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:
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% | 80th | 20th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toronto Blue Jays | 90 | 72 | — | .556 | 32.1% | 40.5% | 72.6% | 4.8% | 99.8 | 82.9 |
| Boston Red Sox | 90 | 72 | — | .556 | 25.8% | 46.7% | 72.5% | 4.9% | 97.7 | 83.2 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 88 | 74 | 2 | .543 | 22.2% | 39.5% | 61.7% | 5.8% | 97.3 | 79.8 |
| New York Yankees | 87 | 75 | 3 | .537 | 18.9% | 41.4% | 60.3% | 5.4% | 96.0 | 79.7 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 75 | 87 | 15 | .463 | 1.1% | 10.6% | 11.7% | 0.5% | 82.6 | 67.5 |
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:
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% | 80th | 20th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detroit Tigers | 83 | 79 | — | .512 | 36.7% | 12.6% | 49.3% | 2.4% | 91.9 | 76.0 |
| Kansas City Royals | 83 | 79 | — | .512 | 31.6% | 13.3% | 44.9% | 2.5% | 90.7 | 75.3 |
| Cleveland Guardians | 79 | 83 | 4 | .488 | 19.5% | 11.4% | 30.9% | 2.1% | 87.6 | 71.8 |
| Minnesota Twins | 77 | 85 | 6 | .475 | 10.7% | 8.2% | 19.0% | 1.1% | 84.2 | 69.6 |
| Chicago White Sox | 69 | 93 | 14 | .426 | 1.5% | 1.4% | 3.0% | 0.0% | 75.8 | 63.1 |
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:
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% | 80th | 20th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle Mariners | 88 | 74 | — | .543 | 46.6% | 22.2% | 68.8% | 6.0% | 96.9 | 81.6 |
| Houston Astros | 87 | 75 | 1 | .537 | 35.4% | 23.7% | 59.1% | 6.8% | 95.0 | 79.1 |
| Texas Rangers | 80 | 82 | 8 | .494 | 12.1% | 16.9% | 29.0% | 2.0% | 88.1 | 72.2 |
| Oakland A’s | 74 | 88 | 14 | .457 | 5.2% | 9.6% | 14.9% | 0.3% | 83.5 | 66.7 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 68 | 94 | 20 | .420 | 0.7% | 1.8% | 2.5% | 0.0% | 75.8 | 60.6 |
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:
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% | 80th | 20th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia Phillies | 91 | 71 | — | .562 | 40.0% | 31.6% | 71.5% | 7.6% | 99.9 | 82.4 |
| New York Mets | 89 | 73 | 2 | .549 | 31.7% | 34.3% | 65.9% | 6.1% | 97.6 | 81.0 |
| Atlanta Braves | 86 | 76 | 5 | .531 | 23.8% | 31.6% | 55.4% | 5.8% | 95.9 | 77.2 |
| Miami Marlins | 76 | 86 | 15 | .469 | 4.5% | 15.0% | 19.5% | 0.2% | 85.5 | 67.6 |
| Washington Nationals | 63 | 99 | 28 | .389 | 0.1% | 0.8% | 0.9% | 0.0% | 71.9 | 54.9 |
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:
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% | 80th | 20th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago Cubs | 87 | 75 | — | .537 | 42.1% | 20.5% | 62.5% | 5.0% | 95.4 | 80.1 |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 86 | 76 | 1 | .531 | 40.3% | 20.9% | 61.2% | 4.5% | 95.2 | 79.7 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 78 | 84 | 9 | .481 | 6.9% | 11.6% | 18.5% | 0.6% | 84.7 | 70.5 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 77 | 85 | 10 | .475 | 6.3% | 10.8% | 17.0% | 0.6% | 84.3 | 69.8 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 74 | 88 | 13 | .457 | 4.4% | 7.8% | 12.2% | 0.4% | 82.5 | 67.1 |
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:
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% | 80th | 20th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 96 | 66 | — | .593 | 68.9% | 22.8% | 91.7% | 18.2% | 103.7 | 89.5 |
| San Francisco Giants | 84 | 78 | 12 | .519 | 14.6% | 35.5% | 50.1% | 1.6% | 93.4 | 77.5 |
| San Diego Padres | 83 | 79 | 13 | .512 | 10.0% | 31.9% | 41.9% | 2.8% | 91.3 | 75.9 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 81 | 81 | 15 | .500 | 6.5% | 25.0% | 31.5% | 2.0% | 89.0 | 73.3 |
| Colorado Rockies | 61 | 101 | 35 | .377 | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 68.5 | 53.8 |
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%!
| To Win | 10th | 20th | 30th | 40th | 50th | 60th | 70th | 80th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AL East | 91.2 | 93.9 | 95.9 | 97.6 | 99.2 | 100.8 | 102.5 | 104.4 | 107.2 |
| AL Central | 82.8 | 85.4 | 87.3 | 89.0 | 90.5 | 92.1 | 93.8 | 95.8 | 98.5 |
| AL West | 85.9 | 88.6 | 90.6 | 92.4 | 94.1 | 95.8 | 97.6 | 99.8 | 102.8 |
| To Win | 10th | 20th | 30th | 40th | 50th | 60th | 70th | 80th | 90th |
| AL Wild Card 1 | 88.1 | 89.9 | 91.3 | 92.5 | 93.7 | 95.0 | 96.3 | 97.8 | 100.1 |
| AL Wild Card 2 | 84.8 | 86.4 | 87.6 | 88.6 | 89.6 | 90.6 | 91.8 | 93.2 | 95.1 |
| AL Wild Card 3 | 82.2 | 83.7 | 84.8 | 85.8 | 86.7 | 87.6 | 88.6 | 89.8 | 91.5 |
| To Win | 10th | 20th | 30th | 40th | 50th | 60th | 70th | 80th | 90th |
| NL East | 88.7 | 91.8 | 94.1 | 96.0 | 97.8 | 99.6 | 101.5 | 103.7 | 106.7 |
| NL Central | 85.3 | 87.9 | 89.8 | 91.5 | 93.2 | 94.9 | 96.8 | 98.9 | 101.9 |
| NL West | 90.2 | 92.8 | 94.8 | 96.6 | 98.3 | 100.1 | 102.0 | 104.3 | 107.6 |
| To Win | 10th | 20th | 30th | 40th | 50th | 60th | 70th | 80th | 90th |
| NL Wild Card 1 | 88.1 | 89.9 | 91.3 | 92.5 | 93.6 | 94.8 | 96.1 | 97.6 | 99.9 |
| NL Wild Card 2 | 84.7 | 86.3 | 87.6 | 88.6 | 89.6 | 90.6 | 91.7 | 93.0 | 94.7 |
| NL Wild Card 3 | 82.1 | 83.7 | 84.8 | 85.8 | 86.7 | 87.6 | 88.6 | 89.8 | 91.4 |
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.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
Surprised to see the Phillies at the top of the NL East
I think they’re probably too high. I’ve been really high on them the last couple of years because their rotation was so loaded. But I don’t think ZiPS can take into account Wheeler’s health situation, and between that, Suarez leaving, and literally all of their best position players being older I think this team is likely in a worse place than last year.
Wheeler and Suarez accounted for 10.4 fWAR last year. Even if Nola bounced back to being a 3-win pitcher, losing them is going to hurt. And that outfield is not great offensively. They might need to platoon every single one of those projected starters to make it work.
Your also getting 2 less wins from Schwarber coming off a career season at age 32. Also, bryce isnt a superstar anymore averaging 3.5-4 wins a season the past 4 years, and trea turner at age 33 this season isnt likely to repeat his best defensive season in his career and his Fwar could drop by 2-3 as well (per projections). This team could have the biggest dropoff of any team in the league
All of those assumptions are already included in the individual zips projections. Turner is projected at 4.3, Harper at 3.1 and everyone else below 3. Pitching is exactly the same, Sanchez at 4.3, Luzardo at 3.1 and everyone else below 3. Literally no one is arguing that Wheeler is good for 5 wins, but he’s projected for 2.7 in 21 starts and that seems reasonable.
I’d go ahead and disagree that a median projection of 2.7 WAR for Wheeler is reasonable. Coming off a major injury as an older player, there’s significant risk that he provides little or no value. That 2.7 WAR in 21 starts seems more like a near-best case scenario.
Things always look decent for aging teams until they don’t and fans are left in disbelief. It’s a story as old as time.
There’s definitely a risk he provides no value, but I doubt 2.7 WAR is his ceiling either. Pitchers sometimes are basically normal the year after surgery which gives him a pretty high upside. I’d take 2.7 WAR though, so in that sense it might be slightly high.
On the bigger point, this does feel like it could easily be 2012 again. I wouldn’t be surprised if they won anywhere from 75-100 games. Seems like a crapshoot with a lot of aging talent.
Yes I am aware of that, I am going one step further saying that guys aged 32-33(Schwarber, Harper, Turner, Wheeler, etc) arent going to continue meeting or exceeding their projections and they carry higher risk of failing. A 26 year projected to be worth 3.5 fWAR and a 33 year old projected the same, i am more worried about the 33 year old meeting that projection much less exceeding it, thats all im saying.
The projections already take age into account.
The Phillies seem to have a history of locking in an aging core without a real plan to get younger and more competitive. People forget that it took them an entire decade to recover from holding on to Rolins-Howard-Utley etc three years too long and that their resurgence included a rather fluky trip to the World Series in a year where they weren’t exactly dominant. And also that their entire recent history isn’t exactly that of world-killers; their leading WAR player three years ago was Bryson Stott of all people at 4.3. They’ve gotten by largely on depth and a sort of lucky timing where their best players have spaced out their best seasons, rather than everyone playing way over their heads for one season, a la 2021 San Francisco, and then regressing all at once.
I just think that too many things have to go right for them and too few things can be written in ink for them to be rated this highly relative to their competition. 91 wins is easily achievable, but these prediction models are always conservative about win totals.
im basing this off of less than tea leaves – but i feel like bryce has a monster season coming up. i think hes got one or two more elite seasons and this will be one of them
I kinda agree, if I had to pick who was gonna have one more MVP season in their career out of Turner, Harper, or Schwarber, i would bet its Harper, he has taken to 1B very well.
What does this even mean? He plays a very average first base. And settling into the easiest defensive position doesn’t seem to have made his bat any better.
He’s had exactly two “monster seasons” in his entire 14-year career. I’m not sure this is a reasonable expectation. The best I think you can hope for are more years like 2024 (where he looks like a less positionally valuable Kyle Tucker) and fewer like this last one.
Their bullpen has a lot more depth. And full seasons from Duran, Alvarado, and Keller should compensate for the loss of Suarez. What about Wheeler’s projection do you not agree with?
The only team in the division with a comparable rotation is Atlanta and their innings projection seems generous.
That he will pitching much. Or at the same level. Anything they get out of him is a bonus.
He’s supposed to return in late May. No setbacks in the recovery timeline yet. There have been other cases of pitchers returning to MLB after vascular TOS: notably, Merrill Kelly and Alex Cobb. I think the projection seems fair.
Sanchez will not repeat his 8 WAR season for one thing.
In fairness, all of us are also older this year than last year
We, at least, have some hope that our friends and families aren’t constantly restocking their farm system with our younger, more talented replacements.
My son is 2 now, and let me tell you, I’ve never felt more like a depreciating asset in my life (also, his Hair Over Replacement Value lead over me is insurmountable)
Can you please tell that to Mrs. Jason B?
Too low. Should be projected for 95 wins. Wheeler back and Painter will be better than projected along with Garcia.
“Too low” he says about the team ranked literally second in baseball by ZiPS. You’re thinking they should be ahead of the Dodgers, then?
Phillies have major risk of falling off a cliff within the next few years. Can’t predict it necessarily but I don’t foresee a smooth decline for them. Nola might be cooked and just resigned last year. Wheeling with TOS is a huge question mark. Offense continues to age and did not improve at all, even with shedding Castellanos (theoretically, what are they waiting for?)
I don’t know if I like the Yankees enough to take them as co-favorites with the Red Sox and Blue Jays because the rotation is so fragile and the offense is so Judge-centric that there are a lot of downside scenarios. But I will take them over the Orioles, and I think I would take the 80th percentile being more extreme than this even though I think the 20th percentile is about in the right place. Even if only most things break right they’ve got the same upside as the Blue Jays and Red Sox.
IMO the Blue Jays, Red Sox, and Yankees are probably the #2-#4 teams in MLB right now, although maybe I’d take the Yankees and Mariners in the same tier after Blue Jays / Red Sox. I think the Orioles are going to look more average and the Rays are going to look worse than they really are next to the top 3 in their division.
It’s so wild what’s going in the NL vs the AL. The AL has at least four teams and potentially as many as six teams who have a good shot of winning the pennant. I think the Blue Jays, Red Sox, Yankees, and Mariners are all 92-94-ish win teams, and you can’t really rule out the Orioles or Astros.
And then on the NL side the Dodgers are so far ahead of everyone else. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the Dodgers were the only NL team projected for 90 wins, a good 7-10 games ahead of everyone else. The Mets, Phillies, Cubs, and Brewers all look like 86-89 win teams. And the Padres have a ton of high end talent and an awesome bullpen but that rotation is already relying on Randy Vazsquez and JP Sears.
Its interesting because I think that while you’re right about the NL, its also true that the degree to which that’s true is less extreme than it was in some recent years – the Dodgers of 3-5 years ago were, imo, even further ahead of the league than the current Dodgers appear to be (the apex probably being that year that the Braves were the closest but then Acuna missed the season). Those teams projected in zips for mean wins approaching and passing 100; sometimes no one else projected for over 90.
I think we all expect that, in comparison to say, the 2020-23 Dodgers, the current edition is less likely to challenge the Mariner’s single-season wins record and more likely to be unstoppable in the postseason, because the roster has been tuned more directly towards the second and away from the first. I think this is even more likely this year with the WBC, because it is going to result in a particularly short postseason rest period and an even longer active period for a lot of the players who want to participate. – Some players will sit for this reason, but you can see that the Samurai Japan players really do not want to have to do that with a title to defend (even if Ohtani is already hinting he may not pitch in the WBC this year).
The most likely outcome of this regular season is that, again, the Dodgers will have nearly 2 playoff rotations worth of good pitchers and also that ridiculous rotation we saw in the playoffs will make 0-3 full turns together in the regular season because someone will always be unavailable, getting rested, or etc, with the goal of reassembling Voltron on October 1, 2026.
While thats happening, they will, like the last year, look like a somewhat more reasonable comparison to the other top teams in the NL, with us understanding that if they can manage those injuries and workloads and avoid season-ending problems to the pitchers, come the postseason they will be on a different level. We’ll be right back here talking about how team X (2025 Brewers) swept the season series or team Y(2025 Phillies, 2024 Mets) has looked just as good for the last 3 months as we go into the playoffs, and then it’ll be, once again, oh, yeah, right, no, those teams aren’t the same.
I’d like to push back on the narrative that the 2025 Phillies were outclassed by the Dodgers in the playoffs. The Phillies easily could have won any of the three games they lost and in fact outscored the Dodgers in the series. I doubt we’ll see a repeat of that in 2026, since there’s more reason to think the Phillies will be worse this year than the Dodgers, but really only the Reds and Brewers looked outclassed by the Dodgers last year.
The way I see it is that the Yankees have the highest ceiling, the Red Sox have the highest floor, and the Blue Jays have the highest median outcome. That’s reflected in the discrepancies between their win projections and WS Win%.
I think there’s definitely a gap between those three and the Orioles, even though the Orioles are almost certainly a top 10 team in baseball. This division race should be one for the ages.
I think the Yankees have the highest floor, Sox have the highest ceiling followed closely behind by Baltimore, personally. There are just way more young players that could pop on Boston and Baltimore than NY.
I don’t see how the Yankees have the highest floor when there’s a pretty decent chance Paul Blackburn and Ryan Yarbrough spend a month+ in their rotation. They also feel similar to the Blue Jays in that there aren’t really any players you can easily see being better than last year besides possibly Rice or Wells. I think the ceiling is that they were definitely the best roster in the division last year, they’re bringing back essentially that entire roster, and they’re adding Gerrit Cole.
The Red Sox’ floor is so high to me because their rotation depth is absurd. But I don’t see any clear upside in their lineup outside of Mayer, unless you think there’s a good chance Campbell forces his way in there this year.
Upside is certainly really high with Baltimore, but their 90th percentile outcome is still very likely worse than NYY’s, and the floor of their rotation is precipitously low.
The rotation depth is a strength in Boston, but not absurd. Patrick Sandoval is not marketedly better than Clarke Schmidt. Yarborough is about their 8th starter rn in NY, I’m not sure where you’re getting “decent chance he pitches a month plus in the rotation” from that. Orioles I think bolstered their pitching floor pretty well this year. The pitching ceiling is not currently there, without another acquisition.
The floor is high on the batting side in NY because they have a lot of high performing known quantity players. The upside in Boston is that Roman Anthony is an MVP player this year. And Early pops. Or Campbell, or Mayer
Schmidt won’t be pitching until July/August at the earliest. Yarbrough is their SP6 until Rodón returns in late April
Rotation depth absurd? Their #3 starter is 36 years old and is going from likely the #1 or #2 comfiest division to pitch in to the toughest, their #4 doesn’t strike anyone out, their #5 is *checks notes* Johan Oviedo, Sandoval/Crawford haven’t pitched in a year+, then we’re down to Tolle (2.76 HR/9 in the majors last year in SSS), and Early who I do like but cut his BB% in half upon coming to the majors which probably isn’t sustainable. Their depth is best in the division, but I don’t look at their pitching and think woah that’s wild.
You’re dead on Steve. The overestimation of the RedSox pitching is hilarious. ZIPS has Gray and Suarez matching Fried. It’s a bad joke.
Yankees fans have a habit of underestimating the Red Sox’s pitching, but among healthy pitchers they literally have three of the top 5 starters in the division on their roster. Including the second or third best starter in MLB.
Maybe Shane McClanahan or Kyle Bradish or Gerrit Cole stay healthy and pitch like monsters but it’s been a while since they have pitched much, so who knows how many innings they will give.
Their number 6 and 7 starters are FV50 prospects who have already pitched in the majors *and* they have a guy who pitched to 3.9 fWAR coming off injured reserve. Plus something like 3 other guys who would be credible sixth or seventh starters on a team.
The Yankees should be able to match up fine if Cole and Rodon pitch anything like the last time they were healthy, but the Red Sox have protected themselves awfully well against the scenario where half of their top six starters get hurt. And since that is the main reason why teams radically underperform their projections, I would say their floor looks great.
I’d flip the Sox/Jays there.
I think the Jays have a lot of depth everywhere (except maybe the bullpen), so a worst-case scenario would have to be pretty brutal for them to completely wash out of the playoffs. I do think Springer coming back to Earth a bit and the loss of Bichette isn’t enough to completely wreck them.
The Sox have enough pitching to weather an injury or two (except maybe if that’s Crochet) and a lineup that isn’t necessarily going to jump off the page, but is likely to put up enough with good pitching. I do foresee more disaster scenarios than with the Jays, though. They have some clear holes and weird roster decisions. But to me, they have the most likely chance of hitting 90 wins.
The Yankees have error bars seemingly a mile wide. The most likely scenarios involve some combination of upside scenarios and downside scenarios that balance out to pretty close to last year’s win total, probably a shade lower. But the Yankees, as has been the case for most of the last decade, do have that one critical point-of-failure that creates opportunities to completely tank the season. They probably the second largest chance, IMO, to finish dead last (outside of the Rays). But they also might win 100 and clinch by mid-September.
“The Sox have enough pitching”
It’s really weird that people keep saying this. The RedSox have 3 major league starting pitchers and Bello.
I mean, the Red Sox have the highest projected SP WAR total by a healthy margin (+1.7 over the Dodgers). Teams rarely make the playoffs on the backs of their #4 and 5 starters. It’s much more likely that a non-elite prospect or depth guy emerges and becomes a #2 or 3. See last years playoffs (Schillter, Yesavage, *McLean). And the most likely way to have a guy like that emerge is to have depth. Early, Tolle, Sandoval, Crawford, Oviedo, and Harrison are all guys that have the potential to do just that. Perhaps no one emerges but I like their odds better than anyone else right now.
Connelly Early and Payton Tolle are better than basically every team’s #4 and #5, but unfortunately for the Red Sox, management does not seem keen on getting them innings
I don’t get the Suarez signing for them.
They have a lot of decentish 5-7th arms, which is what you need to get through the year. After Blackburn and Yarborough, the SP depth on the Yankees gets scarce real fast unless Elmer or Lagrange pops enough that you’re comfortable giving them MLB run. You’re an injury or two away from seeing if Marcus Stroman is busy next weekend.
Early and Tolle could be real good.
The overestimation of Boston will become very apparent by June.
The pitching ought to be at least decent, but that infield has the potential to be real real bad – especially if Story ends up back on the IL for any significant amount of time.
I exist on this earth ti dispel the narrative Yankees are too Judge centric. If every team removed their top hitter Yankees would have still had the best lineup last year. They had the best supporting cast in MLB
There is no such thing as being too Judge-centric because any team he is on will be Judge-centric. His performance the last few years is basically top 5 hitter of all time level, potentially as high as #2. But I am pretty sure that subtracting a 7.5 to 11.5 win player off your roster is going to lead to a team missing their projections.
It’s like saying our solar system is too heliocentric
I’m inclined to agree with you, despite what I said above. However, a Judge injury would provide them almost no room for error, because if combine that with a step back from Rice or a down year from Jazz, it starts to get hairy real fast.
Call me a homer if you want but I think the Mets are the best team in the nl east. While I think the Phillies will still be good enough to make the playoffs this year and probably next year I’d say the reckoning for them is coming in 2028. Who knows what’ll happen with Wheeler and while Sanchez is a superstar, they have some big red flags as the lineup is ridiculously top heavy and drops off massively after Harper in the order. While Garcia is a big upgrade over Castellanos defensively I don’t see him doing much better or even better than Castellanos offensively. Bohm and Stott are average and below average hitters respectively and Nola imo is in decline and I’m bearish on Painter as his fastball shape wasn’t the same coming off TJ and he struggled in AAA. They really needed to sign Bichette. I have them at 85-87 wins.
I think the Mets have more upside and if things come together for them I expect them to be the team I’d less want to face out of the NL East, and I also think that for that to be true there are a few more things we need to see happen (even if we think those things are probable: Williams looking like a pitcher again, prospects performing acceptably, etc)
Sorry meant 87-88 wins I have the Braves around 85.
You must expect great things out of the Mets’ rotation.
Good top of the rotation and lots of upside and depth so good things yes.
They’ve got a decent collection of guys who will need to pass the ball to the bullpen in the 5th or 6th innings. There is no top.
I think I lean Mets because their megastars are younger than those on the Phils, and Lindor/Soto, in particular, are always healthy.
I’d guess Mets if I was a betting man, and I am. But could see Braves running it back too. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Strider bounce back, maybe not the best in the mlb but top 10 pitcher. Acuna could have one of those Acuna years. Phillies I think a lot depends on Wheeler who is a complete wild card. Iirc he was basically leading nl in war when he went down for pitchers, or close. If he’s anything approaching an ace the Phillies look good again. Course… who knows. I’d say Mets by a few games right now, then some sort of ranking of Phillies/Braves with Marlins potentially a few games out
I think it’s a pretty similar thing to the AL East, except with just the two (I think the Braves are more akin the O’s here; they’re positioned where they can be in the race, but there are more downside scenarios where they’re not).
The Phillies strike me as higher floor/high median, simply because there’s just not a ton of points of variance on the team. Wheeler’s health and whatever they get out of Crawford/Garcia are the biggest questions. Otherwise, we have a pretty good idea what to expect.
The Mets have a higher ceiling — a team with Juan Soto on it will tend that way — but there are a lot more questions. How Benge performs, Polanco/Bichette defensively, is McLean really an ace out of the gate, is Semien cooked, etc. If things break their way, I can see outcomes where they have the best record in baseball; but there are definitely more downside scenarios where they squeak into a wild card (or worse). And let’s face it, whatever the reason, the Mets do seem to “round down” on their projections.
The Brewers have won at least 86 games in each of the eight full seasons going back to 2017, feels like more of a floor projection than a median one, but after this long I more than understand.
Guess with a run that long they’re due for a regular season clunker here at some point. No Hader, no Stearns, no Counsell, no Burnes, no Williams, no Adames, no Peralta…no problema.
I think part of what’s going on here is that the Brewers have a little bit more overall resistance than they have in most recent seasons. Most recent NL Central seasons tend to be “Brewers good, 1 competitor with reasonable wildcard aspirations, 1 maybe .500ish team, 2 godawful embarrassments”, and especially before the schedule changes in the last couple years, all those divisional games really inflated the win total when your division has multiple bottomfeeders.
This year’s NL Central has a couple respectable teams, a cardinals team that should be good for 78-81 wins, and one embarrassment that at least has the best pitcher in the league on it.
Just shaving a few extra in-division wins off the total is all it comes down to, and it just takes a little stronger NL Central, played somewhat less frequently each (vs the 19 games per divisional foe era).
I mentioned how we expect a bit less of an absurd ceiling from the 2026 Dodgers than say, 2022-2023 when a 90th percentile season felt like it could break the 116 wins record, but part of what caused that was that the NL West at the time not only had one of the best teams of all time in it, it also had more than one of the worst teams in the NL in it (with who joined the Rockies as dogshit varying each year).
No way the Cardinals sniff .500 with that pitching staff
Cardinals are my dark horse pick to collapse. With that rotation and the way their position players have been injured I think this could get ugly real fast.
Way to take a bold, obvious stance.
Kidding aside, I strongly agree with you on this. There are some fairly realistic scenarios where I see them in the mid-to-low 60s in wins.
It is definitely not difficult to agree with the scenario that you put forth. For the first time in a very long time I can see the Cardinals looking up at every team in the NL Central for several years and from quite a distance. There isn’t a player on the roster that can be called a star, Winn doesn’t provide enough offense, then add in questionable starters, nobody who hit 20 HR’s and, with the Pirates improving, the basement looks likely.
I think that projection is good if their top 3 pitchers stay healthy. But since they only have 3 pitchers who are good enough to be starting the year in a major league rotation right now this could get real ugly if they get hurt.
It’s one thing for Andre Pallante to be your Plan B or Plan C but when he’s your Plan A things are going to get real bad if you have to go to your actual Plan A.
I am literally not even sure who their fifth starter is.
The good news, if you can call it that, is that because their fifth through ninth starters all look weak then it doesn’t matter if they get hurt. That means that their floor is probably somewhere in the low 60s rather than somewhere in the 50-55 win total range.
And this is assuming Donovan is on the team.
Pallante is not currently projected for the rotation, which right now looks like: McGreevy-Liberatore-May-Leahy-Dobbins, then Mathews, Fitts, and Pallante, with Hence, Mautz, and Hjerpe potentially ready in-season. Zack Thompson is probably broken but he technically exists too as does deeper depth like Jared Shuster. They probably won’t *all* suck, ZIPS thinks a lot of these guys are fine in medium-sized doses.
Their rotation was worth 7.6 fWAR last year, and frankly that flattered them, yet the team still won 78 games. Mikolas and Fedde were more bad than Gray was good, it’s not a net loss.
They’ve got a bunch of 1-3 WAR guys. That’s a .500ish team. That’s what they’ve been the last two years, it’s still what they are.
Been thinking this too. They won’t be Rockies bad, but if someone told me they were bottom 2-5 teams next year I wouldn’t be surprised. White Sox might take a step forward, Angels try every year and it never works out. Catch a couple breaks, who knows. Books have em at 71.5, which is more what I feel. Only team projected worse are nats angels white Sox Rockies. So I guess bottom 5 isn’t a hood prediction. Of those teams I’d take white Sox and angels over them this year. Nats is close.
NL Central is solid. It looks weaker at first sight because there are usually no “superteams” with 100+ wins. But also not many 100+ losing seasons. The division is boringly average most of the time.
Over the last two seasons, the NL Central has been the second best division by both record and run differential. I think they get lumped in with the AL Central a little and subsequently thought less of in the minds of some folks. They’ve taken advantage of getting to play more games outside the division and haven’t had any bottom feeders in the same way that other divisions have (other than, again, the AL East).
Yeah, the Brewers aren’t much underrated by anyone/anything except projection systems — and Dan actively tried to address that shortcoming this year (read above) — but folks are now sleeping on how good the Cubs have gotten. This is because 1) the Ricketts have embarrassingly underinvested for a decade, and 2) they failed to topple the scrappy Brewers last year. But the fact is Chicago had only 1 less win than the Dodgers and a better run differential than every team other than the Brewers and Yankees.
Cubs are legit and one of the few rosters within shouting distance of LAD talent-wise.
The Brewers are the greater sum of their parts the last decade or so. They are like the Rays of the nl without the fall off the Rays have had the last few years though the Rays do play in a tougher division. The Brewers owner isn’t great but he has hired brilliant people in the front office in Arnold and Stearns and their people . I like their chances of winning the division again.
I’m curious how the projections would change if the playing time were optimized for every team and not just the Brewers.
The actual win-loss totals of the best teams will be better than the best teams here. Projection systems have to take into account the catastrophic scenarios where everyone gets hurt, and I would guess that pretty much every below-median scenario is one where more players are hurt than expected.
There’s also a ton of uncertainty in the rotation this time around. I wouldn’t be surprised if the scenario where the Brewers lose a lot of starters due to injury is more common for them and than for others in the simulations.
I’d guess if everyone is healthy they’d be around 91-94 wins, but so would other teams.
In the AL, all three divisional runner-ups have slightly higher WS Win % than the top team. In the AL East, all of Boston, Baltimore, and New York have a higher WS Win % than Toronto. That seems… unusual?
This is where I wish that Fangraphs sometimes used better visualizations for outcome ranges. Baseball Prospectus does this with their projections and you can see the different shapes of probability outcomes for different teams. What you are seeing here is that the Blue Jays have the highest ceiling and most consistent outcome, and therefore the best average season, but the other teams have higher ceilings if everything breaks their way, and when those things happen they’re substantially more likely to win a title than the Blue Jays are if everything goes right for them; those teams are also a lot more likely to finish 4th and miss the playoffs if those things don’t work out for them.
Fangraphs is my go to for analysis and data and hosts the projection systems I prefer most of the time, but there’s definitely some room for better visualizations of that data.
I don’t think that is actually what is going on here though. The jays have a larger gap to the other teams in the 80th percentile projection than they do in the 50th. Dan also notes in the article that the jays have the highest ceiling if everything goes right for them. I wonder what else could explain it.
I’m assuming Dan is also running simulations on the playoffs. It doesn’t explain Baltimore exactly but hitting ceiling and top end of the rotation+ bullpen strength are weighted higher in playoff series than regular season. Bullpen and top end of the rotation they lag behind NY and Boston, and hitting ceiling they lag behind NY Boston and Baltimore, and they probably lag behind some on bullpen strength as well? Just hypothesizing
Part of the issue is that ZiPS kinda hates the Jays. We saw this last year where the jays had a much lower WS% than even the Yankees prior to the wild card round. I think that ZiPS really likes home runs and power when it comes to the playoffs, something the jays aren’t built around. My rule of thumb is add about 20% to these probabilities in order to have a more accurate estimate.
ZiPS hates my team! Drink!
Lots of Jays fans will be blackout drunk 😆
Will be?
We still are from the events of October
If it does, that’s good — it’ll be more accurate that way.
On the surface ZiPS is making a lot of sense this year, nothing here that raises eyebrows. Last year the Nats jumped out to me as overly optimistic, and ZiPS has appropriately self-corrected.
I’ll take the under on BAL and the over on CLE (assuming the Guards make some OF acquisition this spring). I agree the Twins shouldn’t be terrible, however they could get terrible quickly upon selling off Ryan/Lopez/Lewis/etc. Also agree with ZiPS’s skepticism of the Padres compared to Vegas.
Much like with CLE, I’d take the over on the Reds if they have a savvy depth move or two up their sleeve.
Those World Series percentages are fascinating! First the Dodgers, with a whopping 18.2%, vs the second best of 7.6% for the Phillies. The dodgers have almost 2.5x the chance of the second-highest-projected team! That’s wild! I’m not saying it’s wrong, but wow!!
And the AL East has the Orioles with the highest WS%, but third best odds to win the division. And the lowest WS% of the divisions contenders is in first, the Red Sox. I know these are all within rounding error margin but I’m still fascinated by the shapes of talent distribution in that division
While I’m thrilled that ZiPS thinks the A’s are returning to Oakland, I’d still bet on them staying in Sacramento for 2026
I saw that Eric Longenhagen just gave Las Vegas a 70 FV.
Nah, he put a 70 on their probability of arriving in LV but a 30FV. That’s not going to be a good market.
I hate how they’re gonna end up in Vegas, but I’m not sure that you are right. The Golden Knights have been a huge success from a winning and fan support though to be fair they were really good from day one.
Baseball … is different.
Honestly, I think anyone who says with any degree of certainty whether a new market is going to be good one way or another before putting a team there is setting themselves up to look bad.
So much of what makes non-slam-dunk markets (LA/NY) click or fail comes down to how the franchise engages with the fans, and how well they perform. And it certainly helps if your owner/management aren’t insufferable pricks.
Milwaukee punches above its weight because they have done a good job (especially in their recent run) of building an identity that clicks with the fanbase. The ballpark experience is pretty good –they did understand the assignment and made that stadium quite tailgater friendly (Wisconsinites love a good tailgate). The current ownership is viewed at least neutrally, which is a lot better than some places.
Miami feels like a market that should be, if not printing money, at least a high mid-tier market, but a plague of mismanagement, insufferable pricks running the show, and a lack of a consistent identity have really bottomed out that market. The championship runs and repeated teardowns make the whole thing feel like a roller coaster that no one wants to get emotionally invested in.
Great post.
The A’s are screwed.
How do the Orioles and the Yankees have higher WS Win% chances than the Red Sox or the Blue Jays?
Dan Z mentioned this on BlueSky:
It makes sense – in order for the Orioles to make the playoffs, they either need to sign Framber or get very good (let’s say 70th+ percentile) outcomes for the starters they do have.
That’s still a little rich for me (highest WSwin% in ALE, 3rd highest in AL), and I don’t very much like the rotation as it’s currently constructed, mostly due to injury questions. It’s obviously not bad, certainly better than going into 2025 just by virtue of having more info on each of Bradish/Baz/Rogers, but they’re competing with some very good rotations in the ALE.
I mean it makes sense. Roger’s pitches like last year, Bradish doesn’t miss a beat. Baz pitches like everyone thought he could.
This is pretty much how I had things penciled out in my head, though I sure don’t see how the Cardinals are better than the Pirates after jettisoning Gray/Conteras/Arenado and adding only the injury-ravaged remains of Dustin May to a team that was but 73-89 by BaseRuns last season, or how the Phillies are a 90+ win team after losing both Wheeler and Suarez.
I’m also not excited at all about the Cards, but there are some signs why ZiPS may like the Cards better than the Pirates and why the fall off may not be too steep (if at all).
1) ZiPS LOVES Wetherholt (2.8 projected WAR) and hates Arenado (1.7 projected WAR). It sees Arenado’s jettison as a good thing, I think.
2) They have several hitters who have a ton of positional flexibility, which insulates them against injury and raises their floor.
3)They also have a few bounceback candidates (Herrera, Nootbar) and very few guys who obviously overperformed and look like they’ll come crashing back down to earth.
4) I also think their pitching is weirdly underrated because while it has no good starters, it also has no terrible starters? Seriously, they have like 8 starters projected for an ERA- of around 100-105, which obviously isn’t very desirable for your ceiling or any kind of playoff hopes, but also probably keeps things from totally unraveling.
I think if we saw a graph of their outcomes, it would be much narrower than most teams – low ceiling, high floor. They’re like the anti-Padres.
I am on the Pirates bandwagon too, if “bandwagon” means “I think they will have a winning record.
They could even finish ahead of the Reds if things go well for them (or badly for the Reds).
I think they’d need both, but I agree with the “I think they’ll be on the good side of .500”. I have really liked what they have done this offseason, given the constraints they have set for themselves. Even if they were willing to match or beat the Dodgers’ price, they were never, ever, ever going to sign Tucker. It just wasn’t going to happen. But they’ve leveraged some of their excess depth to acquire some offensive talent, and that rotation does have a chance to be pretty phenomenal.
ZIPS DC is available, you can see. It’s mostly addition by subtraction. Mikolas and Fedde were as bad as any pitchers in the league, in very large samples too. Gray had an ERA well over 4, Arenado was terrible, and Contreras is being replaced by someone roughly as good (Burleson is a butcher in the OF but an acceptable 1B starter).
I’m an outlier but I’d take the over. They have a lot of high-floor guys, also a lot of former top-100 guys who haven’t had the best situation before, breakout potential at almost every position. The new guys aren’t well known yet, but the projection systems all think they are decent. A team with a lot of average projections, stocked with youth, has sneaky growth potential. Maybe they play outlier defense, maybe steal a lot more bases, maybe run a high BABIP. Lots of potential ceiling-raising guys could join the roster in-season too, from Mathews and Hence to Baez.
And Liam Doyle!
Excuse me but Brian Cashman told me there was no way I could tell him the Yankees don’t have a championship team
Eighth-best odds to win the World Series is fine
do they give out a trophy for 8th place
you think they give out a trophy for best ZiPS WS odds?
Strangly, no, I don’t think anyone gives a trophy for best late January ZiPS WS odds.
ZiPs gives the Dodgers an 81.8% chance of not winning the WS. So it projects them to not win. The same as 29 other teams, including the Yankees.
The fact that someone has the highest odds, doesn’t mean that they have high odds or are expected to win.
The fact that someone has the 8th highest odds, does not mean that they can not win.
There is a reason that they actually play the games.
Shhhh, it’s a surprise!
Literally almost any free agent would be a huge boon to the Tigers on the win curve, please do something…
Framber especially. ZiPS doesn’t seem to like Eugenio any better than Keith et al
Nope, too focused on crushing Skubal in the arb hearing
Just malpractice what they’re doing (or not doing).
Last year of a generational pitcher & instead of going all in, they’re signing minor leaguers & KBO guys.
It’s kinda bad when the Pirates, in a similar-ish position, are making you look bad.
Wow, the median win projection for the AL East champ is 99 wins. I know the division projects to be very tough, but I’m still surprised that the median is that high.
Especially since they have to play each other
With the reduced intradivision schedule, you’re playing 110 games outside of your division. A couple of those teams (in any given iteration of the 2026 season) will run a stupid good interdivision win%. If they’re all splitting series against each other, but pummeling the AL Central, you might have three 90+ win teams in the division.
one day arte will ||redacted||
Overpay on a free agent that actually likes baseball? Win a playoff game?
*Morte Areno downvoted this comment*
Kudos to Dan for this awesome line: “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.”
Eugenio Suarez: Red Sox
Framber Valdez: Orioles
Zac Gallen: Giants
Chris Bassitt: Padres
Dunno about the rest but I see Bassitt going to the Braves they need an innings eater or what passes for one these days.
Not sure that ZiPS has been asked for its opinion, but I suspect it doesn’t think there is a need for a lock out next season to protect competitive balance. These division races look reasonably tight and feel just as tight as any other sport. Its basically a pick ’em in 5 of 6 divisions.
What does the line “Over the last decade, ZiPS has averaged 19.1 correct teams when looking at the Vegas preseason over/under lines” mean, exactly? You have hit the win total on the nose for 19.1 teams/year, on average? In that case I am headed for Vegas on the next plane. Or creating a Fanduel account, one or the other.
Ignoring the possible sarcasm here just to say that I read it as meaning that, on average, the ZiPS projected win totals wind up closer to the actual win total than Vegas’ lines for 19 teams versus 11 teams in which Vegas’ lines prove closer to actual than ZiPS.
Right.
An I suspect Dan is a bit modest in that it’s better than 19-11 if you exclude virtual ties. E.g., if ZiPS says 83 wins and Vegas says anywhere from 82-84, you wouldn’t bet that and you’re going to win about 52% of those picks. Heck there must be teams where ZiPS and Vegas are 1-2 tenths apart.
OK that makes sense, was struggling a bit to determine exactly what “correct” meant in terms of an over/under, was looking at it from bettor perspective rather than house perspective.
I read it more as if you bet on all 30 teams’ O/U for wins based on their ZiPS win projections, you’d win 19 and lose 11 (on average).
Oh right, that makes more sense.
Hey, hey– there is >80% chance the White Sox won’t lose 100 games this year! Now that’s a team on the come up.
Curious what there 90-95-99th percentile win percentages would be?
The Red Sox rotation depth is something to behold. I wonder if they’ll actually trade from that depth once the dust settles from any forthcoming Spring injuries
I can see them moving pitching for Donavan.
How many pitching prospects can move from one team to another in a single offseason?
This year on “The Hot Stove” the Redsox and Cardinals help us find the answer to this question.
Outfield depth too, though less so. They have more than enough surplus in those two areas to deal for a good 2B/3B. I hope they can find a fit, even if it means an overpay.
Giants are at 84 wins slightly ahead of AZ and SD, with a 50% shot overall to make the postseason? Man, I didn’t expect that and am much more bearish on them, but this certainly gives support to the rumors that they are trying hard for Framber, in spite of ownership pooh-poohing big pitching contracts at the start of the offseason.
“for three teams, on average, to beat their 90th-percentile projection, six to beat their 80th-percentile projection, and so on.”
Which teams beat their 90th percentile projection last year?
Without looking it up Brewers and Mariners. Orioles and Braves did on the flip side. Probably the Guardians to the good.
I think it’s Marlins, Brewers, and Blue Jays.
Yeah it’s the Marlins, Brewers, and Blue Jays. I looked it up and they were the only teams to pass their 80th percentile projection by a fair amount.
I would love to see you publish the median standings for each division – ie, the record of each place team (regardless of identity).
I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around probability here a bit, because I was thinking about the computational feasibility of doing this in a more deterministic way.
For simplicity’s sake, we’ll assume that there a team’s quality falls exactly in specific percentiles (because the model used works on the individual players, that’s not quite right, but bear with me). We’ll also assume that the team qualities are selected fully independently. That would mean there is 30^100 different possible iterations — 5.153 x 10^147 (approximately). Even if it’s only 99 different profiles per team, that’s still a stupidly huge number.
I understand why a Monte Carlo method is used; at that point, it’ll take you longer than the season itself lasts to simulate the season.
Why stop at 99? Percentiles aren’t integers, though often expressed that way.
But in terms of wins any team is basically +/- 13 wins from the 5th to 95th percentile. So 48th, 49th, 50th, 51th, and 52nd percentile outcomes differ by a few tenths of a win and essentially look the same.
My favorite preseason projections of the year. Love Zips.
The ZiPS playoff matrix showing the AL East winning team with 99 wins in the 50th percentile projection? Too high. This division has a lot of good teams who will beat up on each other and no one will dominate. It will look very similar to last year where 92-93 wins will likely take the division crown.
I think the NL East is overly optimistic as well, with the winner hitting 98 wins in the 50th percentile projection. I don’t see any of the Phillies, Braves, or Mets reaching that mark.