3 MLB rookies in the American League who could change the course of the 2025 season
Luis Gil won the 2024 AL Rookie of the Year award. Here's a look at three guys who should be in the running in 2025.
Rookies don't always live up to the hype in baseball, but every now and then, the rare prospect can fundamentally alter his team's projections. Just last season, Paul Skenes started the All-Star Game for the National League, while Luis GIl helped pilot the Yankees all the way to the World Series.
Earlier this offseason, we looked at three rookies who could immediately impact their teams in the National League. These are some of their most hyped counterparts in the junior circuit.
Jasson Domínguez
The Martian has landed. Jasson Domínguez figures to be the starting left fielder for the New York Yankees next season. We've heard about him forever, but he's still only 21 years old (he turns 22 in February). He looked great for the Bronx Bombers during his cup of coffee in 2023, but he didn't look like the same player after returning from an oblique injury in 2024.
Domínguez spent most of last season in the minor leagues. He returned from Tommy John surgery in May, dominated Double-A, earned a quick promotion to Triple-A, and suffered an oblique strain in June. The Yankees only called him up at the end of the minor-league season.
At AAA, he hit .309/.368/.480, but the vibes were off when he finally got called up to the Bronx, and his production sunk to an abysmal .179/.313/.304.
It's suspicious that the Yankees wouldn't commit to him earlier in the season while Alex Verdugo struggled miserably, so fans may be cautious and temper their expectations of Dominguez in 2025. However, he maintained a strong walk rate last season, which is a promising sign for a potential bounce back in 2025.
Now that Verdugo is a free agent, opportunity should come knocking for the Martian. If he can run away with a starting outfield job for the star-studded Yankees, Domínguez should be a prohibitive favorite in the 2025 AL Rookie of the Year race.
Roman Anthony
The Boston Red Sox are in the fourth year of a soft rebuild, going a combined 237-249 since the end of the 2021 season.
It obviously hasn't been the type of performance Red Sox fans want. Once upon a time, Boston was a powerhouse, a team with the ability to develop players and the willingness to re-sign them, but that all changed when they traded Mookie Betts to the Dodgers.
Now, Comeback Player of the Year candidate Tyler O'Neill is a free agent, and it's hard to imagine they spend big to retain him, especially when they have Baseball America's top prospect, Roman Anthony, waiting in the wings.
The Red Sox drafted Anthony in the third round of the 2022 draft, using the compensation pick they received from losing Eduardo Rodriguez in free agency. Anthony is a former Gatorade Florida High School Player of the Year, and the Red Sox gave him a bigger signing bonus than their first-round pick, Mikey Romero. Since then, he's blown past expectations, slashing .284/.398/.474 during his minor-league career, with big-time exit velocity numbers.
Anthony is a potential five-tool contributor with a superstar ceiling. There's no reason why the Red Sox shouldn't allow him every chance to win a starting outfield job during Spring Training, and if he succeeds, there's a good chance he'll be on the shortlist for Rookie of the Year at the end of the 2025 season.
Jackson Jobe
The Detroit Tigers surprised everyone when they sprinted past the Houston Astros in the 2024 Wild Card Round. In a short series, Detroit is a matchup nightmare led by Cy Young award winner Tarik Skubal and a stingy bullpen.
While that makes them hard to score against, they lack depth in the rotation, and opposing teams can expose them in a seven- or even five-game series. Detroit isn't likely to spend big in free agency to bolster their rotation, but they have plenty of internal options, like the third overall pick in the 2021 draft, Jackson Jobe.
Jobe made his big league debut in September of last season. Then, the Tigers deployed him as a Weapon X out of the bullpen for the playoffs, though it didn't go as planned. He gave up runs in both appearances and didn't strike anybody out.
The plan appears to be to move him back into the starting rotation, where he's been his whole career, with the expectation being that he can win a rotation job by pitching well during Spring Training.
Jobe has an impressive array of pitches, including a fastball in the high 90s and a devastating slider. However, he figures to run into an innings limit in 2025 since his career high in any season is just 91.2, set in 2024.
There's a lot to like about Jobe, but he has struggled with allowing too many walks. Plus, the Tigers have a rocky track record in developing pitchers. Even Tarik Skubal didn't dominate out of the gate, and former first-round picks Matt Manning and Casey Mize look like busts.
On the flip side, Reese Olson and Sawyer Gipson-Long look promising. The most likely outcome for 2025 is that Jobe becomes a mid-late rotation starter for an AL Central favorite. If he fully blossoms into a front-line guy in the next year or two, then the Tigers will have one of the best one-two punches in baseball.
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