I now turn my attention to the National League as I try to hurriedly finish my predictions before we get too far along into the season. All the hours at the office don't make it easier, but the excitement of baseball being back should be enough to get me to continue to write. The NL East isn't particularly strong, and it only got worse with two of the Braves' starters scheduled for Tommy John surgery before the season even started. This is a division that should be very exciting come 2015 when the Mets get Matt Harvey back to accompany some of the other phenomenal young up and coming starters in their system, and the Marlins will be on the upswing as well in their perpetual ebb and flow of rebuilding and surging. But it's 2014 now, and here's what I anticipate:
1. Washington Nationals
2. Atlanta Braves
3. Philadelphia Phillies
4. New York Mets
5. Miami Marlins
The Nationals are loaded with pitching, and with the Braves getting hit with the injury bug, that should be enough for Washington to safely win the division. Bryce Harper is a trendy MVP candidate, and after seeing what Mike Trout has done at such a young age, it's far from unreasonable to expect one of the most talented ballplayers of the past few decades to perform on that level. Adam LaRoche absolutely needs to play better this year, which he should do, not because I think he is great, but because he does seem to up his game playing in a contract year. At the end of the day, this team is too good and too deep to disappoint two years in a row, particularly in a weak division.
The Braves begin the season with three pitchers on the 15 day DL and three pitchers on the 60 day DL. Talk about starting out in the hole. They were able to mitigate some of the damage by sweeping up Ervin Santana late in the winter free agent period, but any team that has Aaron Harang in the rotation definitely has some room for improvement. They still have the best closer in baseball at the back end to ensure that when they are ahead late in the game, it will stay that way, which is one good thing they have going for them. The downside is they are counting on the Upton brothers to deliver for this offense. As they were quick to find out, they are wasting $17 million a year on one of the most worthless hitters in baseball to man center field. It's nearly impossible to have a worse season than B.J. Upton had last year, but I still fully expect him to have a bad year while his brother Justin and Jason Heyward continue to underachieve. Chris Johnson will be hard pressed to replicate his year last year, too, so when you look at their lineup in total, it's pretty underwhelming. They make it to the second spot merely because of the weak division.
Try to name the Phillies who are not past their prime. It's hard, isn't it? When you look at this roster, it's tough to think how little it's changed over the past six years. That does not bode well for a baseball team 99 times out of 100. If there is a fountain of youth and this team found it, they'd be immensely dangerous, but with this team injuries are a when, not an if, and they are just strapped for flexibility. Their top of the rotation is still strong and they have guys who will get hot in spurts, but there just isn't enough to this team to make a race for a playoff spot. This is a last place team in 2 or 3 other divisions.
As I alluded to before, the Mets in their rebuilding process have gone full steam after pitching, and their time will be in the near future. For now, though, they are sans young phenom Matt Harvey and instead will rely on the least fit performance enhancing drug user you've ever seen, Bartolo Colon. Offensively, the team's construction seemed to try and put as many low batting average, low on base percentage, high strikeout power guys next to each other as possible; expect a lot of solo home runs from this team. There's just a shortage of major league ready talent here.
The Marlins have a young rotation that other GMs are envious of. Headed by Jose Fernandez and also featuring the likes of Jacob Turner, Henderson Alvarez, and Nate Eovaldi, this is a team that had some great potential in the rotation. No, not all four of them are top of the rotation guys, but with the oldest of the bunch being 24, they certainly have time to continue to elevate their games and have 2-3 pan out. Unfortunately, that's about the best thing to say about this team. The lineup is horrible outside of Giancarlo Stanton and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. This is a team that couldn't muster an OBP of .300 last year and couldn't even drive in 500 runs. Even with moderate improvement from some of their younger players, that is such a horrible starting point that it doesn't give them much to be optimistic about.
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