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ESPN
Jan 2, 2026, 07:00 AM ET
Happy New Year, baseball fans!
As the calendar flips to 2026, what will the sport have in store coming off an epic 2025? We asked our MLB experts to give their boldest prediction for what the new year will bring.
Ranging from breakout teams to themes that will rule the next 12 months, let's take a look into the crystal ball for the topics that will have us all talking in 2026.
Breakthrough teams
The Baltimore Orioles will win the 2026 World Series
The Orioles finished last in the AL East in 2025, but their 75 wins were the most for fifth-place entrants. Since then, the franchise added a crew of veterans around their young corps, including 1B Pete Alonso, OF Taylor Ward, RHPs Shane Baz and Zach Eflin and closer Ryan Helsley.
Gunnar Henderson should return to his 2024 form. Trevor Rogers may continue with his 2025 form. Top prospect Samuel Basallo will be a breakout star. The Orioles aren't messing around, and don't be surprised when Jackson Holliday becomes a legit AL All-Star and he makes a 30/30 run. -- Eric Karabell
The Seattle Mariners will win the franchise's first World Series title
This will be the year that Julio Rodriguez fully emerges as one of the game's best players, Cal Raleigh continues his reign as the best catcher in the majors and Colt Emerson is promoted to the big leagues in May and wins the AL Rookie of the Year Award. The Mariners are early in an extended period of dominance that will resemble what the Astros accomplished from 2015-24. -- Buster Olney
Dominican Republic spoils Japan-U.S. WBC final rematch
Defending champion Japan will feature Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto for the 2026 World Baseball Classic. The United States roster will be more loaded than ever with the likes of Aaron Judge, Raleigh, Bobby Witt Jr., Kyle Schwarber, Tarik Skubal and Paul Skenes. Everything points to a rematch of the 2023 final.
Except the Dominican Republic will win. Its powerhouse lineup is a pitcher's nightmare featuring Juan Soto, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Jose Ramirez, Geraldo Perdomo, Julio Rodriguez, Ketel Marte, Junior Caminero, Fernando Tatis Jr., Elly De La Cruz and perhaps Manny Machado. The difficulty for manager Albert Pujols will be figuring out whom to play.
The key, however, will be a better staff that could include Cristopher Sanchez, Freddy Peralta, Framber Valdez, Luis Castillo, Sandy Alcantara, Jhoan Duran and Bryan Abreu -- if they all commit to playing. After winning in 2013, the D.R. had early exits in 2017 (second round) and 2023 (group play), going just 6-4. Looking for some memorable home runs, some big bat flips and perhaps an undefeated run to the championship. -- David Schoenfield
The year of the Pirates?
The Pittsburgh Pirates will reach the postseason for the first time since 2015.
The top priority for the Pirates was clear this offseason: Upgrade an offense that ranked last in the majors in runs scored wherever possible to avoid wasting another year of Paul Skenes and the rest of a strong pitching staff. So far, so good. The Pirates have failed to land one of the top available hitters this winter after showing real interest in Kyle Schwarber and Josh Naylor among others, but they've still managed to greatly boost the lineup with first baseman/designated hitter Ryan O'Hearn and second baseman Brandon Lowe plus speedy outfielder Jake Mangum and heralded outfield prospect Jhostynxon Garcia onboard.
The numbers illustrate the potential for substantial improvement:
Spencer Horwitz led the Pirates with a 119 wRC+ and Joey Bart was the only other Pirate above league average with a 101 wRC+ last season. Meanwhile, O'Hearn, a first-time All-Star in 2025, posted a 127 wRC+. Lowe recorded a 114.
ONeil Cruz topped Pittsburgh with 20 home runs while Bryan Reynolds finished second with 16. Lowe alone hit 31 home runs and O'Hearn clubbed 17.
Then there's shortstop Konnor Griffin, the ballyhooed prospect who turns 20 in April and could be on the Pirates' roster by then after reaching and starring in Double-A last season
Pittsburgh finished 12 games behind the 83-win Cincinnati Reds for the third Wild Card spot. Chances are 83 wins won't be enough to reach the postseason in 2026 so it'll take a huge jump for the Pirates to snap their postseason drought. But if the pitching staff continues where it left off -- the group posted the seventh-best ERA in baseball with Skenes compiling a 1.97 ERA and winning the NL Cy Young Award -- and the lineup additions play to their potential, the Pirates could make real noise. -- Jorge Castillo
Konnor Griffin wins the 2026 NL Rookie of the Year award, and the Pirates win the NL Central.
Griffin, baseball's top prospect entering 2026, has already been discussed as a candidate to earn the Opening Day shortstop job, and he's a five-tool player who should force his way into the Pirates' lineup, perhaps on a Paul Skenes-like May timetable, quickly. Griffin's arrival will continue the Pirates' youth movement, and while the team will need to make the right free agent moves the rest of this winter as well as before the trade deadline in-season, they should take a noticeable step forward in 2026. With the NL Central wide open in my estimation, an early Pirates surge gives them the momentum to advance to October. -- Tristan Cockcroft
Blockbuster moves
Skubal will be traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in July
For several reasons -- from the rarity of a three-peat to the potential for a new economic landscape starting in 2027 -- the Dodgers will surely push all their chips to the middle of the table in their quest for another title.
They can even afford to trade for Skubal as a rental if the move leads them to a third straight championship, whereas just about any other team would need to immediately sign him to a long-term deal in order to justify giving up the prospects it will undoubtedly take to land a back-to-back Cy Young Award winner. If the Tigers fall out of the race, L.A. simply makes too much sense as a landing spot for Skubal -- that is assuming he's not traded in the coming weeks. -- Jesse Rogers
Kyle Tucker will settle for a 'pillow contract'
Entering the offseason, Kiley McDaniel projected an 11-year, $418 million deal for Tucker, the consensus top free agent on the market. But history suggests caution: The vast majority of free agent mega-contracts are completed early in the winter, with Manny Machado (Feb. 21, 2019) and Bryce Harper (March 1, 2019) standing as notable outliers. As 2026 dawns, if Tucker shifts his sights toward a short, high-AAV deal, nearly every big-market club would have a reason to engage. -- Paul Hembekides
Themes that will rule 2026
It will be a breakthrough year for small-market clubs
At least half of next season's 12-team playoff field will consist of teams in the bottom half of the payroll rankings, including at least three in the bottom 10.
The leading bottom-10 low-payroll contenders: Pittsburgh Pirates, Miami Marlins, Cleveland Guardians, Cincinnati Reds and Athletics, though the actual payroll hierarchy remains to be seen. But there are a lot of smaller-market teams that seem to be trying, and it would be great to see a surge of such teams next October. And it would be really interesting to see what kind of effect a large-scale crashing of the postseason by revenue-sharing recipients were to have on the gloomy labor negotiations. -- Bradford Doolittle
Going from the basement to the postseason will become the latest fad
Two of the teams that make the 2026 playoffs will have finished last in their division in 2025 -- and neither will be the Orioles. While worst-to-first turnarounds are not unheard of, last year's six cellar dwellers averaged just 64.5 wins and 28.5 games out of first. Just to earn a wild-card spot would likely require an improvement of 18 to 20 wins.
For Baltimore, just one year removed from a 91-win season, turning things around isn't that wild of a concept, even playing in a stacked AL East ... but we're going to go out on a limb and predict that there are at least a pair of postseason performances ahead from among the Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Angels, Washington Nationals, Pittsburgh Pirates and Colorado Rockies. -- AJ Mass
There will be a 50-homer season ... from someone who hit fewer than 40 in 2025
Last year at this time, predicting that Cal Raleigh, with his then career-high of 34 long balls, would hit 60 homers in 2025 would have drawn a lot of laughs. While I'm not willing to go quite that far, I will say that history repeats itself by giving us a new member of the 50-home run club who has never gotten out of the 30s before.
Three prime candidates to watch: James Wood, Riley Greene and Nick Kurtz. Green hit 36 home runs last season and Wood belted 32 even though they both finished in the bottom five in K%. While neither is ever going to lead the league in batting average, they are both still young and if either can shave their strikeout rate from the low 30% range into the Kyle Schwarber or Cal Raleigh range (26-27%), 50 home runs can become a distinct possibility.
Kurtz, on the other hand, is a simple math bet coming off a rookie season in which he hit 36 home runs in just 117 games. -- Dan Mullen
Shohei Ohtani will win NL Cy Young
He won the World Series in his first trip to the postseason -- then another one -- and started the 50/50 club in a year in which he could not pitch, becoming the first full-time designated hitter to win an MVP. He has four of those trophies now, all in a span of just five years. But there is one thing remaining for Ohtani to establish himself as the greatest baseball player ever, and that is to assert his dominance as a pitcher.
Don't think for one second he hasn't noticed that, either. Because for all the praise he has received for his offensive dominance and two-way persona, Ohtani's pitching has long been considered inferior to his hitting. Some have wondered if he should give it up entirely. This year, while sharing a rotation with two of his countrymen and benefitting from the Dodgers' resources, will be the one when Ohtani asserts his dominance on the mound like never before.
By the end of it, there will be no doubt -- nobody has or ever will be like Shohei Ohtani. -- Alden Gonzalez
