The Late-January ZiPS Projected Standings Update

In case you missed them, the 2026 ZiPS projections are now officially in the site’s projection database for your delight (or disdain), and reflect all of the signings and trades that have transpired this offseason. There’s still a week and a half to go before pitchers and catchers report, but with the full set of projections available, and it being so cold and snowy outside that I have little desire to leave my house, this seemed like a good opportunity to run the first set of ZiPS projected standings for the 2026 season. These, of course, aren’t the final projected standings, as there are likely to be significant changes between now and Opening Day. Instead, think of them as the “state of the preseason” projections.

These standings are the result of a million simulations, not results obtained from binomial or even beta-binomial magic. The methodology isn’t identical to the one we use for our Playoff Odds, which will launch soon. So how does ZiPS calculate the season? Stored within ZiPS are the first- through 99th-percentile projections for each player. I start by making a generalized depth chart, using our Depth Charts as a jumping off point. Since these are my curated projections, I make changes based on my personal feelings about who will receive playing time as filtered through arbitrary whimsy my reasoned understanding of each team. ZiPS then generates a million versions of each team in Monte Carlo fashion.

After that is done, ZiPS applies another set of algorithms with a generalized distribution of injury risk that changes the baseline plate appearances or innings pitched for each player. ZiPS then automatically and proportionally “fills in” playing time from the next players on the list to get to a full slate of plate appearances and innings.

The result is a million different rosters for each team and an associated winning percentage for each one of them. After applying the new strength of schedule calculations based on the other 29 teams, I end up with the standings for each of the million seasons. I promise this is much less complex than it sounds.

The goal of ZiPS is to be less awful than any other way of predicting the future. The future is tantalizingly close, but fundamentally beyond our knowledge, and if anyone figures out how to deflect the astrophysicist Arthur Eddington’s arrow of time, it’s probably not going to come in the form of baseball projections. So we project probabilities, not certainties. If that does not satisfy you, just assume that any deviation from the actual results is due to flaws in reality.

Over the last decade, ZiPS has averaged 19.1 correct teams when looking at the Vegas preseason over/under lines. I’m always tinkering with methodology, but most of the low-hanging fruit in predicting how teams will perform has already been harvested. ZiPS’ misses for teams from year to year are uncorrelated, with an r-squared of one year’s miss to the next of 0.000557. In other words, none of the year-to-year misses for individual franchises have told us anything about future misses for those franchises.

Also remember that these are median standings, meaning that they represent every team’s 50th-percentile projection. These have a tighter range than the actual standings because we don’t expect every team to hit their 50th-percentile projection, but rather for three teams, on average, to beat their 90th-percentile projection, six to beat their 80th-percentile projection, and so on. The highest median win total projected in the AL Central right now is 83 wins, but that’s very different than projecting that the best team in the AL Central will win 83 games. In fact, the AL Central winner in the simulation averages 90.5 wins!

So let’s get to the standings, starting with the AL East:

ZiPS doesn’t see the AL East all that differently from how it did last preseason, though it does anticipate a slightly larger separation at the top of the division, with the Jays and Red Sox tied for first, and the Orioles and Yankees falling a couple of games back. There is a difference in the projection profiles of the Red Sox and Jays, however. Despite the same median win projection, ZiPS sees the Red Sox with a very slightly better downside due to their depth and flexibility, while the Blue Jays have more high-end uncertainty. If the Blue Jays roll high on George Springer and Anthony Santander, Trey Yesavage is as good as he has been in his brief professional history, and we get either an MVP version of Vladito or an Andrés Giménez who rediscovers his early offensive potential, this team is the most dangerous one in the American League. The Orioles haven’t added a high-end pitcher, but they have added some stability, and the lineup looks solid.

The Rays still project to have a decent chance to make the playoffs — they make the playoff more often in simulations than Aaron Judge hits a home run in any given at-bat — but ZiPS just doesn’t see their upside matching the other teams in the division.

Moving to the Central:

The AL Central is a fairly low-ceiling environment, so each team has some realistic chance to prevail. The Tigers are good, but their lineup is short on actual stars, and the natural risk of pitcher injury means that they don’t get 100% Tarik Skubal in a lot of their simulations. And without 100% Skubal, this team looks a lot less intimidating. The Royals have some holes, but the left side of the infield is crazy-good and the pitching is on relatively safe ground. The Guardians have lineup concerns and a rather low-impact, though stable, starting rotation, and ZiPS doesn’t believe the Twins are anywhere near as bad as much of baseball thinks.

The division is weak enough that there’s even a chance that the White Sox steal the thing. The team isn’t actually good at the moment, but unlike last season, they haven’t larded the April lineup with a bunch of older retreads. Every starting hitter, with the probable exception of Andrew Benintendi, has some cognizable breakout potential. Taking a risk like signing Munetaka Murakami is exactly what the White Sox should be doing, and I don’t often say the White Sox are doing exactly what the White Sox should be doing. To the West:

ZiPS projects the Mariners to be the class of the division, but it would warn you not to write off the Astros, even without Framber Valdez. This isn’t the world beating team of the late 2010s, but the ‘Stros are largely devoid of serious holes, though there are real depth concerns that could come back to bite them.

Adding MacKenzie Gore definitely improves Texas’ rotation, and I’m happy he probably won’t have to suffer another undeserved 5-15 record, but ZiPS still sees the Rangers as being too middling offensively and too mediocre in relief to escape baseball’s middle class. It was nice to see Jacob deGrom healthy in 2025, but ZiPS doesn’t want to bank on that.

The A’s do have postseason potential, as ZiPS thinks that they have a playoff-caliber offense, and the projections take a huge jump when a couple of the starting pitchers figure things out. Unfortunately, the computer just doesn’t see a lot to recommend the Los Angeles Angels at this time.

Shifting to the National League, beginning with the NL East:

The Phillies’ core is fairly old, so this team is not inevitable, though ZiPS still thinks they’re the one to bet on in 2026. ZiPS expects a bounce-back season from Aaron Nola, and a lot will come down to just how healthy and effective Zack Wheeler is. If Wheeler gets back on track quickly, the Phils ought to be able to shrug off Ranger Suárez’s departure fairly effectively. Andrew Painter’s projections aren’t exciting, but he does have significant upside remaining.

Despite the loss of Pete Alonso, ZiPS thinks the Mets had a pretty effective offseason. The feeling of impending disaster is just a characteristic of the franchise. The Braves ought to have a better season, but there’s simply more uncertainty and a bit less upside than there was when this team was cruising along. Turning to the Central:

ZiPS doesn’t see a lot of big changes in this division compared to last season. The Brewers have moved a bit in the projections, looking strong even without Freddy Peralta in large part because I’m giving more playing time to the players ZiPS likes than I usually do, as my failure to do so has been the biggest reason the system has underestimated Milwaukee in recent years. I have no idea what projection systems the Brewers care about, but they give a lot of playing time to surprising guys who ZiPS likes, and it has mostly worked out for them. The Cubs remain very strong, with ZiPS mainly concerned about the rotation.

ZiPS sees the remaining three teams as all having serious enough problems that they’d need a lot of things to go their way to threaten the Brewers and the Cubs. Both the Reds and Pirates are towards the bottom of baseball in projected value from their starting lineups, and the Cardinals, while fairly stable, simply lack some of the high-end potential that the other two also-rans have in players like Paul Skenes and Elly De La Cruz. Finally, the West:

The Dodgers are still the class of the division, but their invincibility has been vastly overrated. That they won the last two World Series championships doesn’t mean they were overwhelming favorites to do so. But hey, this is the best projection in baseball, so one can hardly complain too much.

ZiPS remains unsure of Arizona’s rotation, and doesn’t see it taking much in the way of starting pitcher injuries for the wheels to fall off the Padres. The Giants ought to have a pretty valuable lineup, but their rotation has serious questions of its own after Logan Webb. I think the Rockies are doing a lot of what they need to do, and have for the last year or so, but we’re still seeing the long-term effects of just how wrecked the organization was during the Jeff Bridich era. I’m optimistic about Paul DePodesta’s operation long-term, but right now, they’re still the equivalent of the contestant on Top Chef whose secret ingredient in the upcoming challenge is revealed to be gym socks. It’s going to be a while until this team is good. But hey, their playoff probability doesn’t round to 0%!

That’s all for now! I’ll run another update once spring training starts in a few weeks. Hopefully some of the remaining free agents will find new homes before then.