*This is the first installment of a new series, “State of the Season,” to be published every two weeks during the MLB regular season*
After a long and exciting offseason, the 2026 MLB regular season officially starts next week when the San Francisco Giants host the New York Yankees on March 25. That means that all of the offseason transactions will finally have an impact for their new teams and all of the preseason narratives can become truth or fallacy.
Baseball’s regular season will run from March 25 to September 27. Teams will trend up, trend down, elevate to their highs, and plummet to their lows. That makes for exciting storylines, aggressive transactions, sheer panic, utter bliss, and undoubted drama all season long. With State of the Season, I plan to digest the 2026 season in a smooth way, riding the rollercoaster that is Major League Baseball.
Can the LA Dodgers make history as the first team to win three straight World Series titles since the Yankees won three in a row from 1998-2000?
Can a talent-laden club like the New York Mets, the Atlanta Braves, or the Baltimore Orioles bounce back from missing the playoffs in 2025?
Can any players dethrone Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge as league MVPs or Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal as reigning Cy Young winners?
All of these questions will eventually be answered, but first we have to take the temperature of the league as it stands now, before the season.
What does the league look like entering the season?
FanGraphs has a page dedicated to the odds for each team to make the playoffs, but I’d rather just give the high-level standings projection so you have a general understanding for where each team is projected to finish at season’s end. All this data can be found on FanGraphs here. (Note: AL = American League, NL = National League)
2026 MLB Standings Projection (via FanGraphs)
Team | Projected Record | Projected Run Differential (Projected Runs Scored – Projected Runs Allowed)
AL East:
- New York Yankees | 87-75 | +59
- Boston Red Sox | 86-76 | +45
- Toronto Blue Jays | 86-76 | +45
- Baltimore Orioles | 84-78 | +33
- Tampa Bay Rays | 81-81 | +3
AL Central:
- Detroit Tigers | 86-76 | +45
- Kansas City Royals | 81-81 | -2
- Minnesota Twins | 79-83 | -23
- Cleveland Guardians | 76-86 | -45
- Chicago White Sox | 69-93 | -113
AL West:
- Seattle Mariners | 88-74 | +63
- Texas Rangers | 81-81 | +3
- Houston Astros | 81-81 | -3
- The Athletics | 80-82 | -14
- Los Angeles Angels | 74-88 | -65
NL East:
- New York Mets | 88-74 | +71
- Atlanta Braves | 88-74 | +67
- Philadelphia Phillies | 87-75 | +56
- Miami Marlins | 75-87 | -55
- Washington Nationals | 69-93 | -114
NL Central:
- Chicago Cubs | 85-77 | +34
- Pittsburgh Pirates | 82-80 | +12
- Milwaukee Brewers | 81-81 | +3
- Cincinnati Reds | 77-85 | -41
- St. Louis Cardinals | 75-87 | -54
NL West:
- Los Angeles Dodgers | 96-66 | +153
- San Francisco Giants | 82-80 | +7
- Arizona Diamondbacks | 81-81 | +2
- San Diego Padres | 79-83 | -16
- Colorado Rockies | 66-96 | -155
These projections give a rough sketch of what the 2026 MLB season could look like. Projections are just projections, though, and it is highly unlikely the league takes this shape at the end of September. Storylines will come and go, and they’ve already started. Let me walk you through a few of the biggest storylines heading into the season next.
The storylines to know before Opening Day
- Can the Dodgers three-peat?
Winning three World Series titles in a row is almost unheard of in modern baseball. Only the dynastic Yankees (twice), the 1972-1974 A’s, and the 1998-2000 Yankees have achieved it. That’s what makes the Dodgers’ chase so rare and appealing to the appreciator of history.
The 2025 Dodger lineup was as formidable as any in history. Built around Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Will Smith, it got even better ahead of 2026 when they signed the consensus top free agent hitter in outfielder Kyle Tucker this past offseason.
The pitching was not as smooth as the lineup was dominant. The Dodgers dealt with injuries to their pitchers all season long, often relying on the “next man up” mentality through a patchwork bullpen that was relied upon the most in baseball. Even still, the team won 93 games and took the division title. If LA gets healthier seasons from their arms and get the impact they expect from new star closer Edwin Díaz in the late innings, a three-peat will be more likely than their repeat was!
- Can talented teams that missed the playoffs last season bounce back to form in 2026?
Many teams with high expectations were disappointing last season, ultimately missing out on October baseball. The Astros, Rangers, Braves, Mets, and Orioles all had at least a 45% chance pre-season to make the playoffs, but failed. Did these teams re-tool or improve enough to get there this time around?
All five of these squads made moves that will make huge impacts on their 2026 seasons. The Astros made a headline signing of top Japanese pitcher Tatsuya Imai. The Rangers and Mets made a rare one-for-one swap of long-term pieces with Brandon Nimmo going to Texas and Marcus Semien going to New York. The Mets also made a big trade for a new ace to their starting rotation in Freddy Peralta. The Braves, who couldn’t avoid the injury bug, will hopefully get full seasons from those who missed time along with new additions closer Robert Suarez and shortstop Ha-Seong Kim (who will miss the start of the season with an injury), both of whom they signed in free agency. Finally, the Orioles brought in a couple right-handed bats that combined for 76 home runs last season in Taylor Ward (via trade) and Pete Alonso (via free agency), while also deepening their rotation with Shane Baz (via trade) and Chris Bassitt (via free agency).
If these teams bounce back and put themselves in the discussion, it won’t be without the underperformance of teams that are expected to be there as well. Does that mean the Brewers have a down year, acclimating to their new roster after making a few big trades? Was the Reds sneaking into October with just 83 wins something we’ll forget about so soon? Are the Guardians, Tigers, or Padres capable of doing again what they did last season? Time will tell, but one thing is for sure: the first month of the season will do a lot to tell us who came to play this year and who lagged behind.
- How will the automatic ball-strike (ABS) system change baseball?
The noise of the collective bargaining negotiations has overshadowed the biggest change coming to baseball beginning this season: ABS. ABS will give each team two ball-strike challenges at the start of every game. If the challenge is successful, the challenging team will keep that challenge. If the challenge is unsuccessful, the challenging team will lose the challenge.
This creates a new part of the game of baseball that requires strategy, as if we didn’t have enough already! Already this spring, teams have been testing out their abilities to challenge pitches. Some players are earning the trust of their managers to challenge calls they believe to be overturnable, and some aren’t.
It’ll be worth taking note of who challenges pitches. I find it unlikely many teams will promote their pitchers challenging calls on the defensive side. The pitcher is always going to think they threw a better pitch than they did. Teams certainly do not want to waste their challenges on an ego-driven disagreement. I predict it’ll be the catchers that make the challenge call 9 times out of 10, leaving space for the undisciplined among the pitchers to tap his cap two times in the heat of the moment. Rather, it will be more uncertain who amongst the league’s hitters challenges calls. Will teams make internal rules barring certain players from using their challenges? Should it only be used for egregiously poor calls? Should they be saved for late innings only? These are the trends I’ll be keeping an eye on.
- Who can realistically challenge the reigning major awards winners?
With Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Tarik Skubal, and Paul Skenes entering 2026 as the reigning award winners, one question has floated amongst baseball minds: Can anyone actually challenge them?
Aaron Judge has won two AL MVPs in a row, but the AL does have some superstars ready to take the crown. The first that comes to mind is the Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr, an all-around superstar on a rising Royals team. Cal Raleigh, the switch-hitting catcher who got 13 first-place MVP votes last season, hit 60 home runs and helped Seattle nearly make their first World Series ever. Finally, Gunnar Henderson, shortstop of the Orioles, has bounce-back upside unlike anyone in baseball and is poised to show it.
In the NL, two-way player Shohei Ohtani proves a more formidable foe in the MVP chase, acting as two superstar players in one. The main arguments in the NL would be one of the Mets duo of Francisco Lindor or Juan Soto, and the Braves’ Ronald Acuña Jr., who won the award in 2023. It’s always possible that a starting pitcher like the Pirates’ Paul Skenes has a dominant season and takes a stab at the award, but a pitcher hasn’t won an MVP in either league since 2014.
Right now, the AL’s Cy Young title is held for the second straight year by the Tigers’ lefty Tarik Skubal, and the NL’s by the young phenom Paul Skenes. Dreaming on which pitchers could give these two a run for their money is relatively easier, as the pool is bigger thanks to the inevitable nature of pitcher injuries.
Names I’m looking out for on the AL side are the Red Sox’s Garrett Crochet (who finished 2nd with 4 first-place votes in 2025), the Astros’ Hunter Brown, and the Rangers’ Jacob deGrom. On the NL side, the Phillies’ Christopher Sánchez, the Phillies’ Zack Wheeler, and the Giants’ Logan Webb are my early guesses for those to give Skenes a run for his money.
The safest bet may still be the reigning winners for every award, but the field is strong enough that none of these races should feel automatic entering the year.
What to watch for in the first two weeks
The first two weeks of the season will give us limited, but meaningful data. A few things I will be paying attention to are:
How teams approach ABS. I spoke about how ABS will be something to watch over the entirety of the season, but it will be especially key to watch how teams strategize with it early on. Perhaps they are more risk-averse now than later in the season, or vice versa. The first two weeks will help these teams hone their strategies for later in the season.
How players who participated in the WBC begin the year. The World Baseball Classic finished for many players last week, about a week and a half before Opening Day. I will be watching to see if any of these players show any sort of post-WBC fatigue or if the opposite is true and they show they are in more of a midseason form.
How big additions adjust to their new environments. It’s not easy to change teams over the offseason. You are going to play in a new home ballpark, surrounded by new teammates and new fanbases. I think especially of those players in new, big markets like the Dodgers’ Kyle Tucker and the Mets’ Freddy Peralta. I’ll be watching these new additions closely.
*The next installment of this series will be published April 3, 2026.*
Inner Half 