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 Washington Nationals.

Batters

Washington’s rebuild continued in 2025, but unfortunately, not a lot of progress was made. The young offensive core of James Wood, Dylan Crews, CJ Abrams, and Luis García Jr. didn’t take any huge steps forward, and two of them, Crews and García, arguably both took second steps in the wrong direction. That foundational talent really added only Daylen Lile in 2025, and the offensive holes from a year ago largely remain in place as the team turns toward 2026. MacKenzie Gore still looks like a legitimate no. 2 starter, but it seems as likely that he’ll be traded as it is that he’ll return to the Nationals rotation in 2026. As for the rest of the pitching, I’d prefer not to talk about that until I have to.

At least on the offense, unlike for those of a lot of baseball’s cellar dwellers, the Nats aren’t really abysmal anywhere. Problem is, there’s not much greatness here, either. Wood is the closest to that; he’s a burgeoning star who ended the year with fine numbers, but he only just completed his first full season and still has plenty of developing to do. He struggled after participating in the Home Run Derby as players tend to do* and only hit seven home runs in the second half. He’s not multi-faceted in his offensive contributions, at least not yet, but he can hit-ball-smash-ball with the best of them, and is the best player on the team.

*That was just to see if you’re paying attention. Of course that’s not actually a thing.

The rest of the Nats offense, though, features a lot of adequate-to-decent players who awkwardly fit into the lineup. Abrams is easily the best of the rest, but you’d also much rather have him playing an easier defensive position than shortstop. García’s not a particular adept second baseman, either, and simply doesn’t hit well enough to have value at first. Andrés Chaparro could be a great fit at third if he could play third… so he’s not.

Jacob Young is a solid glove in center, but if he’s hitting like he did in 2025 instead of in 2024, he’s only a fifth outfielder in the majors. Brady House is not likely to be an offensive plus at third base. Crews still has a ton of upside, but 2025 served as an icy cold shower to his prospectitude. ZiPS is basically in full-on nope mode with Keibert Ruiz at this point.

Nor is there likely to be immediate help from the minors. Eli Willits and Luke Dickerson are not going to make an impact instantly, and ZiPS just doesn’t see any big bats lurking on the farm. Sure, Robert Hassell III got a special logo for the depth chart, but that’s mostly because I just rewatched Rocky III a few weeks ago and it amused me.

Pitchers

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OK, that might not fool Meg and Matt, so I may have to actually talk about the pitching.

(Editor’s note from Matt: It’s not that it didn’t fool me so much as I don’t speak code and didn’t understand it. So yes, Dan has to talk about the pitching.)

The most interesting starting pitchers outside of Gore, in ZiPS’ eyes, are Cade Cavalli and DJ Herz, the only two starters it projects with an ERA under 4.50. Cavalli is the most interesting in my eyes as well, as he can still hit the high-90s, and being a Mike Mussina partisan, I’m going to give a lot of leeway to a guy with a mean knuckle-curve. Problem is, there are a lot of unknowns given his missed time due to a UCL tear, and he just wasn’t that great at getting out Triple-A hitters this past year. Herz is currently out with his own Tommy John surgery.

Gore, of course, is easily Washington’s best pitcher, and there’s a decent chance I’ll be writing about him again in another team’s projection article this winter, if you catch my drift. He was victimized by the team’s defense, putting up one of the least deserving 5-15 records in major league history.

At best, ZiPS sees the rest of the rotation as passable fifth starters. A returning Josiah Gray is unlikely to be the savior.

The bullpen is a very average one, but it certainly feels better than some of the pens the Nats have rolled out over the years, including when they were actually a good team. Jose A. Ferrer gets a solid projection, and Clayton Beeter, PJ Poulin, and Julian Fernández all look at least serviceable. That’s pretty much where the excitement ends, but in truth, a team that will have to do some work to hit 70 wins probably doesn’t really need a great stable of relievers.

Washington’s outlook isn’t as utterly bleak as it is for some of baseball’s other terrible teams, considering there are a few real players on this roster. (Yes, the bar is that low.) However, this rebuild has not gone well, and the Nats feel as far away from contention as they were two or three years ago. They could surprise and win 75-80 games with some luck on offense, but I don’t think they have a chance to find enough to pitching to do any better than that.

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.

12:03

Dan Szymborski: And awaaaaay we go

12:03

Dan Szymborski: or, heeeeere we go

12:04

Dan Szymborski: Not often, I don’t think

12:05

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS does, but Harris is also still quite young, and *should* have higher BABIPs

Read the rest of this entry »

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 Miami Marlins.

Batters

While the Marlins were expected to need to fight hard to get out of the NL East basement in 2025, the team was surprisingly solid from midseason on, and though they never reached .500, they at least flirted with it thanks to a winning record in the second half.

A lot of the happy surprises in Miami came from the starting lineup. While a team wRC+ of 96, good for 21st in the majors, doesn’t exactly occasion a “Mission Accomplished” banner, both marks were a notable improvement on the team’s recent history. Indeed, a 96 wRC+ represents the team’s best result since 2017, that year being one of only two seasons in which the Marlins passed the century mark. While there’s no direct comparison to the team’s terrific Marcell Ozuna/Christian Yelich/Giancarlo Stanton outfield of that era, there’s actually some good young offensive talent on the team. And importantly for Miami, it’s generally inexpensive. Read the rest of this entry »

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 Atlanta Braves.

Batters

Remember how 2024 was a major disappointment for the Atlanta Braves? Well, Father Time apparently took umbrage at that description being applied to an 89-win team that at least made the playoffs, and proceeded to have his beer held as he cooked up something really disappointing in his workshop. The Braves finished with a 76-86 record, the team’s worst showing in a season where it was actually considered a viable contender coming into Opening Day since 2008. Now they hope to put things back together with more or less the same core talent.

Just looking at our depth chart, you’d feel pretty good about the Braves, except for a couple things: They look a bit worse at (almost) every position than they did at this time last year, and we’re getting those WAR numbers with quite a lot of the starters projected for at least 600 plate appearances. The first is a problem because a team with slightly better projections just won 76 games, and the second is worrisome because ZiPS is quite meh on Atlanta’s offensive talent once you get past the team’s impressive first-tier players.

The one place where the Braves did get a projection boost is at catcher, with Drake Baldwin a lot more established than he was coming into 2025. The position didn’t disappoint this season, and there’s no reason for particular worry here. Holding steady is Matt Olson, who more than pulled his weight in his fourth consecutive ironman season. His 2025 paled next to 2023’s 54-homer campaign, likely Olson’s high-water mark, but it represented a nice recovery from a down 2024.

Elsewhere, there are questions. Austin Riley missed significant time to injury, and for the third consecutive season, he shed a good chunk of his wRC+. Ronald Acuña Jr. was his usual terrific self when healthy, but after being plagued by Achilles issues, he appears to be running out of parts in his legs that haven’t been injured. Michael Harris II suddenly hit like a Double-A player for months, and though he made up some of the loss with a hot July and August, you have to have questions about a major leaguer who can go a half-season with a .234 on-base percentage. I’m also not sure that Ozzie Albies is even good anymore, which is a major bummer, as he’s now only a couple of years from hitting free agency and otherwise having the opportunity to make up for one of the worst pre-free agency contracts ever signed by a good player.

Help is unlikely to come from the minors. Atlanta has developed an impressive number of position players, but until/unless the 2025 draftees succeed, Baldwin might be the last short-term boost from within for a bit. And while the Braves aren’t cheap in the sense that teams like the Rays or Marlins are, the organization isn’t known for being super aggressive in free agency.

In short: If the Braves get a bit of good fortune for a change, this could be a really good lineup, but there’s a lot that could easily go very wrong.

Pitchers

The problem with the starting lineup’s projections repeats here, especially in the rotation: There are a lot of good projections, but they’re mostly a bit worse than they were last year. Unfortunately, pitchers being pitchers, I have less confidence in the rotation staying healthy than I do the lineup.

I’m certainly hopeful about Chris Sale, whose late-career mini-comeback has put him in plausible Hall of Fame territory, at least for me. On the plus side, his rib cage injury, like the bicycle-aided broken wrist in 2022, wasn’t a recurrence of his prior elbow problems, so I’m cautiously optimistic here. But he’s also going to be 37, an age where decline becomes a serious year-to-year concern for pitchers.

Both ZiPS and I are relatively bullish on Spencer Schwellenbach coming back from the stress fracture in his elbow, even if he has to give back some velocity to take some pressure off things. Reynaldo López’s shoulder showed no structural damage, but baseball’s medical wizards have become adept at fixing elbows quicker than shoulders, so caution is warranted there. I personally have no idea what Spencer Strider is now, as he’s lost a lot of velocity and his ability to get whiffs inside the strike zone is diminished.

The good news is that ZiPS sees Atlanta’s rotation as having better emergency options than the lineup. Bryce Elder and Hurston Waldrep are reasonable fifth starter options, and the computer thinks JR Ritchie and Lucas Braun could fill-in where needed without it being a major disaster.

ZiPS projects the bullpen to be competently average, and while nobody is forecast to be a dominant arm, the numbers don’t start looking worrisome until you get to the sixth or seventh relievers, which is true of most teams this early in the offseason. ZiPS sees Joel Payamps as a decent addition who adds some heft to the ‘pen. I expect a few moves to be made here, though it’s unlikely to be anything that would push Atlanta into being a top tier bullpen.

When you assume that a lot of injuries will inevitably happen, the Braves look like an 84-88 win team (or somewhere thereabouts) depending on who the healthy guys are. That’s better than last year’s finish, but still kind of a disappointment. Uh oh, maybe I should avoid using that word again!

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.