FanGraphs Power Rankings: 2026 Postseason Edition

Two playoff races came down to the final day of the season, but with the 12-team playoff field now settled, the postseason can begin. The American League side of the bracket looks particularly weak, while the National League side features a handful of the best and hottest teams in baseball. Remember, September success (or failure) doesn’t necessarily predict how things will go in October. Here’s a look at the 12 playoff teams and how they stack up against each other. Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. Since we’ve reached the postseason, I’ve removed the playoff odds weighting to our raw Elo calculations and presented the teams in the tiers below based on their odds of winning the World Series. If you’re curious about how your team finished in the standard regular season power rankings, the full table can be found at the bottom of this article. If you’re looking for a visual representation of the ups and downs of your team throughout the season, look no further than the brand new Power Rankings Board in the FanGraphs Lab.FanGraphs Playoff Coverage Is for MembersYou must be a Member in order to read our postseason coverage. You can read our announcement here, but it's not the only reason you should consider becoming a Member. Membership includes:✓Ad-free browsing✓Unlimited FanGraphs & RotoGraphs articles✓Historical & platoon projections✓Leaderboard & player-page stat heatmaps✓One-click data exports✓Customizable player-page dashboards✓Dark & Classic site modes✓Weekly Members-only mailbag✓FanGraphs Walk-Off, your year in review✓Optional homepage photo removal✓Gift articles to non-Members✓Full postseason coverage Jake Mailhot is a contributor to FanGraphs. A long-suffering Mariners fan, he also writes about them for Lookout Landing. Follow him on BlueSky @jakemailhot.