Best players in MLB right now? Let's debate

Every year, MLB Network takes on the challenge of counting down the Top 100 Players Right Now. The top 10 on the 2025 list will be revealed on Thursday night at 8 p.m. ET.

One suspects that when the list gets down to the No. 1 spot, Shohei Ohtani's name will be called. After all, Ohtani is a two-time winner of this exercise (2022, '23), is coming off a historic 50-50 season that saw him win his third MVP Award, and is expected to get back to his two-way exploits when he makes his Dodgers pitching debut at some point early in the season.

So given Ohtani's assumed placement on the list, we turned our attention to a few other pertinent questions ahead of Thursday night’s series finale, leading with which player should be next in line. We polled 14 MLB.com experts on these topics and compiled their responses.

Let’s get to it.

If NOT Ohtani, who do you think would deserve the title of the No. 1 Player Right Now for 2025?

1. Aaron Judge, OF, Yankees (7 first-place votes)
2. Bobby Witt Jr., SS, Royals (5 first-place votes)
3. Juan Soto, OF, Mets (1 first-place vote)
4. Mookie Betts, INF/OF, Dodgers (1 first-place vote)
5. Gunnar Henderson, SS, Orioles

To get the results above, we asked each voter to rank their top three picks in order, then awarded 10 points for a first-place vote, five for a second-place vote and one for a third-place vote. It was neck and neck for the top spot between Judge (92 total points) and Witt (87 points), with Judge’s two extra first-place votes making the difference.

It says a lot about Ohtani’s special talent that Judge is not a clear No. 1 player overall. Remember: In two of the past three seasons (2022 and ‘24), Judge has won the AL MVP Award while leading the Majors in homers, RBIs, OBP, SLG and WAR (reaching double digits in the last of those metrics). Those two seasons rank seventh and first, respectively, in OPS+ by a right-handed batter in the Modern Era, with his 223 mark in 2024 passing the record set by Rogers Hornsby 100 years earlier.

For some voters, that was just enough to push him past the multi-dimensional Witt, at least given the focus on 2025 only.

“Judge is not the baserunner and defender that Witt Jr. is, and he's also eight years older. Those things matter,” said director of stats and research Mike Petriello. “But for the moment, he did just put up two of the three best hitting seasons by a right-handed hitter in baseball history, and a move back to right field ought to take some of the stress off his defense. If we're talking the next two, three or five years, I'm probably saying Witt. For just 2025? I'll ride with Judge again.”

“Yes, Judge is entering his age-33 season and is bound to slow down at the plate at some point,” added reporter Manny Randhawa. “But until proven otherwise, he's the most prolific and most feared hitter in the game.”

For others, though, it was hard to ignore Witt's youth -- he won’t turn 25 until June 14 -- and the fact that he excels defensively in the middle of the diamond. But this isn’t so much about upside as it is all-around greatness right now. After all, Witt just put together arguably the greatest individual season in the 56-year history of the Royals franchise, helping push Kansas City to a 30-game improvement over 2023, as well as its first postseason trip in nine years.

“Judge seems like an easy answer for No. 1 after his second MVP year,” said senior national reporter Anthony Castrovince. “But between his age (33 this season), injury history and the loss of Soto's lineup protection from the front (which, yes, is a very real thing), I am inclined to put Witt and Henderson -- younger, burgeoning superstars who can do everything -- in front of him (and I've got the 26-year-old Soto ahead of him, too).”

In 2024, Witt finished in the 99th percentile of MLB players in Statcast’s batting run value metric, 96th percentile in baserunning run value and 95th percentile in fielding run value. While it’s hard to get much better than those numbers, could there still be some untapped potential here? Some of our voters think so.

“Witt just had one of the best all-around seasons in recent memory, and he's still so young with room to grow,” said manager of research and analysis Sarah Langs.

Soto and Betts were the other two players to receive first-place votes from our panel. Nine voters at least had Soto in their top three, for much the same reason the Mets just committed $765 million to him. As senior national reporter David Venn put it, “His bat changes lineups tectonically.”

Betts not only has been one of MLB’s best players for a decade now, but he has shown his incredible versatility of late by moving from right field to second base to shortstop, back to right field and back to shortstop again (at least for now).

“Mookie is the one guy you can count on to be a superstar, every year, wherever you put him,” senior columnist Will Leitch said.

Who do you see as a sleeper candidate to wind up as the No. 1 player when we look back at season’s end?

1. Elly De La Cruz, SS, Reds (3 votes)
2. (tie) Corbin Carroll, OF, D-backs; Julio Rodríguez, OF, Mariners; Kyle Tucker, OF, Cubs (2 votes each)
3. (tie) Ronald Acuña Jr., OF, Braves; Jackson Merrill, OF, Padres; Paul Skenes, RHP, Pirates; Fernando Tatis Jr. Jr., OF, Padres; Masyn Winn, SS, Cardinals (1 vote each)

This question asked our voters to pick a player who would not reasonably be considered a No. 1 Player Right Now candidate at present but could be expected to enter that conversation over the course of the season.

There is, of course, quite a bit of subjectivity involved here, and not surprisingly, our panel did not arrive at as much consensus as on the previous question. Nine different players were named by at least one voter. The theme was youth, with Tucker the oldest of the bunch, entering his age-28 season, and several of the players still in their early-20s.

De La Cruz came out on top, and anyone who watched him put his superhuman array of tools on display in 2024 could understand why. Still just 23 years old, De La Cruz was an All-Star last year, received NL MVP votes and topped the 5-WAR mark, even as he led the Majors in both strikeouts and times caught stealing.

“Elly is knocking on the door of superstardom,” vice president for breaking news Arturo Pardavila said. “Can he hit for more power? Absolutely. But he needs to cut the K's down. He won't go 50-50, but 40-70 is a huge possibility with his power and speed.”

Three outfielders also nabbed multiple votes on this question, with each of them offering an all-around skillset and a high ceiling. One of them, Tucker, was on the move this offseason (to the Cubs) and is due to reach free agency at the end of 2025.

“Often underrated, Tucker was on his way to a possible 9-WAR season in 2024 before a shin fracture derailed him,” reporter Brian Murphy said. “He is in the prime of his career and will be motivated to be at his absolute best in a walk year with a new team.”

While Tucker is simply trying to bounce back from an injury-shortened season, Carroll and Rodríguez are aiming for a different sort of rebound. The two recent Rookie of the Year Award winners both slogged through some surprising struggles early last season, and while they eventually righted the ship, questions remain about their ability to perform at a consistently elite level. There are many reasons for optimism, however.

“If not for a slow start to 2024, Carroll might already be in the mix, but after a 5-WAR 2023, and then a 2024 second half where he was the seventh-best position player in the game, I'm more than willing to look past the first-half slump,” Petriello said. “At his best, Carroll is the best baserunner in the game, a very good defensive outfielder (at least in range, which matters more than a weak arm), and a hitter 30% or more above average. At just 24, even one year where all that goes right is hardly out of the question -- which is what we might have said about Bobby Witt Jr. a year ago.”

It’s much the same story for Rodríguez, who has a lot on his shoulders trying to lead the Mariners back to the postseason.

“He's only 24 and he was already close to No. 1 territory going into last season,” senior coordinator of data and research David Adler said. “He had one ‘bad’ year and he still went 20-20. And he's one of the few players who can be the true power-speed-defense superstar type player that's taken over baseball today. I think it's a realistic possibility that J-Rod goes 40-40 and is the best defensive center fielder in baseball this season, and then it'd be tough not to call him the No. 1 player in the game.”

Given the relative weight given to pitchers and position players in today’s games, it’s not a shock that, even in the “sleepers” group, the former did not receive heavy consideration. Therefore, we’ll ask about them separately …

If we were to limit this question to pitchers, who should be No. 1 Right Now?

1. Paul Skenes, RHP, Pirates (9 votes)
2. Zack Wheeler, RHP, Phillies (4 votes)
3. Tarik Skubal, LHP, Tigers (1 vote)

Only three pitchers received votes from our panel, and the 2024 Cy Young Award winners combined for one total. On the other hand, Chris Sale will be turning 36 soon, with a checkered injury history. Skubal is “on an all-timer of an 18-month run,” as Leitch put it, but perhaps found himself caught in between voters who preferred Wheeler’s steady reliability or Skenes’ seemingly limitless potential.

The latter speaks to how a 22-year-old pitcher with 23 Major League starts and 133 innings under his belt could be the overwhelming choice among our panel. Yes, Skenes has limited experience. But he just went 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA and an elite K-rate, finishing third in the NL Cy Young race despite the modest innings total. It was a seamless transition to the highest level, one that has the Steamer projections, available at FanGraphs, seeing Skenes as MLB’s leader in ERA, strikeouts and pitching WAR in 2025.

“I think once we see a full season of Skenes, he'll be widely regarded as the best pitcher in baseball, period,” senior director of social media Doug Gausepohl said. “There are guys you drop everything to watch, and he's quickly turned into one of those guys.”

Most of our voters who didn’t side with Skenes turned to a pitcher who was drafted when Skenes was just 7 years old. That would be Wheeler, who will turn 35 during the season, but has been as reliable (and effective) as any big league pitcher over the past several seasons. Since joining the Phillies in 2020, he has received Cy Young votes in four out of five seasons.

“No other starter combines the durability (190+ IP in four of his last five 162-game seasons) and quality (2.94 ERA/142 ERA+ since 2020) that Wheeler provides,” senior national reporter Mark Feinsand said. “That gives his team the confidence they will win every time he takes the mound.”