2025 MLB Franchise Rankings: Dodgers closing in on No. 1 team of past 25 years
Here are The Athletic's "tested, trusted, completely objective, never-been-questioned, all-math, no-bias MLB franchise rankings" for 2025. A rather clever device, I must say. Here is how they score:
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Winning the World Series (WS): 9 points
Losing in the World Series (WSL): 6 points
Losing in the Championship Series (CS): 3 points
Losing in Division Series (DS): 2 points
Losing in Wild-Card Round (WC): 1 point
The scoring system also incentivizes division titles (+1 point) and penalizes prolonged losing cycles, docking teams (-1 point) each time they lose at least 90 games in consecutive seasons. Add up the point totals from 2000 to 2024 and you have the franchise rankings. It’s just simple math.
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The rankings:
30 Pittsburgh Pirates -4 Points
29 Baltimore Orioles 3 Points
28 Cincinnati Reds 5 Points
27 Seattle Mariners 7 Points
26 Colorado Rockies 7 Points
25 Miami Marlins 8 Points
24 San Diego Padres 9 Points
23 Kansas City Royals 9 Points
22 Toronto Blue Jays 10 Points
21 Washington Nationals 14 Points
20 Milwaukee Brewers 16 Points
19 Chicago White Sox 18 Points
18 Tampa Bay Rays 20 Points
17 Detroit Tigers 20 Points
16 New York Mets 21 Points
15 Athletics 24 Points
14 Minnesota Twins 24 Points
13 Chicago Cubs 27 Points
12 Arizona Diamondbacks 27 Points
11 Cleveland Guardians 28 Points
10 Texas Rangers 28 Points
9 Los Angeles Angels 29 Points
8 Philadelphia Phillies 37 Points
7 San Francisco Giants 45 Points
6 Atlanta Braves 50 Points
5 Houston Astros 58 Points
4 Boston Red Sox 58 Points
3 St. Louis Cardinals 68 Points
2 Los Angeles Dodgers 73 Points
1 New York Yankees 83 Points
Yes, one team has a negative score. Here is how that happened:
But perhaps this is also an eye-opener. Why couldn't this team, ranked higher than some much more successful franchises, thrive?
As to the article headline,
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New time frame, same champion. When these rankings still spanned the Wild-Card Era (1995 to present), the Yankees were miles ahead. Now that we’re only looking at the past 25 years, the Dodgers are closing fast. The Yankees’ 2000 World Series title will fall outside our window for next year’s ranking, so the franchise that collects more points this season will be our No. 1.
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