The 2026 PECOTA Projections, or: Why We Keep Calling the AL Central "Winnable"

Baseball Prospectus released its full PECOTA projections for 2026 Tuesday morning, including projected standings and playoff odds. The Twins are, unsurprisingly, forecasted to be a mediocre team, with 79 projected wins, good for third place in the AL Central. The Guardians, who had an even more maddening winter than did the local nine, come in fourth in PECOTA's pecking order, with 75.8 wins. The Tigers are ahead of Minnesota, at 83.9 wins, and gallingly, the Royals are projected to win the division with just 84.4 victories.

Kansas City's division-leading win total is 4.1 wins lower than that of the second-lowest division winner on the projected standings page. Every other division in the league has at least one team with a good chance to win 90 games; most of them have two. The AL Central, however, has shown no ambition, and is rewarded with tepid forecasts. Despite a projection that marks them as solidly below average, the Twins have a 12.7% chance to win the division and a 22.3% shot to make the playoffs, according to PECOTA.

These are the just desserts of a team that chose not to tear things down this winter, but also opted not to make significant investments in winning more games in 2026. As you would guess, the system likes the core of this team just fine. It expects All-Star-caliber seasons from Joe Ryan and Pablo López. It's high on Luke Keaschall's bat. However, the only team in baseball with a worse projected Deserved Runs Prevented (DRP), Prospectus's flagship fielding metric, is the Angels. They have an average projected offense and a slightly above-average projected pitching staff. If they had even a neutral defense, they would be neck-and-neck with the Royals and Tigers. Defense isn't even an expensive skill to acquire. Yet, the team has left themselves worst in the league in this crucial facet.

Part of the projection is PECOTA (and DRP itself) disliking Byron Buxton's defense in center field, as he ages. Buxton's DRP was -4.7 in 2024 and -7.4 in 2025. PECOTA foresees a further decline, at age 32, to -9.4, making Buxton almost half the defensive problem for a team projected to lose roughly 19 runs to poor fielding.

That's hard for many Twins fans to accept, with good reason. Buxton has been a defensive hero throughout his career. Early on, when he was extremely inconsistent at the plate, his glove propped up his profile and made him a star. Even now, he makes semi-frequent highlight-reel plays. However, Buxton has always been inclined to freeze when the ball leaves the bat, then take off with his elite speed and make up whatever ground he lost by not getting a great jump. As he's aged, that has become harder, and his success rate has sagged. He still posts elite sprint speeds, as measured by Statcast, but most of those come on the bases, where he knows Point A and Point B and can accelerate smoothly. On fly balls, he's lost a step, and it's showed up in a big way at times over the last two years.

Buxton being part of the problem highlights the challenge the team faced this winter. They have some young players to whom they're committed, but who have shown little sign that they're ready to be pluses as everyday big-leaguers. Starting Brooks Lee and Royce Lewis on the left side of the infield means giving up some defense for the hope of their bats coming together, but each struggled at the plate last year. Some of the places where one would most like to see the team make a defensive upgrade would come at prohibitive costs in terms of offensive production.

Still, the latest projections highlight the extent to which Minnesota was in position to push for an AL Central title in 2026, and the way they appear to have let that opportunity pass them by. The offseason isn't over, but the Twins don't look like a smart bet to make up the five-game gap between themselves and the Royals by the time it is.