MLB All-Under-25 Team: Bobby Witt Jr., Elly De La Cruz, Paul Skenes and more

If you ask FanGraphs for the greatest seasons by WAR for hitters aged 24 or younger, the stats machine spits out a leaderboard starting with six Hall of Famers: Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Jimmie Foxx, Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker.

The next name: Bobby Witt Jr.

Last year, Witt won a batting title, a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger, finished second in American League MVP voting and ended the Kansas City Royals’ eight-year playoff drought. He accumulated an astounding 10.4 fWAR. Witt, 24, has many more good years of baseball ahead of him. But he is running out of time for one thing: The Athletic’s All-Under-25 Team.

This is our fourth annual collection of baseball’s young stars. Below, you’ll find my attempt at building the best possible 20-man roster of under-25 big leaguers for 2025. Players must be 24 or younger on Opening Day and must already have appeared in an MLB game. They may be selected at any position they played in their most recent MLB season, or at a position they previously held on the All-Under-25 Team. In making roster decisions, I weighed previous MLB production, projections and expected role for 2025.

2024 MLB All-Under-25 Team
2023 MLB All-Under-25 Team
2022 MLB All-Under-25 Team

Catcher

There’s no doubting Alvarez’s power. He has 37 homers in 228 big-league games. But this season we may see a more complete hitter, as Alvarez heeded the advice of J.D. Martínez and spent the offseason revamping his swing at a training facility in Atlanta. If he stamps out some of the swing-and-miss in his hitting profile, Alvarez is in for a big year in Queens.

Honorable mention: Iván Herrera, Cardinals; Endy Rodríguez, Pirates

Infield

Witt and Henderson return to their All-Under-25 positions from last year. Witt had all the accolades listed in the intro, a second consecutive 30-30 season, et cetera. And Henderson tracked close to Witt’s production for much of the season. Though there’s quite a gap in their fWAR, by Baseball-Reference WAR there was only a 0.3 difference between them. Henderson’s age-23 season was special, too: 37 homers, 21 steals, .893 OPS and a fourth-place MVP finish, behind Aaron Judge, Witt and Juan Soto.

Second base is where production and projection clash. By the 2024 numbers, this pick should be the Nationals’ Luis Garcia Jr., who after being a below-replacement-level player for parts of four MLB seasons ran into 18 homers, swiped 22 bags and graded as a plus defender at second base. You could also make a case for the Tigers’ Colt Keith, who batted .286 with a .774 OPS from June 14 to season’s end.

Holliday, on the other hand, hit .189 with a .565 OPS last season. It was a nightmare rookie season for baseball’s top prospect. Still, I’m willing to bet the 21-year-old, with his blend of power, speed and defensive ability, will wind up the best under-25 second baseman in 2025.

The under-25 first base options have been thin since Vladimir Guerrero Jr. aged out. Tristan Casas was an age-24 placeholder last year. Now it’s … Nolan Schanuel? Nah. I’m going for upside instead. Rays third base prospect Caminero played eight innings at first base last year, filling in for an injured Yandy Díaz. Caminero can mash. He was limited last year by quad injuries. Now he’s healthy and ready to give the All-Under-25 Team the most exhilarating home run trots you’ll ever see.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!”

Junior Caminero sends this baseball into orbit to give Leones del Escogido the lead in the 9th! pic.twitter.com/4WXMy0PH1L

— MLB (@MLB) January 28, 2025

Finally, a mea culpa. Last year, I chose the Twins’ Edouard Julien as the extra infielder over De La Cruz. Whoops. Julien flirted with the Mendoza Line before being demoted to the minors after 60 games. De La Cruz, meanwhile, was an All-Star and a top-10 NL MVP finisher. He hit 25 homers and led the majors with 67 steals. (Sure, he also led the league in strikeouts.) He’s only shortstop-eligible for this exercise, so he’s stuck behind Witt, but EDLC is one of the most talented guys in the game.

Honorable mention: Luisangel Acuña, Mets; CJ Abrams, Nationals; Luis Garcia Jr., Nationals; Nolan Gorman, Cardinals; Colt Keith, Tigers; Brooks Lee, Twins; Kyle Manzardo, Guardians; Zach Neto, Angels; Connor Norby, Marlins; Nolan Schanuel, Angels; Ezequiel Tovar, Rockies; Anthony Volpe, Yankees; Jacob Wilson, Athletics; Masyn Winn, Cardinals

Outfield

It was challenging to whittle this to four outfielders. This list leaves out two possible returners from last year’s All-Under-25 Team — Michael Harris II and Evan Carter — as well as Wyatt Langford, Riley Greene, Dylan Crews, James Wood, Lawrence Butler, Jasson Domínguez, Sal Frelick, Pete Crow-Armstrong and more. So, feel free to disagree. But here’s why I picked these four (and snuck another in at designated hitter).

Left field was the most difficult decision of the whole roster. Projections prefer Langford, who is at least a 25-25 threat across a full season. He walks, doesn’t strike out a lot, has blazing speed on the bases and plays plus defense. Much of the same can be said, though, of Chourio, and it’s hard to dismiss what he did last season. After struggling mightily early as a newly 20-year-old regular in Milwaukee, Chourio batted .305/.360/527 for the final two-thirds of the season, even earning a down-ballot MVP vote. I’m taking him in an extremely tight competition with Langford and Greene, with Wood a tantalizing fourth option in left field.

Rodríguez is back as the All-Under-25 Team’s center fielder for the third consecutive year, though this time it’s not Harris backing him up but Merrill. (All three are only center-field eligible.) Merrill had a spectacular season for San Diego in 2024, finishing runner-up to Paul Skenes for NL Rookie of the Year. Maybe he should start over Rodríguez, whose offensive numbers have regressed somewhat each of the past two seasons, but I’m banking on a bounceback to 30-30 form for Rodríguez in 2025.

Like Rodríguez, Carroll makes his third All-Under-25 Team and will age out this year. Carroll slashed .231/.322/.428 last season, which paled in comparison to his 2023 NL Rookie of the Year statistics. The lackluster line was due to the sophomore-slumpiest first half we’ve seen in some time.

Carroll’s first half: .213/.301/.334, 5 HR, 18 SB

Carroll’s second half: .259/.351/.568, 17 HR, 17 SB

He looked like himself, eventually.

Honorable mentions: Lawrence Butler, Athletics; Evan Carter, Rangers; Dylan Crews, Nationals; Pete Crow-Armstrong, Cubs; Jasson Domínguez, Yankees; Sal Frelick, Brewers; Michael Harris II, Braves; Wyatt Langford, Rangers; Ceddanne Rafaela, Red Sox; Alek Thomas, Diamondbacks; James Wood, Nationals

Designated hitter

If we’re going to keep one of those under-25 outfielders for their bat alone, give me Greene, the Tigers left fielder with an .814 OPS over the past two seasons, 27 percent better than league average. He may not be a 30-homer guy, especially playing in Detroit’s ballpark, but when healthy he is highly productive, peppering the box score with singles, doubles and walks. Greene feasted upon right-handed pitching last year (.873 OPS) and will bring some needed balance to the middle third of the All-Under-25 order.

Starting rotation

It’s an all-new starting five for 2025. The only potential holdover from last year’s All-Under-25 Team, the Marlins’ Eury Peréz, is rehabbing from elbow surgery. And remember, 23-year-old Dodgers top prospect Roki Sasaki is not eligible, as he has not yet pitched in an MLB game.

The undisputed ace of this team is Skenes. He didn’t get called up until May of last year but still managed the most dominant campaign by a rookie pitcher of the past 50 years. He had a 1.96 ERA across 133 innings, with 170 strikeouts to 32 walks and a .198 opponent batting average. Skenes started the All-Star Game and might have won a Cy Young Award with another month of starts. The kid gloves should be off in 2025, and we’ll see what sort of damage Skenes can do with a full workload.

Jones, Skenes’ rotation mate in Pittsburgh, made a splash even before Skenes was called up, posting a 2.68 ERA in his first eight starts as a rookie. The rest of Jones’ season was dotted with inconsistent starts and limited by a lat strain. Both Jones and Skenes have elite velocity and an ability to punch out anybody with their off-speed stuff.

Schwellenbach stepped into a void in the Braves’ rotation in late May last year and never relinquished that spot. His first two starts were a little messy, allowing nine runs in 9 2/3 innings. But he had a 2.92 ERA over 19 starts the rest of the way, including a brilliant start in a losing effort against the Mets in Game 161. He limits hard contact and has exceptional command across a wide arsenal.

The rotation is rounded out by wild cards. Bradley, an honorable mention last year, had a 2.43 ERA in his first 14 starts last season, then struggled throughout the second half, ending with a 4.11 season ERA. He gets whiffs but also has a severe home-run problem. We’ll see how that works at Steinbrenner Field.

The last spot belongs to Harrison, a lefty. I almost went with the Reds’ Rhett Lowder, but with uncertainty about how many MLB starts he’ll get I pivoted to a guy in a much friendlier home ballpark. Harrison has not yet lived up to his prospect billing. He came through the minors striking out between 13 and 18 batters per nine innings at every level. Last year, in the majors, it was 8.54. Still, until his last two starts, Harrison had a 4 ERA. A perfectly good number at age 22. And there may be much better ahead.

Honorable mentions: Jonathan Cannon, White Sox; DJ Herz, Nationals; Rhett Lowder, Reds; Zebby Matthews, Twins; Michael McGreevy, Cardinals; Simeon Woods Richardson, Twins

Bullpen

Kerkering was on last year’s All-Under-25 Team despite having thrown just 5 1/3 innings the previous season, and he responded by delivering a 2.29 ERA over 63 innings. Kerkering has the whole package: stuff, velocity, command. He leans on a wicked sweeper, which he threw 55.7 percent of the time last year, and gets lots of weak contact and whiffs.

Martínez had the third-highest average fastball velocity (100.5 mph) among qualified pitchers last season, trailing A’s closer Mason Miller and Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase. Martínez has two pitches better than the triple-digits sinker, too, with a splitter and slider that carried sub-.200 opponent batting averages and whiff rates in the range of 50 percent. Now, can he rein in his command?

If we lower the minimum-pitches threshold, another name appears as the hardest thrower in baseball: Joyce. The Angels reliever averaged 102.1 mph on his fastball, which will come as no surprise to those who saw him hit 105.5 mph in college. Joyce struck out “only” 8.57 per nine innings last year — it was 16.11 at his last stop in the minors — and has mostly gotten his outs the old-fashioned way, like Kerkering, by missing barrels and getting ground balls. Joyce just gets the ball to home plate faster.

Hodge does not wield triple-digit heat. But he was extremely effective last season, turning in a 1.88 ERA and nine saves while striking out 52 in 43 innings as a rookie. Opponents batted .174 against his four-seamer and .070 on his sweeper. That plays. Hodge is expected to set up for closer Ryan Pressly this season. Here, he’ll get some leverage looks alongside Kerkering, Martínez and Joyce.

Honorable mention: Jackson Jobe, Tigers (he’s only reliever-eligible); Luke Little, Cubs; Mason Montgomery, Rays; Luis Peralta, Rockies; Andrew Walters, Guardians

Here is the 2025 All-Under-25 Team’s Opening Day lineup.

(Top photo of Bobby Witt Jr.: Mary DeCicco / MLB Photos via Getty Images; Elly De La Cruz: Nick Cammett / Diamond Images via Getty Images)