Before every season, we like to take a look at player projections just to see what numbers pop. It’s time for the 2025 editions.
These are some of the players who stand out this year, looking at the Steamer projections over at FanGraphs.
Here are 10 players with eye-opening projections for the 2025 season.
Ohtani is projected for a return to two-way superstardom. The reigning NL MVP, coming off the best hitting season of his career, is also expected to pitch again in 2025. And Steamer sees two-way Ohtani as the most valuable player in baseball. Ohtani’s 8.1 total projected Wins Above Replacement — 5.6 WAR as a hitter, 2.5 WAR as a pitcher — is the highest of any player in MLB, ahead of Bobby Witt Jr.’s 7.4.
After his historic 50-50 season in 2024, Ohtani is projected for 43 home runs (second-most of any hitter behind Aaron Judge) and 34 stolen bases in 2025, making him one of three players projected for a 30-30 season along with Witt and José Ramírez. And Ohtani’s projections as a pitcher are really good, too.
Soto signing with the Mets was one of the biggest stories of the offseason, and Steamer projects him to immediately take over as the best hitter in the National League. Ohtani might be the best overall player when you include his pitching, but Soto’s projected 169 wRC+ is the top hitting projection of any NL player. (It means Steamer sees him as being almost 70% better than a league average hitter.) Ohtani is next in the NL with a projected 156 wRC+ — that’s a significant gap between him and Soto.
Soto is also projected to lead the National League in OPS and lead the Majors in walks and on-base percentage. Once again, Steamer thinks he’ll have way more walks than strikeouts, which is a rarity for most hitters but a Soto signature.
