MLB 2017 standings projections: Cubs' odds to repeat, surprise contenders and more

[h=1]ZiPS 2017 standings projections: Cubs' odds to repeat, surprise contenders and more[/h]Dan Szymborski
Special to ESPN.com
ESPN INSIDER

The Chicago Cubs ... ahem, the world champion Chicago Cubs return as the favorites to win the World Series again in 2017.
The best team doesn't always win the World Series, of course, but in 2016, it did. And while it did involve a few sizable investments in the roster to get there, it was more the culmination of a long rebuild, in which short-term fixes were generally eschewed and the objective was to contend for five years, six years or even longer.
Chicago does have a few losses coming this offseason, and the Cubs will never go into a season with the mean projection being 103 wins, but here's the bottom line: The 2017 organization stands just as strong as the 2016 one. Were he to leave, impending free agent Dexter Fowler would be the team's biggest loss this offseason -- Aroldis Chapman is better but was part of the team for only a third of the season -- but Fowler was considered a short-term addition anyway. The Cubs seemed perfectly happy playing Jason Heyward in center field before the opportunity to bring back Fowler fell into their laps.
The Cubs also get a full-season return of Kyle Schwarber, the left-handed bat they were missing to go along with Anthony Rizzo's in 2016. And it's way too early to call the Heyward contract doomed. He was terrible this year, but he's not old and has had better seasons in the past. With Heyward's glove, he doesn't have to be an offensive superstar to be a valuable player; if he just gets back to the 110 OPS+ range, which is still likely, he'll be a plus to the 2017 team as the Cubs try to repeat.
Unusual for a high-payroll team winning the World Series is that even with the loss of players to the Yankees in the Chapman trade, the Cubs still retain a strong farm system. This gives the organization flexibility in the coming years and means that the holes that pop up for the franchise this offseason are simpler to fix, either from within or by trading prospects for a more experienced solution.
The Cubs were at the top of our Future Power Rankings this year, and after doing what no other Cubs team in living memory has done, they're certainly not going to drop as a result!
With that, we take a look at the preliminary ZiPS projections for the 2017 season. Obviously these projections will change tremendously as players re-sign, sign or are traded, but here's what things look like right now.<offer style="box-sizing: border-box;"></offer>
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As the projected standings show, the Toronto Blue Jays have a lot of work ahead of them this winter, as they're not a team that can stand pat and simply coast on the waves. Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista are both free agents, and while Joey Bats is clearly in decline, his 117 OPS+ was still an important part of the team's offense. Michael Saunders is a free agent as well and even if R.A. Dickey is hardly a top-tier starting pitcher, he still contributed 170 league-average innings in 2016. And some regression toward the mean with pitchers like J.A. Happ is expected.

Tampa Bay moves up simply because unlike the other four teams, the Rays don't really have much in the way of key losses this winter. They have good reason to expect a better 2017 from their starting pitching, but they'll still likely fall back from this current projection by April as the AL East's big spenders address their issues.

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Can Cleveland get a second shot at ending its World Series drought, which is now the longest in baseball? The Indians certainly have a good opportunity. Even though they made it to within a run of a World Series title with no Carlos Carrasco in the postseason and not much Danny Salazar, full seasons from them remain key factors in the team getting a second chance next year. Mike Napoli is a free agent, but in reality he's a bit overrated. Yes, he hit a career-high 34 home runs, but his overall OPS+ of 104 was the second worst of his career, ahead of only his 2015. Most of the reasons Cleveland was good are back in 2017.

Minnesota wasn't expected to be a juggernaut in 2016, but the Twins also weren't supposed to be this bad. They'll improve simply from the good ol' "Plexiglas principle," and some of their young players should continue to improve (especially Jose Berrios).

Detroit's actual player losses aren't likely to be massive, but this is a team in a life-or-death struggle with Father Time -- who remains undefeated.

Similarly, the White Sox might have missed their best opportunities to win with this core already.

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The 2017 projections for the AL West don't look all that dissimilar from the 2016 standings. Houston loses Doug Fister and Colby Rasmus (for the first half at least), but the Astros also get a full season of Alex Bregman and a likely Dallas Keuchel bounce-back season.

The Rangers lose Ian Desmond and a few rentals, but they get a full season of Jonathan Lucroy and Yu Darvish, and they don't appear to have any awkward Prince Fielder situations in 2017. (And no, I didn't forget Mitch Moreland is a free agent.)

The good news for the Angels is that they got so little outside of Mike Trout in 2016 that they'd practically have to improve just by pure dumb luck. The bad news is that when you're projected at 78 wins with Mike Trout, you're still an awful team that just happens to have the best player in baseball. The Angels have a ton of work ahead if they're not going to waste the benefit of having Trout at his best.

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These projections assume that Yoenis Cespedes opts out rather than finishes his contract with the Mets, a decision that he has not made yet. But it seems a pretty good bet, given how valued he likely would be in a very weak free-agent market, and this is likely his last opportunity for a giant payday. Neil Walker is a free agent as well, as is the ageless Bartolo Colon, and some of the other key contributors are likely to decline with age. The pitching staff ought to still be great, but the team does have weak spots, and Jay Bruce doesn't really cover up any of them.

ZiPS projects continued improvement from the Braves and Phillies to the point that with some luck, they could be wild-card contenders. They shouldn't be slapping together any short-term win-now players as the Braves are rumored to be doing this offseason, but it could still happen. The Phillies' improvement is larger than it appears from the standings; they're very unlikely to be nine games better than their Pythagorean record in 2017.

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The NL Central is still very much Chicago's division to lose in 2017. The core of the team returns, short Jason Hammel, Dexter Fowler and its rental, Aroldis Chapman. ZiPS is being conservative at 92 wins, simply because the future is a very uncertain thing five months before a season even starts, but the Cubs still have one of the best farm systems in baseball and Kyle Schwarber returns to the regular season in 2017.

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ZiPS remains optimistic about the Dodgers, but they do have quite a lot of work ahead of them this offseason. Kenley Jansen, Justin Turner, Rich Hill, Josh Reddick and the surprisingly good-until-a-certain-postseason-inning Joe Blanton are all free agents this winter. But the good news for Dodgers fans is that the team is healthy enough that it ought to be a player for the few really highly desirable players in free agency.

If Arizona thinks that it can just stand where it is and everything will just work out in 2017, it has another thing coming. But luckily for fans of one of 2016's most disappointing teams, the ax mercilessly dropped on the team's hapless front office, so no jokes about which first-round picks it'll give away to Atlanta this winter. In are former Red Sox GM Mike Hazen and Boston's head of amateur and international scouting, Amiel Sawdaye. Both bring Arizona's front office something it was lacking at the top: knowledge of how front offices need to be run to be competitive in 2016 rather than in 1990.