Top 10 Best Players in the AL East for the 2026 MLB Season

We’ve already listed the best players at each position heading into 2026. Now, Just Baseball is ranking the top 10 players in all six divisions. Today’s entry in the series is arguably the most talented division in the sport: the American League East.

Who Just Missed the Top 10?

Baltimore Orioles – Adley Rutschman

Rutschman burst onto the scene in 2023 and produced a 134 wRC+/5.6 fWAR rookie campaign across 113 games before following it up with a sophomore campaign in which he finished with a 126 wRC+/5.5 fWAR over 154 games.

Since then, it’s been a downward trajectory for the Orioles backstop. Injuries have played a role, as a wrist injury in the middle of 2024 derailed the rest of his season, while multiple oblique strains kept him to just 90 games in 2025.

A healthy 2026 could see him reach the heights he did in his first two seasons in the show, which in turn would catapult him into the middle of this top 10 list heading into 2027.

Tampa Bay Rays – Jonathan Aranda

Jonathan Aranda was an extremely popular breakout pick heading into 2025 because of his ability to hit the stuffing out of the baseball, paired with good plate skills. He certainly made those breakout shouts look smart.

Aranda slashed .316/.393/.489 to go along with 14 homers, 59 RBI, and a 146 wRC+ across 106 games. He surely would’ve reached the 20 home run mark if not for the fractured wrist he sustained in early July when an errant throw to first sent Aranda right into the path of Giancarlo Stanton.

Aranda’s .382 xwOBA (one point better than his wOBA) tells us that nothing about his breakout was a fluke, and that the Rays are banking on the duo of him and Junior Caminero to be serious run producers for them in 2026.

Toronto Blue Jays – George Springer, Daulton Varsho

George Springer enjoyed a career season at the ripe age of 35 in 2025. The Blue Jays’ primary DH produced the third best wRC+ in all of baseball (166), trailing only Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani amongst qualified hitters. His exclusion from the top 10 is more of a 2026 projection than anything about what happened last year.

Daulton Varsho enjoyed the best offensive year of his career to date last season. In an abbreviated 71 games, Varsho still managed to bang 20 homers and produce a 123 wRC+ and 2.2 fWAR campaign.

The Blue Jays centerfielder clearly benefited from a change of approach, prioritizing maxing out for damage. Both his walk and strikeout rates were the worst of his career as Varsho swung and swung often. A slight mechanical change to his stance – he now stands straight up in the box with a vertical bat stance – has worked wonders.

He appears poised to build off of 2025, now entering a contract year and looking to get paid in a relatively weak free agent class from a position player standpoint next offseason.

10. Jarren Duran, Boston Red Sox

2025 Stats: 157 G, 696 PA, .256/.332/.442, 16 HR, 84 RBI, 111 wRC+, 3.9 fWAR

After a monstrous 2024 season where Duran posted up for 160 games and produced a 6.8 fWAR season as the Red Sox’s starting centerfielder, Duran was shifted to everyday left field duties in 2025 to make way for Ceddanne Rafaela.

It was a step back in terms of production on both sides of the ball for Duran. His wRC+ dropped 20 points, and he was three wins worse. The latter being more understandable, seeing as though he was patrolling a corner rather than center field.

Having said all that, Duran still produced a near four-win season and produced better exit velocities (Hitting a ball 117.7 MPH, besting his previous career high of 113.9 by 4 MPH) than he did in 2024. His 2026 season should land somewhere in the middle of his previous two.

9. Cody Bellinger, New York Yankees

2025 Stats: 152 G, 656 PA, .272/.334/.480, 29 HR, 98 RBI, 125 wRC+, 4.9 fWAR

There wasn’t a player in baseball who took advantage of their home park to the degree to which Bellinger did in 2025. No longer the exit velocity monster he was at the beginning of his career, Bellinger’s damage profile relies heavily on pulling flyballs. What better place to do that than as a left-handed hitter at Yankee Stadium?

This isn’t a knock or a shot at Bellinger whatsoever; he did exactly what he’s supposed to. The discrepancy in his home/road splits (155 wRC+ at home/97 wRC+ on the road) carries a fearful warning of the volatility his profile carries.

Thankfully for Bellinger, that’s not something he has to worry about for a while. Having just signed back with the Yankees on a five-year pact in the offseason, there’s no reason to expect he can’t keep producing at the same rate he did in 2025 in the seasons to come.

8. Junior Caminero, Tampa Bay Rays

2025 Stats: 154 G, 45 HR, 110 RBI, 7 SB, .264/.311/.535, 129 wRC+, 4.6 fWAR

When you look up the definition of “electric” in the dictionary, Junior Caminero’s name will be there. The 22-year-old is an absolute electric factory and the face of the Tampa Bay Rays franchise.

Less than a handful of players in the sport swing the bat as fast and hit the ball as hard as Junior Caminero. The Dominican-born third baseman ripped off a 45-homer campaign at 21 years old, and there’s reason to believe there’s more in the tank.

His extremely flat bat path leads to a large amount of groundballs (46.5% groundball rate in 2025), and there is an element of chase to his game, which leads some to be bearish on whether he’ll be able to reach his stratospheric ceiling.

I’m of the mind he’s just too freakish for any of that to matter. His performance thus far in the WBC illustrates his otherworldly talents. This ranking has a chance to look extremely foolish extremely quickly in 2026.

7. Jazz Chisholm Jr., New York Yankees

2025 Stats: 130 G, 31 HR, 80 RBI, 31 SB, .242/.332/.481, 126 wRC+, 4.4 fWAR

Chisholm’s exuberant personality and the fact that he plays for the Evil Empire lead to a lot of controversial opinions surrounding him. The fact of the matter is, he’s arguably the second best second baseman in the sport.

Fresh off a 30/30 campaign in 2025, in which he also put up 4.4 fWAR across 130 games, Chisholm is firmly entrenched as one of baseball’s most exciting and electrifying talents. His power/speed threat is rivaled by few, and he pairs this with elite defense at the keystone.

Chisholm will enter the 2026 season as a pending free agent. We could see him run absolutely wild on the basepaths and tap into even more power as he looks to set himself up for an extremely handsome payday as the best position player available in the 2027 free agent class.

6. Alejandro Kirk, Toronto Blue Jays

2025 Stats: 130 G, .282/.348/.421, 15 HR, 76 RBI, 116 wRC+, 22 FRV, 4.7 fWAR

Prior to the start of last season, the Blue Jays moved to lock up their franchise catcher to a five-year/$58 million dollar extension, two years before he was slated to hit free agency. It was a move that was met with a few raised eyebrows, as Kirk was coming off back-to-back down years from an offensive standpoint.

A year later, it’s looking like one of, if not the best, value deals in the league. Kirk unleashed his best season to date, producing a 4.7 fWAR/116 wRC+ campaign while being the second best defensive catcher in the sport, only behind Patrick Bailey.

Kirk’s Savant page went from mainly silver colored bubbles in 2024 to bloody red in 2025. His quality of contact was elite, and his plate skills remained as pristine as ever. If his 2026 season were to be a carbon copy of last year, the Blue Jays would sign up for that today.

5. Roman Anthony, Boston Red Sox

2025 Stats: 71 G, .292/.396/.463, 8 HR, 32 RBI, 4 SB, 140 wRC+, 2.7 fWAR

For a rookie having only accumulated 71 games at the MLB level to place fifth on a list of the 10 best players in the AL East, they’d have to have truly been special. Enter Roman Anthony.

Baseball’s consensus top prospect when he debuted, Anthony played his first MLB game on June 9 and proceeded to light the league on fire with his generational ability in the batter’s box. His 60.3% hard-hit rate was the best mark in all of baseball; he paired that with a 94.5 MPH average EV, 37.4% sweet-spot%, and 75.1 MPH average bat speed.

Simply put, he hit the ball harder than anyone in his 71-game sample, and combined that with an elite walk rate, ideal launch angles, and barrel rates. The Roman Empire will still be 21 years old on Opening Day, and it should surprise no one if he claims the No. 1 spot on this list in the coming years.

4. Pete Alonso, Baltimore Orioles

2025 Stats: 162 G, .272/.347/.524, 38 HR, 126 RBI, 141 wRC+, 3.6 fWAR

Pete Alonso is the definition of dull consistency. You know exactly what you’re going to get from him. Nothing more, nothing less. And that’s extremely valuable in todays game!

Once Opening Day kicks off, you can pencil Alonso in for 30/100 as a baseline. One of the most prodigious power hitters since he entered the league in 2019, Alonso absolutely mashes. He hits the ball extremely hard, finds barrels, and connects at ideal launch angles.

Defense and speed have never and will never be a part of the Polar Bear’s game. That’s fine. The Orioles don’t need nor want Alonso to be anything other than what he’s been his entire career. If he posts another campaign in line with his career norms, this ranking will be justified.

3. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Toronto Blue Jays

2025 Stats: 156 G, .292/.381/.467, 23 HR, 84 RBI, 137 wRC+, 3.9 fWAR

If you’re someone who first started watching Vladimir Guerrero Jr in October of last year and kept up during the WBC, you’d be forgiven if you thought he was the best hitter on the planet right now.

Guerrero’s offensive profile is nearly flawless. He hits everything hard, strong barrel rates, walks a ton and doesn’t strikeout. The one and only consistent flaw is his extremely flat bat path, which leads to a lot of his contact being on the ground. A mechanical change he made prior to the ALDS last year seems to have remedied the issue to some degree.

During the postseason, Vladdy’s groundball rate dropped by 6%, subsequently raising his flyball% by seven points. That carried over to the WBC this spring, in which he held the highest OPS on a DR team that boasted one of the most potent lineups ever assembled.

He seems poised to put up a career year in 2026.

2. Gunnar Henderson, Baltimore Orioles

2025 Stats: 154 G, .274/.349/.438, 17 HR, 30 SB, 68 RBI, 120 wRC+, 4.8 fWAR

Gunnar Henderson is a superstar talent. Last season would be classified as a “down” year for Henderson, and he’d be the first to tell you that. The irony is that his down season would be a career year for the vast majority of the player pool.

Henderson still produced elite exit velocities; the problem was his angles. His sweet-spot% which ranked in the 54th percentile during his monster 2024 season, plummeted to the ninth percentile in 2025. He also chased at a 4% higher clip, which would explain the dip in ideal angles.

It’s important to remember that Henderson dealt with a right intercostal strain in the spring last year, which cost him the final three weeks of camp heading into Opening Day.

By all accounts, he’s 100% healthy this spring and ready to reach the heights he did in 2024, which would comfortably cement him as a top 5 player not just in his own division, but in the entire league.

1. Aaron Judge, New York Yankees

2025 Stats: 152 GP, 679 PA, .331/.457/.688, 53 HR, 114 RBI, 204 wRC+, 10.1 fWAR

Does this one even require any explanation? No words needed. Self explanatory. Aaron Judge is the best hitter in baseball and one of the greatest of all time to ever pick up a baseball bat. His shrine in Cooperstown is already waiting for him when he walks in on the very first ballot. Likely unanimously.

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