Arguably the best team in the American League thus far in 2025? Going into the weekend slate, one can defensibly argue that it’s been the Detroit Tigers.
The Tigers right now are 25-13, which ties them with the defending-champion Los Angeles Dodgers for best record in Major League Baseball and puts them on pace for a franchise-record 107 wins. As well, A.J. Hinch’s club boasts a run differential of plus-83, which is tops in all of baseball by a wide margin. In related matters, the Tigers this season are a robust 11-1 when five or more runs decide the game. One will no doubt be tempted to dismiss these accomplishments because of the reputation that precedes the AL Central. However, the AL Central this season is six games over .500 against teams from outside the division, and they’ve outscored teams from opposing divisions by a total of 61 runs.
For Detroit, this isn’t out of nowhere. The Tigers made a surprise playoff run last season and were 39-26 (.600) in the second half of 2024. Throw in a winter that saw them add Gleyber Torres and Tommy Kahnle to an already impressive core and then bring back Jack Flaherty, and it’s not shocking that the Tigers are thriving. What’s striking about it is that the Tigers thus far have been good at, well, everything a winning baseball team is supposed to do.
On offense, the Tigers at present rank second in MLB in runs scored and fifth in OPS. At a more advanced level, that all checks out. In terms of weighted on-base average (wOBA), which assigns proper value to everything a hitter does at the plate and scales it to look like the more familiar on-base percentage, the Tigers’ current wOBA of .336 is tied for fourth in MLB. Drilling a bit more deeply, we have expected wOBA, or xwOBA, which pegs a hitter’s deserved wOBA based on the quality of his batted balls. The Tigers’ current xwOBA of .341 ranks eighth in MLB and suggests they’ve been slightly unlucky for the season.
While base-running is, of course, part of scoring runs, which the Tigers do well, let’s note that they’re also adept at that aspect. According to Statcast, the Tigers thus far have put up 4.0 base-running runs above average — mostly via taking the extra base rather than stealing bases — which ties them for second in all of MLB.
Detroit has the pitching thing down, too. The Tigers’ rotation, fronted by reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, checks in at fourth among MLB’s 30 teams with an ERA of 3.27. They’re also one of just five rotations that have struck out at least 200 batters thus far. In terms of “deserved” outcomes based on fundamental measures over which pitchers have the most control, the Tigers’ rotation ranks 10th in MLB with a fielding-independent pitching (FIP) of 3.78. In terms of expected FIP (xFIP), which corrects for often fluke-ish home-run rates, the Detroit rotation has a figure of 3.68, which ranks fifth in MLB.
Now let’s use those same measures for the Detroit bullpen:
- They rank second in MLB with a relief ERA of 2.43.
- They rank 11th in MLB with a relief FIP of 3.61.
- They rank 15th in MLB with a relief xFIP of 3.91.
As you can see, there’s some underlying concern, and some bullpen regression may be in order. Still, the Tiger relief corps is better-than-average at the FIP level, and perhaps helping them outperform those fundamentals is that it boasts the second-highest ground-ball percentage of any bullpen.
All that’s left is defense, and, yes, the Tigers fare well in that regard. The two best public-facing advanced defensive metrics at the team level are Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), Outs Above Average (OAA), and Defensive Efficiency Rating (DER). Per DRS, Detroit ranks 11th in MLB with 11 total runs saved. The Tigers also rank 13th in OAA. When it comes to DER, which is simply the percentage of balls in play that a defense converts into outs (sort of the point, you’ll agree), the Tigers are fourth in MLB with a DER of .725.
On an individual level, all of this broad-based excellence tracks. It wouldn’t be surprising to see the Tigers top almost all comers when it comes to All-Star selections. Names like Skubal, Spencer Torkelson, Casey Mize, Riley Greene, Javier Báez, Torres, Kahnle, and maybe even Dillon Dingler figure to wind up having compelling All-Star cases to varying degrees. This is a deep roster with star power and one of baseball’s best managers pulling the levers. Indeed, the Tigers in 2025 are doing everything well, and that’s why they’ve emerged as one of the true power teams in baseball.
