9 intriguing takeaways from 2023 MLB projections: Are we underestimating the Dodgers and Yankees?

Pitchers and catchers are reporting, which means it's time to check our burgeoning expectations for the MLB season against a neutral, computerized observer. The PECOTA projection system, run by Baseball Prospectus, has been dishing out hard truths for years, sizing up players and teams with an objective eye our human brains can't match.

PECOTA’s initial look at the 2023 season — including projected standings and player lines — became available this week, just in time for spring training. Projections systems aren’t “predictions,” and they are designed to be conservative in many ways; they aren’t going to foretell a 65-homer season, and picking a 100-win team is rare, even though most seasons feature one. Instead, think of these outputs as trend lines, or bell curves, the most likely road ahead envisioned with the help of far more data and far more history than you can hold in your head at one time.

Taken for what they are, the numbers can help calibrate our understanding of the major storylines and pennant races, sometimes in counterintuitive fashion. Here are the nine most intriguing takeaways from PECOTA’s look at the 2023 MLB season.

Dodgers, not Padres, reign as NL West favorites

It felt like the San Diego Padres might have finally caught up to the Los Angeles Dodgers on paper this winter. After taking down the juggernaut in the 2022 postseason, ambitious team owner Peter Seidler and freewheeling executive A.J. Preller doubled down by adding Xander Bogaerts to a core that already included Juan Soto, Manny Machado and the soon-to-return Fernando Tatis Jr. The Dodgers, meanwhile, mostly stood pat as Trea Turner left town.

On the top-end talent front, the Padres can now match or exceed the Dodgers. But PECOTA still sees a gap in the other 20 roster spots. The Dodgers have some uncertainty around second base and left field, but they can turn to half a dozen or more viable major-league options. The Padres might not have two good ideas for outfield depth beyond their expected starters. Until Tatis returns from suspension, they will be rolling the dice on 42-year-old Nelson Cruz and 37-year-old Matt Carpenter as every-day options.

Over the course of 162 games, the 25th, 30th and even 35th players on the organizational depth chart accrue a lot of import. Recent history tells us that no team maximizes those players more than the Dodgers, the kings of the regular season.

Both teams, for the record, are overwhelming favorites to make the postseason, by PECOTA’s estimation.

Juan Soto might be baseball’s best hitter

Playing on a miserable Washington Nationals team, then under the cloud of trade rumors and then on a pressurized Padres team, Soto had a down year, by his standards, in 2022. He managed only a .242 batting average and a career-worst .452 slugging mark, meaning he was the eighth-best hitter in baseball by park-adjusted OPS+. Rough times.

PECOTA thinks the glory days are coming back in a big way as Soto begins his first full season in San Diego. The system foresees the 24-year-old, just two years from what could be an earth-shaking free agency, as the best player in baseball. As ever, the foundation of his production is on-base percentage. His projected .433 OBP stands a ridiculous 52 points ahead of the next best projection, Freddie Freeman’s .381.

Do the Mets finally have an edge on the Braves?

History says no, but PECOTA knows nothing of the New York Mets’ tendencies toward the painful and absurd. And it can’t know, any more than the rest of us, of the Atlanta Braves’ penchant for conjuring new stars from the Georgia soil.

Don’t worry too much about the projected win totals (95.8 for the Mets, 90.6 for the Braves). Let’s talk about the probability of winning the NL East — something the Braves have done five years in a row and something the Mets haven’t accomplished since 2015. PECOTA gives the Mets a 57.6% chance, the Braves a 22.9% chance and the Philadelphia Phillies a 17.8% chance.

The Mets have tremendous top-end rotation talent in Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander but also perhaps more baked-in injury and aging risk than the Braves with Max Fried and Spencer Strider or the Phillies with Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler.

The discrepancy between what you might've been thinking — that the savvy Braves will once again run neck-and-neck with the Mets’ bombastic payroll — and what PECOTA sees? The system isn’t quite sold on Braves center fielder Michael Harris II as a hitter, projecting a serious step back to a below-average batting line due to a lack of patience and less rosy outcomes on ground balls. It’s also worth noting that Fried, the Braves’ walk- and homer-averse ace, has routinely posted ERAs that beat estimates such as DRA or FIP. The projected 3.38 ERA, if it comes to fruition, would be his worst since 2019.

The Yankees are favored by how much?

The AL East looks like a daunting duel among at least three capable rivals. Of course, it also looked like that last year, and Aaron Judge’s New York Yankees thundered to the division title by seven games. PECOTA thinks the real battle might once again be for second place.

The system gives the Yankees almost a nine-game cushion over the Toronto Blue Jays and views them as the strongest division favorites outside of the Houston Astros. Those numbers don’t yet account for Frankie Montas’ shoulder surgery, but the gap between the Yankees and the pack speaks to the wealth of talent manager Aaron Boone will have at his disposal, if the stars stay healthy.

Tyler Glasnow is back with a vengeance

Remember Tyler Glasnow? Really tall? Flowing locks? Throws hard and produced dominant lines for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2019 and 2021 (in admittedly partial seasons)? Yeah, he returned from Tommy John surgery just before the playoffs last season looking strong — his fastball velocity was consistent with his pre-injury form — and PECOTA is ready to believe.

While some soft-pedaling is expected, allowing him a bit more breathing room to ramp up, PECOTA projects Glasnow for a 2.15 ERA, the second-best of any starter behind only Jacob deGrom. If Glasnow does indeed pick up where he left off in 2021, when he had a stellar 2.66 ERA through 14 starts before going down, the Rays' rotation will be a nightmare to face.

Adley Rutschman is the sophomore MVP candidate to watch

Seattle Mariners outfielder Julio Rodriguez made such a statement in his first season that it isn’t difficult to imagine him pulling off the feat last accomplished by Kris Bryant: winning Rookie of the Year and MVP in back-to-back seasons.

But the better pick to pull it off might just be Rutschman, the Baltimore Orioles catcher who raced Rodriguez all the way to the end for AL Rookie of the Year. Combining elite defensive prowess (at a tremendously important position) with a mature offensive approach, Rutschman already rates as a top-10 position player in baseball in PECOTA’s eyes — befitting how he played in the second half of 2022. Rodriguez, for his part, isn’t expected to be a slouch. PECOTA is simply less sure of his center-field capabilities and expects fewer hits to fall in.

Masataka Yoshida will be an instant offensive force?

The Boston Red Sox raised eyebrows around the game when they signed Yoshida, a 29-year-old outfielder, away from Japan’s Orix Buffaloes on a five-year, $90 million deal. He slashed .335/.447/.561 with 21 home runs in an outstanding final campaign in Japan, and PECOTA expects him to immediately take his place on MLB’s on-base-percentage leaderboards. He walked almost twice as often as he struck out in 2022.

Transitions to the majors have varied wildly for Japanese hitters. Seiya Suzuki? Pretty good. Shogo Akiyama? Not so much. But plate discipline as a leading skill seems like a solid bet. Yoshida’s production would likely look very different, but his overall batting line could match recently extended cornerstone Rafael Devers, if the projections are correct. And that would be welcome news for the beleaguered Red Sox front office.

Could the Angels win a battle of AL West upstarts?

Look, the Houston Astros are probably going to win the AL West. That well-oiled machine seems to roll on, pretty much impervious to even the most seismic changes at shortstop, at general manager or on the mound. Behind the Astros, though? Things could get interesting. The Mariners ended their postseason drought in dramatic fashion last season and still have young talent bubbling to the majors. The Texas Rangers ponied up for Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney a year after signing Corey Seager and Marcus Semien.

Yet PECOTA’s second-place club is the Los Angeles Angels. Long tormented by paper-thin depth and wayward organizational priorities, this season, Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani’s squad has enough oomph to contend. That means they are currently pegged for a 54.9% shot at October, compared to the Mariners’ 30.6%. And those big-spending Rangers? They might still be a year or several prospect arrivals away; PECOTA places their playoff odds at 12.3%.

Chaos in the Central divisions

Then there are the divisions stuck in the middle. The AL and NL Central are basically toss-ups by PECOTA’s estimation. The defending champion Cleveland Guardians and the Minnesota Twins (once again featuring Carlos Correa) are projected within one win of each other, with 49% division odds to 47.1%.

In the NL, most prognosticators (and projection systems) view the St. Louis Cardinals as the favorites. But PECOTA has the Milwaukee Brewers very much in the thick of the race and in fact a slightly better bet to win the division. In particular, the system foresees big things ahead for scrap-heap pickup Jesse Winker and young pitcher Aaron Ashby. The Cardinals — who are used to topping expectations — won’t be cowed by this. But their pitching staff has some serious health- and age-inflected questions.

Follow Yahoo Sports' Zach Crizer on Twitter @zcrizer.