Look Back At MLB 2025

As MLB entered its playoff stage, I was roaming around some baseball stat sites to get a synoptic view of the season that just ended.  One thing that jumped out at me was this:

• Trea Turner led the National League in batting average for 2025 with a .304 average.
• No other National league player hit .300 for the season.

When I was a kid – – right after Stonehenge was finished – – it was not unusual for there to be a dozen players hitting .300 or better for a season and for the “batting champion” to hit .330 or better.  That is an observation and not a complaint; the hitter’s mentality today is very different from years ago; the objective then was to get on base safely; the objective today is to drive the ball with power.  And so, only one NL player managed to hit .300 for the season.

Using National League OPS numbers as a measure indicates that power hitting has done well.

• Shohei Ohtani had an OPS of 1.014 thanks to a slugging average of .622.
• Kyle Schwarber had an OPS of .928 despite a batting average of .240.
• Eight National League players had slugging averages over .520.

The American League painted a slightly different picture in 2025.

• Aaron Judge led the league in hitting at .331
• Six players in the AL hit .300 or better.
• Aaron Judge also led in OPS with an average of 1.145
• George Springer hit .309 and had an OPS of .959.

Another thing that caught my eye had to do with the running narrative related to Cal Raleigh for at least the last three months.  He had an amazing season setting a variety of records and much of the wonder about his season was that he was doing it as a catcher.  That position is not historically one or the positions where top-shelf hitting is found.  Well, overshadowed by Raleigh’s very strong offensive season is another American League catcher, Shea Langeliers (“Oakland” A’s) who posted well above average offensive numbers for a catcher:

• Batting average .277
• Slugging average .536
• OPS .861

Cal Raleigh’s numbers were better, but Langelier’s numbers deserve to be noted and appreciated too.

On the pitching side, if you had asked me to name the pitcher who allowed the lowest batting average against him in the National League, I would immediately have guessed Paul Skenes.  Not so.  Skenes finished fourth in the National League in that statistic for 2025; here are the top five NL pitchers in terms of “getting batters out”:

1. Yoshinobu Yamamoto .183
2. Freddy Peralta .193
3. Nick Pivetta .195
4. Paul Skenes .199
5. Robby Ray .221

In the American League here are the top five pitchers in “batting average against”:

1. Carlos Rodon .188
2. Jacob deGrom .196
3. Tarik Skubal .200
4. Bryan Woo .200
5. Hunter Brown .201

Just as hitting stats have changed over the years, so have pitching stats.  If you look at 1975 – – 50 years ago – – no pitcher in either league posted a “batting average against” below .208 (Catfish Hunter).  Here in 2025, nine pitchers did that.

Here is a strange one I found when looking back at 1975 stats.  That was a time when the NL had hitters like Dave Parker, Mike Schmidt, Johnny Bench, Willie Stargell and Geroge Foster.  None of them led the NL in OPS in 1975.  I would never have guessed that Joe Morgan led the NL in that stat in 1975 (.974) and Greg Luzinski finished second (.934).

Finally, here is an interesting perspective by Ted Williams:

“I hope somebody hits .400 soon. Then people can start pestering that guy with questions about the last guy to hit .400.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports……..