Athletics 2025 Season Preview

They are no longer the Oakland Athletics. They aren’t the Sacramento Athletics or Las Vegas Athletics. In MLB news, this team is simply the Athletics. And it is a good time to be a fan or on the Athletics as they are showing promise. In their final season in Oakland, the Athletics improved by 19 games over 2023. They also avoided a third straight year of triple-digit losses. They may not make anyone’s MLB playoff predictions but also aren’t a pushover anymore.

2025 Athletics Win Total Projection & World Series Odds

The Athletics’ win total projection sits at 71½. What will be interesting when trying to factor in which way to wager on baseball futures is how much of an advantage they will have playing in a much smaller stadium. They sit at +15000 in World Series odds. Those are long long odds and don’t expect many MLB predictions to focus on them as a playoff threat, let alone winning it all.

2025 Athletics Projected Starting Lineup

• Lawrence Butler, RF
• Brent Rooker, LF
• JJ Bleday, CF
• Shea Langeliers, C
• Tyler Soderstrom, 1B
• Miguel Andujar, DH
• Zack Gelof, 2B
• Gio Urshela, 3B
• Jacob Wilson, SS

Lineup Strengths and Weaknesses

Langeliers is the kind of player every team wishes it had behind the plate. He hit 29 home runs last year and is only 27. He won’t hit for average but the power in his bat and his talent as a catcher makes up for that.

Butler and Soderstrom are young players with all sorts of upside. Soderstrom was drafted as a first-round pick as a catcher but when Langeliers was acquired the Athletics made MLB news by moving Soderstrom to first base. Butler showed dramatic improvement from his rookie season to his second year. Do not be surprised if he continues to grow into stardom.

Gelof hit 17 home runs. He also led the AL by striking out 188 times. That’s not a good ratio for a young player. Can’t strike out that many times when you aren’t hitting 20 home runs in a season.

Athletics Projected Starting Rotation

Per MLB.com:

1. Luis Severino, RHP
2. JP Sears, LHP
3. Osvaldo Bido, RHP
4. Jeffrey Springs, LHP
5. Joey Estes, RHP

After some rocky times with the Yankees, Severino got his act together as a Met in 2024. If he can keep it together, the Athletics will benefit with him at the top of the rotation. He will test opponents with his stuff in MLB matchups. The righty won’t go 19-8 the way he did in 2018 but he is capable of notching a significant amount of wins and innings.

Springs is another excellent addition to the starting core.

The starters last year had trouble keeping opponents off the board. Most of their ERAs were above four, trending toward five. The Athletics need better production out of them to keep improving.

Projected Bullpen

Per MLB.com: Grant Holman, Noah Murdock, T.J. McFarland, Michel Otañez, Tyler Ferguson, José Leclerc, Mason Miller

Miller is lights out and is one of the best closers in baseball. MLB expert picks will have him as one of the contenders for the Relief Pitcher Award in the AL. He had 104 strikeouts in 65 innings last year, earning 28 saves and finishing 44 games. A star in the making.

The rest of the relievers have a simple job: Keep the Athletics in front and enable the team to get the ball to Miller. Look for Leclerc, Ferguson, Otañez and McFarland to be in a lot of games and to get a great deal of work.

Athletics Schedule and Key Matchups

Welcome to Sacramento. Nine of the first 12 games are at home, whatever you want to consider home is. However, the MLB teams the Athletics will face in that stretch include the Cubs, Padres, and Mets. Those three teams all have playoff dreams.

There is a testing run in May with home games against the Mariners and Yankees, and then a road trip to visit the Dodgers and Giants. These are the times that will define how much better the Athletics are.

The good times come before the All-Star break with a nine-game home stand. However, there are 81 home games and 81 away for MLB teams and that evens out for the Athletics with a 10-game road trip when play resumes. The trips are to Cleveland, Texas and Houston, the latter two AL West division rivals.

August features 15 home games. The final month of the campaign sees the Athletics ending the season with a run of six home games. They will play the Astros, and then the Royals to close out the 2024 campaign. They may not be in the running for the postseason with MLB picks but this will be a fun team to watch as it continues to grow.