2026 MLB Projections and Futures

🔮 The 2026 Projection Framework

Projecting an MLB season is not about ranking teams by reputation or offseason buzz. It is about quantifying roster-level changes at the player level and aggregating those changes into team-level win expectations. Our 2026 projection framework starts with each team's final 2025 roster, strips out departed players, adds incoming acquisitions, and recalculates expected wins based on the net WAR delta.

Every offseason transaction is assessed through a single lens: how many wins does this add or remove? A free agent signing is not evaluated by the dollar amount or the narrative around it. It is evaluated by the projected WAR the player contributes relative to the player he replaces. When a team signs a shortstop projected for 3.5 WAR to replace one who produced 1.2 WAR, that is a 2.3-win improvement, and that improvement flows directly into our projected standings.

Aging curves are a critical component that most casual projection systems ignore. A 29-year-old signing a six-year deal will not produce the same WAR in year one as year four. We model expected decline rates by position, adjusting projections for the realistic performance arc rather than assuming static production. Catchers age faster than designated hitters. Power declines before contact ability. These granular adjustments compound across a full roster and can swing a team's projected win total by two to three games.

The framework also accounts for pitching development pipelines. Young arms in the upper minors represent projected future WAR that does not show up on the current 40-man roster. Teams with deep pitching systems have a higher variance ceiling because those arms represent upside that could materialize mid-season. This is where our projections diverge most from simple "add up the WAR" approaches, and it is where the most futures betting value tends to hide.

🔥 Key Offseason Moves and Their Impact

The 2025-26 offseason reshaped multiple divisions in ways that the futures market is still digesting. Several blockbuster free agent signings redistributed talent across the league, while a series of significant trades altered competitive windows for contenders and rebuilding clubs alike. Rotation overhauls, bullpen reconstructions, and lineup upgrades have shifted projected win totals in meaningful ways, creating gaps between market pricing and analytical expectation.

Each major transaction is analyzed in its own dedicated satellite article, linked in the analysis library below. Those articles go deep on individual player projections, surplus value calculations, and team-fit assessments. This pillar page serves as the central hub that connects all of that offseason analysis to its aggregate betting implications. The goal is to give you a single starting point from which you can drill into any specific move that interests you.

What matters most for futures bettors is not the individual signings in isolation but the cumulative effect on team-level projections. A team that adds two wins through free agency and loses one through departures nets a single projected win, but the market might have overreacted to the headline signing and underreacted to the quiet departure. That asymmetry between perception and reality is where value lives. Our Free Agency Tracker catalogs every signing with its WAR impact, and the Trade Tracker does the same for deals.

We update projections in real time as moves happen. Spring training performance, late signings, and roster construction decisions in March all feed back into the model. By Opening Day, the projections will reflect the most current roster state possible, giving futures bettors a continuously refined edge over static preseason rankings published in January and never touched again.

🏆 Division Outlook and Win Totals

Division-level analysis is the backbone of MLB futures betting because the postseason structure rewards division winners with guaranteed playoff berths. Projected standings within each division directly influence division winner futures, wild card markets, and win total over/under lines. A team projected for 88 wins in a division where the leader is projected for 95 has a very different playoff probability than one projected for 88 in a division where the leader sits at 89.

Our division breakdowns assess every team's projected win total, the confidence interval around that projection, and the probability distribution for finishing first, second, or third. These probability distributions matter because they reveal which teams are underpriced in the futures market. A team with a 22% chance of winning the division but priced at +800 (implied 11%) represents enormous expected value, even if they are not the most likely winner.

Breakout teams, those whose underlying analytics suggest they are significantly better than their public reputation, represent the highest-value futures bets every season. These are teams where the market has anchored on last year's record or a narrative about rebuilding, while the projection system sees a roster that added meaningful WAR through targeted acquisitions and internal development. Our Breakout Teams analysis identifies these candidates and explains the analytical case for each.

Visit our Division Predictions 2026 page for the full six-division breakdown with projected standings, pennant odds, and specific value plays. The Division Breakdowns page offers a more granular roster-by-roster assessment for readers who want the deep dive into competitive landscapes.

⚾ Pitching and Development Pipelines

Pitching is the single most important variable in long-term MLB projections, and it is the one most teams and bettors consistently underweight. Rotation quality, bullpen depth, and the development trajectory of young arms are the factors that swing team projections by five to ten wins more than any lineup change. A team that upgrades from a 4.50 xFIP fifth starter to a 3.80 xFIP option gains roughly two wins over a full season from that one roster spot alone.

Our pitching analytics module tracks several layers of pitcher evaluation. At the major league level, we monitor xFIP trends (which strip out home run variance to reveal true run prevention ability), SIERA (which accounts for batted ball data and strikeout-to-walk ratios), and workload indicators that flag fatigue risk. At the minor league level, we track prospect development curves, promotion timelines, and the historical translation rates for pitching prospects moving from Triple-A to the majors.

Bullpen construction is an underappreciated driver of team-level outcomes. A deep bullpen with multiple high-leverage options allows a team to protect leads and shorten games for its starters, while a thin bullpen forces managers into suboptimal matchups and collapses late in the season when fatigue accumulates. Our projections model bullpen depth as a team-level asset rather than evaluating relievers individually, because bullpen performance is inherently a function of roster construction and usage patterns.

The Pitching Analytics 2026 page provides the full breakdown of rotation projections, bullpen depth assessments, and development pipeline evaluations for all thirty teams. For team-specific deep dives, see our Red Sox rotation analysis pieces linked in the library below, which serve as templates for the level of detail we bring to every pitching staff evaluation.

📚 Complete 2026 Analysis Library

Every satellite article below drills into a specific aspect of the 2026 season outlook. From full season previews to individual player WAR projections, this is the complete library of analytical work feeding into our projection system.

🔄 Living Document

This projections page is not a static preseason product. It is a living document that updates continuously as the offseason unfolds and rosters take shape. Every major free agent signing, trade, or roster move triggers a recalculation of our projected standings. When a team adds a three-win player or loses a key starter to injury, the projections shift in real time, and the futures value landscape shifts with them.

The cadence of updates accelerates as we approach Opening Day. January and February updates focus on free agency and trade activity. March updates incorporate spring training roster decisions, minor league option assignments, and the final 26-man roster constructions. By April, the projections reflect the most current reality possible, giving bettors who follow this page a continuously refined edge over those working from outdated preseason guides.

For the latest offseason moves as they happen, follow the Offseason Hub and the Free Agency Tracker. Every update to those pages feeds back into the projections here. This is where all the analysis converges into a unified outlook for the 2026 season.

Last Updated: February 5, 2026