February 20, 2026 | MLB Prediction Analytics Desk
I've been staring at projection models every winter for longer than I'd like to admit, and I can't remember a single offseason that rearranged the competitive landscape this violently. Spring Training's underway, the models have chewed through every trade, every signing, every roster shuffle, and here's what fell out: roughly 163 projected WAR worth of free-agent talent that was sitting on the open market in November got scattered across 30 rosters. That's an average of +4.5 WAR per team. But averages are liars. Some clubs gorged themselves on multi-win upgrades while others watched their core walk out the door and couldn't do a single thing about it. Let me walk you through where the math actually landed.
Honestly, at what point do we just stop pretending there's a competitive balance in this sport? Los Angeles enters 2026 projected for 100 wins by FanGraphs' Depth Charts. A 99% playoff probability. A 28% chance to three-peat as World Series champions. And then they went out and added Kyle Tucker on a four-year, $240 million deal, because apparently they felt like being cruel. Steamer projects Tucker at 3.9 WAR with a 139 wRC+, 27 home runs, and 18 stolen bases. He's slotting into a lineup that already has three future Hall of Famers in Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Mookie Betts. That's not a roster. That's an act of aggression.
Here's what gets me: Tucker's projected 139 wRC+ would make him a top-10 bat in the entire sport. And this team already led baseball in run production. Think about that for a second. They didn't need him, and they got him anyway. That's the statistical equivalent of taking a 98-win roster and shoving it past 100. Oh, and they're also carrying the second-highest projected rotation WAR behind only Boston. So, yeah. Good luck to everyone else in the National League. You're going to need it.
I'll say it plainly: this is the worst single offseason talent exodus I've seen from a contender since the 2018 Marlins. The Astros lost both Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker in the same winter. Both of them. Gone. FanGraphs' Depth Charts now project Houston at just 81 wins for 2026, down from 87 in 2025. Their position player WAR ranking? 12th in baseball. That's the first time they've been that low over a full season since 2014, back when they were still tanking on purpose. ZiPS is a little kinder, still seeing them as a roughly 90-win team, but even that's a step backward for a dynasty-era roster that used to be the undisputed gold standard of the American League.
Here's the thing: when you lose a combined 3.8 WAR (Bregman to Chicago) and 3.9 WAR (Tucker to Los Angeles), that's roughly 7.7 WAR walking out the door in a single winter. Replacement-level production doesn't fill that hole. It doesn't come close. PECOTA still sees Houston as competitive with the fourth-best projected winning percentage (.528) in the American League, but the margin for error that used to be a mile wide? It's now razor-thin. One bad month, one key injury, and this team could be a seller by July. I never thought I'd type that sentence about the Astros.
Look, this is why I love projection models. They cut through the noise and show you exactly what a signing is worth. Alex Bregman's five-year, $175 million deal with the Cubs? It's one of the cleanest WAR-to-wins conversions you'll see all offseason. Steamer projects him at 3.8 WAR with a 121 wRC+ for 2026, and the moment the deal was announced, Chicago's win total in the betting market jumped from 87.5 to 89.5. Two wins. Just like that. One player, one signature, one measurable shift in the entire division race.
And don't tell me this is a bet on past performance. This guy has accumulated 17 WAR over the last four seasons, averaging better than a four-win player year after year. Over the last eight years, his 37.1 fWAR ranks eighth among all position players in baseball. Eighth. That's not a gamble; that's buying a proven commodity. For a Cubs team that was already competitive in 2025, plugging Bregman into the hot corner doesn't just improve their lineup. It changes the NL Central math entirely. FanGraphs' overall projection of 88.2 wins would give Chicago their best season in years, and honestly? I think the models might be selling them short.
If I had to pick one front office that won the winter, it's Baltimore, and it isn't particularly close. Pete Alonso walks in on a five-year, $155 million deal, and FanGraphs projects him at 3.6 WAR for 2026, a two-to-three win upgrade over what they had at first base. But here's what makes the Orioles' offseason so impressive: it wasn't just one move. They grabbed Taylor Ward, who gives them more than a win of improvement in the outfield. They added Chris Bassitt, Shane Baz, Ryan Helsley, and Andrew Kittredge on the pitching side. Add it all up, the total value gained minus value lost, and you're looking at the biggest net WAR swing of any roster in baseball.
And just look at the top of that lineup. Gunnar Henderson leads the club at 6.0 WAR. Adley Rutschman sits at 4.0 WAR. Jordan Westburg's at 3.9 WAR. Alonso slots in as the fourth player projected above three wins. That's a terrifying concentration of talent. Baltimore's projected at 84-78 with 55% playoff odds in the loaded AL East, where four teams are projected within two wins of each other. But I'll tell you what: the sheer density of above-average WAR contributors on this roster gives them a ceiling that I think the projections are underestimating. This team can get scorching hot and run away from the pack if things break right.
While everyone was obsessing over the position player signings, the Boston went ahead and quietly built the most valuable projected rotation in the sport. Don't sleep on this. FanGraphs has Boston first in projected starting pitcher WAR at 17.2, and bringing in Ranger Suarez only pushes that number higher. Their top five of Garrett Crochet, Sonny Gray, Suarez, Brayan Bello, and Johan Oviedo is projected to eat 83.7% of Boston's starting innings. That's an absurd amount of trust in five arms, and the models love it.
Here's the kicker: FanGraphs projects the Boston to finish with the most fWAR, the lowest FIP, and the third-best ERA among all rotations in 2026. Suarez himself is tied for second among all starting pitchers in FanGraphs' projections. Let that sink in. The Boston Boston, a franchise that's been defined by its offense for as long as any of us have been alive, have flipped to a pitching-first identity. That's a philosophical earthquake, and the projection models are rewarding it handsomely. They're right in the thick of the AL East crown race, going head-to-head with the Yankees, Blue Jays, and Orioles in what projects as the most cutthroat division in baseball. I can't wait to watch it play out.
For every winner this winter, there has to be a loser. And the Padres? They're the cautionary tale I'll be pointing to for years. Dylan Cease bolted for the Blue Jays on a seven-year, $210 million deal (Steamer projects him at 3.8 WAR for Toronto). Michael King also walked in free agency. Yu Darvish won't throw a single pitch in 2026, recovering from an internal brace procedure that could very well be career-ending. And on top of all that, Luis Arraez and Robert Suarez are gone too.
I'll be blunt: this is a gutting. The rotation losses alone strip away an enormous chunk of projected value. FanGraphs projects San Diego's starting pitching near the league's basement now, and the overall win projection has cratered from 90 wins in 2025 to just 79 for 2026. That's an 11-win drop. Eleven. Nearly all of it driven by pitching WAR walking off the roster. And here's the brutal part: with large existing contracts handcuffing their spending and a potential franchise sale hanging over everything, the Padres had no mechanism to replace what they lost. The projection systems aren't being mean. They're just doing arithmetic. And the arithmetic says San Diego is in serious trouble.
Aaron Judge is the best player on the planet right now, and the projections agree. He leads all position players at 7.3 WAR with a projected 43 home runs for the Yankees. On the pitching side, Tarik Skubal is doing something we haven't seen in a very long time. His projection ranges from 5.5 to 6.3 WAR depending on the system (Steamer vs. ZiPS vs. Depth Charts), the highest starting pitcher projection since Chris Sale in 2019. And honestly? It feels earned. Back-to-back Cy Young seasons, a 2.21 ERA in 2025 with 241 strikeouts. He's the real deal, and he's anchoring a Tigers rotation that also added Framber Valdez and Justin Verlander. Detroit's going to be fun this year.
Juan Soto checks in at 6.1 WAR with 38 projected home runs and 23 stolen bases for the Mets, because of course he does. Gunnar Henderson's 6.0 WAR makes him the engine powering Baltimore's entire contention window. Here's why these individual numbers matter so much: Judge's 7.3 WAR alone is worth roughly seven wins above what a replacement-level player would provide. That's the difference between an 85-win wild card team and a 92-win division champion. One player. Seven wins. That's the kind of leverage that makes or breaks a season before it even starts.
Look, the 2025-26 offseason didn't just shuffle names between rosters. It fundamentally rewired the competitive hierarchy of this sport in ways we haven't seen in a single winter in a long, long time. The Dodgers, already the best team in baseball, strapped Tucker's 3.9 WAR to a 100-win projection because apparently they enjoy making the rest of us suffer. The Cubs grabbed Bregman's 3.8 WAR and turned themselves into legitimate NL Central favorites overnight. The Orioles stacked upgrades at every level of the roster. The Boston built the most valuable projected rotation anyone's seen in years.
And on the other side of the ledger? Houston lost nearly 8 WAR worth of position player talent and watched its projection tumble by six or more wins. San Diego lost its entire pitching identity and fell 11 wins in the projections. Here's the truth that these numbers keep screaming at us: WAR isn't just some leaderboard stat for nerds to argue about on Twitter. It's the currency that buys October baseball. The teams that accumulated the most of it this winter are the same teams the models expect to be playing in October. That's never a coincidence. It never has been.