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Wrapping up 2025

The World Series, the Big Dumper and the storylines you're done with

Zach Crizer

31 Dec 2025 — 3 min read

Happy (almost) New Year. I’m sitting around watching college football and making some 2026 plans. In the final hours of 2025, I wanted to share some of the results from the Bandwagon Wrapped survey to remember the best of the baseball season.

It wasn’t a statistically significant response or anything, but I think the voting reflected the season well, and gave me some things to think about as we turn the page into 2026. (I’ve reported every response that earned multiple votes.)

What moment or storyline most delighted you in 2025?

The World Series, 6 votes

Cal Raleigh, 6 votes

It was a classic World Series. I don’t think anyone needs support for that statement, but Sam Miller did the math to answer the question of whether it was the very best World Series and came out with some convincing arguments in favor.

If anything, that makes it more notable that Cal Raleigh’s 60 homer season garnered similar levels of support. The Big Dumper was everywhere. The Mariners catcher’s home run chase had an extended lifespan because he was going after the all-time record for a catcher (48), and then it became clear he could go even further. And he did it with flair. He ripped off two-homer games both when he broke that record and when he reached No. 60.

You’ll hear no argument from me that Aaron Judge won the AL MVP award as he continues a run for the ages, but I do wonder if The Big Dumper’s season will live more in, um, posterity. We never fully understand these things as they happen — at the moment, though, Raleigh’s burst feels significant as a marker in an ongoing Mariners quest, and in the story of catchers. In 2026, we’ll see the automatic ball-strike system used for challenges. No matter how much I hope it stops there, the likelihood exists it will expand and dramatically alter the shape of catcher production.

It might be that Raleigh’s season is the last moment of excellence from an all-around star at the sport’s most demanding position. Or it might be the first eyebrow-raising hint at what could be possible with a different style of player donning the tools of ignorance. That’s something I hope to delve into more as winter turns to spring.

The Blue Jays, more broadly, 5 votes

Guardians comeback, 2.5 votes

Some respondents listed two answers, so I’ve taken some accounting leeway throughout.

The Mariners, 1.5 votes

What moment or storyline from 2025 do you never need to hear about again?

The Dodgers and whether they are ruining baseball, 8 votes

The discourse around the champs is not going to go quietly, I fear, but outside of the salary-cap-chasing non-sense, I think it could be a positive thing.

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Early on, when we asked a bunch of baseball people what they were rooting for in 2025, Bobby Wagner of Tipping Pitches said this: “The return of a bona fide villain in Major League Baseball. The Yankees have been a watered down Evil Empire for over a decade now, but now the Dodgers have become the real thing.” He got it, and I think there is real appeal there, especially with the Blue Jays’ World Series performance now cemented as a memorable underdog story foiled.

Perhaps the next thing to root for is a repeat engagement.

Torpedo bats, 5 votes

I appreciated this parenthetical from one reader: “Not that they’re bad, I just got sick of hearing about them.” Agreed.

The most ridiculous thing about our flash-fried torpedo bat panic is that the Brewers, eventually baseball’s best regular season team, were the ones who gave up all those homers to the torpedo-powered Yankees.

Pete Rose, 2.25 votes

I’m counting a vote for “betting scandals” as 0.25 votes for this. Because I can make up math how I want.

Which team did you watch most other than your own?

Dodgers, 5 votes
Blue Jays, 4.5 votes
Yankees, 4 votes
Cubs, Mets, Padres, Tigers, 2 votes each
Guardians, 1.5 votes

I’m detecting some recency bias — or perhaps everyone who watched World Series Game 3 did this tally in hours. Maybe in 2026 we can do some thinking on what exactly makes for the best unaffiliated team to watch.