10 Underrated MLB Players Who Will Explode in 2025

Now that the 2025 MLB season is technically underway, here's an interesting question to mull over: Which players will be to 2025 what Jarren Duran and Tarik Skubal were for 2024?

Neither Duran nor Skubal was a star heading into last season, but those in the know could have perceived them as being better than they got credit for. Both subsequently blew up, as the former went on to become the All-Star Game MVP and the latter strolled to the AL Cy Young Award.

Hence, we're going to identify 10 players—five hitters and five pitchers—who could pull off a similar rise from relative obscurity to stardom in 2025.

There are no All-Stars or major award winners among this set, as that would be cheating. Also barred were players who entered last season as top prospects, because that would be too easy.

We'll go in alphabetical order by name, with the hitters first and the pitchers second.

Note: 2025 projections are courtesy of the ZiPS projection system.

Age: 26

2025 Projections: 135 G, 552 PA, 19 HR, 1 SB, .279 AVG, .312 OBP, .447 SLG

With Kyle Tucker in Chicago and Alex Bregman in Boston, it's going to take a village to sustain Houston's offense as one of the best in the American League.

To this end, Yainer Diaz isn't necessarily more important than newcomers Christian Walker and Isaac Paredes, much less fellow incumbents such as Yordan Alvarez, Jose Altuve and Jeremy Peña. But as far as untapped upside goes, he stands out.

Diaz had a bit of a breakout in 2023, when he posted a .846 OPS and 23 home runs in 104 games. Though his OPS slipped to .766 last year, both his strikeout rate (17.3) and hard-hit rate (47.5) took turns for the better.

He was putting wood on the ball more consistently and effectively, in other words, and it really began to pay off in the second half. He finished with a .828 OPS and nine of his 16 homers.

After posting a chase rate in the second percentile in 2024, Diaz would do well to make his zone smaller and draw more walks. Yet even if he doesn't do that, he could threaten a .300 average and 25-plus homers.

Age: 28

2025 Projections: 135 G, 529 PA, 28 HR, 3 SB, .230 AVG, .310 OBP, .461 SLG

It is a crime that Cal Raleigh has yet to be named an All-Star, and not just because more people should know about his "Big Dumper" sobriquet.

Raleigh is a superior defensive catcher, as he's fresh off winning both a Gold Glove and a Platinum Glove in 2024. He's also plenty powerful, having tallied 91 home runs over the last three seasons.

Indeed, he hit the ball better than ever last season. He set career highs for exit velocity and hard-hit rate, though he settled for merely tying his high-water mark for barrels per batted ball event.

Whiffs have been Raleigh's primary bugaboo, but that began to change after the Mariners moved on from Scott Servais last August.

Dan Wilson and Edgar Martinez implemented a whole new offensive approach upon taking over, and Raleigh took to it by hitting .246 after the change, compared to .212 before. His strikeout rate fell from 29.4 percent to 23.6 percent.

Raleigh isn't going to be a .300 hitter, but this is a good year to expect boosts to his average and OBP in addition to 30-plus home runs.

Age: 30

2025 Projections: 131 G, 561 PA, 21 HR, 11 SB, .271 AVG, .353 OBP, .468 SLG

If the Los Angeles Dodgers are interested in a player, he must be doing something right.

This is worth bringing up because they were reportedly eyeing Seiya Suzuki as a Plan B if they failed to re-sign Teoscar Hernández. That didn't pan out, but let's grant that they had good taste.

Suzuki is heading into Year 4 of his four-year, $85 million deal with the Cubs, and the first three offered the opposite of diminishing returns. His OPS went from .770 to .842 to .848 between 2022, 2023 and 2024.

A similar pattern is present in his batted ball metrics, to a point where he climbed into the 91st percentile with his hard-hit rate in 2024.

There is some swing-and-miss in Suzuki's offensive game, but he is not to be confused for a wild swinger. He was in the 94th percentile with his chase rate last year, and his walk rate is another area where he has momentum.

As Suzuki figures to see more time at DH in deference to Kyle Tucker in right field, it's reasonable to expect him to stay healthy after he played 138 games in 2023 and 132 games in 2024. If he does, 30 homers will be within reach.

Age: 23

2025 Projections: 152 G, 651 PA, 23 HR, 7 SB, .264 AVG, .298 OBP, .454 SLG

The first thing to know about Ezequiel Tovar is that he swings. Like, a lot.

In 2024, he set pitch-tracking era records with 1,576 swings. That isn't the worst thing in a vacuum, but he also set a new record for the era with 528 swings and misses.

It's therefore hard to bank on Tovar pushing his OBP higher than ZiPS expects, but the Rockies will live with that as long as he keeps the extra-base hits coming. He had a bunch of them in 2024, including 45 doubles and 26 home runs.

Besides, the real test for any Rockies hitter is hitting away from Coors Field. Tovar got substantially better in this regard last year, going from 33 percent below average to four percent above average in road games.

As he otherwise won a Gold Glove in 2024, one area where Tovar is definitely not underrated is on defense. He's as sure-handed as they come, handling 676 chances yet making only eight errors all of last year.

Basically, if anyone was waiting on the second coming of Javier Báez, Tovar is your guy.

Age: 27

2025 Projections: 139 G, 561 PA, 23 HR, 5 SB, .241 AVG, .339 OBP, .455 SLG

As long as you set the threshold to 500 plate appearances, do you know who has a better adjusted OPS than Vladimir Guerrero Jr. over the last two seasons?

Well, lots of guys, actually. But one of them is Matt Wallner, and there's at least one good reason to put him on your radar for 2025: When he hits the ball, it stays hit.

This especially shows in his rate of barrels per batted ball event, which was eclipsed by only five hitters in 2024: Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Giancarlo Stanton, Juan Soto and Kerry Carpenter.

The catch with Wallner is that he swings and misses a ton. He has a 34.5 strikeout percentage in three seasons. Once a guy gets into that area, he's liable to eventually give up hitting and see if pitching is worth a shot.

Wallner nonetheless looks eminently ready to bust out as one of the most lethal power threats in MLB. He has 12 hits in 14 games this spring, and six of them have left the yard.

If all goes well, he will top his projection of 23 homers with room to spare.

Age: 26

2025 Projections: 29 GS, 161 IP, 141 H (20 HR), 163 K, 45 BB, 3.48 ERA

I suppose I should thank Gunnar Henderson. Without him, Tanner Bibee would not be eligible for this list.

Bibee lost the 2023 AL Rookie of the Year race to Henderson, though that was not at all controversial. The Guardians starlet did post a 2.98 ERA over 142 innings, but what is that compared to 28 home runs and 6.1 rWAR?

Regardless, Bibee did regress in 2024...initially. He ultimately finished strong in the second half of the season, posting a 3.01 ERA with 3.8 times as many strikeouts as walks over 12 starts.

Bibee and the Guardians credit his turnaround to improvement between the righty's ears. As he put it to Tim Stebbins of MLB.com: "It's not like I was giving up less hits or punching out more guys or whatever. I let stuff roll off my shoulders a lot easier."

Yet one is also intrigued by how Bibee was throwing more cutters at the end of the year. It's an approach he'd do well to keep up in 2025, as his cutter limited hitters to a .141 average and scored a plus-13 run value.

There are too many good pitchers in the AL to proclaim Bibee the favorite for the Cy Young Award. But unlike in 2023 and 2024, he might at least get votes this year.

Age: 26

2025 Projections: 26 GS, 150 IP, 135 H (17 HR), 153 K, 54 BB, 3.72 ERA

Similar to Tanner Bibee, Hunter Brown was having a rough year in 2024 until he very much wasn't.

After posting a 7.71 ERA through his first nine outings, Brown recovered for a 2.31 ERA for his last 22 starts. He struck out 99 more batters than he walked over 132.2 innings.

His rise coincided with him introducing a sinker into his pitch mix, though the pitch itself can only be credited so much for turning his season around. In those last 22 starts, all six of his pitches had a positive run value.

The next priority for Brown must be evening out his reverse platoon split. Right-handed batters had a .716 OPS against him last year, compared to a .623 OPS for left-handers.

He'll need at least one effective secondary pitch to pull it off. If last year is any indication, his slider (.259 average) offers more promise than his knuckle-curveball (.400 average) against righties.

If Brown does succeed in leveling out his platoon splits, he's another guy who could get in the mix for the AL Cy Young Award.

Age: 29

2025 Projections: 29 GS, 168 IP, 143 H (17 HR), 185 K, 59 BB, 3.27 ERA

The Padres just named Michael King their Opening Day starter on Monday. So whatever this take is, "hot" doesn't quite feel right.

This said, yours truly never passes up an opportunity to characterize King's stardom as a powder keg, just waiting to explode. And some might say it already has.

Though he was left off the NL All-Star team in 2024, he finished with a 2.95 ERA over 173.2 innings. He was particularly dominant after April, with his last 24 starts yielding a 2.42 ERA.

Everything King throws moves, but few things are more delightful than how his sinker and sweeper complement each other with arm- and glove-side movement, respectively.

You can hardly blame hitters for barely being able to hit King, no matter how you look at it. Last season, his whiff rate was in the 78th percentile and his hard-hit rate was in the 97th percentile.

King finished seventh in the NL Cy Young Award voting for 2024. If he fails to rank even higher in 2025, it may only be because he got traded to an AL team.

Age: 28

2025 Projections: 24 GS, 136 IP, 117 H (18 HR), 145 K, 31 BB, 3.77 ERA

Say this about Joe Ryan: He's not going to beat himself.

The Twins righty has walked fewer than two batters per nine innings in three of the four seasons he's been in the majors. He clearly knows where the strike zone is, though it doesn't hurt that he likes to go right at hitters with his fastball.

And why wouldn't he, really?

Though Ryan averaged a relatively unspectacular 94.0 on his heater in 2024, the extension he gets out of his 6'2", 205-pound frame isn't his only secret. He's a poster boy for vertical approach angle, a hack that makes his fastball play up.

Since the start of 2023, the run value on his four-seamer is at plus-29. That's good. Really good. So good that the guy above him on the list won the AL Cy Young Award last year.

Rather than his ability, what Ryan most prove is his durability after a shoulder strain ended his 2024 season in August. Should he prove successful in that regard, he could be the best pitcher even on a staff that also has Pablo López and Bailey Ober.

Age: 29

2025 Projections: 66 G, 72 IP, 57 H (6 HR), 85 K, 22 BB, 3.03 ERA

Ryan Walker was not the Giants' closer at the start of 2024. Camilo Doval was, and rightfully so after a dominant season in 2023.

Walker had the job by the end of the year, though, and he was well into an utterly electric stretch by then. All told, his final 66 outings produced a 1.54 ERA with 89 strikeouts against 41 hits and 15 walks in 70 innings.

He gets his sinker into the mid- and upper-90s, with a slider that has uncommon glove-side break for a right-handed pitcher. The only other pitcher on this list who can relate is Tanner Bibee.

Batters were largely helpless against Walker in 2024. To wit, both his strikeout rate and average exit velocity were in the 94th percentile.

With the closer role now well in hand, it will be that much harder for the Giants to keep Walker a secret in 2025. An All-Star nod seems all but certain.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.