Weighted WAR: 2025 Update Part 1

Around this time last year, I posted a series of articles suggesting a variety of adjustments that can be made to Baseball Reference WAR (bWAR) for the purposes of historical comparison, and then constructed a player ranking system (Weighted WAR) based on the results. The modifications were discussed in conjunction with the releases of the Weighted WAR rankings at specific positions, as follows:

Peak weighting (introduction)

Schedule length (3B)

Positional classification (LF)

Timeline adjustment for minor league control and segregation (SS)

Timeline adjustment for expansion (2B)

Negative seasons (CF)

Negro League seasons (C)

Pitching value (1B/DH)

Uncounted factors (RF)

(Not all of these topics are actually adjustments. The positional classification piece merely clarifies how I prefer to break down players between positional lists, while pitching value and “uncounted factors” review things that are, well, uncounted in the Weighted WAR system.)

It’s been a year since these posts went up, and that means we have another baseball season to account for. As such, let’s go through the positional top 100 lists again – not in full, but through the lens of players who were active in 2025.

A few notes before we get started. Baseball Reference sometimes adjusts WAR values for prior seasons, so 2025 production is not the only way for someone’s ranking to change, although it will still be the primary factor. A vast majority of those adjustments are to recent years, so I only updated the scores for players who were active as recently as 2023.

Also, remember that I’m considering each player’s entire career in the rankings, not just the part of it spent at his primary position. I know Mookie Betts isn’t playing right field these days, but he can move up the right field list anyway. See the positional classification essay linked above for my reasoning on this topic.

A quick explanation of the tables which will be presented: Player, Rank, Years, and Rank Change are hopefully self-explanatory. WAR is just the player’s total position-player bWAR (with possible rounding errors). aWAR is WAR with the adjustments applied (schedule length, timeline, and removal of negative seasons – again, see above links). wWAR is Weighted WAR, and 2025 WAR is bWAR for the player’s 2025 season.

Let’s start with the position of the player who bWAR ranked as the best in baseball for the third time in the last four years:

Player	Rank	Years	WAR	aWAR	wWAR	2025 WAR	Rank Change
Mookie Betts	7	2014-25	75.3	79.6	62.4	4.9	+1
Aaron Judge	10	2016-25	62.3	63.9	54.2	9.7	+7
Bryce Harper	25	2012-25	53.9	56.1	43.3	3.1	0
Juan Soto	28	2018-25	42.5	45.2	38.5	6.2	+16
Giancarlo Stanton	30	2010-25	46.9	48.4	38.2	1.9	-1
Jason Heyward	35	2010-25	41.5	44.5	35.6	-0.6	+1
Ronald Acuna Jr	69	2018-25	28.7	31.5	28.0	3.0	+9
Kyle Tucker	73	2018-25	27.5	30.5	26.8	4.6	+14
Max Kepler	112	2015-25	20.6	22.0	18.5	0.1
Teoscar Hernandez	117	2016-25	19.0	20.7	18.0	1.5
Mike Yastrzemski	119	2019-25	17.1	20.2	17.8	1.0

At the end of 2024, Aaron Judge ranked #115 all-time among position players per Weighted WAR. One year later, he is #54. He leapfrogged more than half of the players who had been in front of him on the list.

While Judge is obviously the dominant force here, several other players made noteworthy progress as well. Juan Soto cracks the top 30, Ronald Acuna and Kyle Tucker join the top 75. Mookie Betts is still going fairly strong (moving up four spots on the overall position player list and knocking at the door of the top 30), it’s just that he’s in sufficiently rarefied air that having a mere 5-WAR season doesn’t give him much of an ordinal boost.

Elsewhere on the list, yes, that is Jason Heyward moving up one spot despite a negative season, which is more than Bryce Harper gained from a solid 3-WAR campaign. Heyward benefits from adjustments to prior years; Harper gained ground on the overall list but happened to be situated in a large gap between his fellow right fielders. If he puts together a similar or better season in 2026, he’ll start making progress again.

For the players outside the top 100, note that I’ll refrain from indicating how much their rankings have changed year-to-year, because at that point on the list it becomes more likely that there are players of similar quality missing from my database (which is composed of players with at least one schedule-adjusted 3-WAR season). That said, while right field has a very strong group of active players within the top 100, the outlook is pretty bleak past that point. Max Kepler, Teoscar Hernandez, and Mike Yastrzemski are the only active players within 50 places of the top 100, and the group from 151-200 is not exactly overflowing with rapidly-gaining youngsters.

Still, right field has produced a remarkable collection of talent in the last 15 years. If I’m counting correctly, the players listed above have combined for eight MVPs, and it’s extremely likely that at least four of them will eventually end up in the Hall of Fame. Which is quite a contrast to their counterparts across the diamond in left:

Player	Rank	Years	WAR	aWAR	wWAR	2025 WAR	Rank Change
Christian Yelich	27	2013-25	45.1	45.7	36.3	3.1	+7
Starling Marte	37	2012-25	39.7	42.3	33.4	1.0	+1
Ian Happ	93	2017-25	22.4	23.9	20.5	4.0	+27
Bryan Reynolds	106	2019-25	21.1	21.7	19.5	1.4
Kyle Schwarber	117	2015-25	20.1	20.3	17.8	4.7
Michael Conforto	119	2015-25	17.0	20.1	17.7	-0.7
Tommy Pham	120	2014-25	18.7	19.5	17.6	1.0
Mark Canha	129	2015-25	14.7	18.8	16.5	-1.0
Randy Arozarena	134	2019-25	17.0	18.0	16.2	4.0
Andrew Benintendi	137	2016-25	16.6	17.5	15.7	1.0
Steven Kwan	139	2022-25	16.6	16.6	15.6	3.7
Corbin Carroll	146	2022-25	15.8	15.8	15.0	5.8

That is one bare cupboard. Christian Yelich had a respectable year, and Ian Happ posted a strong enough season to join the top 100. But three is easily the fewest active players on any of these positional top-100 lists. And while there look to be some reinforcements on the horizon, appearances are rather deceiving in that regard.

Heading the non-top-100 group, Bryan Reynolds is progressing but not exactly racing forward. Up next is Kyle Schwarber; if he plays well enough to join the top 100, he will also probably shift to being classified as a DH. Corbin Carroll, the youngest player on the list, is in a similar situation. After splitting time between outfield positions in his first couple seasons, Carroll seems to have settled down in right field last year; if he stays there, the system will reclassify him accordingly by the time he’s top-100 ready.

Among players who look likely to stay in left long term, Reynolds, Randy Arozarena, and Steven Kwan are likely the best shots at adding members to the top 100, and two of those three already turned 30 last year.

Enough of the mess that is left field. Let’s move to a position that still remembers how to produce a star or two – say, third base:

Player	Rank	Years	WAR	aWAR	wWAR	2025 WAR	Rank Change
Manny Machado	12	2012-25	61.9	65.4	49.6	4.1	+1
Jose Ramirez	14	2013-25	57.7	60.7	47.9	5.8	+4
Nolan Arenado	17	2013-25	57.8	59.5	46.7	1.3	-1
Alex Bregman	28	2016-25	43.2	44.4	37.3	3.5	+3
Matt Chapman	30	2017-25	41.8	43.2	36.5	4.1	+3
Justin Turner	37	2009-25	38.7	41.0	32.5	-0.1	+3
Kris Bryant	64	2015-25	27.5	30.1	26.9	-0.5	+1
Max Muncy	78	2015-25	26.9	27.9	24.0	3.6	Pos Chg
Rafael Devers	79	2017-25	26.8	27.7	24.0	4.1	+18
Eugenio Suarez	82	2014-25	26.9	28.0	23.1	3.6	+14
Austin Riley	97	2019-25	22.4	22.9	21.3	1.3	+2
Ryan McMahon	131	2017-25	17.5	18.2	16.0	2.3
Ke’Bryan Hayes	135	2020-25	14.9	17.1	15.7	1.5
Yoan Moncada	149	2016-25	14.8	15.9	14.3	0.7

Kris Bryant and Justin Turner clearly didn’t gain ground based on 2025; both of them are beneficiaries of prior-season adjustments. Meanwhile, Nolan Arenado drops one position, but didn’t actually see his score decrease. He simply got passed by Jose Ramirez, who in fact progressed enough this year to reach #100 on the overall weighted WAR list. It is now an open question whether he’ll end up catching Manny Machado as the best third baseman of this generation, a possibility which would have looked pretty remote three years ago.

Max Muncy was listed as the #97 first baseman last year; his score would have ranked #94 at third. Another solid year at the hot corner was enough to change how the system lists him (and move him up over a dozen spots in the bargain). As such, you can consider Rafael Devers, Eugenio Suarez and Austin Riley to have moved up one additional spot each if you wish.

Third base has done phenomenally well over the last decade, with a likely trio of future Hall of Famers leading the way and several other highly productive players who are (mostly) still going strong (including Alex Bregman and Matt Chapman, who we didn’t even mention above). There’s not a ton of young talent knocking on the door (the best current player between 101-200 is probably Isaac Paredes), but the resilience of the veterans might well tide the position over until guys like Maikel Garcia and Junior Caminero can start climbing into significant parts of the list.

We’ll finish up for today by jumping across the diamond again – which, if you remember how these lists were presented last time, means we’re covering two positions at once. Presenting a top-100 list of DHs is effectively impossible. The DH position has existed for barely a third of major league history (and only in one league for most of that time), and thus has produced nowhere near 100 notable players as yet (the total number of DHs in the database currently stands at 29). As a result, I decided to combine the DH list with the first base list – not by having a dozen or so DHs push first basemen out of the top 100, but by squeezing the DHs in between (so Edgar Martinez, who falls between the #9 and #10 first basemen, is listed as #9.5).

Player	Rank	Years	WAR	aWAR	wWAR	2025 WAR	Rank Change
Paul Goldschmidt	12	2011-25	63.9	66.3	50.4	1.2	+1
Freddie Freeman	14	2010-25	64.4	68.5	49.8	3.5	+3
Matt Olson	39	2016-25	39.6	41.3	34.8	6.0	+15
Shohei Ohtani	46.5	2018-25	35.3	35.3	31.6	6.6	+17
Carlos Santana	51	2010-25	39.4	40.7	30.3	1.1	+2
Marcell Ozuna	57.5	2013-25	29.4	33.6	28.2	1.6	+3
Vladimir Guerrero Jr	77	2019-25	26.0	26.8	24.1	4.6	+27
Yordan Alvarez	89.5	2019-25	24.3	24.4	22.3	0.7	+4
Pete Alonso	103	2019-25	23.3	23.4	20.9	3.4
Yandy Diaz	126	2017-25	18.3	19.6	17.3	3.4
Christian Walker	138	2014-25	15.2	16.8	15.4	0.2

Before you reach for the torches and/or pitchforks, remember that these rankings are position player WAR only; Shohei Ohtani’s pitching value is not reflected. Purely as a DH, he has already moved up to #5, passing everyone but Nelson Cruz, David Ortiz, Paul Molitor, and Edgar Martinez, and that’s despite having played less than half as many seasons as any of the DHs in front of him. And you probably don’t need me to tell you that the man who’s won four MVPs in the last five years is still going strong.

At the top of the first base list, Paul Goldschmidt appears to be slowing down quite a bit. Amusingly enough, even the one spot he moved up this year overstates his current pace of improvement, as it would not have happened solely based on his own production. The player who was #12 at first base last year (Joey Votto) lost a bit of ground due to prior-season adjustments, allowing Goldschmidt to move ahead. Meanwhile, Freddie Freeman is still chugging along, and may well have a better chance than Goldschmidt at cracking first base’s top 10.

Up next is Matt Olson, who has climbed much higher than I would have guessed. It’s not time for any Hall of Fame conversations yet, but if he can maintain his standing as the healthiest player in baseball (he currently has a streak of 782 consecutive games played) for a few more years and remain productive, he’s likely to end up with a compelling case.

Jumping over the relatively stagnant elder statesmen (Carlos Santana and Marcell Ozuna), we get to Vladimir Guerrero Jr, who rockets into the top 100 after signing a 14-year deal last offseason (so Toronto certainly hopes he continues to make rapid progress up the list). Then there’s Yordan Alvarez, who was injured most of last year and not especially productive even when healthy (definitely an unusual state of affairs for him), and Pete Alonso, who ended the year just shy of the top 100 and should join shortly. And after that? Yandy Diaz is still productive, but currently 34; Christian Walker is even older, and lost his “still productive” credentials last year. The rest of the actives in the top 200 are Yuli Gurriel, Rhys Hoskins, Nathaniel Lowe, Ty France, and Josh Bell, none of whom inspire much confidence. So if you’re a fan of the slugging first baseman archetype, cross your fingers that Nick Kurtz’s rookie year was not a fluke, because there’s not much else on deck.

That wraps up the corner positions, which (despite featuring both two-time defending MVP winners) are not MLB’s strongest point at the moment. Next time, we’ll go over the more fielding-heavy up the middle spots – positions which are comparatively replete with young talent.