FREE MLB Player Forecasts, Rankings

Guru's MLB Player Projections, Rankings - The spreadsheets below have 6 tabs: Definitions (descriptions of stats), Demo (batter details), Batting forecasts, Pitching forecasts, and Cheat Sheets for batters and pitchers. The 2027 spreadsheet adds a seventh, Rookies. The names of the forecasted stats have an "m" in front of them. So, the HR forecast is mHR, etc. Players with no MLB experience get forecasts from their minor-league records. 

Forecasts are based on data from the last three years, where recent years count more. Some of last year's stats are included as a reference. Some stats are our own invention (described below). Pitchers also have innings, DERA and mGURU forecasts for 2028 and 2029 (mIP2, mDERA2, mGURU2, mIP3, mDERA3, mGURU3), built from the 2027 forecast and the pitcher's age. Use them for keepers: every arm loses some value over three seasons, and older arms lose it faster.  

For ranking players, the mGURU stat is the key. mGURU is straight batting. For batters, mGURUwt adds the position (it weighs by positional scarcity) and the legs: steals, caught stealing and double plays, at what they are worth in runs. mGURU is designed to weight the player's rate of production and expected playing time to arrive at a best rating. Since forecasting playing time is difficult (although we are proud of the strength of this forecast), mGURU is weighted more heavily on rate than traditional linear weights. This strategy is useful for the goal of ranking player forecasts for simulation leagues.

mGURU puts batters and pitchers on one scale. A batter and a pitcher with the same mGURU go on to earn, on average, the same BaseballGuru game price for the season they actually play. We tested that on the 2024, 2025 and 2026 seasons. On the old scale a pitcher's 60 earned what a batter's 41 did, so most pitchers' mGURU came down in this update; the best moved least, and the order among pitchers did not change. Ranking batters and pitchers together by mGURU is still not a draft plan. Every team has to fill its innings, so pitchers go earlier in a draft than their mGURU alone suggests, and mADP shows about where. mGURU does not consider fielding, steals or double plays. mGURUwt counts the position and the legs but not a player's own glove; mworth counts his glove and his legs. Counting the legs made mGURUwt a better forecast of the season a batter actually had in 13 of 17 seasons we tested (2009 to 2026). Even so, steals are not as valuable in real life (or in mGURUwt) as they are in rotisserie, so draft accordingly.

mROTO is designed to provide values for 5x5 rotisserie scoring as follows: Batting is Avg, HR, SB, RBI, R. Pitching is ERA, W, SV, WHIP, Strike outs. mROTOwt weights values by positional scarcity. Values are meant to be relative to each other and provide directional guidance. Values resemble mixed leagues with a $260 budget for 12 teams.

Playing time. mTAP and mIP are the playing time expected with injury risk included. Players known to be out (surgery, retirement) already have their time cut by the share of the season they will miss. A player who lost last season to injury gets more of his time back the better his forecast is.

NL players are listed at the top, AL at the bottom. If you are playing in a mixed league, for batters: sort by Play (descending), POS (descending), mGURU (descending); for pitchers sort by Play (descending), POS (descending), mGURU (descending). In the case of pitchers, notice that positions were newly defined to distinguish between them (see below).

Players can also be sorted by rankings. Batters: rank is among all batters, prank within his position, plrank within his position and league. Pitchers: rank is among all pitchers, lrank within his league, prank within his role and league. For one order across batters and pitchers, sort by mADP.

If you prefer not to consider playing time in the rankings and want to rely solely on rate of production, we have that too. For batters use mwOBA, which is based on research by Tom Tango. For Pitchers use mDERA, which is the ERA forecast. It relies heavily on Voros McCracken's DIPS concept. ERAi is mDERA indexed to the league: 100 is average, 80 is 20% better.

Rookies now get forecasts from their minor-league records. Also see the player comps we provided along with the newly enhanced advice column.

OUR OWN PROSPECT RANKING

mrookie is a minor leaguer's expected mGURU over 2027 and the two seasons after, the stretch a keeper decision covers. It starts from FanGraphs' prospect rank, adds our forecast of his 2027 mGURU and his age, and weights each one by what prospects went on to do. We fit it on FanGraphs' preseason lists from 2019 to 2024, about 1,100 prospects a season, and scored each prospect on the mGURU he earned that season and the next two (zero for a season he did not play).

On that test, mrookie ranked the prospects better than the published lists did. For the prospects on either list's Top 100, the rank correlation with what they earned was .61 for mrookie, .31 for FanGraphs' order and .23 for MLB Pipeline's. Taking each prospect at whichever list ranked him higher, mrookie beat the lists in all six seasons, and it still won when we fit its weights on earlier seasons only. The first 50 prospects by mrookie earned an average of 84 mGURU over the three seasons; the first 50 by the lists earned 68. Pipeline's rank added nothing once FanGraphs' was in, so mrookie reads FanGraphs' rank and uses Pipeline's only for a prospect FanGraphs' file misses.

Why the difference: the lists rank how good a prospect may become, and mrookie ranks what he is likely to be worth to you over the next three seasons. Age counts as closeness to the majors: each year older, up to 25, adds about 30% to a prospect's expected value. In this update, Leo De Vries is 3rd on Pipeline's list and 12th by mrookie, because at 20 he is further from helping a big-league roster.

The ROOKIES tab lists every minor leaguer in the forecast, 764 of them, hitters and pitchers on one list, with FanGraphs' rank and FV and Pipeline's Top 100 rank beside mrookie, so you can see where we differ. One list works because mrookie is mGURU, and mGURU puts batters and pitchers on one scale (see above).

ORIGINAL INSIGHTS

Before we get into the numbers, consider the machine learning text. It tells us which players are the most similar using an original approach and clusters them and gives us a brief description of their status.

ORIGINAL BATTING STATS

The xGURU and xwOBA for batters shows expected batting value for someone at that position and playing time. So if you want to consider valuing SS over OF, then see how much higher that persons mGURU is above xGURU. mGURUwt was created to do this weighting for you.

mStarter is predicted playing time, where Y is Starter; N is Not full time Starter or Inj risk or Performance Risk; and B is a Bench player with fringe mlb-level quality forecasted.

mVORP is Value (runs contributed) Over Replacement Player. It is similar to WAR, but uses a different bar for replacement value. For batters this is the wOBA of non-starters at each position. The formula is (mwOBA - replacement wOBA at his position) * mTAP. This is different from mGURU, which further weights the results against players of similar playing time. mGURU is also weighted more towards rate of performance, so times at plate plays less of a factor (although it still matters).

ORIGINAL PITCHING STATS

Creation of pitching positions: SP=Starters (safest on the board) / LP=Long Relief and Swing / JP=Junk (or Junior) Starters / EP=Elite Relief Pitchers / DP=Decent RP / BP=Bad RP/ AP=Avoid RP. These assignments are critical for drafting. Seriously, do not draft AP or JP pitchers, no matter what the machine thinks. And, LP might also stand for "Last to Predict" because I don't know what to do with these guys (neither do most others, but at least I admit it). Look for bargains and young talent there.

mSTUFF (Do NOT confuse this with PECOTA's stuff). Having big STUFF means excellent power and control. It's our way of measuring upside, especially for young pitchers. Find hidden future stars! The formula is: 6*mDOM -2.67*mDERA -3*mCTL -5*mHR9; if mSTUFF<1 then mSTUFF=1; mSTUFF=mSTUFF*mSTUFF/10;

WRIP - Since hrs allowed are more under a pitcher's control than hits allowed, a stat called wrip was created to look like whip. Whip is (walks+hits)/ip and Wrip is (walks+hr*10)/ip. I also like the names because a pitcher giving up lots of hits gets "whipped", while one giving up lots of HRs gets "wripped." Agree?

mVORP is runs saved against a 4.30 DERA: (4.30 - mDERA) * mIP / 9. Like WAR, which is based on FIP instead of ERA, this is based on mDERA, which is much more like FIP than ERA.

Several more are borrowed from others, such as: mCMD (k/bb), mDOM (9*k/ip), mCTL (9*bb/ip), and HR9 (9*hr/ip). 

 Forecasts from Past Years
Actuals and forecasts include original guru stats and other sabermetrics.

Work was done every year to improve the forecasts and add insights!