It is difficult to imagine, but considering how much all
four of the top National League East teams have put into this season, one,
maybe two, maybe even three of them aren’t going to make the postseason at all.
There isn’t a division in baseball with more on the line. The Nationals didn’t
spend on Bryce Harper, but they sure spent lots of
money other places and are loaded with talent; the Mets brought in Edwin Diaz and Robinson Canó and
still have some of the best starting pitchers in baseball; the Phillies just
added Bryce freaking Harper! Oh, and the Braves, they won the division last
year.
How is any one of these teams, let alone potentially three
of them, going to deal with missing the postseason? The storylines abound in
the NL East: Everybody has so much on the line. Which, as a fan, is all you
could possibly want.
Thus: Today, our weekly series previewing each of baseball’s
six divisions concludes with the National League East. Like every other week,
our previews will be extended games of 20 Questions, in which we look at four
pressing questions for each team heading into the 2019 season, and at the end,
we will make some actual predictions on the final standings, predictions that
are unassailable and so obviously iron-clad correct that we’re a little worried
you won’t even bother to watch the actual games once we read them. We are
willing to assume such a risk.
LET’S TAKE A
TEAM-BY-TEAM LOOK AT THE BIGGEST QUESTIONS:
BRAVES
(1) IS
THIS THE RONALD ACUNA
JR. NL MOST VALUABLE PLAYER AWARD SEASON?
That prediction might seem a little early, but man, did you see this guy the
second half of last season? Acuna's grand slam in the NL Division Series might
have been the best “didn’t ultimately mean anything but ... wow” moment of the
year, and the guy is essentially great at everything. And he’s just
getting started. He only played 111 contests last year. How many
more games do the Braves win when he’s a year better and playing 155 games?
(2) WHO’S
THE ACE?
This question might be a little easier to answer a year or two from now,
when all those
young Braves pitchers hit the Majors. But for now, there’s
no obvious top guy, which could be a problem in a division with Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom and Aaron Nola. Mike
Foltynewicz isn’t going
to be ready for Opening Day, and the fact that Julio Teheran will
be out to make another Opening Day start is a sign that there isn’t anybody
quite yet to step up.
(3) WHAT
IS DANSBY SWANSON?
We find that Swanberson
bobblehead as amusing as anyone does, but suffice it to
say: No one ever thought you’d be confusing Swanson, the first overall pick in
the 2015 Draft, and Charlie
Culberson, a helpful but unspectacular bench player. Swanson’s
bat was a little better in '18, but still not enough for him to be even a
league-average hitter. He’s a good shortstop, but not so good that you can just
forget about that bat. His rookie season, he hit .302 with a .361 OBP; that OBP
has actually gone down every season since. They don’t need him to be a star,
but they need him to be better.
(4) CAN THEY BUILD
OFF LAST YEAR?
The Braves were good in 2018, but they essentially won the East by default: The
Nats collapsed, the Phillies weren’t ready, the Mets were … the Mets. But the
Braves will have no such cushion this year: All three teams are coming for
them. The addition of Josh
Donaldson was a smart strategic move, but you can argue
that the pitching staff actually needed more outside help, and didn’t get it.
MARLINS
(5) CAN LEWIS BRINSON LIVE
UP TO HIS PEDIGREE?
Brinson was the main prospect in two separate trades before he ever made his
big league debut, which leads to considerable expectation of him showing …
something. But in 130 big league games over two seasons, Brinson has been a
disappointment, putting up a .189/.239/.331 line. Yikes. He’s not even stealing
bases like everyone thought he would. He has looked better this spring, but
right now, he’s still the shining jewel of those big outfielder trades before
last season. If all the Marlins have to show for those trades in 2019 is a
62 OPS+,
that’s a problem.
(6) IS BRIAN
ANDERSON A BUILDING BLOCK?
If the NL hadn’t been invaded by Acuna and Juan Soto last
year, Anderson might have won the NL Rookie of the Year Award. He's a solid
on-base guy who plays terrific defense and gives the Marlins, at last, a young
player they can feel extremely comfortable putting in the lineup every day.
Still, you’d like to see the power numbers spike up a bit: He’s the best hitter
on the Marlins right now, but it’ll require 2019 to let us know if that tells
us more about Anderson or more about the Marlins.
(7) WHEN DO THE
PROSPECTS ARRIVE?
The Marlins’ somewhat average farm system took
a big step forward simply by bringing in Sixto Sanchez (J.T. Realmuto trade)
and Victor Victor Mesa (international free agent); Sanchez might even reach the
big leagues this year. This is a long-term project for chief executive officer
Derek Jeter and company, but those two are good starts. This season in large
part needs to be about discovering and developing players who are going to be
on the next contending Marlins team. Those players should have plenty of
opportunities to reveal themselves.
(8) WHAT’S THE
BEST-CASE SCENARIO?
It would be a mistake for Jeter and his team to try to go for it in 2019: This
is an ongoing project, and some foundations are being laid for future success.
But in the meantime, with four teams in this division all-in for this season,
it could get super rough. The Marlins are the lone break in any NL East team's
schedule, and they’ll want to load up on wins while they can. That could make
for a long season in Miami.
METS
(9) CAN THE
ROTATION BE WHAT IT CAN, AND SHOULD, BE?
The Mets and their fans, and everyone who pays attention to both, have a
tendency to overthink the Mets’ success. It’s really quite simple: When the
Mets’ rotation is healthy and at its best, they’re the best team in the
division, and when it’s not, they are … quite a bit less than that. From 1-4,
the Mets can match up with any team on any day, and there isn’t a pitcher in
the sport you’d want more in an NL Wild Card Game than deGrom. But how healthy
is everyone going to be? How many starts can those four make? If the answer is
120 games, this might be the Mets' year. But 1-4 starters rarely make those 120
starts.
(10) HOW
LONG DO THEY GET THE GOOD CANO?
For all the drama of Cano’s 2018, from the PED suspension to his ultimate
trade, it’s worth remembering: The dude can still hit. He also rarely misses
games for injury, so, for the not-so-low price of most of his remaining salary,
the Mets got a lineup force nearly every day. That’s the good news. The bad
news is that his contract is going to get super ugly in a few years, even with
the money the Mariners are giving the Mets. So New York needs to maximize
Cano’s impact while it can. If any team knows that one day’s splashy offseason
move is the next day’s albatross, it’s the Mets. You’re not acquiring Cano for
'24. You’re acquiring him for now.
(11) WILL THEY LET BRANDON NIMMO AND MICHAEL
CONFORTO FLY?
Nimmo was so much better than anyone outside New York really noticed last year,
and Conforto eventually came around after a fluke left shoulder injury
shortened his 2017 All-Star campaign. Quietly, the Mets have two building block
outfielders … but both of them have been shifted around at times in terms of
position and playing time. Yoenis Cespedes may or may not be back, but this
team is relying a ton on the two 26-year-old outfielders. If they can blossom
at the same time, they won’t even need Cespedes if he does come
back.
(12) CAN BRODIE
SHAKE OFF THE BAD VIBES?
The Mets’ fans are in a perpetual defensive crouch, and honestly, who can blame
them? But new general manager Brodie Van Wagenen comes in with a fresh
attitude, a fervent desire to win and all sorts of unconventional thinking. He
certainly carries himself like a guy who isn’t weighed down by the Mets’
history … but we’ll see if the shoulders slump when things start to go wrong.
NATIONALS
(13) WHAT’S NEXT
FOR SOTO?
One of the main reasons Soto was such a revelation in 2018 was that he was a
young player who was fantastic for reasons young players aren’t usually
fantastic: His plate discipline marked him as a professional from his very
first moments in the league, and separated him from his peers. And he was 19.
If he has the season he just had for the next 15 years, he’ll end up in the
Hall of Fame, even if he never improves. But improvement could send him
somewhere else in the stratosphere.
(14) IS VICTOR ROBLES READY?
Had the Nationals re-signed Harper, or Michael A. Taylor had stepped forward,
Robles might not be counted on this season. But now MLB Pipeline’s No. 4
prospect is key to everything the Nationals want to do. If
he can show up and have anything close to the season Soto just had, the Nats
won’t only not miss Harper, they’ll have themselves two entirely new young
Harpers to go through all this drama again in six years. There are far worse
places to be.
(15) ARE THEY
GOING TO RE-SIGN ANTHONY
RENDON?
Rendon, by many measures, has been a better player than Harper the last few
seasons anyway: The Nationals are probably keeping their best player. But he
had to see the dollars Nolan Arenado got this offseason and started drooling,
and who wouldn’t? Rendon is a much lower-key personality than Harper, but he’ll
still want to cash in if he makes it to free agency next offseason. And Rendon
will have a full season outside of Harper’s shadow, with the spotlight, for
better or worse, on himself. Somehow, Rendon has never made an All-Star team.
That ends this season.
(16) OK, HOW ABOUT
GETTING OUT OF THE NLDS … NOW?
If the Nationals really do want to stick it to Harper for not only leaving but
joining a division rival, picking the season after he leaves to at last win a
postseason series would be a rather wonderful way to do it. The Nats have all
the same advantages they had during these last few years of falling short, as
well as some of the deficiencies, including a bullpen that still has all sorts
of questions. But this team has just needed to get clicking, with all its
talent aligned at once, to finally get where it's so desperate to go. This year
is as good as any.
PHILLIES
(17) IS BRYCE
HARPER 2015 BRYCE, 2018 BRYCE OR SOMETHING IN BETWEEN?
The Phillies got their superstar! Whether you think they paid “stupid” money or
not, it is impossible not to consider the Phils’ offseason a massive success --
the team took a step forward before it signed Harper.
But it is worth remembering that Harper wasn’t Mike Trout in
2018: He actually only had the 12th-highest bWAR on
his own team. Harper’s defense took a massive step back last season, and
while some speculate it’s because he was making sure he didn’t hurt himself
before his big payday, he’ll need to be at least average this year. And it
wouldn’t hurt to get his OPS back near 1.000, which it has been twice in his
career. Harper is still a good player, even if he just plays at last season’s
levels. But obviously, the Phillies are paying for a superstar. It would
behoove Harper, in Year One, to play like one.
(18) IS REALMUTO STEALTHILY
THEIR BEST PLAYER?
Two of the three biggest stories this offseason revolved around Harper and
Realmuto, and the Phillies got them both. But an argument could be made that
it’s Realmuto, not Harper, who is the true building block. He took a step
forward for the Marlins in every area last season, is entering his prime and
already might be the best everyday catcher in the game. He’s also beloved by pitchers,
key for a team that has some questions in its rotation. Harper is the flashy
addition, and for good reason. But Realmuto might be the guy who makes this
team go.
(19) SHOULD THEY
HAVE SUPPLEMENTED THEIR ROTATION AT ALL?
Nola was one of the best pitchers in the game last season. But every other part
of the Phillies’ rotation has big question marks. Jake Arrieta had his worst
season since he was an Oriole, and he was the team’s second-best pitcher. Nick
Pivetta, Vince Velasquez and Zach Eflin all struggled to various degrees, yet
there they are, still locked into spots in the rotation. Add that to a bullpen
that has talent but is hardly proven, and as impressive as the lineup looks
now, that pitching staff looks like it could spring a lot of leaks. The last
great Phillies team rode its rotation to the NL East title. If this one is
going to do the same, it will have to do it from the opposite direction.
(20) CAN MANAGER
GABE KAPLER WITHSTAND THE HEAT?
Kapler survived the heady first fortnight of his managerial career -- when some
fans legitimately wanted to fire the manager after his first series --
but clearly, there’s still some friction there: He has never been able to get
quite comfortable. After all the offseason additions, the spotlight’s only going
to get brighter. If the Phillies get off to a slow start, all fingers are going
to immediately start pointing at Kapler again. This is Philadelphia, there are
no honeymoons here. The Phillies, in one of the toughest divisions in baseball,
are expected to win right now. Good luck.
PROJECTED STANDINGS
1. Washington Nationals: 89-73
2. Atlanta Braves: 88-74
3. New York Mets: 85-77
4. Philadelphia Phillies: 82-80
5. Miami Marlins: 47-115 (Sorry, the Marlins
probably aren’t going to lose this many games, but I had to make the records of
all six previews add up. Feel free to subtract a couple of wins here or there
and give them to the Marlins, if you wish.)
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