NJIT Professor's Math Model Picks MLB's 2026 Winners by Opening Day

Yankee Stadium at night. (Credit: Wikipedia Commons user 'Andrew nyr')

As baseball fans celebrated Opening Day, one NJIT mathematician has already played out the entire 2026 season — on paper.

Bruce Bukiet, a mathematics professor in NJIT's College of Science and Liberal Arts, has released his annual statistical projections for Major League Baseball's 162-game regular season, a tradition he has maintained since 1998. Nearly three decades in, the model remains as sharp as ever.

"Usually the results are in the top 20% of the so-called experts who come out with their projections each year," Bukiet said. "I think that it shows that with a little bit of baseball knowledge and some logical mathematical thinking and computation you can do well in this game year after year."

The model works by constructing batting orders for each of MLB's 30 teams using projected individual statistics sourced online, then applying a Markov process — a linear algebra framework Bukiet developed in the early 1990s — to calculate the expected run distribution for every team across every matchup on the schedule. From singles and doubles to walks and stolen bases, the model synthesizes each hitter's core statistics alongside pitching data to calculate the probability of each team winning each of their games. Those probabilities, summed across a full season, produce the projected win totals.

For 2026, one projection stands above the rest: the Los Angeles Dodgers at 100 wins. Bukiet points to a roster that reads like an all-star ballot — Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman anchoring the lineup, with Kyle Tucker now added to the mix. The pitching staff features Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, and Tyler Glasnow, bolstered by the additions of Roki Sasaki and closer Edwin Diaz. "They have solid depth," Bukiet noted, adding that only a significant wave of injuries is likely to open the door for a National League challenger.

In the NL Central, the Chicago Cubs emerge as a mild surprise, leading the division at 87 wins — edging out the Milwaukee Brewers at 82. The St. Louis Cardinals, perennial contenders, drop to the bottom of the division at 71 wins in this year's projections.

In the American League, the Seattle Mariners lead all comers at 92 wins, with the New York Yankees close behind at 91 to top the AL East. But Bukiet says the AL East as a whole may be the story of the season — projecting every team in the division at or above .500, with Baltimore (86), Boston (85), and Toronto (85) all within striking distance of a playoff spot. "All the wild card teams may come from the AL East," he said. "The AL East is the dominant division."

As for what the model cannot do — predicting injuries, midseason trades, or a player's sudden breakout — Bukiet is candid. "I don't attempt to be clairvoyant," he said. If a player is injury-prone, the model accounts for reduced playing time going in. Beyond that, he notes, depth and roster quality tend to absorb disruptions on competitive teams, much the way statistical noise cancels out across a long season.

When October arrives, Bukiet will do what he always does: compare his March projections against final standings and stack them up against the prognosticators. For now, the math says the Dodgers are the class of baseball — and Bukiet's model doesn't bet against itself.

Prof. Bukiet's MLB Projections 2026
Projected win totals · Computed March 23, 2026

Division leaders in bold · Source: web.njit.edu/~bukiet/baseball