Best Bets: What to Expect from the (I Hope) Exciting 2026 MLB Season: American League Preview

I love baseball

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

AMERICAN LEAGUE

DIVISION WINNERS

This is the MLB American League Preview for 2026. National League addressed later in separate piece. Here of course I will write what you can expect from what hopefully will be an exciting 2026 MLB Season. Vlad, Judge, Ohtani, Skubal, Skenes, Ohtani again, Acuna, Elly, so many exciting guys!

In MLB, there are 12 playoff teams total, 6 in the AL or American League and 6 in the NL or National League. Those twelve playoff teams come from the 6 division winners in each league, plus the 6 wild card winners in each league. The wild card was a thing MLB introduced decades ago by stupid and evil persons in order to destroy the minds of half of baseball fans who were/are stuck on traditional baseball, and to satisfy the other half of baseball fans who wanted more playoff teams and who have short attention spans and probably don't read books often.

So as you get ready to make your bets and predictions for 2026 MLB, you want to identify the following:

3 AL division winners

3 NL division winners

3 AL wildcard teams

3 NL wildcard teams

This gives you your 12 playoff teams which is your overall structure for your bets and predictions. Then depending on your whims and tastes, you can bet yes/no on certain teams to make the playoffs, you can bet yes/no on certain teams to be division winners, and you can make your parlay bets on groups of teams to miss the playoffs or groups of teams to make the playoffs.

For example you might predict the 3 AL division winners to be:

Blue Jays

Tigers

Mariners

And then you might pick three wildcard teams from the AL to be:

Yankees

Royals

Red Sox

5 out of these 6 teams made it last year so we're going mostly chalk here, and I like the Royals to finish ahead of the Rangers who will also fight for a wildcard. If that's what you think will happen (by that I mean "this" and by "this" I mean the menu of stuff I predicted), then you can make individual straight bets YES for all six of those teams to reach the playoffs. Meaning by contrast you can go in and make individual straight bets NO for the excluded teams: Orioles, Rays, Twins, White Sox, Guardians, Astros, A's, Rangers, Angels. And then use your parlay bets to expand leverage and for example say that all three of the following will make the AL playoffs: NYY, Mariners, Tigers, except the parlay will force you to pick four teams usually so then you throw in the Blue Jays and hope for the best. Tip: don't throw the same teams into every parlay unless you like pain.

AL EAST

The AL East, the historic power center of baseball with the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, is comprised of the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox, the Tampa Bay Rays, the Baltimore Orioles, and the Toronto Blue Jays. In 2025, The Toronto Blue Jays won the AL East with a surprising combination of rough-and-tumble pitching not seen since the Civil War pickup baseball games played by amputees just after the big battles, and timely hitting from everyday regulars. The Yankees were right behind the Blue Jays all year, blowing cool air on the backs of their necks, trying to give them an "eerie chill" to slow them down. Alas, it didn't work. The teams were tied at the end of the regular season with 94 wins each, but the Blue Jays won the division because they had a superior win-loss record against those Yankees. Thus, the Blue Jays won the division in 2025.

For 2026, my prediction is the Toronto Blue Jays will once again win the division. During the offseason, Toronto lost shortstop Bo Bichette to the Mets, but the Blue Jays feel like Bichette was already in defensive decline, and they believe new third baseman from Japan, Kazuma Okamoto, can get back some of what they will lose with Bichette in Queens/Brooklyn. The Blue Jays landed RHP Dylan Cease this offseason along with RHP Tyler Scott Rogers, and just recently reunited with veteran Max Scherzer who gives them a clubhouse presence and savvy veteran leadership. The addition of Cease is probably the biggest/best move either Toronto or NYY has made since last season, in terms of impacting 2026 wins. Toronto is going to have to continue to get timely hitting and gritty play from guys like Alejandro Kirk, whose body is perfectly round in every direction. They will also need pitchers Trey Yesavage and Kevin Gausman to deliver a ton of solid innings. An MVP type season from superstar Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. would go a long way to massaging away some of the possible weaknesses in the Toronto lineup.

A lot of the Las Vegas books have Toronto now to win the division at something around +260 which looks pretty tasty to me, like buying Hostess Ding-Dongs two for a dollar back in the day when my Mom would take me and my twin over there after speech therapy. They pushed it to seven with the mighty Dodgers in the WS last year, give me the +260 please, and thank you.

The New York Yankees, by contrast, are currently favored to win the AL East division at +175 odds. Fried is a true ace of course, and one wonders why the stupid Braves let him get away from the ATL. So much of course will depend on how many innings they get from Gerrit Cole, who is projected to return to the team probably in late May or early June. Without Cole, the Yankees starters will feature Fried, last year's playoff hero Cam Schlittler, plus Luis Gil and Will Warren. They added lefty Ryan Weathers from the Marlins, who looks like a person who is mostly supposed to eat innings and not fall down too often while pitching. The Yankees bring in some insurance pitching as well with Paul Blackburn and Ryan Yarbrough who can start or pitch from the pen in long relief. The NYY bullpen is nothing special and manager Boone has shown himself extremely expert at screwing up key pitching situations.

Just going through the names, you have to think the Blue Jays have better starting pitching than the Yanks if you assume Cole misses a good third of the season with injuries but if Cole is healthy the pitching seems about even to me. In terms of hitting, the NYY will rely largely again on the outfield combination of Judge, Bellinger, and Grisham. The Yankees are also hoping for help or growth from Jasson Dominguez and Spencer Jones who will both compete for the fourth OF slot. Who knows.

I guess I'm biased against NYY based on how last year ended and I ended up super disappointed in the Yankees. Down the stretch last year I wanted the NYY club to hit more consistently especially in the playoffs, but they rely so much on the big homer. Can they repeat that in 2026, and can Toronto continue to scratch out so many gutsy and clutch wins without the big bats the Yankees enjoy? I suppose I'm predicting that the Blue Jays will have more consistent and more regular hitting and the Yankees will again have too many ups and downs with guys like Grisham and Varsho and Jones in their lineup making a ton of outs. So that's why I give the edge in this division to the squad from Canada. I also am holding onto the belief for some reason that Vlad has an MVP-type season in him this season.

Look, both these teams finished with 94 wins last year, Toronto winning the division based on tiebreaker rules. Both are playoff locks in the AL which is a great play in Vegas as well. I don't see a big edge for either team based on their offseason moves. Vegas has Toronto at +260 to win the division and NYY at +175. Seems easy to me to take the +260.

The other three teams in this division are the Baltimore Orioles, the Tampa Bay Rays, and the Boston RedSox. Boston has improved their starting rotation depth by adding Sonny Gray and Ranger Suarez to help ace Garrett Crochet. Boston also likes their hitting and defensive depth, although they lack the big dinger the Yankees have. The Orioles added big 1B slugger Pete Alonso and like very much their starting pitcher lineup of Kyle Bradish, Trevor J'Daniel Rogers, Shane Baz, Zach Elfin, Chris Bassitt, and Dean Kremer. Last year the Orioles missed the playoffs despite decent pitching, on account of negative regression at the plate. Perhaps this will all put too much pressure on Alonso to solve all their offensive woes by himself. Alonso is one of the players to watch this season -- he could elevate his team with 50 homers and 130 RBI or he could hit the skids and strike out a ton and go through three pair of underwear per at-bat. I just don't see the Baltimore offense coming through often enough.

Boston looks like they will fight for a playoff spot in the AL and it could come down to 2 of these 3 teams making it to the wild card: Boston, Rangers, and Royals.

How do the Rays do it? How do they always perform better than expected, while still never getting to the top? The Rays are like that kid from junior high who has all these weird magic tricks he bought in the mail, and he somehow gets the girl for the big ninth grade dance, because girls LOVE magic! The Rays feature some fun hitters / base runners like Caminero, Diaz, Mullins, and Simpson and have a super deep pitching group that most teams would love to have at the back end of the rotation but the Rays have no real ace.

To be honest, I'm not sure why this team exists. Why does MLB have both the Marlins and the Rays? Is this good for the game? Is this a good look to have 162 games a year in Florida between the two teams combined, with so many empty seats and maybe 10,000 people at some of the games. This can't be good for the game.

I've fixed this a number of times and written to Manfred but he ignores me. The first fix is forcing the two teams into one team, so that the best talent is all on one team, and the leftovers are dismantled and sent to other teams. Then maybe you could have one competitive team in Tampa with no team in Miami.

Another fix which I like a lot is forcing Miami to play one-third of a season in Puerto Rico, and then forcing Tampa to play one-third season in Montreal.

Summary: Toronto to win division. NYY and Toronto to both make playoffs. Orioles and Rays to miss playoffs. RedSox borderline yes/no for playoffs depending on whether you like them better than Royals and Rangers to make the playoffs. I do like the RedSox to finish ahead of the Rangers and Royals and snag that wildcard. I like the good vibes Boston generated last year by making the playoffs without that expectation being put on them. I like the starting pitching. I like all the guys they can move around the infield.

AL CENTRAL

This division has usually been less interesting than the mighty AL East except that the resurgence of the Detroit Tigers with ace Tarik Skubal makes the Central a bit more interesting for the first time in ages.

There are three relevant teams in this division: Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Guardians, and Kansas City Royals. Two irrelevant teams: Twins and White Sox.

The Guardians rely every year on pitching, both starting and relief pitching. It's crazy how narrowly their margins are tied to pitching, going back several years now. For me, this year, 2026, is too much and they can't sustain winning with their crappy hitters, so I say they don't win the division and don't make the playoffs in 2026. I'm not going to force myself to write a ton of words about the Guardians, it's just too boring, but this team is basically Jose Ramirez and a bunch of other dudes. I don't think that's enough anymore.

As far as the Tigers go, it's fairly simple too: they bring back last year's team but they added starter Framber Valdez from Houston, and then veteran HOFer Verlander returns to Detroit. Verlander probably adds mostly good vibes and carma rather than elite baseball but it's still nice to have him around to coach up the young guys. To me the addition of Framber is enough to edge out the Guardians for the division.

The Royals also operate pretty close to making or missing the playoffs yearly. Last year they missed the playoffs, so this offseason they moved in the fences a bit, hoping it would generate a bit more stats/power/HR for guys like Witt. 3 or 4 games one way or the other is the difference the Royals need to make or miss the playoffs. Another year, the Royals regress back to 2024 in a positive sense instead of 2025, get more power from Witt, and squeak into the wildcard spot. That's what me sees with my pirate eyes. Obviously their pitching is awesome so a few more runs generated here and there could push them forward five games, enough to make a difference.

Twins and WhiteSox. These teams suck so bad I can't bear to write about them.

Summary: Tigers to win division on the strength of Framber and Skubal. Twins and WhiteSox to finish way way below .500. Guardians and Royals to fight for playoff spot. It's razor thin but I like the Royals to have better offensive season than last and to edge out the Guardians. Could be a big crash for the Guardians ahead this season -- not sure what they have to play for. This could be a long, crappy season for Cleveland.

AL WEST

It's crazy how in sports one city can have so little and then suddenly have so much. Coming off of a Superbowl victory over the Patriots, the Seattle Seahawks are at the top of the NFL. Meanwhile, Seattle's baseball team by all accounts is a top 4 MLB team. On about any list the pundits have the Dodgers, Cubs, Blue Jays, and Seattle as the likeliest of World Series teams.

This Seattle team is super deep and packed with talent all around the clubhouse. The top of their lineup is:

Donovan, 3B (acquired from St. Louis this off-season)

Raleigh, C

J-Rod, OF

Naylor, 1B

Arozarena, OF

Of course Raleigh is the big stick there but J-Rod and Naylor both have pop, and the 3-5 hitters all have decent speed. There is some dropoff at the 6-9 hitting positions, and you'd worry more about their offense if they didn't have so many great starting pitchers.

Their starting pitchers are Bryan Woo, Logan Gilbert, Luis Castillo, George Kirby, and Bryce Miller, and it would be hard to find another clubhouse with better starters. Seattle also enjoys a deep and filthy bullpen with high K guys like Munoz, Ferrer, Brash, Bazardo and Speier. Seattle is a team that will be hard to beat late in games with such a bullpen. The team is set up to win low-scoring games, tight games, and open scoring games. Well situated for home and road. You could say the Mariners remind me of the Blue Jays, and vice versa. I predict Seattle wins the AL West in 2026.

AL Summary

So for the AL I like the six playoff teams to be the NYY, Blue Jays, RedSox, Tigers, Mariners, and Royals, with Tigers, Toronto, and Seattle as the division winners.