For the 21st 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 and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Cleveland Guardians.

Batters

It’s weird doing the Twins and Guardians back to back, as ZiPS sees a lot of similarities between the two teams. It sees both clubs as having one mid-career future Hall of Famer, a really good outfielder, a bunch of slightly below-average players elsewhere in the lineup, a sneaky good rotation with one starter the system likes quite a bit more than the others, and an ultra-elite bullpen that should compete to be the best in baseball in 2025.

Overall, ZiPS sees the Guardians similarly to how Steamer does, though the shape of the projection is a bit different; ZiPS likes the hitting a good deal less than Steamer does, but is more optimistic than its cyber-rival when it comes to the pitching. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 21st 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 and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Minnesota Twins.

Batters

The Twins entered last September as a second-place team with a 92% chance to make the playoffs, according to ZiPS. But then, after going 9-18 that month, they finished fourth in the AL Central and fell short of the postseason. When you look at it that way, their 2024 campaign was certainly a disappointment. However, for as bad things ended, the Twins still posted a winning record (82-80) for the second consecutive year, and none of their problems down the stretch last year suggest there’s anything fundamentally broken with the organization. I mean, sure, Twins fans surely would want them to spend more aggressively, but that’s a gripe they share with the fans of the other AL Central teams.

As it turned out, Carlos Correa shockingly didn’t suddenly forget how to play baseball in 2023; he had terrific 2024 season that hopefully wiped some memories clean. One potential concern is his plantar fascitis – which he’s had in both heels at times over the last 18 months – but with a normal offseason of rest, he should begin this season on fairly strong footing, and ZiPS projects him to have a fairly typical Correa campaign.

Byron Buxton had a similarly solid comeback season. He posted a 142 wRC+, and after the Twins used him exclusively at DH in 2023 in an unsuccessful attempt to keep him healthy, he returned to center field and played above-average defense. I’d be shocked if Buxton made the 567 plate appearances that Depth Charts is projecting for him right now – he’s never done that in the majors – but when he’s playing, he remains a tantalizing talent. Given his history, I would assume the Twins are expecting to have him for about 90-100 games.

The rest of the offense is a great deal less exciting. Royce Lewis still has some upside, but he has a long injury history of his own, and his offense was fairly ordinary last year after his stunning 2023 output. Although he’s probably nearing his ceiling, right fielder Matt Wallner projects to be solidly above average over the next few years, and the catching tandem of Ryan Jeffers and Christian Vázquez is a good one. Elsewhere, though, this lineup feels more patchwork; it’s not really a giant mess, but you kind of wish it had a bit more thump.

There are some lesser projections of interest here. ZiPS isn’t high on Brooks Lee, but it does think that Edouard Julien deserves a chance to avenge his weak 2024, and there’s a real case for promoting Luke Keaschall quickly if he continues to hit in the high minors. It would be nice to see the team get one more bat in free agency, either as an upgrade over Trevor Larnach or to beef up its projected production at DH.

ZiPS expects that it’ll take a few years for Walker Jenkins to really develop his power, but it likes the aforementioned Keaschall and center field prospect Emmanuel Rodriguez.

Pitchers

Pitching-wise, the Twins had an odd season. They had a massive difference between their ERA (4.26) and FIP (3.84), finishing 21st in the former but a much more respectable seventh in the latter stat. And they did that with a rather average defense, so you can’t blame the glove work for that. The good thing is that by and large, the current pitchers on the roster don’t have a lengthy history of falling short of their FIP, which suggests that some of the weaker-than-expected performances were more blips than true concerns.

One thing that hurt the rotation wasn’t so much the primary members but some really terrible performances from the Plan B gang. Chris Paddack and David Festa drastically underperformed their peripheral numbers, and fill-ins like Louie Varland and Zebby Matthews were downright dreadful. ZiPS expects a lot more from all four pitchers, especially Matthews, and overall, it projects the rotation to be somewhere between sixth and 10th in baseball in WAR. The 2.63 HR/9 that Matthews allowed last year may look especially bad, but as I warn people, don’t go nuts over crazy short-term home run stats. A shocking number of people yelled at me in 2019 about a positive Corbin Burnes projection because of the 17 homers he allowed over 49 innings in 2019. ZiPS has little to complain about at the top of the rotation, with Pablo López, Joe Ryan, and Bailey Ober, though López is the only one of the trio that ZiPS projects to have a high long-term ceiling. If ZiPS is right, the Twins are about set here, with a strong starting five and good depth behind them.

The Twins had the second-best bullpen in the American League last year by WAR (5.9), and the good news for Minnesota fans is that the bullpen should remain terrific in 2025. In fact, though it’s certainly not an official projection yet, ZiPS believes at this moment that the Twins have the best bullpen in baseball. Jhoan Duran ought to have a better season in 2025, and now that the Twins have announced that Griffin Jax won’t be moved back to the rotation in 2025, the two of them will form a deadly one-two late-inning punch. Brock Stewart is also projected to have a better season – though his sore shoulder will need to cooperate – and aside from Jorge Alcala and Michael Tonkin, ZiPS projects every significant Minnesota reliever to have an ERA under 4.00. The Twins don’t really need to make any additions here, either. If they are going to make more moves, they should target offensive upgrades.

This is a solidly built team that is deep enough to have a pretty high floor. That said, the Twins have enough weaknesses that ZiPS puts them in the 85-88 win range right now. The AL Central projects to be one of the closer divisions in baseball, and the Twins likely will still be playing meaningful games in September.

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 2025 due to injury, and players who were released in 2024. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Ukulele Dixieland Jazz band that only covers songs by The Smiths, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.11.

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.

For the 21st 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 and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Chicago White Sox.

Batters

What can you say about Chicago’s 2024 season? The White Sox lost 121 games, which is just five fewer games than the Dodgers have lost in the last two years. If there’s good news about 2025, the team is likely to win more games — and probably quite a few more — if merely by happenstance. For a major league team to lose 120-plus games, something magical has to happen, with so much more going very, very wrong than the fates suggested was in order. I’m fairly confident the White Sox will win more games this year than last, and ZiPS projects a 20-win improvement, which would be quite impressive for most teams.

But is that a good thing? Looking at the lineup as it currently stands, I’m not quite so sure. One of the amazing things about the 2024 White Sox is that they didn’t enter the season looking to dramatically rebuild. As far as I can tell, this was a franchise that thought it was a going to be at least mildly competitive in a weak division. But when you look at the current depth chart, it doesn’t really resemble what you’d expect to see from an organization drastically changing directions. The Sox have added some competent role players, but they’re older types who are best cast as capable contributors on a good team, not starters on a team trying to build on ruin. Josh Rojas, Mike Tauchman, and Austin Slater can bolster a contender, but if any of them get the playing time they’re currently allotted on our Depth Charts, it suggests a team without any ideas. A third year of Andrew Benintendi starting doesn’t do much to disspell that impression, and if Andrew Vaughn actually has any upside remaining, it doesn’t like seem the White Sox have any idea of how to find it. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 21st 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 and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Toronto Blue Jays.

Batters

The AL East team that entered 2024 with the highest projected floor turned out to have… the lowest actual floor in 2024. Curse you, probability! The rotation disappointed last year, and a wide swathe of the starting lineup either underperformed or got injured, and in some cases, both. Read the rest of this entry »

12:00

Dan Szymborski: Let’s start the madness. I mean chat.

12:01

Dan Szymborski: Blue Jays tomorrow. I was travelling back through snow and then had to dig out my driveway and my mom’s driveway. Measured nine inches on my back lawn.

12:02

Dan Szymborski: I think it’d be close

12:02

Dan Szymborski: But on the no side

Read the rest of this entry »

For the 21st 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 and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the New York Mets.

Batters

It’s funny how a few months can change the vibes surrounding a team. After a disappointing 75-87 season in 2023, the Mets had a relatively light winter going into 2024. While the team didn’t squeeze every penny until it screamed like, say, the Marlins, Sean Manaea’s two-year, $28 million contract was the big ticket signing, with the rest of the free agents brought in came on one-year deals to fill specific short-term roster holes. The rather bland winter transitioned into an equally bland season. Or, shall I say, an equally bland start of the season. Because a funny thing happened on the way to the draft lottery: After dwelling below .500 as late as July 6, the Mets played nearly .600 ball in the second half, made it into the playoffs, and fell only two wins short of reaching the World Series.

By contrast, this winter has been a loud one, mainly due to the addition of Juan Soto, who signed the largest contract in professional sports. Soto’s addition gives the Mets one of the most feared offensive forces of this generation, and though the Mets didn’t struggle with run scoring in 2024, his addition likely wipes out the potential impact of any regression toward the mean from players like Mark Vientos or Francisco Lindor. With Soto on the team now, the Mets project as average or better at every single lineup spot. This sets up an odd kind of philosophical debate in which the Mets may be one of the teams that needs Pete Alonso’s 2025 services the least while wanting them the most! So is the life of a good first baseman heading to over-30 land and showing some early signs of fading.

ZiPS is a big fan of Jose Siri starting in center field for the Mets, and with Brandon Nimmo joining Soto at the corners, the outfield shouldn’t be a worry for the Mets. Vientos likely takes over at first in an Alonso-less world, with Brett Baty getting what is likely his last chance with the Mets. While I wouldn’t want to count on Baty working out, one has to take chances on players like him; remember when everyone was piling on the Mets before 2024 for having faith in Vientos? Over at second, Jeff McNeil’s on the downslope of his career and recovering from a broken wrist, but ZiPS thinks he’ll rebound enough to keep the position about league average. McNeil’s approach at the plate, which results in a lot of contact against pitches he really shouldn’t be swinging at, will continue to be maddening at times, of course; entering his mid-30s, he’s not likely to reinvent himself as a hitter.

Bottom line: By pairing Soto with Lindor, the Mets have a really good offense, one that may be just a skosh behind the elite ones.

Pitchers

ZiPS like the Mets’ offense quite a lot, but its cyber-feelings about the rotation are more mild satisfaction than enthrallment. Of the breakout soft-tossers from 2024, ZiPS much prefers former Met Seth Lugo to current Met Manaea. And yes, I’m old enough to still feel in my heart that it’s weird that guys throwing 92-93 mph are the soft-tossers. ZiPS does have confidence in Kodai Senga and the Clay Holmes Starting Experiment, and it sees David Peterson as a solid league-average starter. Where the computer doesn’t have much confidence is in Frankie Montas, but if he’s their fifth-best starter, they’re not doing too badly.

ZiPS believes the Mets have pretty solid starting pitching depth behind the front five, too, but oddly enough, not in the first two pitchers likely heading that queue: Paul Blackburn and Griffin Canning. The projections would much rather see Brandon Sproat get an aggressive call-up if an early need presents itself, and lesser prospect Jonah Tong also has a solid projection. Prospects like Blade Tidwell, Dom Hamel, and Nolan McLean also come out on par with or even better than the veteran backups.

As for the bullpen, ZiPS kind of sees a really polarizing unit, not all that different from what Steamer projects. Edwin Díaz, José Buttó, Reed Garrett, and Dedniel Núñez all project solidly, but then there’s a big step down to the next tier. Basically all of the WAR accrued in the ZiPS projections are from these top four relievers; of the remaining guys, ZiPS is especially skeptical about Danny Young, Génesis Cabrera, Blackburn or Canning in relief, and Chris Devenski. Getting a couple bullpen arms would benefit the Mets greatly, even though signing middle relievers wouldn’t be as sexy as landing Roki Sasaki. (Then again, maybe for the Mets it isn’t an either/or choice.)

The Mets look a lot like an 87-91 win team or so, with the possibility of adding a handful more wins with other moves this winter. I suspect the Braves and Phillies will have slightly better projections by the start of the season – unless New York pulls off another huge deal – but the Mets are right in the thick of it, and a division title is certainly a possibility.

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.