2026 ZiPS Projections: The Athletics

For the 22nd consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction, as well as MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Athletics.

Batters

The A’s lineup has made great strides over the last few years, the difference between this graphic and the one from two years ago is nearly night and day. Now, there is no megastar at the top of the WAR stack, but the A’s are pretty solid in most places, aren’t truly abysmal anywhere, and have decent depth options all over the diamond. While this is still far from an elite run creation machine, there’s enough quality surrounding Nick Kurtz and Brent Rooker that this is the type of lineup that could pull its weight in a playoff contention scenario. Even some of the lesser positions like the Max Muncy-led third base amalgamation or the mix-and-match assortment in center field at least project to somewhere around average.

If there’s a disappointment in the projections, it might be Jacob Wilson, for whom ZiPS sees quite a bit of regression coming in 2026. A big part of it is that Wilson’s approach of excellent contact/soft hitting has a fairly poor developmental history in recent decades, and players of this type, if they become too “see ball, hit ball” can fall off quickly like David Fletcher or Luis Arraez. Just like plate discipline should be a means to an end, so should ultra-high contact.

ZiPS also remains a Tyler Soderstrom skeptic and just isn’t as in love with Lawrence Butler as other projection systems have been.

When I talk about the depth, I’m not just being nice; there are a lot of projections for players in the high minors that suggest that they could be fill-in candidates without completely embarrassing anybody. Joshua Kuroda-Grauer might be one of the most interesting. He’s hardly a household name, but the method I use to estimate defense from hit-location data absolutely loves him, and he has the makings of a really solid pairing with Wilson up the middle. The projections also think that Leo De Vries is just a year or two from being a legitimate major league starter. Also in good news for a lineup on a John Fisher-owned team, none of the key players are nearing big free agency paydays that the A’s simply would not match. These guys should be around for a while.

Pitchers

The pitching staff is considerably less impressive than the offense, but even this group has much better projections overall than it did a year ago. Before this past season, I mused that the A’s had kind of lost their knack for developing an endless stream of moderately competent, soft-tossing fourth starters, and it was hurting their chances at getting out of the bottom of the AL West. There are still no aces on the team or, really, any no. 2 starters, but ZiPS thinks the A’s now have a boatload of 90-100 ERA+ starting pitchers, and a few of them (like Luis Medina and Luis Morales) have actual fastballs that they can use to retire major league hitters. What a concept!

I’m not sure that Luis Severino will still be on the roster three months from now, let alone the beginning of August, given his feelings about the stadium situation and potential value for a contending club, but Jeffrey Springs and Jacob Lopez are acceptable mid-rotation starters, and the team has a number of useful fallback options, such as J.T. Ginn and Henry Baez. ZiPS still holds out some hope on Mitch Spence, and is really in on Gage Jump, who has a decent shot in the projections to be the best A’s pitcher 18 months from now.

A Mason Miller-less bullpen is definitely an emoji sad face. While ZiPS sees the pen as a decidedly below-average group, there are far fewer negative WAR projections here than there were last offseason, and the top four of Hogan Harris, Michael Kelly, Justin Sterner, and Elvis Alvarado projects out as…fine…ish. But the bullpen will be a larger worry when the team gets closer to contention.

So, where do the A’s look to be right now? Probably slightly better than the 76 wins they finished with in 2025. But an awful lot would have to go right with the pitching to make this team anything but the fringiest of wild card contenders in 2026. I mean, sure, the A’s could sign Dylan Cease and/or Ranger Suárez, but we all know they’re not actually going to do that. On the bright side, at least these A’s are probably going to be Sacramento’s best major league baseball team ever.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time. The final team projections may differ considerably from our Depth Chart playing time.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2026 due to injury, and players who were released in 2025. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Ambient Math-Rock Trip-Hop Yacht Metal band that only performs in abandoned malls, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.16.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR. It is important to remember that ZiPS is agnostic about playing time, and has no information about, for example, how quickly a team will call up a prospect or what veteran has fallen into disfavor.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by misinformation, a non-pragmatic reality, or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter or on Bluesky. This last is, however, not an actual requirement.