The Official (And Hopefully Not Too Erroneous) 2026 ZiPS Projected Standings

And just like that, the end of winter has been heralded, not by a groundhog or the vernal equinox, but by 6 1/3 shutout innings by Max Fried last night at Oracle Park. Today is the official Opening Day in MLB, and as such, it’s time for the ZiPS projections to spit out its final preseason projections. Hopefully, its numbers are graceful and kind, just in case it has to eat them in six months. This is the 22nd such exercise I’ve done with the ZiPS projections, and as with the other 21 times, there’s not much to do but sit back and wait for reality to destroy the expectations. Most of you already know the methodology by now, but for those who don’t, I’ll do a quick rundown. The rest of you can skip straight to the reason you’re here: the standings!

The ZiPS projected standings are the results of a million simulations of the 2026 season, using the ZiPS projections and the actual team schedules. The methodology isn’t identical to the one we use for our playoff odds. 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 arbitrary whimsy my logic and reasoning. ZiPS then generates a million versions of each team in Monte Carlo fashion. These projections do reflect the updated post-spring training projections, which were added to the FanGraphs database on Wednesday afternoon.

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 goal of ZiPS is to be less awful than any other way of predicting the future. The future is tantalizingly close but beyond our knowledge, and if anyone figures out how to pierce the veil that governs causality and spacetime, it’s probably not going to be in the form of baseball projections. So we project probabilities, not certainties. If this does not satisfy you, just assume that any deviation from the actual results are due to flaws in reality.

ZiPS also has no information about the Yankees’ shutout victory over the Giants in the first game of the season. While I’m not against some mild cheating when the opportunity arises — I have never successfully beaten Contra without the use of the Konami code — it would be too unfair for ZiPS to know about the extra 0.43 wins that ought to be added to New York’s seasonal win total.

For those new to the projected standings or may be here because you’re outraged at the standings from Twitter or Bluesky, it’s important to note that these are each team’s 50th-percentile outcomes, and as such, the projected standings will portray a far tighter spread between teams than is likely to actually happen. Because, after all, every team playing at its 50th-percentile expectation is an extremely implausible result; we expect, on average, three teams to exceed their 90th-percentile projection, six to exceed their 80th-percentile projection, nine to exceed their 70th-percentile projection, and so on. ZiPS projects the Red Sox to finish with 90 wins, the most in the AL East. But that absolutely does not mean that ZiPS projects no AL East team to win more than 90 games or that 90 wins will in fact win the AL East. In fact, as you’ll see at the bottom, in the ZiPS playoff matrix, the average AL East champion is projected to win 98.5 games, not merely 90, and there’s less than a 10% chance the AL East winner will win as few as 90 games.

The Red Sox and Blue Jays have traded the top spot by fractions of a win in ZiPS runs all winter, with the Red Sox finally edging out the Jays at the end. Boston’s biggest strength in ZiPS, and why this team projects for more wins than any other in the AL, is the depth of its rotation, which has just about the highest projected floor of anybody. While it’s out of the ZiPS wheelhouse, and therefore not taken into consideration here, it’s also worth noting that if the Red Sox are as deep in starters as ZiPS thinks, they may be well-equipped to make a pretty big deadline trade, since everyone else needs pitching.

The Orioles and Yankees remain in the second tier of the division, but still just slightly behind the top two teams. ZiPS has generally been more positive about the Orioles than our Depth Charts projections have been, because even though the rotation projections are rather meh on average, when Kyle Bradish and Trevor Rogers work out, ZiPS has them really working out, and in those upside scenarios, they actually become one of the most dangerous AL teams in the playoffs. Similarly, ZiPS tends to have the Yankees a few games off of most others, simply because the occasional situations in which they lose Aaron Judge due to injury are baked in, and have quite a dramatic effect on their record.

ZiPS still has trouble seeing short-term upside for the Rays.

While the Royals haven’t gotten worse since late January, the signing of Framber Valdez and the increased likelihood of lots of Kevin McGonigle playing time have put a little daylight in ZiPS between Detroit and Kansas City. Not so much daylight, however, that the Tigers should feel absolutely confident about the AL Central crown.

ZiPS has historically been more positive about the Guardians than other projection systems, and it’s been served well by Cleveland beating the conventional wisdom’s expectations the last two years. But that doesn’t hold true this year, and ZiPS sees the offense as just too shallow, and with too little upside, for this team to again be seriously competitive. It’s also rather uninspired by the rotation, though it’s worth noting that Gavin Williams’ high-percentile projections are stunningly positive.

The projections remain (relatively) positive about the Twins, and ZiPS likes Mick Abel and Taj Bradley more than it did six weeks ago, and it also remains the world’s biggest backer of Zebby Matthews. Still, it’s hard to see Minnesota making a surprise wild card run without a whole lot going right.

As for the White Sox, they’re not a good team, but they’re far more watchable than they were last year, which is at least something.

ZiPS had the Astros closer to the Mariners in its last update, but the post-spring projections hit Houston’s projected win total hard, as most of the core offensive talent was slightly downgraded. ZiPS is mainly concerned about the Astros’ depth at most positions. Seattle’s outlook is fairly steady, and I remain amused by how close ZiPS is pegging this team to the 54% meme.

The Rangers grabbed back a win from spring performances, with Josh Smith and Wyatt Langford getting particularly large bumps in the projections. ZiPS still sees the A’s as having a playoff-quality offense paired with a bottom-five pitching staff, and the Angels being irrelevant in the playoff race while not being lousy enough to actually be interesting.

ZiPS isn’t bothered at all by the Johan Rojas suspension, as it has generally had a high opinion of Justin Crawford. There are a lot of things that can go wrong with the Phillies due to the age of their franchise players and the downside risk of Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola, but ZiPS still believes they can hold onto the NL East.

Unlike past seasons, ZiPS sees the Mets as the prime beneficiary if the Phillies fade, not the Atlanta Braves. The Mets have an impressive array of arms, to the extent that a pitcher like Jonah Tong, who ZiPS thinks is a real major leaguer right now, isn’t projected to get a whole lot of actual time with the big club. The Braves are the flip side; ZiPS views their rotation as having high upside but also a pretty low floor because the depth is paper-thin.

The Marlins have improved on offense, and ZiPS likes Owen Caissie a lot, but the computer still expects them to have trouble scoring runs, and the loss of Edward Cabrera is a significant one. The Nats are rebuilding, nobody expects them to be good this year… and they won’t be.

The Cubs and Brewers stay about where they were in the last update, and even though I’ve tried to be as aggressive as Milwaukee is at using its talent from the upper minors, I can’t help shake the feeling that this team will still defy the projections and win 92 or so games. For Chicago, I already had some concerns about the starting pitching, and Jameson Taillon had the largest projection decline of any pitcher projected to play in the majors in 2026.

I wouldn’t say ZiPS was ever excited about the Reds, but its ardor has been dampened by the Hunter Greene injury and Andrew Abbott getting hit pretty hard in the spring. Pittsburgh’s improved projections, and my bumping the playing time for Konnor Griffin, was enough to leap the Bucs over the Reds and Cardinals, though not to the winning record that our Depth Chart projections currently forecast.

Not much has changed here over the last month. The Dodgers are still projected to be the best team in baseball, and the Giants, Diamondbacks, and Padres all still project for a win total somewhere in the mid-80s, enough to stick in the wild card race, but not enough to cause too much obvious discomfort at Chavez Ravine. But remember that the future is very uncertain: Even with their projected edge, having three other respectable teams still means that the Dodgers are projected to have a nearly one-in-three shot at not winning the division.

If another NL West team shocks the Dodgers, it won’t be wearing purple-and-black.