From win total to rotation ERA to Ohtani's WAR: Predicting the Dodgers' season from their first-month pace

How the Los Angeles Dodgers would approach the regular season was a big question going into the 2026 MLB campaign.

Now that we’ve had a month to assess L.A.’s approach, we’re putting our MLB experts to the test by having them predict the rest of the Dodgers’ season based on what we’ve seen so far.

Will the Dodgers keep racking up wins? Can their batting average continue to soar above the rest of the sport? And just how likely is Shohei Ohtani to add a 2026 Cy Young Award to his Hall of Fame résumé? Let’s dig in.

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The Dodgers are on pace for 110 wins. Will they go over/under that total?

Alden Gonzalez: Under, largely because of how they use their roster. This moment offers a perfect snapshot: Hyeseong Kim and Alex Freeland are seeing a lot of time in the middle infield; Roki Sasaki is getting starts he doesn’t deserve; and the likes of Blake Snell and Tommy Edman are progressing slowly from injuries.

The Dodgers have become extra careful with their pitchers during the regular season, oftentimes giving them way more time than needed. They don’t deploy their roster to the max — with starters going every five days, relievers used aggressively and position players playing through nagging ailments — until they absolutely have to. No disrespect to the San Diego Padres and their early surge, but I don’t see anyone in the National League West pushing the Dodgers in that way this season.

David Schoenfield: That’s an incredibly high bar. In the 162-game era, which began in the American League in 1961 and the NL in 1962, only nine teams have won that many games. I thought this team had 110-win potential, but we’re seeing a few reasons that might not happen: the injury to Mookie Betts, the injury to Edwin Diaz and inconsistent results from the bullpen, and some potential age issues showing with Freddie Freeman (still good but maybe no longer a superstar) and Teoscar Hernandez.

The Dodgers have plenty of depth to overcome all that — especially when factoring in slow starts at the plate from Ohtani and Kyle Tucker — and as other teams suffer pitching attrition throughout the season, L.A. could reel off some big streaks. But 110? I’ll say just under, with 106 wins.

Jeff Passan: Under. In the current Dodgers era — which now stretches back 13 years, with 12 NL West titles for the reigning champs — they’ve reached or exceeded 110 wins just once, in 2022, and got summarily dispatched in the division series. It’s not the Dodgers’ strategy to chase records. They take their time, prepare for the playoffs and treat October like it’s everything. So, no, not only do I think they won’t win 110-plus on talent alone, I’m not sure they even want to.

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The Dodgers are hitting .278 as a team. What will their final team batting average be?

Gonzalez: The highest single-season team batting average from 2015 to 2025 was .282, achieved by the 2016 Boston Red Sox and the 2017 Houston Astros. Third on that list is a more recent example — the 2023 Atlanta Braves at .276. And though it has gotten only harder and harder to hit, I think the Dodgers can hit .280 on the season. The fact that they’re currently right around there even though Betts is hurt, Ohtani is navigating a mini slump and Tucker hasn’t gotten going yet tells you just how deep and talented this lineup is. The overall quality of pitching in their division — or lack thereof — will only help their cause.

Schoenfield: A .278 team average in 2026 would be off-the-charts amazing. The Toronto Blue Jays led the majors with a .265 average in 2025, and it took two .300 hitters in Bo Bichette and George Springer and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hitting .292 to get there. The Arizona Diamondbacks and Padres led the majors in 2024 at .263. If I had a little more faith in Betts and Freeman still putting up big numbers in their mid-30s, maybe .280 would be possible, but Andy Pages and Max Muncy aren’t likely to finish the season at .300. I’ll go with a .268 final mark.

Passan: .271. Not only is Los Angeles in line for a BABIP regression, but teams just don’t hit .278 in 2026, not even one as talented as this. It helps that the Dodgers don’t strike out a whole lot (their 21.5% rate is middle of the pack in the big leagues) and will get Betts back eventually. If this turns out to be sustainable, it’s an offense on the level of those 2023 Braves, whose .501 team slugging percentage was the highest ever for an MLB team.

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Dodgers starting pitchers have an MLB-best 2.79 ERA. Will they keep that number under 3.00?

Gonzalez: Yes — if Snell comes back healthy. Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow are all capable of winning the Cy Young Award, and they’ll all continue to push each other. Snell is expected back before the end of May, and if he’s the version of himself that normally dominates in the second half, the Dodgers will make the case for one of the best rotations of this century. That would be the case even if Roki Sasaki continues to take his lumps. And they still have Emmet Sheehan, Justin Wrobleski and, when he returns from a hamstring injury, River Ryan.

Schoenfield: Only four teams in the past 10 seasons finished with a rotation ERA under 3.00: the 2022 Dodgers (2.75), the 2021 Dodgers (2.93), the 2022 Astros (2.95) and the 2016 Chicago Cubs (2.96). Keep in mind that 2022 was a lower-scoring season across MLB (4.28 runs per game compared with 4.55 so far in 2026) and that 2016 Cubs team was one of the best defensive teams ever assembled. The Dodgers’ rotation is currently running a .241 BABIP, lowest in the majors. The Dodgers are an above-average defensive team, but .241 isn’t sustainable over 162 games — and as great as Ohtani has been, I don’t think he finishes with a 0.38 ERA. The Dodgers’ rotation will finish with an ERA over 3.00 — but not by much.

Passan: Yes. Ohtani, Yamamoto and Glasnow are all pitching Cy Young-caliber baseball, and Snell is on his way back. Wrobleski makes hitters uncomfortable. And whether it’s Sasaki or Sheehan who fills the final spot in the rotation, the Dodgers are bound to get more from the group than they’ve even gotten so far. The rotation is a distinct strength among many.

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Shohei Ohtani has put up 1.9 WAR (0.8 as a hitter, 1.1 as a pitcher) so far. What will his final 2026 total be?

Gonzalez: 13. Only Babe Ruth — in 1920, 1921 and 1923 — has ever reached that threshold under FanGraphs’ calculation. Since then, only Barry Bonds got close, putting up 12.5 in 2001 and 12.7 in 2002. Ohtani, of course, is unique. And though he probably won’t match the 9 fWAR he put up as a hitter in his 50/50 season of 2024, keep in mind that Ohtani put up 7.5 fWAR as a hitter alone last season. His highest fWAR as a pitcher was 5.6 in 2022. That year, he went 15-9 with a 2.33 ERA while finishing fourth in Cy Young voting. There’s no reason to believe he can’t do something similar on the mound this year.

Schoenfield: 10.5. The big question is whether he can sustain the incredible level of offensive performance from the past two seasons. When Ohtani returned to the mound last year, he was pitching only a few innings at a time (initially), was getting plenty of rest between starts and didn’t pitch six innings in a regular-season game until his final outing (and that came after 10 days of rest). So, given he’ll pitch more innings this year, plus factoring in that he turns 32 years old in July, it will be interesting to see if he has another 50-homer season in him.

Passan: 9.2. Ohtani typically ends up comfortably in the 8-to-10-win range annually, and this year should wind up no different. How he compiles the WAR will be interesting. His best season pitching — in 2022, he threw 166 innings of 2.33 ERA ball — corresponded with his only non-MVP year among the past five. This is the latest test of being an actual two-way player, something Ohtani has done only intermittently during his time in the big leagues.

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Speaking of Ohtani, his 0.38 ERA is best in the National League. Where will he finish in 2026 Cy Young voting?

Gonzalez: Somewhere in the top five, but not first. The Dodgers don’t have any baked-in restrictions with Ohtani, but they will continue to read and react, giving him additional time off at the first sign of fatigue. And they will continue to not just field a six-man rotation, but also keep starters in line after off days. That means Ohtani will often take the mound with more than five days off between starts, limiting his innings total at the end of the year. His career high in innings is 166 in 2023. Corbin Burnes won a Cy Young Award with 167 innings in 2021, and Chris Sale won it with 177⅔ in 2024, so it’s certainly possible. But Ohtani’s margin for error will be razor thin.

Schoenfield: I’ll echo Alden — I just don’t know if Ohtani will pitch enough innings, especially since Paul Skenes is likely to get close to 200. And if the Dodgers run away with the NL West, Ohtani’s innings are likely to subside later in the season. I’ll be surprised if he gets to 150, and voters will be hard-pressed to give the Cy Young Award to a nonqualified starting pitcher. Unless, of course, Ohtani ends up going something like 16-0 with a 0.88 ERA. I’ll go with third place behind Skenes and Nolan McLean.

Passan: Third behind Skenes and Chase Burns. Because he will not throw nearly as many innings as pitchers in five-man rotations, Ohtani is always operating from behind when it comes to winning pitching-only awards. Unless his peripherals are so overwhelmingly better than everyone else’s in the NL, innings pitched should be rewarded for their rarity, and that’s a category in which Ohtani will struggle.

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Andy Pages, a .269 career hitter, leads qualified Dodgers hitters with a .337 average. Will he hit over/under .300 for the season?

Gonzalez: Under. It is so hard to hit .300 these days. Only 36 different players have done it over the past five years. And though Pages has shown significant growth as a hitter in his second full season in the major leagues, he will probably chase too often to join that group. It’s a part of his game, and given the power he can bring to the bottom third of their lineup, the Dodgers will gladly accept that. They don’t need him to hit .300.

Schoenfield: Under. Pages’ chase rate isn’t any better than last season, ranking in the 32nd percentile. His hard-hit rate IS way up from 2025 — 20 percentage points higher — so there might be some real improvement going on here in quality of contact. His expected average via Statcast is .300, so he has had a little good luck on balls in play. I’ll go under .300 but higher than the .272 he hit last season. Throw in his excellent defense in center field, and he could end up as a potential MVP candidate (non-Ohtani division).

Passan: Under, but that doesn’t preclude him from having a good season. At the end of spring training, when asked for his pick to click, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts chose Pages. And though Pages’ numbers have regressed slightly of late, they could recede even more when his average on balls in play dips from .397, which is currently the second-highest mark in the big leagues.

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Kyle Tucker has a .696 OPS after signing for $60 million per year this past winter. What will his season mark be?

Gonzalez: Tucker has gotten off to hot starts each of these past three years, but in 2022, he finished April with a .685 OPS. By the end of the year, he had increased it to .808. I’m going to say he finishes right around there, which, as a reminder, is still a good year. Out of 145 qualified hitters last year, only 45 of them reached an .800 OPS. The Dodgers expected MVP-level production from Tucker. They might have to wait another year for that.

Schoenfield: Tucker’s strikeout-to-walk rate has been pretty close to even the past three seasons, including 87 walks and 88 strikeouts in 2025, but this year he has twice as many K’s as walks. That’s a concern since strikeout and walk rates tend to stabilize much earlier in a season than other statistics. Maybe it’s the pressure of living up to the big contract that made him the highest-paid player in the game for 2026. Maybe it’s just a random slow start. Tucker will hit better, but the strikeout numbers are enough of a concern that I’ll go with a final OPS of .791, a 50-point drop from 2025.

Passan: He will finish at .836. To arrive at that number, I took Tucker’s career OPS (.859) and just assumed he would play around that level for the rest of the season. Sometimes acclimation takes time. As does getting used to being a player with an attention-getting contract. Tucker is still an excellent player, and whether that makes him worth $60 million a year or not doesn’t matter. The Dodgers are better with him.