FanGraphs Power Rankings: Spring Training 2026 (No. 1–17)

Pitchers and catchers start reporting to Arizona and Florida this week, which means it’s time to wrap up our pre-spring training power rankings. Last week, we took stock of how the projections viewed the bottom 18 teams in baseball as they head into camp. Today, we’ll shift our focus to the teams projected to finish with a .500 or better record in 2026. These rankings provide a good barometer for which teams took big steps forward with splashy signings and trades this offseason, and which ones have been left in the dust.

Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. For these pre-spring training rankings, I’ve pulled the Depth Charts projections — now powered by both the 2026 Steamer and ZiPS projections — and calculated an implied Elo ranking for each team. First up are the full rankings presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams we’re covering today into tiers, with comments on each club. The delta column in the table below shows the change in ranking from the last offseason run of the power rankings in November.

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After winning back-to-back championships, the Dodgers refused to stand pat with what would have already been the best roster in baseball even without any offseason additions. Instead, they went out and got better, signing Edwin Díaz to stabilize the bullpen and Kyle Tucker to man right field. That commitment to improvement and refusal to be satisfied are the big reasons why Los Angeles has been a model franchise for more than a decade now. Baseball being baseball, the best roster on paper in the spring isn’t guaranteed hardware in the fall, but the Dodgers have done almost everything they could this winter to ensure their postseason ends with a third consecutive championship.

The Braves have fallen well short of their lofty projections each of the last two years. They still managed to sneak into the playoffs in 2024, but they weren’t so lucky last year, missing out on the postseason for the first time since 2017. The computers won’t be deterred. The projections once again think very highly of the Braves after a busy offseason. Atlanta re-signed Raisel Iglesias and brought in last year’s National League saves leader, Robert Suarez, to lock down the late innings. Mike Yastrzemski provides a bit more depth in the outfield too. Unfortunately, the injury bug that has plagued them the last two years has already struck this winter: Ha-Seong Kim, re-signed to be Atlanta’s starting shortstop, injured a tendon in his right hand in a freak accident last month. He’ll miss the first few months of the season, which means the team will have to turn to some combination of Mauricio Dubón and Jorge Mateo up the middle for the time being.

At first, it seemed like the Mets were content to let the offseason slip by them. Pete Alonso and Edwin Díaz both signed massive free agent deals away from New York in December, though the Mets managed to replace those two superstars that same month, signing Devin Williams and Jorge Polanco. Granted, neither replacement is as splashy a signing as Alonso or Díaz, but their performance on the field shouldn’t fall too short. The exodus of long-time roster fixtures wasn’t confined to those two superstars either: Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil were traded away, though New York received Marcus Semien in the Nimmo deal. Then the calendar flipped to January, and a flurry of moves came with it. Bo Bichette signed a three-year pact, and the Mets traded for both Freddy Peralta and Luis Robert Jr. in a few short days. All of a sudden, the entire infield surrounding Francisco Lindor is completely new, there’s a center fielder with a high ceiling to replace the departed Nimmo, and the starting rotation boasts a true ace to lead the group. It’s a lot of turnover in one offseason, but the team looks stronger, more flexible, and better positioned to challenge for the NL East crown than it did at the end of October.

The Mariners had two major priorities this offseason: re-sign Josh Naylor and find a flexible infielder who could play second and third base. They checked off that first priority within the first few weeks of the offseason, but the second took longer to come together. Last week, they finally figured out a trade that brought Brendan Donovan to Seattle. The Mariners are in the enviable position of having both a major league roster built to win now and a top-heavy farm system with a handful of prospects who are close to debuting. The challenge is finding opportunities for those youngsters to transition to the big leagues without affecting the team’s playoff odds too much. That makes Donovan an ideal fit. The team will head into spring training with Cole Young penciled in as the starter at second base, while giving Colt Emerson an opportunity to earn a spot on the Opening Day roster. Donovan should see most of his time at third, but his flexibility gives the team a more-than-capable backup plan if Young stumbles or Emerson forces the issue.

The Phillies accomplished the necessary, if uninspired, work of re-signing Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto to keep their veteran core intact for the foreseeable future. Bringing in Adolis García to bolster the outfield is a risky bet on a potential bounce back, but he should at least be better than Nick Castellanos was in 2025. It also looks like Philadelphia will be giving Justin Crawford and Andrew Painter opportunities to make the Opening Day roster this spring. Both of those prospects have lingering questions — health for Painter, the viability of his bat for Crawford — but graduating them to the majors is an important step towards building the next generation of contributors after the team’s aging stars depart or decline.

The Tigers had a very eventful couple of days last week. First, they signed Framber Valdez to a huge three-year deal to give the team a legit number two starter to pair with Tarik Skubal. And speaking of their two-time Cy Young award winner, Detroit lost their landmark arbitration case against their ace the day after signing Valdez. We’ll save any discussion of Skubal’s future with the ballclub for another time, but for now, that one-two punch atop the rotation makes the Tigers the clear favorite in their division and elevates them just a hair behind Seattle for the best projected record in the American League.

After a fairly successful season that ended in a disappointing exit in the Divisional round, the Cubs reloaded this winter and look like the strongest team in the NL Central. At least on paper — that’s also what the projections thought last year, but the surprising strength of the Brewers meant that Chicago had to settle for second place in the division. Alex Bregman replaces Kyle Tucker as the ex-Astro du jour, while the rest of the lineup that was so solid in 2025 largely returns. The Cubs pitching staff has also been overhauled, with most of the effort geared towards bolstering the bullpen. Edward Cabrera is a nice addition to the rotation, while Justin Steele should return from his elbow injury at some point early in the season. All in all, the Cubs look a lot like they did at this point last year: good enough to win their division, but still a step behind the best teams in the NL.

The top four teams in the AL East are all projected to finish within two wins of each other. That should make for a dramatic summer as they all race to claim the division. The Yankees sit just a bit ahead of the other three teams in this tier, though they didn’t do much to elevate their roster this offseason. Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt, and Trent Grisham were all re-signed, and the trade for Ryan Weathers gives the rotation a bit of depth as the team waits for Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón to return from their respective injuries. It’s still largely the same ballclub that finished tied with the Blue Jays for the best record in the AL last year — Devin Williams is the only significant player who didn’t return. It wasn’t an inspired offseason, but New York did just enough to remain slight favorites in the toughest division in baseball.

If their postseason performance is anything to go by, the Blue Jays shouldn’t have a hard time challenging the Yankees for the division crown again in 2026. Yes, the loss of Bo Bichette will hurt somewhat, but Andrés Giménez is a fantastic defender even if his bat doesn’t come close to Bichette’s. Instead of re-signing their star shortstop, the Jays chose to make a splash by signing Dylan Cease to a seven-year deal to bolster the rotation. That group should also benefit from full seasons from Trey Yesavage and Shane Bieber. Toronto also fortified its depth by signing Kazuma Okamoto and Cody Ponce from Japan and Korea, respectively, and added Tyler Rogers to the relief corps.

Boston’s failure to re-sign Alex Bregman or bring in a comparable infielder looms large this offseason. On Monday, the Red Sox acquired Caleb Durbin from the Brewers, giving them a flexible young infielder they can plug in at second or third. Durbin isn’t a star like Bregman, but he’s a solid player who just finished third in the NL Rookie of the Year voting last year. That move likely puts a cap on a very busy offseason for the Red Sox where they managed to improve nearly every other part of their roster. Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras came over in a pair of trades with the Cardinals, and the additions of Ranger Suárez and Johan Oviedo lengthen what was already a pretty deep starting rotation.

The Orioles finally spent big to supplement the young core they’ve been developing over the last few years. Pete Alonso immediately provides a powerful bat to anchor Baltimore’s lineup, though the team didn’t do as much to improve their starting rotation. Trading for Shane Baz and re-signing Zach Eflin were decent moves, but neither profiles as a top of the rotation arm and both have lengthy injury histories. That means the O’s are banking on a healthy season from Kyle Bradish to raise the ceiling of their rotation. With Félix Bautista injured again, Ryan Helsley was brought in to handle the ninth inning; hopefully he’s up to the task after a brutal finish to the season last year. The Orioles looks like they’ve improved the roster this offseason, but not enough to cover all of their weaknesses. That puts the team fourth in a very competitive division and right in the middle of a wide open Wild Card field in the AL.

On the heels of winning their third consecutive NL Central title, and their fifth in the last eight years, the Brewers reloaded to try and extend their competitive window a bit. That meant trading away Freddy Peralta, their de facto ace, and getting back two Top 100 prospects from the Mets. Both Jett Williams and Brandon Sproat should make an impact in Milwaukee sooner rather than later, and the return of Brandon Woodruff should give the rotation a frontline arm — provided he stays healthy. Monday’s trade of Caleb Durbin and Andruw Monasterio is a little harder to parse. Durbin seemed like the kind of flexible infielder Milwaukee has hoarded recently, though maybe that made him expendable; the trade allowed them to get some additional help for the rotation in the form of former top prospect Kyle Harrison. Even though the projections aren’t buying everything the Brew Crew did this winter, I’m sure they’ll be right in the thick of the race for another division championship this fall.

After installing Tony Vitello as manager in early November, the Giants spent most of the rest of the offseason making a bunch smaller moves. There weren’t any big splashes, but the sum of all these additions should raise the floor of San Francisco’s roster significantly. Tyler Mahle and Adrian Houser should provide some solid innings for the starting rotation, while Luis Arraez and Harrison Bader lengthen the lineup. Bader, in particular, was a key addition — his excellent defense should play well in Oracle Park’s expansive center field and also allows Jung Hoo Lee to shift to right. As it stands, the Giants’ roster isn’t good enough to compete with the Dodgers in the NL West — no one’s is, really — but it looks like they might be able to break out of the cycle of mediocrity they’ve been stuck in for the last four years.

No team did more to improve their position in these rankings this offseason than the Pirates. Back in November, they were projected to fall a hair short of .500 with 80 wins. They’re now on the other side of that threshold with a projection of 82 wins. All it took was a handful of trades and a couple of the largest position player free agent signings in franchise history. Never mind that those free agents were Ryan O’Hearn and Marcell Ozuna, though they’ll likely be the two most potent bats in their lineup this year. Pittsburgh also brought in Brandon Lowe, Jake Mangum, and Mason Montgomery in a three-way trade that sent Mike Burrows to Houston. Dealing from their starting pitching surplus to improve their offense was the obvious move to make, especially since a wave of young starters — including Braxton Ashcraft, Bubba Chandler, and a returning Jared Jones — look ready to make an impact in the big leagues. Oh, and Paul Skenes looks primed to win another Cy Young award. We’ll see if the lineup is improved enough to follow through on this exciting projection.

After dealing with a rash of injuries to their rotation and letting Framber Valdez walk in free agency, the Astros spent most of this offseason fortifying their pitching staff. They signed Tatsuya Imai and Ryan Weiss from Japan and Korea, respectively, and traded for Mike Burrows. All three are a little unproven and definitely don’t profile like a frontline ace as Valdez does. Hunter Brown is more than capable of stepping into that role, but the rest of the new look rotation doesn’t project as a strength yet. There’s also the matter of the crowded infield. Carlos Correa was brought in last summer after Isaac Paredes injured his hamstring. Well, Paredes is healthy now, but they don’t really have a full-time role for him to play with Correa slated for third base, Jose Altuve shifting back to second, and Christian Walker manning first. These spring playing time logjams have a way of figuring themselves out by the time Opening Day rolls around, but it’s a puzzle the team will need to figure out soon.

The Diamondbacks are in a weird place. Half of their roster is built to win now — Ketel Marte isn’t getting any younger, and they need to capitalize on the prime years of Corbin Carroll and Geraldo Perdomo. Unfortunately, the pitching staff is in shambles, and the team didn’t do much to piece any of it together this offseason. It doesn’t help that Corbin Burnes, Justin Martinez, and A.J. Puk all went under the knife last summer; that’s their best starter and two of their best relievers out until after the All-Star break at least. Merrill Kelly re-signed after being dealt away last summer and the team traded for Nolan Arenado; those are both fine additions, but neither moved the needle all that much. They’re just stuck in this limbo between truly contending and rebuilding, waiting for their pitching staff to get healthy again.

The Royals addressed their black hole in the outfield by trading for Isaac Collins and signing Lane Thomas. Still, while both are useful role players, and certainly better than what Kansas City was working with last year, neither provide much impact. Of course, it’s possible the Royals already have that impact outfielder on their roster if Jac Caglianone can figure things out this year. Extending Maikel Garcia was a good bit of business, however. It does seem like the team is banking on the new outfield dimensions to boost its offense some. Of course, a smaller outfield will also have an effect on a pitching staff that was fourth in the majors in run prevention last year. The Royals added a bunch of new arms to the bullpen, and the starting rotation looks just as solid and deep as it did last year. There are some promising pieces here, and having Bobby Witt Jr. certainly helps, but Kansas City still sits well behind the Tigers in the AL Central projections.