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 Cleveland Guardians.

Batters

The 2025 Cleveland Guardians proved that necromancy is, in fact, possible, and despite looking dead by the All-Star break, they went on a monumental late-season tear to close a 12 1/2-game gap in the AL Central over the last five weeks of the season. While the season ended in dissatisfying fashion, with the Guardians dropping the Wild Card Series in three games to the Detroit Tigers, just getting to the playoffs in 2025 felt like they were playing with house money. The fun of Cleveland’s postseason run did hide some serious problems with the team, though, most notably an offense that scored fewer runs than every team except the Pirates and Rockies. The Guardians may have made their big September surge without Emmanuel Clase’s services, but the loss of their best reliever — for what is looking more and more likely to be forever — removes a key part of their core. Cleveland did win 88 games, but the team was outscored by its opponents on the year, and the context of this sentence ought to indicate to you, fair reader, whether run differential or actual wins has more predictive value.

ZiPS projects the Guardians to have a lot of the same strengths and weaknesses as the Twins in 2026. On offense, ZiPS sees both teams as having one hitter it really likes, with José Ramírez being the healthier star compared to Byron Buxton. Then, each team has a couple position players the system likes, with Steven Kwan and the catchers — OK, Bo Naylor — standing in as Cleveland’s version of Luke Keaschall and the Minnesota catchers. But just like with the Twins, once you get past the top guys, ZiPS sees a whole lotta mid going ’round in Cleveland. Kyle Manzardo’s uneven platoon splits keep his ceiling fairly low, so the Guardians could use a lefty smasher to pair with him to make first base a plus position. Second base is fine at the moment, and it should be even better than that if Travis Bazzana, the computer’s preference, pushes for the job sooner rather than later.

The projections look most problematic at center field and designated hitter. Lots of teams slum it at DH, so I can see the Guardians just rolling with [insert mediocre burly batter here] at the position, but there’s probably at least some chance that they’ll make an upgrade in center. Harrison Bader is probably the most interesting option available, at least of the players that the Guardians could theoretically afford; I’d be really surprised to see them want to shell out the cash needed to bring in Cody Bellinger. Perhaps a trade is more likely for Cleveland than signing either free agent.

Put it all together and the Guardians have a below-average offense with some real highlights. Yes, I still think Ramírez is one of the most underrated players of this generation, and I’m already planning my social media meltdowns for 10-15 years from now when I see Hall of Fame ballots with his box unchecked. ZiPS is projecting him for yet another 20/20 season with more than 4 WAR, and considering he’s gone 30/40 with more than 6 WAR in each of the past two seasons, it wouldn’t be surprising to him exceed even ZiPS’ expectations for his age-33 season.

Pitchers

ZiPS is much more confident about the state of the Guardians pitching staff than the lineup. Even if neither pitcher really fits the mold of a typical ace, ZiPS expects both Tanner Bibee and Gavin Williams to surpass 3 WAR based on our Depth Chart playing time. There aren’t any big names in this rotation after Bibee and Williams, but ZiPS sees Slade Cecconi, Logan Allen, and Parker Messick as quietly competent starters. ZiPS has had a silicon-crush on Joey Cantillo for a while now, and led by Austin Peterson, the team has pretty good depth in the form of unexciting pitchers with generally decent command. These are the types that Cleveland, like the A’s, has historically produced like clockwork. Luis Ortiz has a good projection as well, but like Clase, it looks like he won’t ever pitch again in the majors or affiliated ball; the good news is the rotation is deep enough to withstand his likely absence.

Last year, ZiPS was quite taken with the Cleveland bullpen, projecting a 5.9 Depth Chart WAR over the winter. That’s one of those fortune-readings that worked out, as the Guardians actually beat that, finishing the season with 6.6 WAR out of the pen. Crossing out Clase, Sam Hentges, and Nic Enright takes this unit down a notch, but the Guardians still project to have a solid group of relievers. A good bullpen can have Cade Smith as its best reliever, and Hunter Gaddis, Erik Sabrowski, and Tim Herrin make for a darn good trio of lieutenants. ZiPS sees Cantillo as being very good when used in relief, and while he’ll have to break out to get a lot of innings in the majors, there are so many good upside scenarios for Franco Aleman that the computer is far less annoyed than you may expect about his walk rate in Triple-A. The only prominent denizen on the bullpen depth chart that ZiPS is uneasy about is Peyton Pallette, a Rule 5 draftee last week.

All told, the Guardians will likely end up at 80-85 wins, which puts them a little bit behind the Royals and Tigers, but not so far back that it would be crazy to see Cleveland surpass them in the standings.

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.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Ha-Seong Kim, Adrian Houser, and Foster Griffin signings, a prospect-for-prospect Red Sox and Nationals trade, and the Twins’ partial sale, then (34:00) answer emails about saying “pitchoff” instead of “first pitch,” the value of a cool nickname, a Hall of Fame reference in The Wizard of Oz, whether teams value batter performance against elite pitching, protesting ball/strike calls from the dugout, keeping Pete Rose out of the Hall, a running start for pitchers, and moving the catcher back instead of the mound.

Audio intro: Alex Glossman and Ali Breneman, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: The Shirey Brothers, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to FG post on Kim
Link to Anthopoulos comments on Kim
Link to MLBTR on Houser
Link to MLBTR on Griffin
Link to FG post on pitching prospects trade
Link to Twins sale story
Link to $/WAR analysis
Link to $/WAR analysis 2
Link to ceremonial first puck wiki
Link to “baseball exceptionalism” series
Link to Sam’s hockey quote
Link to Raleigh “Beef Boys” story
Link to Sam on Trout in 2012
Link to The Wizard of Oz song
Link to halls of fame wiki
Link to Hall of Fame for Great Americans
Link to Schwarber’s postseason stats
Link to pitcher quality adjustment post
Link to Capps hop post
Link to Ben on moving the mound
Link to listener emails database

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On Monday morning, the Twins signed Josh Bell to a one-year contract with a mutual option for 2027. Between salary, signing bonus, and option buyout, the deal guarantees Bell $7 million. A couple hours later, the Phillies and outfielder Adolis García agreed to terms on a one-year, $10 million contract.

Look around whatever room you’re sitting in as you read this. Consider the material of the walls, the furniture, whatever appliances (if any) are in view. The carpet, or wood or laminate or tile of the floor. Pens and pencils, soap, hand lotion, power cables, books, magazines, children’s toys… whatever you can see, you know what it’d feel like and taste like if you licked it.

That’s from experience. At some point in your life, you put everything you encountered in your mouth, just to see what would happen. If you’ve ever raised a child, or met a child, or been a child, you know kids are always putting stuff in their mouths. You know equally well that kids aren’t supposed to do that. They could choke, or get sick, or otherwise come to harm by licking the sidewalk.

But they do it anyway, no matter how forcefully their parents remind them not to. There’s only one way to know for sure what the TV remote tastes like, and it’s too important an issue to take anyone else’s word for it. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, the Braves must have liked what they saw. After Atlanta claimed Ha-Seong Kim off waivers in September and watched him decline his $16 million option for the 2026 season, the team is bringing him back on a one-year, $20 million contract. In a rare coup, Jon Heyman scooped the Braves by breaking the news before they could slap some text onto their trusty press release template and post a JPEG to social media. (Peter Labuza of Twins Daily made note of the most important part of the deal: The press release featured no mention of Kim donating 1% of his salary to the Atlanta Braves Foundation.) The reunion isn’t necessarily surprising, as president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos expressed interest in bringing Kim back when he opted out. However, the deal represents a departure from Atlanta’s recent strategy, and doesn’t match most of the estimates of what Kim would get in free agency.

This is the first time the Braves have deigned to spend money on the shortstop position since they let Dansby Swanson walk in 2022. They rolled with Orlando Arcia in 2023, and he rewarded them with a 100 wRC+ and 2.4 WAR. When Arcia reverted back to his career norms with a 72 wRC+ in 2023, the Braves got just 0.7 WAR from the position, fifth worst in the league. The punchless, slick-fielding Nick Allen didn’t work out in 2025, prompting the team to claim Kim; on the year, Atlanta’s 0.4 WAR at short was third from the bottom. They recently traded Allen to Houston in exchange for utilityman Mauricio Dubón, who has surprisingly good numbers at short but isn’t really an everyday option. The Braves are clearly sick of having a gaping black hole at short, but you might not be prepared for just how big a departure this is. Swanson made just $10 million in his final year of arbitration, meaning the Braves are about to spend double the amount they’ve ever spent on a shortstop.

Coming into the offseason, most estimates had Kim signing a deal like the one he signed with the Rays last year: two or three years with an opt-out for something like $15 million per year. That made sense, because he was still in a similar position. After a brilliant seven-year KBO career, Kim struggled in his first stateside campaign, then settled in as a reliably above-average middle infielder for the Padres. From 2022 to 2024, he combined great defense with a 106 wRC+, averaging 3.7 WAR per 150 games. That’s a borderline All-Star at a premium position. In 2023, Kim won a Gold Glove and earned some MVP votes. He looked primed for a payday and a long contract heading into free agency. Instead, he tore the labrum in his right shoulder diving back into first base against the Rockies in August 2024. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

For the past several election cycles, as a means of completing my coverage of the major candidates before the December 31 voting deadline, I’ve grouped together some candidates into a single overview, inviting readers wishing to (re)familiarize themselves with the specifics of their cases to check out older profiles that don’t require a full re-working because very little has changed, even with regards to their voting shares. This year, I’m adding Bobby Abreu — a candidate for whom I’ve voted five times thus far and intend to include again — to a pair I’ve yet to include on my ballots.

Before Joe Mauer began starring for the Twins, there was Torii Hunter. Before Chase Utley began starring for the Phillies, they had Abreu and Jimmy Rollins. Hunter, a rangy, acrobatic center fielder who eventually won nine Gold Gloves and made five All-Star teams, debuted with Minnesota in 1997 and emerged as a star in 2001, the same year the Twins chose Mauer with the number one pick of the draft. The pair would play together from 2004 to ’07, making the playoffs twice before Hunter departed in free agency. Abreu, a five-tool player with dazzling speed, a sweet left-handed stroke, power, and outstanding plate discipline, quickly blossomed upon being traded to the Phillies in November 1997. But even while hitting at least 20 homers, stealing at least 20 bases, and batting above .300, recognition largely eluded him until he made All-Star teams in 2004 and ’05. Rollins, a compact shortstop who carried himself with a swagger, debuted in 2001 and made two All-Star teams before he and Utley began an 11-year run (2004–14) as the Phillies’ regular double play combination. By the time the pair of middle infielders helped Philadelphia to five NL East titles, two pennants, and a championship — with Rollins winning NL MVP honors in 2007 and taking home four Gold Gloves — Abreu was gone, traded to the Yankees in mid-2006.

All three players enjoyed lengthy and impressive careers, racking up over 2,400 hits apiece with substantial home run and stolen base totals. From a Hall of Fame perspective, Rollins and Hunter have credentials that appeal more to traditionally minded voters than to statheads — particularly their Gold Gloves — while Abreu, despite half a dozen .300 seasons and eight with at least 100 RBI, was a stathead favorite. Regardless, they’ve all spent years languishing on the ballot. Hunter debuted with 9.5% in 2021 but has yet to match that since, scraping by in 2025 with just 5.1%; one fewer vote and he’d have been bumped off the ballot. Rollins debuted with 9.4% in 2022 and has gained roughly two or three points in each cycle since, with 18% in ’25. Abreu barely made the cut with just 5.5% in his 2020 debut, and since then has alternated small gains and losses; he received 19.5% in 2025. Read the rest of this entry »

Throughout history, the Miami Marlins have only produced four kinds of season: The star-studded World Series team of 1997, the star-studded last place team of 2012, unwatchable detritus, and a feisty .500ish club with some fun talent. (The 2003 World Series-winning Marlins were the latter group, plus a one-year cameo by Ivan Rodriguez.)

The 2025 Marlins were expected to be unwatchable detritus, but turned out to be feisty and competitive. I don’t think anyone would accuse these Marlins of being as talented as previous feisty-competitive Miami squads. I’m thinking of the 2014 squad that won 77 games with a roster that featured Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna, Nathan Eovaldi, as well as (very briefly) Enrique Hernández, J.T. Realmuto, Andrew Heaney, and José Fernández.

That team looked like a juggernaut in the making, because it had a roster full of guys who would spend most of the next decade starting for playoff teams. Just, you know, other playoff teams, and not the Marlins. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, the Boston Red Sox and the Washington Nationals swapped pitching prospects in a one-for-one challenge trade that will likely have an impact on both clubs in 2026. Hard-throwing 22-year-old righty Luis Perales heads to Washington, while changeup-oriented lefty Jake Bennett goes to Boston. Both pitchers participated in the 2025 Arizona Fall League, starting a game against each other on November 1.

Of the two, I slightly prefer the 25-year-old Bennett, who I have evaluated as a near-ready starter and a potential Top 100 prospect this offseason due to his floor and proximity to the majors. Bennett entered pro ball much more fully formed than most pitching prospects from a stamina standpoint, as he worked 117 innings as a junior at Oklahoma. He had Tommy John at the very end of his first pro season, in September of 2023, which cost him all of 2024. He returned to action this past May, and his stuff was up about two ticks compared to when he was last healthy, while his feel for location was intact. He posted a 2.27 ERA across 75.1 innings while reaching Double-A, then picked up 20 more innings in Arizona and was added to the Nationals 40-man roster after the season. Read the rest of this entry »

Every winter, the shiniest free agents on the market capture the attention of baseball fans everywhere. “Ooh, could you imagine Kyle Tucker in my team’s colors?” That’s a fun conversation regardless of which team you root for. But most teams aren’t going to sign Kyle Tucker. Most teams aren’t going to sign a top 10 free agent, period. Indeed, come June and July, there’s a good chance that the free agent signing you’re going to either laud or rue will involve some reliever you’d never heard of six months prior. So let’s meet a batch of pitchers who are going to make fans remember their name, one way or another, in 2026: Hoby Milner, Mark Leiter Jr., and Colin Holderman.

I used to think of Hoby Milner as one of the unending wave of Brewers who looked unbeatable in navy and gold and unspectacular elsewhere, but as it turns out, that was unfair to him. He departed the upper Midwest for the first time since 2020 last winter, signing a $3 million deal with the Texas Rangers after Milwaukee non-tendered him. Far from crashing out, though, he spun another solid season, his fourth in a row, while handling 70.1 innings of the highest-leverage work of his career. He finished the season with a 3.84 ERA and a 3.39 FIP, pretty much a dead ringer for his career numbers.

Why, then, is his deal with the Chicago Cubs for just one year and $3.75 million? It’s because he’s an extreme lefty specialist, and that skill set generally comes with a limited market. Milner isn’t a traditional late-inning reliever, a matchup-proof flamethrower. He has enormous platoon splits, triple the league average for lefty pitchers over a fairly substantial sample. It’s for exactly the reason you’d expect: Milner throws sidearm and with little velocity, relying on a sweeper that he throws nearly half the time against lefties to tie them into knots. 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 Minnesota Twins.

Batters

The Minnesota Twins are in a weird place. They looked to be legitimate AL Central contenders when this year began, but for the second straight year, they started slowly and dug themselves a pretty good hole. Just like in 2024, the Twins then got hot, surged to a bit over .500, and looked to right the ship somewhat in May and early June. But this year, after six weeks of lousy play knocked them out for good, they traded away Carlos Correa, and half of their bullpen, including Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax, slashing payroll and appearing to set off a full rebuilding process. The initial buzz was that Pablo López and Joe Ryan would be looking for new homes this offseason, but they’ve stayed put so far, and the Twins are at least publicly saying they plan to build around the players they didn’t trade away. And it sort of makes sense, though I’m not sure if the Twins see it the same way I do.

The lineup looks to me — and ZiPS — as decidedly below average, but it should be noted that ZiPS is considerably less bullish about Brooks Lee at shortstop and the London Symphony Orchestra-sized cast in left field, seeing both of these positions as real problems. That puts me into the camp of having really mixed feelings about the Correa trade. One can see why a team that clearly didn’t want to run a high payroll might be uneasy spending that much money on Correa, who had one abbreviated awesome season and two underwhelming ones in Minnesota. But at the same time, Correa represented at least potential star performance at shortstop. ZiPS is a big fan of Kaelen Culpepper, who I like to imagine is the son of former Vikings quarterback Daunte Culpepper, but I’m not sure whether the Twins agree with ZiPS and plan on promoting him aggressively, or if they are simply happy to roll with Lee at shortstop. ZiPS also hopes that Emmanuel Rodriguez is healthy and cleans out left field quickly, though it’s still on the fence about the future of Walker Jenkins.

Byron Buxton remains, of course, the closest thing to a star on the team, but there’s always going to be the question of his health that limits the realistic expectation of his playing time. It’s encouraging that he had the most plate appearances of his major league career in 2025, but he’s also creeping into his mid-30s, when players become less durable. I remember being 32, also, and that was about the time where the aches and pains that I assumed would just magically go away in a week just… didn’t.

ZiPS is fine with Luke Keaschall at second, and sees Royce Lewis, Matt Wallner, and Ryan Jeffers as the serviceable middle class of the lineup. But in addition to the poor projections at shortstop and in left, the DH ones are unimpressive, and ZiPS sees very little merit in the Josh Bell signing. Overall, I’m not sure the Twins really have the lineup to be anything but fringe AL Central contenders. While they’ve talked about building around their remaining talent, that also doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll spend that much to work on their current holes rather than trying to develop in-house options over the next two or three years.

Pitchers

Keeping Ryan and López, if that’s what the Twins actually plan to do, is a pretty big deal. With those two at the top, Minnesota would have a legitimate playoff-caliber rotation. Bailey Ober’s history is better than his 2025 performance, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to see him as a fine mid-rotation starter, and ZiPS has always been stanning for Zebby Matthews. Simeon Woods Richardson, Taj Bradley, and Mick Abel all get highly useful projections from ZiPS, and the computer really likes the organization’s minor league depth.

Meanwhile, Minnesota’s bullpen is interesting. Losing Duran and Jax really crossed out the top tier of the bullpen, but ZiPS still sees the remaining relievers as far more than merely viable. Cole Sands, Kody Funderburk, and Justin Topa all project as solid B-minus relievers, and ZiPS expects the Twins’ tradition of cobbling together a lot of their random Triple-A arms into real bullpen options to continue in 2026. Pierson Ohl, Connor Prielipp, David Festa, Andrew Morris, and Eric Orze all have projections just a shade less sunny than the first three pitchers mentioned at the top of the paragraph.

The easiest thing for people to do is set this past season as a baseline and understand that this team isn’t going to be much better in 2026. But using last season’s record as a baseline is generally a poor idea, as there’s a good argument that a lot of the 2025 Twins underperformed their actual ability. It’s the same kind of shortcut reasoning that caused people to underrate the Blue Jays going into this season, assuming that the Jays had to build up from their actual 74-win total in 2024 rather than from something closer to 81-83 wins, which was about Toronto’s true talent level. The 2025 Twins were better than a 70-92 team, but they do have some problems with their offense that they may or may not address between now and next season. If the season started today, the Twins look like a roughly .500 team, with their expected win total somewhere in the 78-84 range, but they’re close enough to good that if they were to hit their upside scenario, they could be an interesting contender. How much the Twins end up pushing that upside scenario, rather than simply deciding not to make the team worse, is something I just don’t know yet.

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.