Bold predictions for the 2025 season
Calling my shots
While the regular season has technically kicked off, the baseball season truly returns this Thursday for domestic Opening Day.
The Dodgers will kick off their 2025 campaign against the Tigers. They’ll get their championship rings and the 2024 championship banner will be unveiled. At that point, baseball will officially be back.
The Dodgers enter 2025 as the clear World Series favorites. This team is expected to be very good. It almost seems tough to have bold predictions for a historically good team. Well, I’ll make my best effort.
Here are my bold predictions for the 2025 Dodgers season.
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Shohei Ohtani posts the highest WAR in Dodgers history
Shohei Ohtani had one of the greatest seasons we’ve ever seen from a player in 2024. It’s unfair to expect him to replicate those numbers at the plate again. While I wouldn’t be surprised to see his numbers take a slight hit, there’s a chance his value can be even greater than last year.
That’s a pretty crazy thing to say, you know, considering he posted a 9.2 bWAR last season. That number was good for the seventh highest bWAR in a single season in Dodgers franchise history. The current record for bWAR in a season belongs to Brooklyn legend Dazzy Vance.
The pitcher posted a 10.3 bWAR in 1924 and 1928 while pitching for the Brooklyn Robins. Speaking of pitching, did I mention Ohtani will be doing that this season?
While we still have no expected return for Ohtani on the mound, it’s safe to guess he’ll be pitching in games by June. If Ohtani returns to the mound in June, you’d have to imagine he’ll get about 15 starts under his belt.
With his production at the plate likely taking a slight decline, along with his decrease in stolen bases, I think we can expect Ohtani to post a bWAR of somewhere around 6 or so. I wouldn’t be shocked if it got closer to 7, if we’re being honest.
If that’s the case, Ohtani would need to post a bWAR of at least 4 while on the mound. Considering he might make only 15 starts, that could be a tall task. However, there’s a chance he can return earlier than expected and make a push for 20 starts.
From 2021-2023, Ohtani posted a 14.1 bWAR on the mound, averaging a 4.7 bWAR per season. He did average 24 starts per season, so expect that number to come down a bit.
Despite his greatness, Ohtani has surprisingly never reached 10.3 bWAR in a season before. His best year on the mound came in 2022 when he posted a 6.2 bWAR. Despite that high number, Ohtani only finished with a 3.4 bWAR at the plate that season (9.6 total bWAR). He posted a 6.1 bWAR at the plate in 2023, but only had a 3.9 bWAR on the mound (10.0 total bWAR).
Getting to 10 is possible, as he did it in 2023. In order to do so, he’s going to have to have another fantastic season at the plate, while also performing on the mound as well. It’s unfair to throw these insanely high expectations at Ohtani, but he’s proven he can handle it.
I definitely think he can post a WAR of higher than 6 at the plate this season while posting a WAR higher than 4 on the mound.
There will be a 20-game winner in the rotation
I know pitcher wins is a dying stat and doesn’t really mean anything anymore. Despite that, it’s a number I’ll be paying attention to this season. Over the last 35 years, the Dodgers have had only three pitchers win 20+ games in a season:
Ramon Martinez (1990) Clayton Kershaw (2011, 2014) Julio Urias (2021)
I think we could see a Dodgers starter reach 20 wins this year. To reach that number, however, it will most likely require a full season being healthy. You would have to imagine a starter would need to make at least 26+ starts to be in the running for 20 wins.
The reason I’m so high on the pitcher wins this season is because of how good this Dodgers team is — mainly the bullpen. The Dodgers have had good bullpens in the past, but not like this. If a Dodgers starter leaves the game with the lead, it should be pretty safe with this bullpen. I can’t see there being too many blown saves this year in LA.
As long as the offense shows up and as long as the bullpen does their job, there will be a lot of wins to go around this year for Dodgers starters, especially if the team wins 105+ games like many projections say.
My personal guess on which Dodgers starter hits 20 wins is Blake Snell.
Michael Conforto is an All-Star
The Dodgers had quite the offseason. It was easily the best of any team in baseball. Blake Snell, Tanner Scott and Roki Sasaki were a few of the headliner names LA brought into town. Despite those big moves, there was a name the Dodgers signed this offseason that really seemed to fly under the radar.
Michael Conforto.
I’ll be honest, I let out a “WTF?” when I got the notification that the Dodgers had signed Conforto. If you all remember, the Dodgers signed him the same night Juan Soto signed with the Mets. While we were all waiting to see if Soto signed with LA, the news of Conforto’s addition literally came from left field. With Teoscar Hernandez still unsigned, it was even more complexing.
After the initial shock wore off, I really opened up to the signing. Conforto had a very solid 2024 season and had a 4-year stretch earlier in his career where he was one of the best outfielders in the National League.
The advanced metrics really, really liked Conforto’s 2024 campaign.
You see his Savant page and wonder why his numbers weren’t better last year. He hit 20 homers, 27 doubles and drove in 66 runs. His OPS+ was 116. That’s a damn good season. It could have been better.
Unfortunately, Conforto played for the Giants. While that sucks in itself, it’s more unfortunate because it means half of his games had to be played at Oracle Park, which is a very pitcher friendly stadium.
To no surprise, his numbers were a lot worse at home compared to on the road. When Conforto wasn’t playing at home, his numbers looked All-Star caliber. On the road, Conforto posted a 133 wRC+. In only 72 road games, he hit 17 home runs and drove in 51 runs.
Those numbers put Conforto on a 162-game pace of 38 home runs and 115 RBI. Yeah, that’s pretty, pretty, pretty good. Obviously Conforto isn’t going to hit 38 homers in 2025, but if he stays healthy he can definitely make a push for 30+.
The Dodgers are likely going to have a lot of All-Stars this summer, which could end up hurting Conforto’s chances of making the team. While all the attention will be on the familiar names, Conforto has a chance for a career year hitting in the bottom third of LA’s lineup.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto finishes Top 3 in Cy Young voting
After signing a record-breaking contract, I could see why a lot of fans think Yoshinobu Yamamoto had an underwhelming rookie campaign with the Dodgers. An injury limited him to only 18 starts. Despite missing a chunk of the season, his numbers were very impressive for a rookie.
In 2024, Yamamoto posted a 3.00 ERA, 2.61 FIP, 1.11 WHIP and 129 ERA+. He averaged 10.5 strikeouts per nine innings while posting a strikeout-to-walk ratio of nearly 5-1. Again, for a rookie those are incredible numbers. Despite that, it feels like he really flew under the radar.
I expect that to change in 2025. If Yamamoto is able to stay healthy this season and make 25+ starts, I fully expect him to be in the running for the National League Cy Young award.
Over Yamamoto’s final 13 starts of the 2024 campaign, he posted a 2.51 ERA and 2.47 FIP. Over his final seven starts, those numbers dropped to a 2.03 ERA and 2.13 FIP. Yamamoto was really damn good and seemed to get better with every game he pitched.
Yamamoto made four postseason starts. His first start was one he’d like to forget, as he allowed five runs over three innings. Well, he definitely made us forget about it, as he dominated over his next three starts. Over his next three postseason outings, Yamamoto posted a 1.72 ERA and held opponents to a .132 average.
His most notable performance came on the biggest stage of the season. In a winner-take-all Game 5 of the NLDS, Yamamoto tossed five scoreless innings and allowed only two hits. Had it not been for his performance on the mound, there’s a chance the Dodgers get eliminated by the Padres.
He then struck out eight in only 4.1 innings against the Mets in Game 4 of the NLCS. In Game 2 of the World Series, Yamamoto allowed one run on only one hit in 6.1 innings against the Yankees.
I think Yamamoto is going to take it up on a notch in 2025 and emerge as one of the best starting pitchers in all of baseball.
Mookie Betts is actually a great shortstop
I still think the experiment with Mookie Betts at shortstop is dumb, for what it’s worth. I think he should be at second base and shortstop should be a combination of Tommy Edman/Miguel Rojas. But who cares what I think?
The experiment didn’t work out well in 2024. Betts graded out as one of the worst defensive shortstops in baseball across every major metric you looked at. When he returned from his injury, the Dodgers moved him back to right field for the rest of the season.
Despite being terrible at shortstop in 2024, Mookie actually wasn’t as bad as you may think. Fielding wise he was pretty good. Majority of Betts’ errors came on the throw. You would think throwing would be the easier than fielding. If he improves on that, Betts should be pretty good at shortstop.
Now I’m not saying he’ll be in contention for a Gold Glove, but if he can be just average — well I think the Dodgers will gladly take that. Anything above league average would be gravy.