Every team wants to win the World Series.
Yes, even the bad teams, the ones that don’t appear to be trying, want to win it all. They’d love nothing more than to luck into a Cinderella season and host a parade, but for some teams, hoisting the World Series trophy is more than an idle desire.
It’s an obsession.
Heading into the 2025 season, there are a handful of teams that are in full-on desperation mode, teams that have been on the precipice for years and fallen short, and teams that are spending big and pushing all their chips into the center of the table. Either emotionally or in real world dollars, they are pot committed.
Here’s my ranking of the teams who are, or should be, most desperate to navigate baseball’s crapshoot of a postseason and win the World Series.
Philadelphia Phillies
It’s hard to believe Bryce Harper has been a Phillie for six seasons now. Over that time he has slugged 152 home runs, piled up an OPS of .924, crushed the biggest home run in the history of Citizens Bank Park, and helped make Philadelphia a perennial contender. And yet, with Harper, two of the three best pitchers over the last five years in Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola, and a lineup full of big-time stars like J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, Nick Castellanos, and Alec Bohm, as well as a cadre of hard-throwing relievers that have given the Phillies one of the best bullpens in baseball for three straight seasons, they have not won a title.
Worrisome to Phillies fans, they appear to be moving backwards, much like the 2008-2011 Phils who won it all, then lost a World Series in ‘09, lost in the NLCS in 2010 and fell in the NLDS in ‘11. October’s defeat at the hands of the Mets mirrored their victories over the Braves the previous two postseasons, an NL East-winning season felled by a wild card team within their division. They entered the off-season with the goal of remaking a lineup that chases too much and doesn’t walk enough, adding starting pitching depth and replacing two valuable relievers, but with limited roster flexibility thanks to the big-money contracts already on the books that largely prevented them from seriously pursuing Juan Soto.
More than any team in baseball, the Phillies need to win the World Series this year. It’s crazy they haven’t during Harper’s brilliant six-year run in Philly. After blowing a 2-1 lead in the 2022 World Series and a 3-2 NLCS lead with Games 6 and 7 at home in the ‘23 NLCS, as well as the knowledge they are running out of prime seasons from Harper, Schwarber, Realmuto, Wheeler and Nola, no team has more urgency than the Phils.
New York Yankees
How can the Yankees, a team that has won 41 pennants and 27 World Series, be the second-most desperate team to win it all this year? Well, it’s been a minute since their last one, in 2009 against the aforementioned Phillies. That’s an eternity in the Bronx, and after coming tantalizingly close to ending their 15-year drought two months ago, there’s a renewed hunger.
It’s going to be difficult to return to the Fall Classic without Soto, gone to the Mets in a dizzying free agent deal, and a core that, like Philadelphia’s, is skewing older. Aaron Judge will be 33 next year. Giancarlo Stanton will be 35. Gerrit Cole will be 34, as will Marcus Stroman, and Carlos Rodon will be 32. They’ve lost Clay Holmes in free agency, and are hoping youngsters like Luis Gil, Jazz Chisholm, Jr., Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe can provide a stable baseline as the team explores Soto replacements.
In New York, expectations are always elevated, but will be even more so this year.
San Diego Padres
Two years ago, the Padres traded some unbelievable talent in C.J. Abrams, James Wood and MacKenzie Gore to the Washington Nationals for a season and a half of Soto. They reached the 2022 NLCS before eventually falling to the Phillies in five close games. In ‘23, with Soto still on the roster, they stumbled badly and failed to make the playoffs after an 82-80 season, but bounced back last season without Soto to a 93-69 record and another wild card berth, only to lose in the NLDS to their bitter intra-division rivals, the eventual world champion Dodgers.
The small market Padres have been spending big the last few seasons in their quest to bring their first World Series title to San Diego, and will return a stellar lineup in 2025 that fell flat in last year’s postseason. With Fernando Tatis, Jr., Manny Machado, Jake Cronenworth and Xander Bogaerts, the Friars already boast the bats. Dylan Cease and Michael King form a dynamic top-two in the rotation, with Yu Darvish continuing to pitch at a high level as well.
The pieces are in place for this team to reach their first World Series since 1998, but it’s fair to wonder how long ownership can continue to pour $160-200 million into the roster of a small market team. So, now’s the time for these investments to pay off with a title.
New York Mets
The Mets and owner Steve Cohen sure are acting like a desperate organization, but more so because Cohen is willing to spend more on his payroll than the revenue he generates, an outlier among MLB owners. After signing Soto to his 15-year, $765 million contract and adding free agent Clay Holmes to the starting rotation, the Mets are trying to take advantage of last year’s surprise run to the playoffs, their upset of the Phillies in the NLDS and eventual fall to the Dodgers in the NLCS.
The Mets have been a joke for the better part of the last seven years, ever since their run to the World Series back in 2015. They have not won a title since 1986 and, since that stretch, have had a fair share of hilariously awful moments. But all of a sudden, they are an up-and-coming team who saw their spirited late-season blitz fizzle at the hands of a juggernaut Dodgers team. They want to ascend to the same level as the Dodgers and host a parade for the first time in 38 years.
Despite adding Soto, there is more work to do, but it’s clear Cohen is desperate to do it and cement cult-like status in Flushing while at the same time rubbing his cross-city rival’s face in it.
As a Philadelphian, I can respect that.
Boston Red Sox
You may be asking yourself, “Where have the Red Sox been these last few years?”
Don’t worry, Red Sox fans have been asking themselves the same question.
This off-season, it seems as if someone has shaken Boston’s front office awake, as evidenced by their reported $700 million offer for Soto and connection to pretty much every trade candidate and free agent not nailed down. Their drought hasn’t been as long as some of the others on this list, going back to just 2018, but they’re acting like a team that’s a little perturbed their hated rivals, the Yankees, got so close last year.
Boston has been a sleeping giant who is now finally willing to add, it seems, rather than sell off valuable assets like Mookie Betts.
Milwaukee Brewers
When you think of the best teams in baseball over the last seven years, you don’t often think of Milwaukee, and yet, they have reached the postseason in every season since 2018 except for 2022. They have won back-to-back NL Central division crowns, three of the last four and four of the last seven, but in their last six postseason appearances (2019, ‘20, ‘21, ‘23 and ‘24), they failed to even make it to the NLCS, let alone the World Series.
One would think coming up short that frequently would make the Brewers a pretty desperate team, but they typically work around the margins in the off-season, sometimes even jettisoning popular managers to a division rival. The Brewers’ $114 million payroll last season ranked 21st out of 30 teams, they traded away star pitchers like Corbin Burnes last off-season and made no attempt to re-sign starting shortstop Willy Adames, who signed a seven-year deal with the Giants this week.
The fanbase may be more desperate than the ownership, but this is an organization that should have their pedal to the metal given how close they actually are to winning a World Series.
Seattle Mariners
I’ll distill this down to one sentence.
The Seattle Mariners are the only team in Major League Baseball that has never been to the World Series.
So even if they aren’t going all-in and rumored to be courting every free agent available, they have a free-wheeling trade merchant in GM Jerry DiPoto coupled with the fact this team has existed for nearly half a century (47 years) and never once even reached the Fall Classic. They’re in a winnable division and the reigning AL pennant winners just lost Juan Soto, so the door is open if Seattle is willing to spend some cash this winter.
