Who Are the Best Baseball Players Right Now?

Who is the best baseball player in the world? Right now, it’s Aaron Judge, and there isn’t even a debate about it. And for all of the Shohei Ohtani fanclubbers out there, go cry yourself to sleep. Now, if Shohei was pitching, then we have a different story; an elite batter who is also one of the best starting pitchers in the MLB has an argument for the best player of all time. But as of today, Tuesday June 10th in 2025, he hasn’t pitched a single ball and doesn’t look to anytime soon. That being said, he’s easily in the #2 spot right now, as his top-tier bat and aptitude for baserunning alone are easily enough to put him over anyone else. But this season in particular, there have been a few unexpected guys playing at elite levels; the most apparent being Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners. Being a catcher gives players leeway to have struggles offensively, but Raleigh clearly didn’t get the memo; he leads MLB by a decent margin in home runs with 26, looking to smoke his previous season high from last year of 34 in a full season, even though he’s only played 64 games thus far, and he’s currently on pace to rake a total of 65 homers this season. He’s steadily improved every year since joining the Mariners’ big league team in 2025, and has emerged as one of the best players at the catcher position in all of baseball for the foreseeable future. Another enticing young star this season has been Jacob Wilson. Wilson was drafted 6th overall in 2023, and got called up towards the end of the ‘24 season where he played in a decent amount of games, not doing anything special. This season, however, he’s emerged as one of the best contact hitters in all of baseball, as he’s batting .366 through 64 games, a ridiculous number. Although Judge’s eliteness is overshadowing Wilson’s numbers, he has still been elite and one of the few [extremely] bright spots during the Athletics’ overall lackluster season to date. While Judge and Ohtani will always be the cover athletes of MLB for years to come, many new stars have emerged this season including Raleigh and Wilson, and many more to come.