With the first pitch of the 2026 MLB season set to be thrown on Wednesday, it’s time for a new round of team power rankings. The biggest challenge this year is not determining who’s no. 1. That would be the Los Angeles Dodgers, who repeated as World Series champions and reestablished their aura of invincibility in 2025. But it’s easy to forget that four teams won more regular-season games than L.A. did last year. In baseball, with its six-month grind of a regular season and its chaotic postseason, even a roster as well built as the Dodgers’ is far from a sure thing.
The real struggle in this exercise is sorting through the many teams that have a rightful claim that they’re the Dodgers’ closest challenger. The Toronto Blue Jays came within centimeters of taking the Dodgers down last October, and they could be even better this year. The New York Mets have completely revamped their roster. The Yankees have assembled the league’s best lineup, while the Phillies and Mariners have made a number of offseason moves to try to push themselves over the postseason hump.
The Dodgers look historically dominant, but there are a number of contenders within reach. Here is our ranking of all 30 MLB teams before the first pitch, along with our prediction for whether each team will go over or under their preseason win totals.
30. Colorado Rockies
The Rockies have a young core of hitters that they are trying to build around: shortstop Ezequiel Tovar, outfielder Jordan Beck, catcher Hunter Goodman, and center fielder Brenton Doyle. It’s not clear to me that any of these players are future stars, though.
The Rockies have also added veteran pitchers Michael Lorenzen, Jose Quintana, and Tomoyuki Sugano. Lorenzen and Quintana have track records of success, but the most interesting pitcher to watch is second-year righty Chase Dollander. The former top prospect pitched a 6.52 ERA last year and is beginning the season as a long reliever. It’s a curious decision for a franchise that should be trying to mine every bit of potential from this roster. Dollander’s return to the rotation and potential breakout could provide some much-needed hope in Denver.
All in all, the Rockies will have enough respectable pitching to avoid flirting with the White Sox’s win-loss record once again. They will continue to provide a fun summer baseball-viewing experience at Coors Field, but they just won’t be doing much winning at all.
Over/under 55.5 wins: Over
29. Washington Nationals
Back in 2022, the Nationals traded Juan Soto for a massive haul and were said to have “won” the deal. Yet they still have little to show for it. Sure, James Wood could hit 50 home runs any year now, but the Nationals have already traded starter Mackenzie Gore, and shortstop C.J. Abrams is seeing his name pop up in trade rumors. Now that the Rockies have added a few credible hurlers, Washington has arguably the worst starting rotation in MLB.
It’s a new era of Washington baseball; the franchise has completely overhauled the front office, but those returns will take time. The Nationals are not yet a good baseball team, but it’s fair to expect at least a small step in the right direction after they went 66-96 in their disastrous season a year ago.
Over/under 64.5 wins: Over
28. Minnesota Twins
There are teams with worse rosters than Minnesota’s that have a more favorable ranking on this list. But I docked the Twins because of their horrendous vibes entering 2026, following the great sell-off at the 2025 trade deadline. Minnesota had won the AL Central division in three of the past six years. It had a talented roster, although many of its key players had underperformed considerably in the first half of 2025. But the franchise decided it was more than an off year and elected to blow everything up. The Twins traded 10 players—including top relievers Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax, as well as shortstop Carlos Correa—at the deadline.
There were talks that the Pohlad family, who owns the team, might sell, but it appears that for now, they are not. So Minnesota is left staring at the abyss of a full rebuild. Pablo Lopez was supposed to anchor the rotation next to Joe Ryan, but Lopez is out for the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Two-time All-Star Byron Buxton has a no-trade clause, but you have to imagine that he’d be willing to waive it.
Right now, it seems like the Twins are in a long, uncertain reset. I’ll tentatively set the line at 5.5 players traded off their roster by the 2026 deadline.
Over/under 73.5 wins: Under
27. Los Angeles Angels
What, exactly, is the Angels’ plan in 2026? They’re still holding on to Mike Trout at the tail end of his better years. They’ve had 10 consecutive losing seasons. They’ve taken on numerous reclamation projects, from Alek Manoah to Jordan Romano to Yoan Moncada. To be fair, there is young talent on this roster: Shortstop Zach Neto, catcher Logan O’Hoppe, outfielder Jo Adell, and lefty starter Reid Detmers have flashed upside and even some sustained success—Neto has posted back-to-back three-WAR seasons, and Adell hit 37 homers last year.
But the lack of organizational direction is puzzling. The Angels brought in Kurt Suzuki as manager but gave him just a one-year deal. They dealt Taylor Ward in the offseason for former top pitching prospect Grayson Rodriguez, who is injured and will start the year on the IL. There are worse teams, but overall, the Angels seem pretty aimless.
Over/under 70.5 wins: Under
26. Chicago White Sox
Better days are ahead for the South Siders. They might not reach .500 this season, but you can at least sense that the organization is starting to point in the right direction. Chicago doesn’t really know what it has in its position player core right now, but it certainly has a pitching group to build around. Shane Smith will headline its young arms this year, but it also has two top lefty prospects—Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith—who will start the year in Triple-A and should debut sometime in 2026.
Chicago also signed Japanese first baseman Munetaka Murakami to a two-year deal, and he should be an interesting experiment to test how well a powerful slugger with a lot of swing and miss in his profile can translate from Nippon Professional Baseball to MLB. Two years after their history-making 41-121 record, there are actual reasons to watch the White Sox!
Over/under 67.5 wins: Over
25. St. Louis Cardinals
Infielder JJ Wetherholt, the no. 5 prospect in all of baseball according to MLB’s prospect list, looks like he’ll be an exciting addition to the Cardinals and could win NL Rookie of the Year if Pittsburgh’s Konnor Griffin takes time to reach the majors or Nolan McLean struggles in New York. But the poster boy of the next era of Cardinals baseball is arriving right as the rest of the roster is being torn down to the studs. St. Louis moved Nolan Arenado and Brendan Donovan in the winter and will now embrace a youth movement. The Cards found an impact shortstop in Masyn Winn, who won a Gold Glove in just his second full season in 2025, and new general manager Chaim Bloom is hoping that Wetherholt will be a true franchise-altering talent.
In the short term, things might get ugly for St. Louis. The pitching gap between the team and its four division rivals is absolutely massive, as the Cardinals don’t have a single starter with a projected ERA below 4.20.
Over/under 69.5 wins: Under
24. Miami Marlins
The Marlins continue to trade pitchers in an attempt to find more reliable bats to fill out their lineup. Swapping Trevor Rogers for Kyle Stowers in 2025 was a success; Stowers slugged 25 homers in 117 games last season. This winter, Miami moved Edward Cabrera to the Cubs for a prospect package headlined by outfielder Owen Caissie. He’ll start for Miami in right field on Opening Day.
Suddenly, Miami has the outline of a solid lineup. Infielders Otto Lopez and Xavier Edwards and outfielders Jakob Marsee, Stowers, and Caissie give the Marlins a young, athletic group that at least raises the floor of the offense. The question is whether there’s enough top-end talent to raise the ceiling.
That uncertainty puts even more pressure on Sandy Alcantara to rediscover his ace form at the top of the rotation. If he does, this team will start to look competent on both sides of the ball. The Marlins’ division makes their path tougher; three projected playoff teams are ahead of them. But this is exactly the kind of roster that tends to outperform projections: It’s young, fast, and skilled enough to hang around longer than expected.
Over/under 72.5 wins: Over
23. Athletics
The Athletics will be my MLB.TV darlings for the second consecutive season. This is one of the most electric lineups in baseball. Last year, the A’s finished with the 10th-best lineup by wRC+, and now they’ll have a full season with AL Rookie of the Year Nick Kurtz. They also have three other hitters under 26 who, along with Kurtz, make up an excellent offensive core—Jacob Wilson, Tyler Soderstrom, and Lawrence Butler. Add in that Brent Rooker has the potential to pop 40 homers and that Denzel Clarke is a defensive wizard in center field, and you have a baseball team worth watching any night.
Unfortunately, the Athletics couldn’t get outs consistently via their bullpen last year, and that group still looks like a fatal flaw that will keep the team from truly contending. But a push for .500 isn’t out of the question.
Over/under 75.5 wins: Over
22. San Francisco Giants
The Giants are becoming the Jeff Fisher of baseball: Since their 107-win outlier season in 2021, they’ve won 81, 79, 80, and 81 games. And their offseason moves don’t inspire much optimism for a different outcome in 2026. They’ve invested in middling lineup additions like Luis Arraez and Harrison Bader and bolstered the back end of the rotation with Tyler Mahle and Adrian Houser.
The Giants also sold off a good bit of their bullpen at last year’s trade deadline, and last week they optioned top prospect Bryce Eldridge, a first baseman, to Triple-A to begin the year. When Eldridge earns a promotion back to MLB, he’ll be worth watching. But until then, what are Giants fans supposed to be excited about this season? In 2025 they finished 17th in wRC+, 11th in starter fWAR, and 15th in reliever fWAR. It’s an impressive conglomerate of average.
Over/under 80.5 wins: Over (destiny demands that they win 81)
21. Tampa Bay Rays
If the casual fan didn’t know who Junior Caminero was before, they know him now. Caminero, a Dominican third baseman, was a lightning rod of energy and raw power during the World Baseball Classic. But Rays fans already knew what this guy was capable of: He hit 45 home runs last season, and there appears to be no limit to the ceiling on his power.
In any other division, the Rays would be a real threat to compete at the top; at worst, they’d look like a good bet to earn a wild-card berth. But in the stacked AL East, they’re entering as the projected cellar dweller. Tough break, because the Rays are finally getting starter Shane McClanahan back from injury after he missed all of 2025 due to Tommy John. They also have a deep bullpen and a very platoonable lineup that manager Kevin Cash can deploy depending on the matchups. Tampa may well find a way to “Rays” itself to a winning season, but it’s hard to envision much more unless Caminero becomes an MVP candidate and top prospect Carson Williams adds some much-needed offense at shortstop.
Over/under 77.5 wins: Over
20. Arizona Diamondbacks
The most notable additions to the Diamondbacks roster entering 2026 are 34-year-old Nolan Arenado at third base, 39-year-old Carlos Santana at first, and 35-year-old Paul Sewald in the bullpen. It’s been a weird offseason for the team, which should be trying to build a sustainable contender around its young core. Arizona failed to make the playoffs the past two seasons after winning the National League in 2023, and its inability to solve its pitching issues is the primary cause of that underperformance.
The Diamondbacks finished the 2025 season as one of three teams with a negative fWAR from its relievers. General manager Mike Hazen brought in Sewald and Taylor Clarke to try to bolster the pen, but it still looks like a clear weakness. As for the rotation, on the one hand, it still features the likes of Merrill Kelly, Zac Gallen, and Brandon Pfaadt, who all pitched in the World Series just three years ago. However, Gallen is 30 years old and coming off the worst season of his career, with a 4.83 ERA. Pfaadt can’t stop giving up homers and pitched a 5.25 ERA in 2025. The Diamondbacks lineup is playoff ready, but the pitching isn’t, and it doesn’t look salvageable.
Over/under 78.5 wins: Under
19. Cincinnati Reds
The Reds returned to the playoffs in 2025 for the first time (excluding the shortened 2020 COVID-19 season) since their 2013 wild-card loss to Pittsburgh. Cincinnati’s starting rotation was the second-most valuable (by fWAR) in the league last year, and that’s despite the fact that it got only 43.1 innings from rookie dynamo Chase Burns. It’ll need Burns to live up to his ace potential now that its actual no. 1—flamethrower Hunter Greene—will be out until at least July, after surgery to remove chips in his elbow.
Cincinnati had one of the two worst offenses among teams that qualified for the playoffs last year (along with Cleveland), and it seriously lacked power at the heart of the order. Adding streaky slugger Eugenio Suarez to the cleanup spot could help with that, but any leaps forward for the overall offense will have to come from internal improvement. Both Matt McLain and Elly de La Cruz took a step back in 2025 relative to their previous seasons, but McLain raked in spring, and de La Cruz still has elite upside. Cincinnati might find itself in a battle with a rising sleeper in its own division. Speaking of …
Over/under 80.5 wins: Under
18. Pittsburgh Pirates
Pittsburgh finished with a top-five rotation by fWAR last season even though it got almost nothing from Braxton Ashcraft, Bubba Chandler, and Jared Jones. But Ashcraft quietly posted a 2.78 FIP in limited action in 2025, Chandler’s stuff has dazzled in spring training, and Jones is expected back sometime this summer after internal brace surgery.
There’s a version of the 2026 Pittsburgh Pirates with a rotation so deep that Mitch Keller, a perfectly solid mid-rotation arm, ends up as the fifth starter. That’s how much pitching talent is quietly stockpiled behind Paul Skenes.
This team won only 71 games last year because the offense was one of the worst in baseball. But to their credit, the Pirates have at least tried to raise the floor, bringing in Brandon Lowe, Ryan O'Hearn, and Marcell Ozuna to add some veteran legitimacy to the middle of the order. The offense is still not a strength, but it doesn’t have to be if the pitching hits its ceiling.
And then there’s the real X factor: shortstop Konnor Griffin, MLB’s no. 1 prospect. FanGraphs called Griffin a “freaky five-tool superstar,” and he’ll potentially upgrade the position, which gave Pittsburgh almost nothing last season. Griffin will start the year in Triple-A, but when he gets called up, he could make Pittsburgh look less like a rebuilding team and more like a wild-card contender, sooner rather than later.
Over/under 77.5 wins: Over
17. Cleveland Guardians
The Cleveland Guardians have spent the past few years making projection systems, betting markets, and prognosticators look foolish. On paper, this should be one of the worst offenses in baseball; only the Rockies and Pirates were worse by wRC+ last season. And yet, Cleveland won 88 games despite a –6 run differential in 2025—essentially the profile of an average-at-best team, except it somehow managed to win the AL Central.
That overperformance shows up everywhere. The bullpen lost its closer to a gambling scandal, only for Cade Smith to step in and dominate without any real drop-off from the rest of the group behind him. Their bullpen finished third in fWAR and should be great again in 2026.
Will that be enough? Counting out the Guardians has been a fool’s errand, but there’s a difference between acknowledging their track record and expecting it to continue indefinitely. Cleveland did little this offseason to raise the ceiling of a flawed roster, especially on offense, and even with MVP candidate José Ramírez at third, the math seems likely to catch up to them eventually.
Over/under 80.5 wins: Under
16. Houston Astros
The Astros’ run of eight consecutive playoff appearances came to an end in 2025 following the departures of Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker from the heart of the lineup. Entering 2026, the Astros have tried to replenish their roster to kick off another run of sustained success. Alas, if you could guarantee a healthy Yordan Alvarez season, then the Astros’ outlook would be considerably better. But Alvarez has played more than 140 games only once in four years; his durability issues are more than a blip at this point.
Houston’s biggest winter addition was Tatsuya Imai, whom the team signed from NPB to replace Framber Valdez at the top of the rotation. The Astros’ pitching could still be excellent if Imai pans out and Cristian Javier looks like himself after a 2024 Tommy John surgery, but the margins are thinner than Houston fans are accustomed to. Without the star depth that once insulated them, the Astros look less like a perennial contender and more like just another team in the American League pile.
Over/under 85.5 wins: Under
15. Kansas City Royals
Bobby Witt Jr. has a convincing case as the third-best player in MLB after Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge. His transformation from bat-first shortstop to elite two-way player has been a joy to watch. Additionally, a couple of other Royals infielders are coming off a nice spring, with Maikel Garcia winning WBC MVP and Vinnie Pasquantino becoming the first hitter to pop three homers in one WBC game.
The Royals’ infield is loaded with talent, but it’s still not enough to overcome the gaping hole in the outfield. Last season, Kansas City was the only team in MLB to have a negative fWAR from its outfield. The group produced –1.1 wins and had a comically bad .225/.285/.348 slash line.
Jac Caglianone struggled in his first taste of the big leagues last year, and his development in right field is the most important factor for the Royals in 2026. They added Isaac Collins in a trade with Milwaukee to stabilize left field. Questions about the bullpen and outfield persist, but the Royals will win more games than they’ll lose in 2026.
Over/under 82.5 wins: Over
14. San Diego Padres
Mason Miller is on one of the most dominant pitching runs the sport has ever seen. Including his scoreless track record in the WBC, hitters are now 0-for-50 with 39 strikeouts against him since September 8. He’s the best single-inning pitcher on the planet right now, and the Padres will have a full season with him in their bullpen after acquiring him at the deadline in 2025. Add Adrian Morejon, Jeremiah Estrada, and soon-returning Jason Adam to the bullpen, and the Padres should again finish at the top of the league in reliever fWAR. The path to get to that bullpen, however, looks murkier than it has in years.
Nick Pivetta is still a good bet to anchor the top of the rotation, but it gets dicey behind him. Michael King dealt with injury issues all of last season and pitched only 73 innings. Walker Buehler and Germán Márquez are reclamation projects; pitching coach Ruben Niebla has an ace reputation, but he’s not a miracle worker.
And despite all of general manager A.J. Preller’s wheeling and dealing, this lineup still doesn’t slug enough (28th in isolated power last year). That lack of pop led to their elimination in the playoffs and could keep them from even getting there this year.
Over/under 83.5 wins: Under
13. Texas Rangers
The Rangers offense has done the full round trip in the past four seasons, going from mediocre to elite to below average again. Here are their wRC+ ranks for each of the past four years:
2022: 20th
2023: 2nd
2024: 21st
2025: 25th
Now, Texas is anchored by its starting-rotation headliners, Nathan Eovaldi and Jacob deGrom. Relying on two aging veteran starters with extensive injury histories is a dangerous game to play. Both are healthy and will start this week, but last season was deGrom’s first with over 100 innings pitched since 2019. Eovaldi has pitched a lot more but has eclipsed 150 innings just once in the past four years.
It would be a lot easier to trust the Rangers if you could figure out which version of their offense would show up in a given season. There’s a version of this team where everything clicks—where the offense rebounds and the rotation stays intact—and Texas looks like a contender again. But there’s an equally plausible version where the bats remain inconsistent and the lack of pitching depth behind deGrom and Eovaldi gets exposed.
That’s why Wyatt Langford matters so much. The former top prospect has flashed potential in spring training but hasn’t become the star the Rangers need him to be. If he makes that leap, it’ll raise the ceiling of the entire lineup. If he doesn’t, this will start to look like a team stuck in baseball purgatory.
Over/under 83.5 wins: Over
12. Atlanta Braves
There are bad offseasons. There are terrible offseasons. And then there’s whatever the hell happened to the Braves. It all started when Ha-Seong Kim—signed to help improve a shortstop position that has been a zero for Atlanta—slipped on ice in Korea and tore a tendon in his finger. He’ll miss at least a month. Then young and impressive starters Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep suffered their own injuries and will now miss extended time (maybe even the whole season). Spencer Strider hasn’t found his peak velocity and stuff this spring, and left fielder Jurickson Profar was suspended for the entire season due to a repeat PED offense.
Atlanta continues to move further and further away from that peak 2023 season, and the once-promising core is now teetering and at risk of a second consecutive season outside the playoff picture. The Braves are the third-best team in the NL East, behind the Mets and Phillies. They have a new manager, a bolstered bullpen, and plenty of experience winning baseball games, but their depth will be tested in ways it hasn’t been before.
Over/under 86.5 wins: Under
11. Baltimore Orioles
The Braves and Orioles were the two biggest disappointments of the 2025 season, but Baltimore looks more primed for a bounce-back than Atlanta. Mike Elias brought in veteran bats Taylor Ward and Pete Alonso to help stabilize the middle of the order next to all of their young talent. Some projection systems expect catcher Samuel Basallo to hit 20 homers in his first full MLB season. Baltimore still has so much offensive depth and talent, but like 2025, the season will come down to run prevention. The Orioles’ starting rotation and bullpen were in the bottom third of the league in production last year.
Kyle Bradish is back from his injury, Shane Baz joins the rotation from Tampa Bay, and Trevor Rogers will try to replicate his stellar 18 starts from 2025 across a full season. There’s a lot more depth and upside in their rotation now, especially with a healthy Zach Eflin and veteran innings eater Chris Bassitt holding up the back half of it. The Orioles started 2025 horrendously, at 16-34, before stabilizing their rotation, and this group should carry them to a better season in 2026. They still have MLB’s most competitive division to worry about, but a return to the playoffs is well within reach.
Over/under 85.5 wins: Over
10. Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers keep overperforming expectations, and no one—including projection systems—has quite figured out how. It’s why general manager Matt Arnold has won two consecutive Executive of the Year awards, why Milwaukee won more games than everyone in baseball last year, and why it would be foolish to overlook the Brewers in 2026.
Milwaukee added Luis Rengifo to the mix of infielders this season, but it is expected to have eight of the same nine hitters in its core lineup from last season’s 97-win team. The Brewers win baseball games on the margins. They always play good defense. They run the bases well. They have two elite arms in Trevor Megill and Abner Uribe to lock down close games. And they have a deep lineup of good, but not elite, players.
It’s reasonable to expect Milwaukee to take a step back from its outlier 97-win season, and replacing Freddy Peralta won’t be easy, but Milwaukee has earned the benefit of the doubt.
Over/under 84.5 wins: Over
9. Detroit Tigers
The Tigers definitely weren’t as good as their 59-34 start to last season suggested, but they also weren’t as bad as their 7-17 finish made them seem. The Tigers’ free fall out of the AL Central lead last September was almost as improbable as their hot streak to make the playoffs in 2024. Heading into 2026, Detroit will look for a little more stability.
Detroit’s squad has no obvious weakness, and that alone should be enough to defeat a group of flawed division rivals. Detroit is also banking on internal improvements from its talented young core of hitters: Kerry Carpenter, Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson, and soon Kevin McGonigle. If that group collectively takes a step forward, the lineup could blossom into a real strength instead of being just solid.
Pairing Framber Valdez with Tarik Skubal at the top of the rotation should help better protect the Tigers’ bullpen, too, which withered in the second half of last season (25th in fWAR after the trade deadline). Detroit might not have the highest ceiling in the American League, but it’s the easiest team to believe in within the AL Central.
Over/under 85.5 wins: Over
8. Boston Red Sox
Boston will have three new starters in its opening rotation, with Sonny Gray, Ranger Suárez, and Johan Oviedo joining Garrett Crochet and Brayan Bello. It’s a good mix of pitching profiles, which should help solve the pitching depth issues they struggled with for portions of last year. On the offensive side, they lost Bregman to Chicago and replaced him with Caleb Durbin. What they lost at third, however, they certainly made up for at first by adding Willson Contreras to the heart of the order. After all of the musical chairs in this roster, Boston is still less talented than Toronto and New York, but there’s a lot of youth with upside that could change the AL East hierarchy in a flash.
Roman Anthony has elite potential, and he’s probably the only hitter in this lineup with the upside to develop into a truly feared superstar. If he doesn’t make a jump, their offense will be similar to Chicago’s and Detroit’s: good, but lacking the required difference makers to be elite.
Over/under 87.5 wins: Under
7. Chicago Cubs
Chicago ranked 27th in fWAR from third base last season, and the addition of Alex Bregman immediately stabilizes both sides of the ball at the hot corner. When he’s healthy, Bregman is one of the most reliable two-way third basemen in the sport, and he fits cleanly into a roster that already does a lot of things well.
The Cubs boast an extremely balanced lineup. Nico Hoerner brings elite contact, Moisés Ballesteros adds raw power, Seiya Suzuki and Bregman provide patience, and Pete Crow-Armstrong injects speed and aggression. There may not be a true superstar in the group, but there also aren’t many easy outs.
The bullpen still carries some uncertainty, but Daniel Palencia looks like a legitimate late-inning answer after emerging as the closer last summer and posting a 2.22 FIP from June until the end of the campaign.
The bigger question is at the top of the rotation. Justin Steele should return at some point, and Cade Horton has the upside to grow into a frontline arm, but there’s no proven ace right now.
The Cubs are one of the most complete teams in the National League. Whether they have the top-end talent to make a run in October is a different question.
Over/under 88.5 wins: Over
6. New York Mets
The Mets reshuffled their roster more than any other competitive team in MLB this offseason. Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto remain at the top of the lineup (although don’t ask Steve Cohen to name a captain). After them, there’s been a level of turnover that would impress even the most transfer portal–pilled college coaches.
Jeff McNeil, Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, and Starling Marte have left Flushing. Enter Bo Bichette at third (he’s never played there), Marcus Semien at second (he’s a former Gold Glover), and Jorge Polanco at first (he’s never played there). The Mets are attempting a reclamation project with Luis Robert Jr. in center field, too. My colleague Ben Lindbergh wrote about the Mets’ audacious overhaul and whether they can overcome the challenges that have historically plagued teams that make huge roster changes.
Over/under 90.5 wins: Under
5. Philadelphia Phillies
The NL East hasn’t been particularly competitive for the past three seasons, with the Braves winning comfortably in 2023 and the Phillies usurping them the past two years. The prevailing sentiment in Philadelphia is that this team missed its window, is too old, and has come up short one too many times in October.
But it’s also easy to miss the forest for the trees when it comes to how the Phillies have gradually turned over the roster. The three most important pitchers on the Opening Day roster—Cristopher Sánchez, Jesús Luzardo, and Jhoan Duran—are all under 30 years old. Sánchez and Luzardo will anchor the rotation until Zack Wheeler returns in the next six weeks, and Aaron Nola looked like his old self when he tossed nine innings of one-run ball in the WBC.
The Phillies’ rotation finished last regular season first by a wide margin in fWAR, and the bullpen is much deeper than it was for most of last season. Even if the lineup takes a step back as its stars age, the Phillies can still outpitch any team in baseball.
Over/under 89.5 wins: Over
4. Toronto Blue Jays
It would have been easy for Toronto to just run it back after coming closer to a World Series title than any other runner-up in history. But where last year’s Blue Jays were a surprise underdog who sneaked up on their AL East competition, this year’s version has a target on its back.
Fortunately, Toronto made some much-needed upgrades over the offseason. Shortstop Bo Bichette departed in free agency, and the Blue Jays signed third baseman Kazuma Okamoto from Japan to backfill Bichette’s production. The Jays lacked a true frontline starter with Shane Bieber and Kevin Gausman aging, so they handed strikeout machine Dylan Cease a seven-year contract worth $210 million. That move looks all the more critical now that rookie playoff sensation Trey Yesavage will begin the season on the injured list.
If Toronto’s offense can replicate its top-five finish from last season, it’ll still be the best team in the AL East. But if there’s any regression, there will be a pack of good teams waiting to pounce.
Over/under 88.5 wins: Under
3. New York Yankees
The Yankees lost the AL East title to the Jays on a tiebreaker and then lost to them again in a relatively uncompetitive four-game series in October. Most Yankees fans don’t want to hear about run differential or how good their team was before its pitching crumbled in that series. Even when Aaron Judge finally performed in a high-leverage playoff series, the rest of the lineup let him down. General manager Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone are certainly losing the narrative war in this era of Yankees baseball, but when you look at the roster assembled, it’s hard not to see them as the favorites in the AL East.
The Yankees are basically running it back on offense—and why shouldn’t they? They had the best offense in baseball last year by wRC+. They won 94 games without ace Gerrit Cole, who will return from Tommy John surgery to lead the rotation at some point over the summer. They’ll get a full season of emerging star Cam Schlittler. It might not be an elite rotation until Carlos Rodón and Cole are fully going, but once they are, the Yankees will probably have the best rotation in the AL.
That’s the bet you’re making with this team. Ignore the noise, trust the talent.
Over/under 91.5 wins: Under
2. Seattle Mariners
The Mariners have won 90 games in three of the past five seasons, and in 2025 they claimed their first division title since 2001. They were one clutch George Springer home run away from facing the Dodgers in the World Series, and they spent the offseason bolstering their roster to make another run this October.
The Mariners’ bullpen is the nastiest in the American League now that they’ve added Jose A. Ferrer alongside lefty Gabe Speier and righties Andrés Muñoz and Matt Brash. The lack of second-tier bullpen depth hurt them last playoffs, but that shouldn’t be an issue this year. Seattle also had a hole in the infield that it plugged by trading for Brendan Donovan from St. Louis. Seattle probably won’t get another 60-homer season from catcher Cal Raleigh, but the Mariners will expect a bit of a bounce-back from a rotation that underperformed lofty expectations last year.
It’s difficult to pick the one team that should be atop the list of the Dodgers’ challengers, but Seattle doesn’t play in the gauntlet of the AL East and ranks top 10 in offense, starting pitching, and relief pitching entering 2026.
Over/under 90.5 wins: Over
1. Los Angeles Dodgers
Before they went on to win one of the most dramatic World Series titles in history, the Dodgers played near .500 baseball in the second half of 2025, going just 40-37 after July 1.
Some of that was due to bullpen collapses, which L.A. addressed by signing Edwin Díaz, the best reliever on the market, in free agency. And some of that was due to starting pitcher injuries, which you can probably expect more of in 2026, given the fragility of the Dodgers’ rotation.
Still, you have to get creative to poke holes in the Dodgers’ roster these days. They had a slight hole in the outfield, so they signed a four-time All-Star in Kyle Tucker. Their bullpen wasn’t great, so they ponied up for Díaz. At this point, the only potential blemish is their age. The Dodgers had the oldest lineup in baseball last year, and they won’t be getting much younger in 2026.
It’s hard to envision anyone in the NL West catching them, and they may well be the only 100-game winner in MLB this year. But the Dodgers won’t be judged by their 2026 win total. The whole goal of this upcoming season is to keep their pitching healthy for October and a chance at a three-peat.
Over/under 103.5 wins: Under
