the All-Star Game.
But Kurtz has blown everyone -- even high-impact performers like Red Sox outfielder Roman Anthony and Royals starter Noah Cameron -- out of the water in the AL rookie race. He had his signature game on July 25, when he became the first rookie and only the 20th player ever with a four-homer performance, while also becoming just the second player (after Shawn Green in 2002) to go 6-for-6 with four homers and 19 total bases.
Kurtz entered this week with a .306/.397/.630 slash line and 26 homers. What makes this even more unexpected is that he was only drafted (fourth overall) less than 14 months ago!
Pete Crow-Armstrong’s emergence
Having added a leg kick to his swing, PCA had a solid second half last season, which, combined with his native speed and defense tools, had a lot of people identifying him as a breakout candidate going into 2025.
But it would have been difficult to imagine PCA cranking out 25 homers by the All-Star break. Even though his bat has cooled in the second half, he’s still closing in on a 30-homer/30-steal season and has been one of the most valuable players in all of MLB this season.
Josh Naylor’s steals total
Naylor entered the 2025 season with 25 stolen bases total across six seasons in MLB.
Yet he entered the week with 22 steals this year alone. And 10 of those came in his first 12 games with the Mariners after a midseason trade from the D-backs. The only other player in MLB history with 10 or more steals in his first 12 games with a franchise was Billy Hamilton with the 2013 Reds.
Hamilton was listed at 6-feet, 160 pounds and was one of the fastest players MLB had ever seen.
Naylor is listed at 5-foot-10, 235 pounds and is in the third -- third! -- percentile in MLB in sprint speed.
Aroldis Chapman’s resurgence
We’ll close with a closer.
Every year, there are a ton of surprise reliever stories, and this year is no different. But one such surprise towers above them all, because who would have thought a 37-year-old Chapman would be putting up video game numbers?
Chapman entered the week with a 1.08 ERA, 382 ERA+ and 0.70 WHIP -- all of which would rate as the best of his long career.