{"id":547261,"date":"2026-01-31T06:46:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T06:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/547261\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T06:46:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T06:46:26","slug":"first-fangraphs-2026-projections-disagrees-with-yankees-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/547261\/","title":{"rendered":"First Fangraphs 2026 projections disagrees with Yankees&#8217; plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Early forecasts from the stat nerds aren\u2019t bullish on the Yankees\u2019 American League East chances.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.fangraphs.com\/the-late-january-zips-projected-standings-update\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">FanGraphs released its first ZiPS projections<\/a> earlier this week, and it\u2019s not looking pretty for the Bronx Bombers if no more moves are coming this offseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Yankees are projected to have 87 wins in 2026, the second-fewest in the division behind the Blue Jays (90), Red Sox (90) and Orioles (88).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Only the Rays (75) are being pegged for fewer victories.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That number would be the Yankees\u2019 fewest over a full season since 2023, when they went 82-80 and missed the postseason, and second-fewest over the last decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Fangraphs is giving them just an 18.9 percent chance to win the division and a 41.4 percent chance at grabbing one of the three AL wild-card spots.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The underwhelming win estimate comes after a relatively quiet offseason for the Bombers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/21\/sports\/cody-bellinger-re-signs-with-yankees-for-162-5-million\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Yankees re-signed Cody Bellinger<\/a> to a five-year, $162.5 million deal and brought back Trent Grisham after he accepted the qualifying offer, but did little else to improve the lineup.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.36351531;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37982281\" width=\"804\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/new-york-yankees-gm-brian-113583635_8ca3b1.jpg\" alt=\"New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman speaking at a press conference at Yankee Stadium.\" class=\"wp-image-37982281\"  \/>New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman speaking at a press conference at Yankee Stadium. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n<p>Left-hander Ryan Weathers, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/13\/sports\/yankees-acquiring-ryan-weathers-in-trade-with-marlins\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">acquired in a trade from the Marlins<\/a>, will provide rotation depth, though being able to stay on the field has been a question for most of his career. The starting staff has plenty of other questions elsewhere, with Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon and Clarke Schmidt all coming off surgeries and returning at various points post-Opening Day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the bullpen, the Yankees lost Devin Williams and Luke Weaver in free agency to the Mets.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:0.91894531;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38342119\" width=\"542\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/100725Yankees146CW.jpg\" alt=\"Trent Grisham and Cody Bellinger will both be in the Yankees' outfield in 2026.\" class=\"wp-image-38342119\"  \/>Trent Grisham and Cody Bellinger will both be in the Yankees\u2019 outfield in 2026. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this week, Yankees general manager <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/28\/sports\/yankees-bullish-on-their-championship-caliber-roster\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brian Cashman expressed confidence<\/a> in his team\u2019s roster.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been openly willing to challenge anybody that we don\u2019t have a championship caliber roster [and] team,\u2019\u2019 Cashman said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s our job to try to make it better along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early forecasts from the stat nerds aren\u2019t bullish on the Yankees\u2019 American League East chances.\u00a0 FanGraphs released its&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[5,3936,4,1690,62,2548,2547,185,305,142],"class_list":["post-547261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-yankees","tag-baseball","tag-brian-cashman","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkyankees","tag-sports","tag-statistics","tag-yankees"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115988372050188538","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}