All hail to the NL East, where teams – at least – make the playoffs and even the one who wasn’t putting their money where his October dreams were making history, when the Marlins took over as the first female GM I hired Kim Ng. In MLB history.
The forecast was for high play and a hot division race.
In about a month’s season, the division is cut, but the game is … meh.
Over the weekend with just one NL East team over .500 and the 9-8 Mets completed the fourth-worst run minus-11 in the NL. The third worst was of the Braves (minus-12), the second worst was Phyllis (minus-15) and the worst was national (minus-24). Only Marlins had an NL East positive in Plus-1 and finished last in the division at 9-12 with the Braves (9-12) and the Nationals (8-11) all tied with the Reds (9) at -12. ) The second-worst record in NL (8-13) behind Rawls.
If the NL East contenders were not adequately congratulated for their dominating debut, the Dodgers and Padres over the last two weekends have met their offseason hopes to show what they could do to reach the top of the league. Going to do The teams played seven tight, April games worth October. Pitching, hitting, athleticism and competitiveness showed a dream of Rob Manfred fever that baseball could be.
The National League goes through California – Did you notice that the Giants are in a golden state, settled in the NL West with the league’s second-best record (14-8) between the Dodgers and the Padres? A 22-game stretch begins Thursday in San Francisco, facing the Padres or the Dodgers 10 times. But the Giants’ strong start should reinforce that eventually all of the NL East throwers tried in a time of inertia that the NL West could be better (even with Colorado) and in a standard playoff format of five Teams per league in turn, the only sure route into the postseason is by winning a division.
Proviso Alert: It’s early, definitely. But the first month should encourage the Mets to (and perhaps should) win the NL East. During the weekend, FanGraphs’ Predictive Tool gave the Mets a 75.3 percent chance of taking the NL East – the Braves were at 16.4. Of course, a predictive model is based on what data is fed into it. For example, the best shot in baseball reference equipment with 18.5 percent was the Mets with the Braves at 53.5 and the Nationals at 44.5 percent.
If you like where the Mets are after a month, because they have the best rotation in the division, and not just because of having a game ace in Jacob DeGrom. Marcus Strowman and Tazuan Walker are doing well, David Peterson is capable and Carlos Carrasco and Noah Syndergaard are trending towards returns. The rotation of the nations is not the same as its main men did overtime to help them win the 2019 title. Stephen Strasburg is hurt again and Patrick Corbin has a 5.82 ERA and .886 OPS against the spread over the past two seasons. Aaron Fila front three of Nola, Zach Wheeler and Zac Eflin are excellent, but they have one of the Major’s worst rotation backend problems.
Yes, the Mets are bad defensively, but have you seen the countrymen and especially the Phillies? The Mets could at least bring Albert Almora to center and Luis Guillorm to third in the game and average outlook, perhaps even better. It defines a depth that the Mets have created in the craftsmanship that Marlins, Nationals and Phillips lack.
The Mets’ offense could pause this season with Jeff McNeill and Dom Smith clashing and a now familiar clutch uneasiness – their .189 batting average with the runners in scoring position is the worst ever. But the Braves are at .208 and their overall team batting average is .215.
Atlanta is the Belvester of this division, having won it in three straight years. But the Braves are the Yankees of the NL East so far this season and not because of a single 9–12 record through just 21 games. He has knocked through a World Series in recent seasons without success, knocking. His strength this season was to have a long lineup. But so far, so bad.
The weekend’s controversy was that Madison Boomgner of Arizona threw seven no-hit innings in a doubleheader seven innings, but was not credited with a no-hitter. The rule states that to achieve such a difference, a pitcher must complete a game of at least nine innings. But that overshadowed that the Braves were rivals in DoubleDear and gave up one hit and no runs in 14 innings.
Ronald Acuna Jr. has been fantastic, but the rest of the lineup, even NL MVP Freddie Freeman, has been inactive. Most troubling is that after a four-year signing, a $ 65 million agreement was reached to lead NL in the 2020 homers (18) and RBI (56), with 1.067 in the 2020 short campaign, Marcell Ozuna had an .184 average, .527 OPS and. An extra base hit through 21 games.
Like the Yankees with Corey Kluber, the Braves took an $ 11 million pipe-dream over Drew Smiley based on five strong starts for the Giants last year despite a history of teasing mixed talent with injury and ineffectiveness. In 2021, Smiley has already been hurt in three starts (7.20 ERA). Max Fried, a revelation last year, had a 11.45 ERA in three before joining the injured list (hamstring). He is scheduled to return soon and so is 2019 ace Mike Soroka, who missed until around 2020 after breaking his Akilis.
Atlanta’s pedigree, culture and depth are still the biggest challenges for the Mets reaching the top of the division. But four weeks is providing indicators that NL East may not be what we expected and the Braves may be below one grade.
The door has opened for the Mets.
Leave a Reply