Make no mistake, 2025 was a strange year down the stretch. The adage “come out to the ballpark and you’ll see something you’ve never seen before” was never truer than August and September of 2025.
Now perhaps
the exception proves the rule, but it seems like the message this year was, “Don’t fold too soon.” Or perhaps it was about not counting your chickens too early. Whatever the metaphor, here are some harsh realities teams had to face.
AL Central
Never before had any team, in any division, come back from a deficit of more than 15 games. So when the Detroit Tigers expanded their AL Central lead to “us, 15.5 games, 50 feet of crap, and everyone else” their division title became a foregone conclusion.
Enter the “I Believe In Stephen Vogt” Guardians, first team ever to erase a 15.5 game deficit and your AL Central champions. Were the Tigers too complacent? Did they not show enough urgency at the deadline? Or were they just not as good as they played for 4 months while Cleveland took 4 months to get going and then took off with a vengeance?
Whatever it was, teams that are down double digits in the standings on September 1st next season can take solace in knowing that at least one team was able to make up that much ground that quickly.
The Giants
Speaking of folding too soon, first the Giants got the jump on everyone pulling off a huge trade for Rafael Devers well before the trading deadline — and immediately going into a prolonged funk after they had been playing great.
The funk got so bad that rookie GM Buster Posey looked at the standings — both division and wild card — and conceded that the Giants should be sellers at the deadline. Gone from the bullpen were Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval, and from the outfield Mike Yastrzemski.
Oops.
Turns out the Giants had another big streak in them that got them all the way to tied for a wild card spot. Only they had a weakened bullpen that cost them precious games down the stretch. Meanwhile, Yaz found the fountain of youth with Kansas City, slugging .500 with a 127 wRC+ while the Giants struggled to score runs.
San Francisco finished 81-81, which also turns out to be just 2 games out of the 3rd wild card spot backed into by the 83-79 Reds. Had they held onto Rogers, Doval, and Yastrzemski the Giants may well have won 84 games and a ticket to the post-season.
So they fired their manager.
The Mets and The Astros
Two more examples of teams who, when the calendar turned to September, seemed like certainties to participate in October but who were sent packing. Who, on Labor Day, was talking about the Reds’ post-season rotation or the magic number to eliminate the Astros?
But the Mets went 21-32 the last 2 months including a September 8 game losing streak. Houston’s slide wasn’t as dramatic, but losing months in July, August, and September with a 3-6 finish got them from “presumed AL West champions” to wild card elimination as the Seattle Mariners surged to the tune of a 17-8 September, 90 wins, and a trip to the post-season.
Underlying Message
Certainly each GM each year has to stand back at times and try to take an objective look at his team. Do the underlying metrics, such as the team’s run differential, predict success or failure beyond the team’s current record? Are key players returning, or lost, that might inform what you can expect moving forward compared to what you have already seen?
But 2025 left another important message: don’t be too quick to assume what is or isn’t possible. The Tigers may have celebrated too soon and the Giants may have given up too early. The Guardians didn’t mail it in just because the standings suggested they had every right to. The Mariners didn’t accept the wild card and the Mets may have prematurely.
In the “3 wild cards” era, if you are .500 on September 1st you are absolutely still relevant in the playoff picture. Sadly it may only take a couple more than 81 wins to punch a ticket to the post-season. But what we didn’t know is from how far down a team can rise up and still surge to a division title — maybe we did know, but it’s always a humble reminder — how quickly a team can go from “presumed seed” to looking in from the outside.
There’s a reason they play all 162 games before announcing who gets to play a few more.
