Martinez Tribune The website of the Martinez Tribune.
BY J.A. SCHWARTZ
The Los Angeles Dodgers are the two-time champions of baseball, giving them a chance to do something that hasn’t been done this century: Win three straight titles. The last team to do so was the 1998-2000 New York Yankees. Before the Yankees dynasty, the Oakland A’s won three championships in a row from 1972-1974. Exactly 24 seasons elapsed between the A’s dynasty and the start of the Yankees run, and, as luck and synchronicity would have it, 24 seasons were played since the Yankees 2000 title and the start of the Dodgers run (2024). If these events are truly cyclical in nature, the Dodgers would seem to be a cosmic lock to achieve a three-peat for the first time in the history of the franchise.
World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto hopes to build on his dominating postseason performance as the Dodgers look to become the first team in a quarter century to win three straight World Series titles.
The Dodgers and their fans have every reason to expect another deep playoff run. President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman certainly can not be accused of resting on his laurels, having spent the offseason securing the top free agent hitter (Kyle Tucker) and closer (Edwin Diaz) via free agency. Tucker was wooed to the West Coast from Chicago, inking a four-year, $240 million contract that makes him the highest paid player by average annual salary ($57 million) in the history of the sport. With Diaz earning $21 million a season, the Dodgers have a staggering nine players who will earn at least $20 million in luxury tax contract calculations in 2026. The Mets and Yankees will employ seven players each who surpass that threshold in 2026, but nine other franchises lack a single player who meet that criteria.
The average of the teams with the top five payrolls in Major League Baseball in 2025 was nearly five times the average payroll of the bottom five, the largest discrepancy using that measure in nearly 40 years. Spending a lot of money on a roster doesn’t assure a franchise a postseason berth (ask Steve Cohen and his 2025 Mets, who spent $341 million on his club but failed to qualify for the playoffs), but it sure seems to make it easier to do so.
According to MLB.com’s Travis Sawchik, since 1998, teams who spent enough to qualify for the top five payrolls in the sport won an average of 89 games a season, while those franchises in the bottom five in the league by yearly expenditures won approximately 74 games a season.
Expected to be back on the mound for a full season for the first time since 2023, Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani is hoping to join Barry Bonds as the only players to ever win four consecutive MVP Awards.
Given that the Dodgers spent $515 million to put their championship roster together ($346 million payroll, $169 luxury tax penalty), there has been a steady murmur of disquiet that has thrummed through the league about the unsustainable disparity between the haves and the have nots. Los Angeles’ tax bill was higher than 15 major league payrolls in 2025. That’s not a level playing field, or so the argument goes. Given that the Collective Bargaining Agreement expires after the 2026 season, expect to hear a lot about how a salary cap is the only way to insure that smaller market/revenue franchises have a reasonable chance to compete with the behemoths like the Dodgers, Yankees and Mets.
That discourse will be the dark cloud that hangs over the season, but it will not infect this preview. Plenty of digital ink will be spilled to augur the lockout being threatened by the owners unless the system is radically changed, but baseball on the field will still inspire and amaze those fans who care to enjoy it. The players are bigger, stronger, faster and throw harder than at any time in history, and the appreciation of their talents will hopefully overpower the off-the-field considerations through the sheer beauty of their efforts to entertain us.
Los Angeles may well be the favorite heading into the 2026 season, but the rest of the league is not conceding their coronation just yet. There are at least six National League teams who enter the season with legitimate hopes of knocking the Dodgers off their throne.
Atlanta Braves
The Braves suffered through an injury-marred 2025 season, and fell far short of the playoffs, finishing fourth in the NL East at 76-86. Stars Ronald Acuna Jr. and Spencer Strider did make a return to the roster after missing large parts of the 2024 season recovering from surgeries and both will be relied upon to help carry the lineup and the rotation, respectively. Strider figures to slot in behind ace Chris Sale, who followed up his 2024 NL Cy Young Award season with a 7-5 record and a 2.58 ERA in 20 starts, giving the Braves a strong 1-2 punch atop their rotation in the brutal NL East. Strider has yet to recapture the premium stuff that saw him go 31-10 in his first two full seasons through 2023 before succumbing to Tommy John surgery in 2024, and the Braves will need that level of dominance to return if they are to make the playoffs in 2026.
Fresh off helping Venezuela capture their first ever WBC championship, the Braves are hoping a healthy Ronald Acuna Jr. can return to his 2023 form when he was named the NL MVP after batting .337 with 41 home runs and 73 stolen bases.
NL Rookie of the Year Drake Baldwin should provide punch to an Atlanta attack that was just average last season, but Atlanta is still searching for a solution at shortstop. Free agent signee Ha-Seong Kim was being counted on to stabilize that position, but he suffered a torn finger tendon in his right (throwing) hand after a fall on ice in January, and will miss the first two months of the season. Two of the young starting pitchers Atlanta was hoping would augment their rotation will both open the season on the IL (Spencer Schwellenbach, Hurston Waldrep). Jurickson Profar (who hit .261 with 14 HRs in 2025) will be suspended for the entire season for failing a second PED test. The Braves are loaded with elite level talent, and if they can put them all on the field together more often than not, they’ll be a dangerous challenger to the Dodgers. With a calvacade of injuries (and now a suspension) to some of their key contributors, however, the deck will be stacked against them in 2026.
New York Mets
Owner Steve Cohen spent $341 million dollars on his roster in 2025, but finished 83-79, missing the playoffs altogether. In response to that outcome, the Mets turned their roster over more than any other team this offseason. Franchise home run leader Pete Alonso (264) left as a free agent, as did closer Edwin Diaz. System products Jeff McNeil (eight years with the team) and Brandon Nimmo (ten years as a Met) were both traded to the American League. In their stead, the team imported free agents Jorge Polanco and Bo Bichette to play 1b and 3b, respectively, and traded to acquire defensive stalwarts Marcus Semien and Luis Robert Jr.
Jorge Polanco comes over to a Mets team that underperformed badly in 2025, following a season where his 26 home runs and 78 RBI’s helped the Mariners come within a game of their first World Series appearance.
New York was also active in upgrading their pitching staff, trading for Freddy Peralta to be their ace, and adding ex-Yankee relievers Devin Williams and Luke Weaver as free agents to help replace Diaz in the late innings. All those machinations pushed the Mets tax payroll to $369 million for 2026, second only to the Dodgers by that measure. Despite all that turnover, Mets fans are most excited by the young players who have matriculated through their minor league system and figure to impact the big league club in 2026 and beyond. Nolan McLean went 5-1 with a sizzling 2.08 ERA in 48 innings as their top pitching prospect, and he could be joined in the rotation by Jonah Tong, who led the minors with 179 strikeouts in 2025. Outfield prospect Carson Benge could help thicken the lineup, and get on base for returning stars Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto. New York certainly has the resources to compete at the highest echelons of the game, but they’ll need their new additions to produce right away if they want to beat Los Angeles.
Philadelphia Phillies
The Philadelphia Phillies won the NL East with 96 wins in 2025, their third highest win total this century. Despite that achievement, they were ushered out of the playoffs in the Divisional round by the Dodgers, extending their World Series drought to 17 seasons since their last title in 2008. Their 2026 roster will still feature stars like Trea Turner and Bryce Harper, and the club retained free agents J.T. Realmuto (three years, $45 million) and Kyle Schwarber (five years, $150 million), re-signing them to multi-year pacts this offseason. The offense, which was fifth in the National League in 2025, should score enough to support their excellent pitching staff, which was third in the NL in ERA last year.
The Phillies are hoping Kyle Schwarber can come close to repeating his 2025 heroics where the All-Star Game MVP slugged a Major League leading 56 homers with 132 RBI’s to help lead Philadelphia to their second straight NL East title.
The 2026 Opening Day rotation will be without two of its most effective members from 2025. Ranger Suarez defected to Boston as a free agent, and ace Zack Wheeler will miss most of April recovering from thoracic outlet syndrome surgery in September 2025. Wheeler missed the playoffs last year, and any reasonable aspirations Philadelphia harbors to win a title in 2026 will be significantly impacted by his effectiveness upon his return. The rotation will return Cristopher Sanchez and Jesus Luzardo, lefties who combined to go 28-12 last year, striking out 428 in 386 innings in 2025, who will be counted on to anchor the starting staff until Wheeler gets healthy. The club will rely upon closer Jhoan Duran (acquired from Minnesota at the deadline last season), who saved 16 games for them down the stretch, featuring a 2.18 ERA and a 27:1 strikeout to walk ratio in his 21 innings in Philadelphia. Young prospect Justin Crawford, 22, could start the season as the Phillies center fielder, fresh off a stellar season at AAA that saw him steal 46 bases with a .334 average and a .411 on base percentage. Heralded pitching prospect Andrew Painter, also 22, missed 2023 and 2024 with injuries, but was finally healthy last season at AAA and may represent the best internal option for Manager Rob Thomson to integrate into their talented rotation. Their stars have been consistently productive and durable, and Phillies fans have every reason to expect another postseason run, one that they hope will culminate in a World Series victory.
Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers had the best record in baseball in 2025, winning the NL Central and achieving the best run differential in the game, outscoring opponents by a whopping 172 runs. They’ve made the playoffs in seven of the last eight seasons, winning the NL Central in each of the past three years, but they’ve failed to convert any of those postseason appearances into an NL pennant, and haven’t been to the Fall Classic since 1982. Despite their fervent aspirations to bring Milwaukee the franchise’s first World Series trophy, the league leading Brewers decided to trade their ace starter and three of their lineup regulars in an effort to continue to compete on a meager budget. During their playoff run, they’ve never featured a roster with a higher payroll than 16th in the league, and project to enter 2026 with the 21st highest luxury tax figure.
Milwaukee’s Brice Turang will need to build on his .288 average with 18 home runs and 81 RBI’s last season if the Brewers have any shot of capturing their fourth consecutive NL Central crown.
To stay in those ranges, they constantly have to trade players as they become too expensive to work for their roster paradigm, and General Manager Matt Arnold (and David Stearns before him) have become masters of developing players in their own minor league program to be ready to contribute when called upon. When they moved Peralta to the Mets, they acquired young, cost controlled young players ready to produce in the majors. Dealing Caleb Durbin and Isaac Collins when their value was highest and allowing Rhys Hoskins to leave as a free agent were part of their evolving roster management style, and it should surprise nobody if the 2026 Brewers once again win the NL Central. Their lineup will still feature young superstar Jackson Chourio, as well as system products Sal Frelick and Brice Turang, who help get on base while their primary power sources of Christian Yelich and William Contreras (combined to hit 46 HRs, driving in 179 in 2025) try to bring them around to score. Despite hitting only 166 HRs in 2025, the Brewers outscored everyone but the Dodgers in the NL, depending upon getting on base (NL leading .332) and good baserunning (NL best 164 SB) rather than the long ball. The Brewers won’t be projected to win the most games in baseball in 2026, but if their recent history is any guide, they may end up doing just that-and possibly ending up in the World Series to boot.
Chicago Cubs
The Cubs returned to the postseason for the first time since 2020 last season, beating the Padres in the Wild Card round before being bounced out of the playoffs by the Brewers. They lost free agent Kyle Tucker to the Dodgers, but hope that Alex Bregman will turn out to be a long term answer to their third base problem. They signed Bregman to a five-year, $175 million deal, importing him from Boston to hold down the hot corner. The only other significant change to their lineup is the likely role prospect Moises Ballesteros will have as the primary DH. The 22-year-old got on base at a .394 clip in his brief cameo in the majors last season, and Chicago hopes that his discerning eye at the plate will help sustain Cub rallies. The pitching staff was upgraded to include Edward Cabrera, who was acquired in a trade with the Marlins in January. The fireballing righty has been injury prone throughout his major league tenure, but he threw a career high 137 innings in 2025 with a 3.53 ERA for the Marlins, and he figures to join Matthew Boyd, Cade Horton and Shota Imanaga in the Cubs rotation to start the season. Justin Steele, who made only four starts last year before requiring season-ending elbow surgery, may well be ready to return to the rotation by June, providing another source of reliable innings for the club. Daniel Palencia, who saved 22 games for Chicago last season, will anchor the pen for Manager Craig Counsell, who relies upon elite fielders to help control opposing offenses.
In just his second full season, Southern Californian Pete Crow-Armstrong became just the second Cub to ever post a 30-30 season, hitting 31 home runs with 95 RBI’s to compliment his 35 stolen bases.
Outfielders Pete Crow-Armstrong and Ian Happ (fourth award) both won Gold Gloves in 2025, joining second baseman Nico Hoerner, who won his second. Crow-Armstrong led all outfielders in defensive runs saved with 24, and he and Happ help chase down most flyballs that don’t leave Wrigley Field. Hoerner, Dansby Swanson and Bregman are all well above average defenders, giving the Cubs an excellent chance to repeat as the National League’s best fielding club. In 2025, the Cubs turned 71.9% of balls in play into outs, and were 67 runs better than the average team defensively, metrics that led the National League. The North Siders haven’t been back to the World Series since famously winning their first title in 108 years back in 2016, but the roster they’ve built for the 2026 season could give their loyal fans another chance to celebrate in the Windy City.
San Diego Padres
General Manager A.J. Preller has been the most successful executive the franchise has ever employed. In 2025, Preller’s Padres made the postseason for the third time in four seasons, something no previous San Diego club had done. The Padres still haven’t ever won a World Series, and haven’t even won an NL pennant since 1998, when Tony Gwynn was the face of the team. The relentless Preller has worked tirelessly to build a team that gives Friar Faithful hope that this year will finally be the year that a championship parade will be held in their lovely city. The ownership group is selling the club, and may well announce a transaction by Opening Day, but the GM and players are single-minded in their desire to wrest control of the NL West (and the National League) away from the Dodgers, something they have failed to do for the past 20 seasons. If 2026 is finally to be the year that everything comes together for San Diego, it will likely by due to the contributions of their veteran talent base. Manny Machado, the franchise’s all-time leader in HRs with just 194 (a figure he has reached in only seven seasons), will be joined in the dirt with fellow thirty-plus infielders Jake Cronenworth and Xander Bogaerts. That trio will earn a combined $67 million in 2026 alone, and are joined in the lineup by younger stars Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill, both of whom signed long term deals to stay in San Diego.
Fernando Tatis Jr. will likely need to return to his pre-2021 Injury and PED suspension production for the Padres to be competitive once again in the NL West.
The pitching staff will rely upon veteran starters Michael King, Nick Pivetta and Joe Musgrove to provide quality innings for rookie Manager Craig Stammen (his first managing job in baseball). The bullpen has been the strength of the club for the past few seasons, and despite losing closer Robert Suarez to Atlanta in free agency, is plenty formidable. Preller moved his top prospect (Leodalis DeVries) as well as several other minor league assets at the trade deadline last season to acquire Mason Miller, who figures to take over the late innings in San Diego. In his final 20 games for the Padres, Miller faced 74 hitters, allowing 4 hits, zero runs and striking out 42. Augmented by fellow righties Jason Adam and Jeremiah Estrada, the Padre relief corps will endeavor to shorten games by locking down the late innings. San Diego led the majors with a 3.06 bullpen ERA in 2025, allowing fewer baserunners per inning than any other club. They’ll need to be that good again if Stammen and Preller have any chance to finally dethrone Los Angeles and win a World Series.
There are a few other teams that might be in the postseason conversation if things break their way:
Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pirates finally took steps to address their glaring lack of offensive punch this offseason after finishing dead last in the game in both runs scored (583) and HRs (117) in 2025. General Manager Ben Cherington traded to acquire slugging 2b Brandon Lowe from Tampa, and signed free agents Ryan O’Hearn and Marcell Ozuna, whose combined 69 long balls in 2025 will upgrade the weakest lineup in baseball. The optimism in Pittsburgh is largely due to Paul Skenes (10-10, 1.97) who won the NL Cy Young Award last year, and is poised to repeat in his second full season in the majors. Shortstop Konnor Griffin is the top prospect in the game, and may well break camp with the Pirates to start the season. His four spring dingers and .333/.415/.527 batting line with 21 HR and 117 RBIs at A and AA in 2025 as a 19-year-old support his possible ascendancy. If their lineup additions click and the pitching behind Skenes hold up, Pittsburgh may well challenge for a playoff spot for the first time since 2015.
San Francisco Giants
President of Baseball Operations Buster Posey endeavored to upgrade his .500 club by signing three-time batting champion Luis Arráez to play 2b alongside last year’s blockbuster acquisition Rafael Devers. Harrison Bader was also inked to a free-agent deal to patrol center field, and will join fellow free-agent imports Matt Chapman and Willy Adames in the middle of the San Francisco lineup. Adames hit exactly 30 HR in 2025, becoming the first Giants player to do so since Barry Bonds in 2004.
Coming off a season where he “only” hit .292 for San Diego after winning three consecutive batting championships, Giants free agent acquisition Luis Arráez still managed to lead the NL with 181 base hits and just helped lead Venezuela to their first ever WBC title.
Top system prospect Bryce Eldridge, a gargantuan 6’7”, 240 pound masher, could well make the Opening Day lineup, brining his elite power to the Giants attack. If Eldridge continues to hit long balls (25 HRs as a 20-year-old at AA and AAA in 2025), new Manager Tony Vitello may well enjoy as many as three hitters who threaten to blow past that 30 HR mark in 2025. With Logan Webb and Robbie Ray atop the rotation, the Giants may well have enough pitching to stay in contention deep into the summer.
Predictions:
NL East-New York Mets
NL Central-Chicago Cubs
NL West-Los Angeles Dodgers
Wild Cards
Philadelphia Phillies
San Diego Padres
Milwaukee Brewers
National League Championship
Los Angeles Dodgers over New York Mets
