Is the National League East the best division in Baseball? Let’s look at the cliff notes and quickly decide. This division contains …
- The young and exciting Braves with Acuna, Albies, Freeman, Fried, Soroka, Anderson, Ozuna and the likely NL Rookie of the Year.
- The young and up and coming Marlins powered by pitching and a deep and under appreciated lineup
- Bryce Harper, JT Realmuto, Aaron Nola and the Philadelphia Phillies
- Those new look Mets with the best pitcher in Baseball – Jacob deGrom
- and oh yeah, Juan Soto.
Yeah, I’d say this is a pretty fun and exciting division from top to bottom. Which honestly has been the case for the past two seasons when we saw the Nationals win the World Series despite the Phillies being the pre-season pick in 2019 and then the Braves take the division last year and almost reach the World Series in the bubble before bowing out to the Dodgers. There’s no team here who is an obvious pick to finish in last place and I could make a strong case that every team has a range of 4 spots they could finish in here.
1. ATLANTA BRAVES
This is still the Braves division to lose after taking it a year ago. When you can roll out a lineup consisting of Ronald Acuna, Ozzie Albies, Freddie Freeman, Marcell Ozuna, Austin Riley, Travis d’Arnaud, Dansby Swanson you are going to win a ton of games off that lineup alone. They have been a lefty destroying machine and will continue to destroy lefties again in 2021 in that ballpark which helps the ball carry to left field. The questions for Atlanta will be in the pitching department if they can stay healthy there but I want to first introduce you to the National League rookie of the year, Christian Pache.
Yes, the Braves have yet another young kid who is coming up and will make noise. Pache is more of the Lorenzo Cain, defensive center fielder mold who has an 80 defensive rating and by plugging him into center field they can move Acuna to a corner spot and have an athletic outfield that should track down potential doubles into outs. Acuna was already a pretty good defensive outfielder, but Pache is an elite CF who has really developed his bat and will give the Braves pitching staff a slight boost — especially when they have to go on the road into bigger parks like Miami and New York in the division.
From a pitching standpoint there’s a lot of hype around Ian Anderson and Max Fried to continue to build into 2021. Anderson is one who we should be cautious about watching his numbers bump up from a year ago, but the tools are great. Fried however is someone I am high on and expect to be the teams #1 pitcher all season long. Unlike Anderson he has enough big league experience and trust to go 4 pitches deep although he primarily relies on his Curveball and Slider instead of using some offspeed. He greatly reduced the HH and power numbers off his fastball in 2020 and is now the Ace on this staff while Mike Soroka recovers from an achillies injury. Soroka is expected back at some point in 2021, but I honestly don’t think they need to rush him. There are World Series hopes and dreams for the Braves this year and they are extremely legit — which I will cover in the final season predictions article.
There is nothing wrong with the Braves.
Player to buy into: Austin Riley
Player to avoid: Nobody
2. PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES — OVER 80.5
Jose Alvarado, Archie Bradley and Hector Nerris. These three matter more than Nola, Realmuto and Harper. They matter more than Wheeler, Eflin and Bohm. The Phillies will make the playoffs if the first three guys can give them a solid 7-8-9 at the back end of games. You have to like Nola, Wheeler, Eflin up front in the rotation and veteran arms like Chase Anderson and Matt Moore can give them enough innings to make the rotation hold up.
Harper is going to remain streaky, Realmuto is the top all around catcher in the game and Hoskins-Segura-Didi can probably give them enough to hold up as well. It’s not a fantastic lineup and they’ll need Alec Bohm to become a consistent bat quicker than he probably can but overall this team has all the parts of being there at the end of the season.
Player to buy into: Zach Eflin
Player to avoid: Who knows who the real closer is here. I assume they all get a shot.
3. NEW YORK METS — UNDER 90.5
New owner. New Mets? Hah, yeah right. We should all just be sitting around waiting for some big disaster to happen to this franchise yet again. The major off-season acquisition was obviously acquiring Francisco Lindor from the Indians and giving the Mets a legit true star every day player to go along with Jacob deGrom. I say this because Michael Conforto, Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, etc. while all nice are not true stars and in New York, you need that true star. Or so the media says so?
The Mets pitching staff is what I once again have to like and with deGrom leading the way you can’t really fault me for feeling that way. They have swapped out Steven Matz and Michael Wacha and replaced them with Taijuan Walker, Carlos Carrasco, Marcus Stroman (now healthy) and Joey Lucchesi. But really this rotation is going to be deGrom and please dont suck for the next 4 days because you cannot honestly believe that any of those guys will be able to sustain a consistent stretch of starts without injury or exiting after 52 pitches in the 2nd inning (Walker). But to be honest I like the rotation is DEEP enough to sustain ups and downs among those pitchers. The kid who can make a nice bump up? David Peterson. The lefty keeps the ball down and got a lot of soft contact in 2020 while holding opposing hitters to a .157 xISO and a .227 xAVG and .386 xSLG. All of which should continue to play and while he isn’t a heavy strikeout lefty, he should be the Mets second best option until Thor can return from Tommy John.
So deGrom – Stroman – Walker – Peterson – Looch/Carrasco will play. It will win games and with former Tiger/White Sox James McCann catching they should benefit even more.
The lineup is going to be extremely hot and cold just because that’s who they are. Nimmo should get on base a good amount, Lindor/Conforto/Alonso/Smith/Davis all can drive the ball out of hte yard and they do not strike out an extremely high amount. It’s a good lineup — not great like the Braves or White Sox. But seriously if this teams rotation can hold it together like they’re capable of then they will push hard against the Phils for the 2nd spot in the division — but I am not picking them to win the East.
Player to buy into: David Peterson
Player to avoid: Nobody
4. WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Speaking of starting rotations. The Nationals have long been that team who was viewed as the ‘Ace’ team with Scherzer – Strasburg – Corbin remaining as a deadly 1-2-3 when they’re on and healthy. Honestly nobody benefited more in 2020 from the shorter season than those three because they logged so many innings in the World Series run the season prior and it allowed them to just rest up most of last year. If any team should be poised to ride their starters more this year it is the Nationals.
The lineup got a little overhaul and I really like what the Nationals did on paper but the division is so tough I don’t know that it really translates into more than just being around .500. I like the Josh Bell acquisition for him as he gets out of PNC park and moves into Nats Park which has been close to top 10 the last 3~ years on average. Kyle Schwarber had a miserable 2020 campaign and I wouldn’t expect him to change at this point in his career. He’ll hit for good power in spurts but isn’t going to help that much — he basically fills the new Matt Adams role for the Nationals. Fun.
Trea Turner and Juan Soto are awesome. Juan Soto is better than Mookie Betts. Period.
Player to buy into: Josh Bell, Juan Soto
Player to avoid: Kyle Schwarber
5. MIAMI MARLINS
Miami is built entirely around their starting rotation. Sixto Sanchez (23), Pablo Lopez (25), Sandy Alcantara (26) and Trevor Rogers (24) are the reasons why this team was able to move on from Caleb Smith and Zac Gallen. They didn’t need those other young arms with so much talent behind them ready to play now. Sixto came along last year and was able to get some playoff experience as well showcasing his excellent velocity and fairly good control. Trevor Rogers is a name to keep an eye on, he had a fantastic spring for them and has a lot of Strikeout upside.
The lineup will always be one which is tempting but should not produce a ton of offense. Starling Marte is more of a name at this point at 33 years old, Jesus Aguilar, Adam Duvall, Brian Anderson all can hit with a ton of power but go extremely cold and Garrett Cooper is running out of time to prove he is gonna finally be a “breakout” player. The guy is in his 30’s for crying out loud, can we stop calling him a breakout player??
The star of the trade with the Diamondbacks two years ago is Jazz Chisholm and it looks like he’ll take over 2B. He has good power potential, good speed and a really classic name. I’m a big fan.
Player to buy into: Sixto Sanchez, Jazz Chisholm
Player to avoid: Cooper-Anderson-Aguilar-Duvall. OK for DFS in good parks, but otherwise boring.