Where will each team finish in ‘26? One writer makes his picks

The Yankees and Giants will open the 2026 MLB season on Wednesday night. We’ll be counting down to that date with our annual preview series, with each story looking ahead to the coming season by breaking down a particular topic.

Previously: The most likely award winners in each division (see all season preview here)

Today: Predictions for playoff teams and postseason

We have been previewing this season for a while, from a whole bunch of different angles. But with the World Baseball Classic now in the rearview mirror, and the season just a few days away, it is time to do away with the tiptoeing around: It is time to put up or shut up.

Here are my predictions for where every team will finish in its division, along with who will take the Wild Card spots. (And as a bonus, we’ll cover how the postseason will play out, too.)

There have been years in the past when it has seemed rather obvious who the clear favorites were in each division, and which relatively small pool of teams were fighting for the rest of the scraps. That is absolutely not the case this year: Picking division winners has never been more difficult with this many teams in each race. This is what we want. This is very exciting.

AL EAST

1. Yankees
2. Orioles (Wild Card)
3. Blue Jays (Wild Card)
4. Red Sox
5. Rays

After the 2023 season, when the Yankees finished in fourth place with just 82 wins, I thought the wheels were about to come off that franchise for the first time, well, pretty much ever. Instead, they’ve won 94 games in back-to-back years, made the World Series once and watched Aaron Judge turn into a god among mortals. I still think one of these years Judge is going to get hurt again and this whole thing will unravel, but I’m done predicting it.

I’m not getting off the Orioles bandwagon; there’s a reason we were so excited about this team two years ago, and we’ll remember why this year. (I was this close to picking them to win the division.) After that World Series, the Blue Jays are highly motivated, to say the least, but I’m not sure their hitting is going to be better than it was last year; I still think they sneak in the playoffs, barely outlasting the Red Sox, whose offseason, I’ll confess, I didn’t entirely understand. The Rays have a better lineup than you think, but this division is a maelstrom.

AL CENTRAL

1. Tigers
2. Royals (Wild Card)
3. Guardians
4. White Sox
5. Twins

The Tigers were the clear favorites in this division before they signed Framber Valdez: Now anything less than their first division title since 2014 (!) would be an incredible disappointment. I’m intrigued by the Royals, who are finally filtering some young bats into the system, and if you were watching the WBC, you know that Bobby Witt Jr. looks like he’s about to win the first of multiple MVPs. (Yet he wasn’t even the Royals infielder who actually won MVP of that tournament.)

The Guardians, as usual, didn’t add anything, and it’ll catch up with them this year. The only real controversial pick here is putting the White Sox above the Twins, a pick that’s less about the Twins being bad and more about being intrigued by the White Sox, who may finally be building something that has some legs. They’re not losing 100 games this year, I’ll say that.

AL WEST

1. Mariners
2. A’s
3. Rangers
4. Astros
5. Angels

The Mariners may be an even bigger favorite in the AL West than the Tigers are in the AL Central. (The Dodgers are the only team I have more confidence in winning their division.) Seattle is stacked, finally, and Brendan Donovan sure feels like that last little piece it was missing. I think the Mariners might win 100 games.

The A’s are my big bold pick here, and if they just had a little more pitching, I might even put them in the playoffs. I’m still putting them above the Rangers, whose roster has gotten old quickly, largely because much of that young talent has yet to pop in the way they hoped. Seeing the Astros in fourth place is jarring, but I suspect the bottom may really fall out on them this year, after a decade of highlights (and two World Series rings). They’ll still finish above the Angels, though.

NL EAST

1. Mets
2. Phillies (Wild Card)
3. Braves
4. Marlins
5. Nationals

This offseason probably didn’t go exactly how the Mets drew it up, but it’s difficult to argue the pivot they made after losing out on Kyle Tucker. The defense may be an issue, but this roster actually makes a little more sense now. (I’d still try to make sure they’ve got a comfortable division lead by Labor Day, just in case.) The Phillies will be a little worse this year than last -- getting older is tough, you know? -- but not by so much that they’ll fall out of the playoff picture entirely. It’s all about October for them anyway.

It really is a good thing the Braves went on that wild run in the fall of 2021, because things just haven’t been the same since then, due to a combination of injuries and underperformance. This spring has not been an encouraging sign that the tide is turning. The Marlins are interesting enough to spoil somebody’s season come September, but there are too many holes to fill for them to reach October this year. And the Nationals’ journey begins again, restarts, whatever verb you want to use: They’ve got to figure out who they are before they do anything else.

NL CENTRAL

1. Cubs
2. Pirates (Wild Card)
3. Brewers
4. Cardinals
5. Reds

Speaking of division title droughts, the Cubs haven’t won one in a full season since 2017, and even though they lost Tucker, that should end this year. (Alex Bregman feels like a better fit, anyways.) The big swing here is Pittsburgh. I’m not sure I loved all of the Pirates' offseason moves, but their hitting should be at least a little better, and that starting rotation might be the best in the National League. (If this happens, could Paul Skenes actually be the MVP?)

I am looking forward to being wrong about the Brewers for the umpteenth straight year. The injury to Hunter Greene is absolutely devastating to the Reds, and I’m beginning to worry that Elly De La Cruz is going to be more of an aesthetic masterpiece than a statistical one. Which is why I think the Cardinals will be somewhat better than expected and end up avoiding last place.

NL WEST

1. Dodgers
2. Giants (Wild Card)
3. Diamondbacks
4. Padres
5. Rockies

No sweat for the Dodgers, who will win this division by far more than the three games they won it by last year. The scramble is between the next three teams. The Padres have high-end talent but almost no depth and not many resources left to get them some, and the Diamondbacks went from having too many starting pitchers to not nearly enough. That leaves me as the believer in the Giants, who have just enough pieces on this roster to think they might, under new manager Tony Vitello, add up to something surprising. As for the Rockies? Well, they’ve made some changes finally. That’s a start.

PLAYOFFS

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Wild Card Series: Yankees over Royals; Blue Jays over Orioles

ALDS: Mariners over Blue Jays; Tigers over Yankees

ALCS: Mariners over Tigers

This is the best Mariners team since 2001. Here’s betting they do something not even that team could do: Reach the first World Series in franchise history.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

Wild Card Series: Mets over Giants; Pirates over Phillies

NLDS: Dodgers over Pirates; Mets over Cubs

NLCS: Dodgers over Mets

It is fair to say this NLCS would have people talking.

And, finally:

World Series: Mariners over Dodgers

I’m predicting this series will come down to a Game 7 in Seattle, and we’ll feel the seismic shocks after it’s over for months, and years, to come.

Enjoy the season, and please do not come back to this piece and see all the times I was wrong.