– The 2026 MLB season is inbound!

Let’s preview what lies ahead for the NL & AL East divisions this season.

NL East

New York Mets

• Pitching Grade: A-
• Batting Grade: B+
• Vibes Grade: B-
• Star to watch: Bo Bichette
• Non-star to watch: Jonah Tong
• Intangible reason to watch: Steve Cohen’s Wallet vs the Los Angeles Dodgers: the best rivalry in baseball?

Did the Mets pay the largest contract in MLB history to get Juan Soto because Steve Cohen can pay whatever he wants? Yes. Did they melt down in the back half of the season and miss the playoffs? Also yes.

What do you do when you have more money than God at your disposal with an owner who is going scorched Earth because he wants to win? You regroup and move on. That’s what the Mets did this offseason.

They added on the margins- taking a flier trade on the health of infielder Marcus Semien, replacing Edwin Diaz with Devin Williams, hoping you can get the “once compared to Mike Trout” version of Luis Robert Jr., and adding both potential ace Freddy Peralta and outbidding the rival Phils for Bo Bichette.

With the face of the team, Pete Alonso, gone, the Mets have the talent and the resources to win- it just feels like they need to remain steadfast and composed and not get in their own way. 

Philadelphia Phillies

• Pitching Grade: B-
• Batting Grade: A-
• Vibes Grade: D
• Star to watch: Christopher Sanchez
• Non-star to watch: Andrew Painter
• Intangible reason to watch: Bryce Harper vs. his own team

Is this the last hurrah for the Phillies as a team that can take aim at the Dodgers in the NL? Aside from Ranger Suarez’s departure to Boston and kicking Castellanos to the curb to replace him with Adolis Garcia, they’re essentially just running it back again. That’s to no fault of their own- they’ve been in contention with the core of Harper, Schwarber, and Realmuto since winning the pennant in 2022, but have always had some sort of hiccup in the postseason.

Zack Wheeler is looking to return in April, Aaron Nola is your “I’m good every other year!” pitcher, Christopher Sanchez is looking Cy Young leap ready, and Andrew Painter is ready to make the rotation. It’s a pitching staff that only got better, paired with a lineup that’s just keeping it simple and hoping for health, and that Bryce Harper doesn’t request a trade or do something irrational after verbal warfare with his front office. It’s Philly, it’s a pressure-cooker already, and they’ve survived more tension in the past.

Atlanta Braves

• Pitching Grade: C+
• Batting Grade: A-
• Vibes Grade: C
• Star to watch: Michael Harris II
• Non-star to watch: Grant Holmes
• Intangible reason to watch: The chase for the rebound

We’re in potentially year three of a cursed Atlanta Braves season. We love and adore the way that they’ve constructed their roster from a contractual perspective by locking up their core for the long haul after their World Series glory, but it’s been a plethora of dumb injuries, hitting and not hitting at the wrong time of the year, and never feeling like we see the roster firing on all cylinders. It already feels that way with Jurickson Profar getting a 162-game suspension for PEDs AGAIN, Ha Seong Kim slipping on the ice to miss time, and Spencer Schwellenbach already placed on the 60-day IL. When one rotation arm rises as a replacement, it goes down right when the absence has recovered.

That being said, Walt Weiss is now the man running the show after a period of stagnation as a manager. Ronald Acuna Jr. and Spencer Strider are praying for a fully healthy season. Michael Harris II took the biggest leap from his first half split to his second half split last year when the season was done. You trust the organization, but they’re already playing from behind from the start in a loaded NL East.

Miami Marlins

• Pitching Grade: B+
• Batting Grade: B-
• Vibes Grade: A
• Star to watch: Kyle Stowers
• Non-star to watch: Owen Caissie
• Intangible reason to watch: The return of the throwback unis

If the Marlins weren’t in a division as loaded as this one (although they did finish above Atlanta last year!), They’d be everyone’s darling team this year, apart from the notorious history of… losing and being incompetent.

Trading Edward Cabrera to the Cubs for prospects already is yet another frustrating move where they accumulate talent and sell for more pieces rather than go for it, but with Sandy Alcantara and Eury Perez coming back, the rotation was a position of strength and now they’ve got Owen Cassie to pair with an entire lineup under the age of 30 that had fun playing with house money next year. Is Kyle Stowers your NL All-Star starting outfielder?

Washington Nationals

• Pitching Grade: F
• Batting Grade: C+
• Vibes Grade: D
• Star to watch: James Wood
• Non-star to watch: Jacob Young
• Intangible reason to watch: The youngest manager in baseball

The Nationals have finally looked in the mirror and stripped it down to the studs… AGAIN since winning the World Series in 2019. James Wood will have a ton of fun being a moose and hitting a ton of homers again and will look to keep his strikeouts down, but after getting rid of Mackenzie Gore and hiring Blake Butera at just 33, they’re wanting to start EVERYTHING from the ground up.

That may involve giving up the most home runs in a non-juiced-ball year in history against this pitching staff unless something drastic changes.

AL East

Toronto Blue Jays

• Pitching Grade: B
• Batting Grade: A
• Vibes Grade: A-
• Star to watch: Dylan Cease
• Non-star to watch: Cody Ponce
• Intangible reason to watch: Revenge

It’s plain and simple: the Blue Jays were a mere out away from slaying Goliath twice last season. While they lost Bo Bichette and couldn’t land Kyle Tucker, they proved they’re still motivated for some revenge and went out and got Dylan Cease, Cody Ponce (they’re uber entertaining Star Wars fanatics), and Kazuma Okamoto. Shane Bieber even took a pay cut just because he was so motivated to come back, and Scherzer, we guess, still has some gas in the tank for all of Canada. Unfortunately, we’re already seeing some chinks in the armor, with Yesavage, Berrios, Francis, and Bieber already out to start the year.

Is it likely we get a year as incredible as last year from old man George Springer? Probably not. But the reason they won last year was their depth, and they’re still going to have that with the potential of a superstar going scorched Earth.

Boston Red Sox

• Pitching Grade: A-
• Batting Grade: B+
• Vibes Grade: D
• Star to watch: Roman Anthony
• Non-star to watch: Payton Tolle
• Intangible reason to watch: The Tristan Casas soundbites

If you ask any Red Sox fan how they felt about the offseason, it almost feels like all of them are doom and gloom because they remain fed up with the front office, and they weren’t capable of bringing back Alex Bregman, the heart and soul of the team last year. But when you actually look at the additions on paper, they quietly had one of the best offseasons? Willson Contreras is going to rake at Fenway, Suarez, Oviedo, and Gray are additions to a rotation behind Crochet, and we’re going to get a full season of the ROMAN EMPIRE!

The Red Sox are comparable to the Phillies as an AL pressure-cooker, but need to prove they can get over the Boston sports-town drama. This is a team that will be battling in the AL East that is as talented as anyone if it can put it all together.

Baltimore Orioles

• Pitching Grade: C+
• Batting Grade: A
• Vibes Grade: B
• Star to watch: Gunnar Henderson
• Non-star to watch: Samuel Basallo
• Intangible reason to watch: The young bats have to arrive now. Also, the Bird Bath Splash Zone and the Homer hose; what’s next?

After being the darling baby birds and looking to take the jump to World Series contender to start the year, everything that could go wrong, DID go wrong for the O’s to start the year, to the point where they simply couldn’t dig themselves out of the grave they dug for themselves. They started 15-28, fired Brandon Hyde, then went on a hot streak and won 14 of 20, but it was far too late, and the injuries simply caught up to them, ending the year. We liked the Orioles going into last season because of their youth and an uncapped ceiling; there are almost too many young bats, where they refused to make an all-in move to bolster pitching to the chagrin of Baltimore fans.

Pitching is slim now that they’ve bailed on Grayson Rodriguez for Taylor Ward, but adding his power along with Pete Alonso, hoping that Gunnar carries over his success in the WBC and chalking it up as an injury-riddled nightmare year, and that Kyle Bradish can continue his surprise dominance will make the O’s a prime bounce back candidate looking to get back to October.

New York Yankees

• Pitching Grade: B+
• Batting Grade: A-
• Vibes Grade: C-
• Star to watch: Aaron Judge
• Non-star to watch: Austin Wells
• Intangible reason to watch: Which bats will step up that are not named Aaron Judge?

The Yankees‘ offseason was disappointing, according to behemoth superstar Aaron Judge, despite bringing back most of the core pieces and adding Ryan Weathers, and that’s why the season is going to come down to the health of both Gerrit Cole’s return and Giancarlo Stanton, who apparently can’t open up a chip bag without fatigue!

The Yankees have to overcome both the weight of expectations to win with the best right-handed hitter in baseball and two-time MVP, and that starts with getting Austin Wells to star status after the Dominican captured everyone’s hearts at the WBC. They’re merely repeating a process that has been successful until it hasn’t been in October; the rest of the lineup is just waiting on another breakthrough.

Tampa Bay Rays

• Pitching Grade: B
• Batting Grade: C+
• Vibes Grade: B
• Star to watch: Junior Caminero
• Non-star to watch: Chandler Simpson
• Intangible reason to watch: There will always be someone you have never heard of who makes them better than you thought they would be. We just don’t know who it is yet.

There’s almost no way to project the Tampa Bay Rays year after year. Every year, there are new prospects we’ve never heard of after they sell off the only pieces we know, and every year, they win more games than we thought they would by Rays devil magic.

The magic, unfortunately, has run out over the last two years, going under .500 in back-to-back years and for the first time since 2017.

They do have maybe the most electrifying personality reaching for superstardom that plays with such joy in home run savant Junior Caminero, but this offseason was a teller: we’re still going to operate on the margins even with Junior, we’re getting Shane McCalanahan back, we’re back in the Trop, and we’re going to hope for the best. In a division this heavy, that may not cut it. BUT, they are the Rays. They’re essentially impossible to evaluate.