There’s a difference between predictions and projections.
Predictions are human thoughts and analysis that try to guess an outcome. For example, each fan base predicts that their team will win the World Series. Human thoughts come with human error, which makes incorrect predictions justifiable when the Los Angeles Angels don’t win the World Series.
Then there are projections. MLB projections are made when a computer algorithmically decides between the good teams and the bad teams. Take the PECOTA projections, for example. Baseball Prospectus’ diverse and complex formula that gives each team an exact win total – with a decimal point for clarifying reasons, obviously – for the upcoming season.
Predictions are wrong all of the time. When projections are wrong, that means something that blatantly wasn’t supposed to happen happened.
The 2026 season of Major League Baseball has proved a lot of those projections wrong. A team forecasted to end with 94 losses can now win a division. Another team with the third-best chance to win the World Series will end with one of the worst records.
Here’s everything the computers got wrong about the 2026 season.
How Were These MLB Projections Made?
FanGraphs is a forefront baseball website with in-depth team and player statistics, advanced standings, and, most importantly, refined projections. The website itself details its projections as “statistical models that take a player’s past stats, age, and other factors to predict how a player will perform in the next game, upcoming season, or entire career.”
FanGraphs will run these balances for each player on a roster to determine team projections. A lot of those projections were excitingly incorrect.
The Very-Wrong Postseason Projections
On Opening Day, FanGraphs projected that eight teams would return to the postseason from 2025. As of Sep. 7, only six of the 12 teams have held through.
Coming into the season, the National League was easier to predict. There were more established teams that would need a lot to go wrong to push their seasons off course. These include the back-to-back champion Los Angeles Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies, who’ve made the postseason for four consecutive seasons.
The teams unaccounted for that currently hold a playoff spot are the Milwaukee Brewers and Arizona Diamondbacks. Counting out Milwaukee is a surprisingly common occurrence for a team that boasts nine winning seasons in the last decade. Both the Brewers and D-backs were projected to win 82 games, and both are expected to beat this projection.
The American League is where the projections get way off. Just two of the projected six teams remain in the picture. The best part is, the two teams that currently hold the bye were cast to finish last in their divisions.
The Chicago White Sox and Tampa Bay Rays have had tremendous, unexpected seasons. FanGraphs gave Tampa Bay a 6.8% chance to win the AL East, and Chicago a 1.2% chance to make the playoffs. Both look like they will happen in 2026.
The Most Surprising Teams
The Rays and White Sox were the two teams the computer discounted the most. Both of these young, exciting clubs are looking to finish with 16 more wins than originally projected.
The second-most underestimated team was shockingly Milwaukee. The Brewers are never an attractive pick to win the World Series – or the National League, for that matter – since they don’t have star power. Apparently, the computer fell for this too.
Since 2020, the only team that’s won more games than the Brewers is the Dodgers. Milwaukee ended with the most wins in 2025 and persists in being a winning team through 162 games. The Brew Crew is projected to win 15 more games than FanGraphs originally said.
Outside of that trio proving the computer wrong, a few other teams have been pleasantly better than expected. The Washington Nationals were one of three teams given a 0% chance to win the World Series, another one being the White Sox.
To everyone’s surprise, the Nats churned out one of the best offenses in baseball and have established true stars to build around for the future. Washington will finish around seven games better than projected.
The Biggest Letdowns
No other than two teams come to mind for the biggest disappointments of 2026. One has an MLB-leading $344 million total payroll, and the other came innings shy of reaching its first Fall Classic last year.
The Seattle Mariners and New York Mets opened the season with FanGraphs’ second and third best chances of winning the World Series, respectively. As of Monday, the Mariners sit with a 0.6% chance, and the Mets with 0%.
All season, Seattle has stuck around, but never once clicked. The Mariners haven’t been mathematically eliminated, but sit 5.5 games out of the AL Wild Card and show zero signs of making a push. The Mets, on the other hand, have simply been a disappointing team all year.
Via FanGraphs projections, New York is underperforming more than any other team, as they are on track to finish 15 wins under their preseason mark. The Mariners are expected to finish 11 games under their mark, which surprisingly isn’t directly behind the Mets.
The San Francisco Giants and Athletics are both projected to drop 14 games behind the computer’s projection. The Angels and Kansas City Royals are also in the same situation, facing 10-game drops. However, these four letdowns aren’t necessarily notable because these four clubs didn’t have optimistic outlooks for 2026 in the first place.
What Does This Mean for the Postseason?
If these anomalies tell us anything about the 2026 season, it’s that anything can happen this October.
The White Sox and their 0% World Series odds could stare down just seven wins to reach the title series. The Rays and their 3.4% chance to win the AL have been the best team in it all year. And the Dodgers have twice the odds of the second-best team to win it all, but with the way these projections have shaken out, there’s no guarantee.
The countdown to Sept. 29 begins now.
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