As the 2025 regular season wraps up, obvious weaknesses are apparent across the National League’s postseason contenders.
With just a week’s worth of action remaining in the 2025 MLB regular season, playoff contenders have their sights on what their postseason roster will look like as teams who have already been eliminated begin planning their offseason activities.
Though baseball is notoriously unpredictable come October, when 162 games of precedent-setting are immediately thrown out the window, the playing field appears especially even in 2025.
This may come across as refreshing news to many baseball fans, who saw the top regular season teams of both leagues in the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers face off in the World Series last season.
Heading into the season’s final week, it is the Milwaukee Brewers who hold the best record across all of baseball at 95-61, something hardly anybody would have predicted back in March as the Brew Crew have secured their third consecutive NL Central title.
Although the 2024 season did not feature an overwhelmingly dominant team in the regular season, the three regular seasons before that had a much different feel entering the playoffs.
It was in 2021 when the Dodgers and San Francisco Giants were the two best teams in baseball, with the Giants edging out the Dodgers by one game for the NL West title at an unbelievable 107-55 record.
The following season, the Dodgers attracted comparisons to the 1927 Yankees as they coasted to a 111-51 regular season record, only to be eliminated in four games in the National League Division Series by the division-rival San Diego Padres.
In 2023, the Atlanta Braves looked to have one of the best offenses of the millennium and finished with a 104-58 record, only to also fall in the NLDS in four games to a division rival, the Philadelphia Phillies.
Though all three of those top teams ended up losing in the NLDS, it’s clear that no team holds that level of fear and intimidation over the rest of the league the way at least one club did from 2021-23.
While the Brewers have the second-best pitching staff in the league with a 3.61 ERA, the club is below many of its fellow contenders in several major offensive categories, despite still being in the top half of the league overall.
With a .261 team batting average that is currently the NL’s best and the second-best in all of baseball, the Brewers string together hits more than most of their contemporaries – but also fall behind the likes of the Dodgers, Phillies and Cubs when it comes to slugging. Milwaukee is currently 20th in total home runs, with the Reds and Padres being the only teams currently in a playoff spot with fewer home runs.
The defending champions are still a matchup everyone wants to avoid, but the Dodgers also don’t look quite as formidable as they did in 2024. At an 88-68 record, the Dodgers will finish behind their 98-64 performance in 2024, with injuries to the team’s pitching staff playing the biggest role.
Though the Dodgers have received a stellar season from Yoshinobu Yamamoto and now have Blake Snell and Shohei Ohtani back in the rotation, questions remain in a more patchwork bullpen that has seen Tanner Scott, Blake Treinen and Kirby Yates all struggle at several points throughout the season. This differs from 2024, when Treinen and fellow regular reliever Alex Vesia both posted sub-2 ERAs.
While the Dodgers lineup remains strong, there are a few noticeable holes – Tommy Edman and Michael Conforto have put together underwhelming offensive campaigns, while the team’s highest-average hitter in Will Smith is now battling a hairline fracture in his hand that leaves his postseason status up in the air.
This parity may lead some fans to think it’s time for the Phillies to break through and return to the Fall Classic after a two-year absence, but there’s plenty of concern in the City of Brotherly Love as well.
Philadelphia has been led by an incredible campaign from Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner, along with a stellar pitching staff headlined by Cy Young contender Cristopher Sánchez, who has compiled a career year.
Although the Phillies have plenty of power and one of baseball’s highest team batting averages, there remains plenty of holes in the lineup – J.T. Realmuto, Bryson Stott, Alec Bohm, Max Kepler and Nick Castellanos have all hit below league-average, though an incredible second-half from trade deadline acquisition Harrison Bader has helped to offset this down the stretch.
In addition to opponents having a few places to pitch around the Phillies’ elite hitters, injuries have gotten in the way for the NL East champions as well. Philadelphia will be without Zack Wheeler for the rest of the year, who posted a 2.71 ERA in 24 starts, while the club hopes Trea Turner can return from a hamstring injury by Friday, ahead of the postseason.
The NL’s Wild Card contenders all have plenty of strengths to be able to best the division winners in a playoff series, though there are plenty of drawbacks with these teams as well.
Among those clubs are the Chicago Cubs, currently the top NL Wild Card team who just sustained a four-game sweep at the hands of the Cincinnati Reds. After dominating the first-half offensively with one of the league’s most thunderous lineups, the North Siders have been much more inconsistent with the bats after the break, with a pitching staff that is unconvincing at best.
Though the second half of the season has seen an incredible breakout from rookie Cade Horton, it remains unclear how Chicago will structure a playoff rotation. Matthew Boyd has struggled immensely after initially looking like a Cy Young Award contender through the season’s first few months, while Shota Imanaga and Jameson Taillon have both battled injuries and inconsistencies this season.
Additionally, the Cubs appear to be without a bona fide closer as Daniel Palencia looks to work his way back from a shoulder injury. Star outfielder Kyle Tucker is also still out of action, with the slugger expected to not play until at least Wednesday of the season’s final week.
The San Diego Padres look poised to return to the playoffs as a Wild Card team, but there are plenty of reasons to feel hesitant about the Friars as the calendar flips to October.
Although the Cubs figure to be a favorable matchup for the Padres in a Wild Card series, more questions would arise in a longer series against a team with a more formidable rotation.
While the Padres boast a rock-solid bullpen headlined by Jason Adam, Adrián Morejón and closer Robert Suarez, the rotation is not quite as impenetrable. Though Nick Pivetta has been excellent for San Diego this season, both Dylan Cease and Yu Darvish have pitched below league-average, leaving the team to potentially rely on less-seasoned starters such as Stephen Kolek and Randy Vásquez.
Though there are plenty of home run-capable hitters in the San Diego lineup, it hasn’t really come to fruition over the course of the regular season. Only the Pirates have hit fewer home runs than the Padres, something that could spell trouble for the Dads in a league that grows more and more home run reliant.
The New York Mets, Arizona Diamondbacks and Cincinnati Reds remain battling for the final NL Wild Card spot, though it’s hard to see any of those three teams breaking through the senior circuit’s top five clubs with October around the corner.
The Mets have spent now more than half of the season in freefall mode after starting the year 45-24, while Arizona’s 4.45 team ERA poses serious questions if the Snakes were to break through to the playoffs.
The Reds, a mostly average team across the board, may be better suited than New York or Arizona to make a run this October. With Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Andrew Abbott and Brady Singer leading a very solid rotation, a little timely hitting could make a world of difference in Queen City.
With that said, only Elly De La Cruz and Austin Hays have hit for above league-average of Cincinnati’s regular starters, with a pitching-centric sweep of the Cubs this weekend doing little to change that.
The postseason is always unpredictable in baseball – but the 2025 season poses some uniquely fun possibilities for the National League. There is no David nor Goliath this season – it’s simply feasible to see how each team could defeat one another in a playoff series. Hard to see how that isn’t what October is all about.
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