Behind those three emerging stars, there are a lot of arrow-up guys in the early going and good depth throughout the list, largely on the pitching side: Fitts, Valera, Early, Brandon Clarke and Payton Tolle have all impressed and I ran out of room to include them all.

Rather, the "Starting 9" is the nine-word summary that we'll provide for each team's season to date. For each of the 30 teams, we'll highlight both a most valuable player and a least valuable player/position.

You don’t want your list to change too much from the pre-season, but you also have to respect the teams off to searing-hot starts. It’s a complicated balance, but today we will rank the 10 best teams in baseball through the first month of the 2025 season.