The Dodgers and Cubs will open the 2025 season with the two-game Tokyo Series next week. We’ve been counting down to that date with our annual preview series, with each story looking ahead to the coming season by breaking down a particular topic, division by division.

Previously: Division champs’ chances to repeat | Best rivalries | Teams facing the highest stakes | Must-watch players | Teams that could rebound to postseason | The best new acquisitions | Most likely award winners | Bold predictions

Today: Your predicted division winners (and Wild Card teams)

We’re almost there: The season starts in less than a week, when the Cubs and Dodgers play Game 1 of the Tokyo Series next Tuesday. That means it’s time to put up or shut up on these division previews. We’ll get down to the nitty-gritty: Who’s going to win them? And who’s going to make the playoffs? Let’s get these set in stone … and once the season’s over, please don’t go back and look at them. Unless, of course, I turn out to be right.

AL East: Orioles
The news of Gerrit Cole's Tommy John surgery hit the AL East with such a thunderbolt that the injury to would-be Orioles ace Grayson Rodriguez, which could cost him the first month of the season (at least), has almost gone overlooked. While the Orioles may well regret not spending more on their rotation this offseason, their offense will more than make up for it.

The struggles of Adley Rutschman and company down the stretch in 2024 made everybody forget the fundamental truth about the Orioles: They’re stacked with young hitters. Still. Hitter maturation is not linear, sure, but would you be surprised if Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, Colton Cowser and Jackson Holliday were all better (perhaps substantially so) than they were last year? I wouldn’t be.

Don’t let some ugly postseason baseball fool you: There’s a reason everyone has been so excited about the Orioles. My guess is this is the year it all comes together. (Still: Some more pitching wouldn’t hurt, guys!)

Wild Card teams: Red Sox and Blue Jays
Consider me in full-on Yankees panic mode. I think if something happens to Aaron Judge -- like it did in 2023 -- they might finish in … last? Either way, the Red Sox might be the second-best team in the AL, especially if Rafael Devers gives up third base to Alex Bregman and becomes a DH. As for the last Wild Card spot, let’s give it to the Jays, who are all-in for this season, the last one before Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette are due to hit free agency. They’ve had all sorts of bad fortune the last few years. It’s their turn to have the fates smile upon them, isn’t it?

AL Central: Tigers
Would I feel a lot more comfortable with this prediction had they successfully signed Bregman? Definitely. But that late-season run looks to me less like a random event and more an emergence, a young team that is starting to coalesce and fulfill the promise it has occasionally shown over the last few years.

The rotation, which was famously Tarik Skubal and “pitching chaos” in the postseason, now has Jack Flaherty back, and we could see Jackson Jobe sooner rather than later. And while Spencer Torkelson still hasn’t become the star we all imagined he’d be, Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter have … and Colt Keith and Jace Jung could be next.

This is a flawed division, to be sure, one that was mostly idle in the offseason. But the Tigers have the fewest obvious holes, and thus the clearest path to the 87 wins or so it likely will take to win the AL Central. Last year wasn’t a fluke in Detroit: It may be just the start.

Wild Card teams: None
This division had two of them last year, but a lot of that was due to wins that came at the expense of the White Sox. Chicago will be more competitive in 2025, and that will hurt Cleveland, Kansas City and Minnesota. This year, I think there’s only room for the champ.

AL West: Rangers
My colleague Mike Petriello, in our annual World Series winners draft last week, made the Rangers the first American League team picked. That felt bold for a lot of readers, but I see where he’s coming from. The young players who struggled or were hurt last year look likely to take a step toward establishing themselves as big league regulars -- or more. Jacob deGrom is back and looking healthy. The bullpen has been overhauled.

Meanwhile, this division doesn’t look all that daunting. You can make an argument that the Astros, the Rangers’ rivals who have ruled this division for years now, look weaker than they have in a decade. So don’t let last year’s post-championship hangover dissuade you: This Texas team has what it needs to win the AL West. They might even win it handily.

Wild Card team: Mariners
As you can tell, I’m down on the Astros; that’s a team that’s starting to look like an empire in decline. As their playoff replacement, I’ll go with a young-ish team with a superstar I think is going to win the AL MVP Award this year. In Julio Rodríguez we trust.

NL East: Braves
All the things that went wrong for the Braves last year are, well, extremely well-documented. And yet they still made the playoffs and won as many games as the Mets did.

Those problems can’t possibly all repeat themselves this year, which is why the Braves should return to the very place they were before the cavalcade of injuries: First place in the NL East. I think they’ll end up with the best record in baseball.

Wild Card teams: Mets and Phillies
My faith in the Braves shouldn’t reflect poorly on either of these teams, who are both fantastic and, just as important, extremely eager to add to their rosters as needed. As formidable as the Dodgers look, this division’s Big Three are not going to make it easy for them to book a return trip to the World Series.

NL Central: Brewers
The Cubs are the popular pick here, and for understandable reasons: They did trade for Kyle Tucker, after all. But their moves after that -- and their non-moves, most notably their inability to sign Bregman -- didn’t exactly give them the look of a team that will do everything possible to take advantage of their one guaranteed season with an MVP-caliber player in their lineup.

That’s enough for me to default to this: When in doubt, trust the Brewers. They’re essentially the Rays of this division, usually more than the sum of their parts, usually finding a way. And this division isn’t nearly as tough as the AL East often is. Plus, the Brewers have a young, emerging superstar in Jackson Chourio.

Wild Card teams: None
Is the NL Central division title winner the only NL playoff spot up for grabs? The NL East has three monsters, and the Diamondbacks look considerably better than anyone here.

NL West: Dodgers
No need to overcomplicate this. I made the argument last week that the Dodgers are likely to be a lot less dominant in 2025 than most think they will be, but that shouldn’t come across as anything like “the Dodgers are in trouble.” They’ve essentially planned for every possible thing that could go wrong: They’ve got nearly a dozen starting pitchers, they have positional flexibility everywhere, they have multiple MVPs to replace any MVPs that might happen to go down. The Dodgers are in their “all that matters is October” era. They’ll have no problem getting there, as always.

Wild Card team: Diamondbacks
How many other divisions would the D-backs be favored to win? I’d say three: The AL West and the two Centrals. The Padres could have made themselves that team, but they stayed idle this offseason. The D-backs very much did not.