Bold predictions don't always work out. If they did, I wouldn't be working in sports media, We can assure you that. Yes, it's easy to predict the Los Angeles Dodgers will win their third-straight World Series. That was the case with most experts in late March, because why wouldn't it be? The Dodgers were already back-to-back champs, and added slugger Kyle Tucker to the mix. Yet, Tucker hasn't been good, but the Dodgers remain a prohibitive favorite to win the National League. Do you see what we're getting at?
Still, it's always fun to take a look back at our predictions from spring training. Thanks to our dotcom team and the FanSided MLB network, we have oh so many to parse through.
The MLB predictions we got dead wrong
Marlins will finish with more wins than the Phillies, courtesy of Adam Weinrib
Allow me to introduce you to my boldest early-season proclamation that's gone on the longest roller coaster of any of the weird things that have come out of my mouth this year. At the time, I viewed the Marlins as a scrappy, underrated offensive corps greater than the sum of its parts (true) and the Phillies as unreasonably stale (they go in and out!). This was equal parts Marlins compliment and Phillies dig.
Over the course of the season, this take veered from "crazy like a fox" to "dumbest thing ever said," in the wake of Rob Thomson's ouster and Don Mattingly's rise, to "hold on a minute..." when the Phillies hit another pre-corn wall, to "Ok, I think we're out of the woods and you're wrong, but also the Phillies are dangerously close to collapsing without Jesus Luzardo?"
Neither team got there the way I expected them to. Well, technically, neither team got there at all - the Phillies are going to finish with more wins than the Marlins. My view of the Marlins was fairly accurate, though it was fueled more by Otto Lopez than Jakob Marsee. My view of the Phillies may be correct in the bigger picture, but they had too much talent and too much raw milk-fueled aggression to be sub-.500, and for that I applaud them.
But while this take was wrong, we all have to admit it was actually kinda good, right? We don't? It was bad? Phils could ultimately still win the World Series? Yeah, you're right. Bad.
New York Mets are good at baseball
Oh man, where do I start? The Mets season was over by the All-Star Break. They fired manager Carlos Mendoza, as we all thought they should have at the end of last season. Sure, New York has a high-powered lineup and a top-two payroll in the sport. None of it really matters unless the right pieces are in place. We projected Soto to finished top-2 in NL MVP voting (he won't) and for the Mets to finish the season with 88 wins and make the playoffs (not even close).
Craig Albernaz and the Baltimore Orioles
With a full season of Samuel Basallo, healthy campaigns from Kyle Bradish and Adley Rutschman, a bounceback from Gunnar Henderson, and new additions like Pete Alonso, Shane Baz and Ryan Helsley, we thought the Baltimore Orioles, led by first-year manager Craig Albernaz, would be in the postseason hunt, putting Albernaz in position to take home the AL Manager of the Year award. Baltimore might squeak in thanks to how awful the AL is, but Rutschman is gone, Henderson has taken another step back, and Helsley barely pitched. Albernaz isn’t to blame for all that’s gone wrong, but the Orioles’ standing makes the odds of him even receiving a vote for that award slim to none.
Dan Wilson and the Seattle Mariners
The Seattle Mariners were my World Series pick, so imagine how I feel? The Seattle Mariners fan base is one used to disappointment, but the 2026 team might be the most disappointing of all. A team with legitimate World Series expectations did not even seriously compete for a playoff spot in the weakest American League I can remember, and while Dan Wilson isn’t to blame for all of that, his bullpen management and saying “tough one” every night didn’t exactly help the cause either.
Who saw the Chicago White Sox coming?
We predicted that the Chicago White Sox would go 70-92, and as bad as that record might be, that was a 10-game improvement over 2025, a 19-game improvement over 2024, and their best record since going 81-81 in 2022. Well, while the season hasn’t exactly ended as fans on the South Side hoped, the White Sox have shattered expectations, seriously competing for an AL Central division title led by players seemingly nobody believed in like Munetaka Murakami, Miguel Vargas and Sean Burke. Whether they can win the division and/or make the playoffs remains to be seen, but the White Sox have exceeded everyone’s expectations regardless.
Trust Garrett Crochet to stay healthy
Garrett Crochet, not Tarik Skubal, was our choice to win the AL Cy Young award, and all we can say in hindsight is yikes. Betting on Crochet was hoping that after leading the league with over 200 innings pitched in 2025, the oft-injured southpaw would stay healthy again and have a repeat of his stellar breakthrough season. Clearly that was asking too much, as not only was Crochet limited to just six starts before finding his way onto the Injured List, but he had a 6.30 ERA in those outings with some fluctuating velocity.
The Detroit Tigers were unpredictable
Our predicted AL Rookie of the Year winner, Kevin McGonigle was (likely) spot-on, but clearly, the rest of the team was hard to predict. We had the Tigers finishing the year as AL Central champs with a 90-72 record, Tarik Skubal in contention for the Cy Young award, and A.J. Hinch being considered for the Manager of the Year award. Well, the Tigers are two losses away from clinching a losing record, Skubal is a Dodger, and Hinch is closer to being fired than he is winning a major award. The Framber Valdez signing backfired and the Tigers didn’t do enough to help an offense that was already inconsistent in 2025, leading to their demise.
Pete Crow-Armstrong's inconsistency could hurt him
While we were right to be high on the Cubs (although we should’ve been higher on the Brewers, as is the case every year), we were wrong to doubt Pete Crow-Armstrong. Sure, we highlighted how elite he was in the first half of last season, but his brutal second half was hard to ignore. Crow-Armstrong certainly has ignored that, as he’s all but locked up the NL MVP award. He’s become one of the most well-rounded players in the sport, with his bat now fully elite, along with his already absurdly elite defense and baserunning.
The St. Louis Cardinals aren't ready
2026 sure felt like a rebuilding year for the St. Louis Cardinals after they traded Nolan Arenado, Willson Contreras, Sonny Gray and Brendan Donovan in the offseason, yet despite that, they’ve hovered around the .500 mark virtually all year long. Even now, they’re only three games under .500 and have already surpassed our 70-92 expectations thanks largely to youngsters like Jordan Walker, JJ Wetherholt and Alec Burleson. If they hadn’t traded the likes of Dustin May and Lars Nootbaar, they might’ve hung around in the Wild Card race a bit longer. The bottom line here is that the 2026 Cardinals were far more competitive than we thought they’d be, and that could mean they’re closer to competing than we thought they’d be at this time.
Blue Jays are destined for greatness
The Toronto Blue Jays were within two outs of a World Series title in 2025, and then went on to sign Dylan Cease, Kazuma Okamoto and Tyler Rogers. Didn’t you think they’d be right back in that World Series mix this season? It turns out, just getting to .500 has been a battle. It took Vladimir Guerrero Jr. until September to hit his first home run of the year at home, the offense as a whole has been among the worst in the sport all year, and their rotation has been ravaged by injuries. Things went so poorly that Kevin Gausman and Daulton Varsho headlined a list of veterans who were dealt at the trade deadline. They could very well squeak in as the third Wild Card team and go on a run, but they certainly don’t look like a team destined to do so.
Giants are closing in on success
Hiring Tony Vitello felt like a risk that’d either pay off handsomely or backfire spectacularly. We predicted the former, but the latter wound up being the result. The Giants didn’t score a run until their third game of the year, they didn’t win until their fourth contest, and they haven’t even been at .500 since they were 0-0. It’s been that kind of year. There have been some bright spots, like Rafael Devers finding his power stroke and Bryce Eldridge meeting the hype in his first full season, but it’s clear the Giants have a ton of work to do before even dreaming of finishing over .500.
The Nationals are dog water
We predicted that the Washington Nationals would go 61-101, given that their roster lacked any semblance of high-end talent around James Wood. They won’t make the playoffs, but boy, were we wrong about this team. The Nationals have fallen off a bit in the second half, but they’ve still won 71 games already as of this writing, and are still third in the majors in runs scored. They’ve scored more runs than the Dodgers! James Wood put his 2025 second-half struggles behind him, and CJ Abrams looks like a budding superstar. If it weren’t for a historically bad bullpen (they set a MLB record for blown saves in a single season), we might be talking about the Nationals as a Wild Card contender at this point.
Konnor Griffin and Don Kelly will win NL awards
Konnor Griffin entered the year as MLB’s No. 1 prospect, so it made all the sense in the world to predict he’d win the Rookie of the Year award. If he would’ve stayed healthy perhaps he’d have a shot (he was really swinging the bat well before hurting his finger in early July), but that injury and very strong years from the likes of JJ Wetherholt and Nolan McLean derailed that thought. He looks like a future superstar, though.
As for Don Kelly, he made a lot of sense as a NL Manager of the Year pick given the improvements the Pirates made. Pittsburgh greatly bolstered its offense, with Griffin joining Brandon Lowe and Ryan O’Hearn as newcomers. The lineup has been mostly great when healthy, but Kelly won’t win the Manager of the Year award with Pittsburgh almost certain to miss the playoffs. Kelly has led the Pirates to what could be their first winning season since 2018, but that’s unlikely to be enough for him to walk out with any hardware. At least he’ll have a better ending to his season than the recently fired Carlos Mendoza, who received one vote on FanSided’s preseason ballot.
MLB bold predictions we actually got right
Kevin McGonigle will win AL Rookie of the Year
McGonigle, it would seem, is on pace to win the AL Rookie of the Year. He has the highest bWAR of any AL Rookie of the Year candidate AND ranks sixth in all of baseball in that department. Even if you're not the biggest proponent of WAR, the counting stats back McGonigle, who has been one of the lone bright spots in a dreadful Tigers' season and received six first-place votes on our preseason AL Rookie of the Year ballot.
Bobby Witt Jr dominance
While this editor was among the few who thought Witt Jr. could challenge Aaron Judge (wrong) for AL MVP this season IF the Royals could remain somewhat competitive (wrong), what we were right about is Witt Jr. establishing himself as perhaps the best overall player in the American League. Unfortunately, he plays in Kansas City. There's nothing we can do about that.
Paul Skenes won't win NL Cy Young
Yes, several of our voters thought Skenes would win NL Cy Young, but you can check the data — we did not vote him our NL Cy Young favorite. Rather, that went to Yoshinobu Yamamoto (wrong). Sure, Yamamoto's had a fantastic season, but he is likely to finish behind Jacob Misiorowski, Cristopher Sanchez and more.
Tarik Skubal won't win AL Cy Young
Again, technically correct! Skubal will not win AL Cy Young in part because he was traded to the National League behemoth Dodgers in early August. He also suffered an injury early in the season that derailed his chances. We were dead wrong about who would actually win the award, but I won't spoil a hilarious ending.
The Pirates are average
The Pirates are an average baseball team. They made some nice improvements offensively, but the pitching staff took a step back. We predicted Pittsburgh to finish 81-81, and they're well on their way to achieiving that "feat".
Dodgers are still the Dodgers
The Dodgers won't finish with the best record in the National League, as we predicted, but they should land the No. 2 seed and are favorites to win a third-straight World Series. We also readily admitted that the Dodgers success this postseason will come down to health. That's not exactly breaking news, but with Blake Snell, Shohei Ohtani and more all dealing with injuries...uh, we were spot on.
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