With June in the immediate offing, we’re now roughly two full months into the 2026 Major League Baseball regular season. That means about one-third of the regular season is freshly behind us, and it’s time to check in on all of MLB’s 30 teams. Specifically, we’re here to hand out grades to each team based on how the season has gone to date.
It’s not a simple matter of eyeballing the standings. Rather, the grades to come are informed by the standings, the team’s underlying performance, and how those two measures compare with reasonable expectations entering the 2026 season. There’s no such thing as a good team with a bad grade, but teams that were expected to be good won’t be graded as highly as those teams that qualify as “pleasant surprises.”
MLB two-month grades for every AL team: Way more F’s than A’s to go around
Dayn Perry
With all that laid out, let’s get to gradin’. The American League assumed the position already, and now it’s time for the National League.
Arizona Diamondbacks: B+
The D-backs were angling to bounce back from a disappointing 80-82 campaign last season, and thus far they’re doing just that. Right now, Arizona is solidly in wild card position and still within range of the first-place Dodgers in the NL West. Corbin Carroll is looking like an MVP candidate thus far, and Eduardo Rodríguez has pitched like an ace through the first two months of the season. Corbin Burnes’ eventual return will be a major boon to the rotation and cement their status as real threats in the NL. — Dayn Perry
Atlanta Braves: A
Rather than wilt after suffering all those pitching injuries in spring training (Spencer Schwellenbach, Spencer Strider, Hurston Waldrep, Joey Wentz), the Braves have one of baseball’s top rotations thanks to Bryce Elder’s new pitch and Martín Pérez’s unexpected excellence. The offense has bounced back from a few disappointing seasons and the Robert Suarez/Raisel Iglesias one-two bullpen punch at the end of games is suffocating. Last year’s injury-riddled 76-86 season looks like a blip. The Braves are back thanks to a surprisingly great rotation and a powerhouse offense that blends above-average contact skills with power. — Mike Axisa
Chicago Cubs: C
If we took out the two 10-game winning streaks, the Cubs would easily get an F, but we can’t really do that, can we? That’s 20 wins they stacked. This is one of the weirdest things we’ve ever seen this early in a season — to have two 10-game winning streaks and then closely follow them with a 10-game losing streak. The rotation has been ravaged by injuries, but the offense’s disappearance just happened. Most of the team was hot during the winning streaks, then just forgot how to hit after the second one ended. There’s nothing to do here but just throw them the middle grade, which is obviously a C. — Matt Snyder
Cincinnati Reds: B
Sure, the Reds were a playoff team last season, but that was with only 83 wins and then they were a sacrificial lamb for the Dodgers in the Wild Card Series. Then they lost ace Hunter Greene to injury before the season started and have also dealt with a Nick Lodolo injury in the rotation. Despite that, they were 20-11 through April. They started May with eight straight losses and barely stayed above .500 for a stretch, even hitting exactly .500 at 24-24. They’ve gotten hot again since, though. Breakouts from youngsters Chase Burns and Sal Stewart, in addition to a step forward from Elly De La Cruz, have been highlights. — Snyder
Colorado Rockies: C
Little was expected from the Rox in 2026, and little has been provided. Expectations met? Well, sort of. This writing finds Colorado with the worst record and worst run differential in all of MLB. They’re on pace for 104 losses, which is plainly bad, but that would also constitute a 15-game improvement over their 2026 loss tally. This season, the Rockies are “merely” very bad as opposed to historically awful, and that’s progress of a kind. — Perry
Los Angeles Dodgers: A
Angling for the elusive three-peat this season, the Dodgers are, true to recent form, managing their roster with an eye toward October and November. Injuries have again hit the rotation, but there’s depth in place. Right now, there’s no reason to think the Dodgers won’t be the consensus favorite to hoist the trophy once the postseason arrives. They’re on pace for 103 wins, which would be their highest total since 2022 and a 10-game improvement over 2025. What makes this Dodgers team a bit different from prior recent models is that they’re getting big contributions from young homegrown contributors like Andy Pages, Dalton Rushing, and Justin Wrobleski. — Perry
Miami Marlins: C
Xavier Edwards, Liam Hicks, and Otto Lopez may all find themselves in the All-Star Game in July. The rest of the offense just hasn’t been good, though, and the rotation outside Max Meyer has just been OK. It’s definitely not great that the Marlins sunk $17 million (roughly 23% of their payroll) into Pete Fairbanks and Chris Paddack, who have both been sub-replacement level (Paddack has already been released). The Marlins went 49-38 in their final 87 games last year and looked to be on the upswing. Instead, they’re just kind of meandering about. I expected more coming into 2026. — Axisa
Milwaukee Brewers: A
The Brewers traded Freddy Peralta this past offseason and weathered through the early schedule with Andrew Vaughn, Christian Yelich and Jackson Chourio on the injured list. No matter. They just keep winning. Jacob Misiorowski and Kyle Harrison are pitching like a pair of aces — there’s an argument for Misiorowski as baseball’s best pitcher this season — and Brice Turang is a star. If there’s been a concern to this point, it’s the lack of home runs, but the injuries to Vaughn, Yelich and Chourio have certainly messed with that figure. It’s not as though it’s hurt them in the W-L columns to this point. — Snyder
New York Mets: F
We’re at the point now where this is just unacceptable. The Mets have one of the lowest-scoring offenses in the league and so many offseason moves (Bo Bichette, Jorge Polanco, Luis Robert Jr., Marcus Semien, Devin Williams) have worked out about as poorly as possible. Credit to the Mets for going all-in on an in-season youth movement (A.J. Ewing, Christian Scott, Jonah Tong, etc.), but it never should have gotten to this point. There is no chance — zero — owner Steve Cohen expected the Mets to look like this in Year 3 under POBO David Stearns and Year 2 with Juan Soto. Failing grade with the capital-F. — Axisa
Philadelphia Phillies: D
They’ve started to right the ship under interim manager Don Mattingly, but they’re still playing below expectations, and that 9-19 hole they dug is pretty deep. The good news is Zack Wheeler looks like Zack Wheeler again, Cristopher Sánchez is on the very short list of the best pitchers in baseball, and Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber are mashing. There are too many soft spots in the lineup, though (Adolis García, J.T. Realmuto, and Trea Turner have been dreadful) and starting these versions of Aaron Nola and Andrew Painter in 40% of their games makes stringing together wins difficult. The F in April became a C in May, so let’s split the middle and call it a D. — Axisa
Pittsburgh Pirates: B-
They haven’t had a winning record since 2018 and haven’t made the playoffs since 2015. This team right now looks like a fringe contender and they have a winning record, so there’s no way they could get a bad grade. Is it really an A, though? They were 16-11 in late April and it’s been more than a month of sub-.500 play since. Kudos to the offense for being much improved, notably with the offseason additions of Brandon Lowe and Ryan O’Hearn (Marcell Ozuna, not so much). Braxton Ashcraft and Mitch Keller have pulled their weight in the rotation alongside superstar Paul Skenes, too. Things are good, even if not amazing or even great. — Snyder
St. Louis Cardinals: A-
It wasn’t an extreme teardown or anything, but it was pretty well accepted heading into this season that the Cardinals were in a transition phase and it would’ve been fair to call it a rebuild. Things have taken a downturn in the last week-plus, but for the Cardinals to be over .500 at this point in the season is a major surprise. They’ve also gotten encouraging signs from core-type pieces such as Jordan Walker, JJ Wetherholt, Iván Herrera, and, on the pitching side, Michael McGreevy. Losing seasons can be considered successes if a team is rebuilding and gets good returns on future nucleus players. And the Cardinals are getting that portion while also flirting with playoff position. — Snyder
San Diego Padres: B+
The Pads boast the fourth-best record in a tough NL, and that’s good for the top wild-card position. On the downside, their very modest run differential of plus-2 suggests they should be a .500 team thus far. That’s a concern moving forward, as the Padres could undergo a course correction based on that underlying quality of play. That reported, having a closer like Mason Miller can theoretically help a team outplay its run differential. On another level, San Diego is winning without, to date, getting much from Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, and Jackson Merrill. Those players should find their accustomed level at some point. — Perry
San Francisco Giants: F
Suffice it to say, the 2026 season has not unfurled as hoped in San Francisco. New manager Tony Vitello, after making the unprecedented leap straight from the college ranks to the major league dugout, has had his share of rankly amateur moments, and the team isn’t in last place only because they share a division with the Rockies. They’re right now on pace for 97 losses, which would give the Giants their worst record since 2017. The rotation has been a wreck, and the offense ranks 28th in MLB in OPS and 29th in runs scored. — Perry
Washington Nationals: B
If nothing else, Nationals games are entertaining. Give the front office a truth serum, and I think they would tell you that they didn’t expect the offense to be this good. The Nationals are near the top of the league in runs scored! They’re also near the top of the league in runs allowed (in a bad way), and there are only so many ways they can improve their run prevention internally. CJ Abrams and James Wood are having All-Star-caliber seasons, if not MVP-caliber seasons, and Cade Cavalli looks like a keeper. Foster Griffin was a nice low-cost find out of Japan, too. Those are all positives. The Nationals are entertaining, and they’re definitely better than expected after five straight 91-plus loss seasons. — Axisa
