Arguably the most talked about division in baseball this season, the NL East, has had its ups and downs as a whole now sitting just over 60 games into the year. This division has multiple contenders that can not only win the division, but can make a run in the postseason once the calendar hits October.
Lets start off with the Washington Nationals. It's hard to believe that just a couple of years ago in 2019, the Nationals lifted the World Series trophy in Houston as they had just won their first ever World Series. Now, the Nats seem to be the one team in this division with not many things to look forward to in the near future besides their young, emerging superstar, Juan Soto. The Nats currently sit last in the division with one of the worst records in baseball and arguably the worst pitching in baseball. Again back in 2019, the Nats had arguably one of the best pitching staffs in the league with Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg headlining the rotation. The Nats then traded Scherzer and Strasburg has been hurt ever since that magical 2019 season.
They have been left with a bunch of young pitching that has done them no good and has been the main reason for their struggles the past couple of years. It's safe to say the Nats are in a rebuild mode as they have traded away some big names in recent years such as Trea Turner and Max Scherzer. This rebuild needs to be centered around Juan Soto and another focus should be getting some better all-around pitching. But, as of now, the Nats are not a threat to the rest of the powerful NL East.
Moving onto the Miami Marlins. The Marlins have made some nice additions in the past year and also have developed their pitching staff into arguably a top 5 pitching staff in all of baseball. They have 2 potential NL Cy Young award candidates in Sandy Alcantara and Pablo Lopez, and a bunch of other young arms that are still developing and can be very solid in the near future. They are lead offensive by Jazz Chisholm who has proven this season that he is one of the better middle infielders in the league. The Marlins have been in a rebuild for quite some time now since trading away Giancarlo Stanton and Christian Yelich, but even in those years they were not a very good team. They showed some promise in 2020 when they made the playoffs for the first time in 17 years and have certainly acquired some nice pieces since then.
Unfortunately, I still believe that the Marlins are not quite finished yet with their rebuild and for them it will be very tough to compete in this division when they have to look up at the Mets, Braves, and Phillies. Yes, they have acquired lots of power bats this season including Jorge Soler and Avisail Garcia, which is what they have been missing in previous years, but their main weakness that will prevent them from making progress in this division is their bullpen. Until their bullpen is upgraded, that is when the Marlins will make the leap from being a mediocre team in this division to a legit contender in the NL East.
Lets talk about the Philadelphia Phillies. Now this team has been an absolute roller coaster since the season commenced in early April. They started off with such high expectations after they acquired Nick Castellanos, Kyle Schwarber, and some relievers for their bullpen, yet they have not lived up to those expectations yet. The Phillies even got to a point where they fired their manager, Joe Girardi. Everyone expected the Phillies with the power bats that they already had and just added and the rotation as good as it is and the bullpen getting better and better year after year to be somewhat of a threat in the NL this year, yet they have not lived up to it yet.
Even after acquiring some new arms for their bullpen, this is what has kept them out of games a lot this season. The offense has been good for the Phils this year, but what overrides that all is the bullpen blowing game after game for these Phillies. If you look at the Phillies on paper, they have it all on the offensive side and their starting rotation is nothing but sharp, but their bullpen definitely needs some adjusting if they want to have a legitimate of making the playoffs and eventually coming out of the NL East on top.
Now the defending world champion Atlanta Braves. Currently as I write this, the Braves are on a 14-game winning streak and they don't look like they are going to lose again. At one point their record was way below .500 and they were more than 11 games behind the Mets for first in the division, now they have crept their way up to only 4 games behind the Mets in the NL East. The Braves have it all even after losing their MVP Freddie Freeman they still acquired all-star Matt Olson to fill his role. The Braves just came off of a successful World Series run without arguably their best player healthy, Ronald Acuna. Acuna is now back and better than ever this season and he can definitely help get this Braves team to the promise land yet again.
Slow starts have been nothing unusual for this Braves team, for they had a very slow start during the regular season of last year's World Series team. As long as they can keep up their winning ways as of late and keep being consistent on both sides of the ball, it's going to be very tough to stop this Braves team from potentially going back to back. The only weakness I can give them as of now is slow starts, but once they get over that hump, it's no looking back for the Atlanta Braves.
Finally, the first-place New York Mets. The Mets along with the Yankees have put New York back on the map as a baseball state as they have been absolutely thriving this year. Even with the injury-riddled starting rotation with no Jacob DeGrom and no Max Scherzer, this Mets team finds ways to win each and every night. If they can be this successful without these two former Cy Youngs, then look out for this team when they get these two guys back and healthy again. The pitching has certainly done its job for the Mets and the offense has done the same as well. In previous years for the Mets it was always a concern that the pitching was doing its job, but the offense could never execute. This year they have proven those past teams wrong as they have been doing it well on both sides of the baseball.
Potential NL MVP Pete Alonso leads baseball in RBIs and Francisco Lindor is having a bounce back season from his first season for the Mets. The offense has been great with multiple .300 hitters and lots of nice and sneaky additions for this team including outfielders Starling Marte and Mark Canha, and infielder Eduardo Escobar. These additions have helped this Mets offense thrive throughout the start of the season. The Mets bullpen has also been giving them some great shutdown innings and closer Edwin Diaz has really been the headliner of this bullpen as he has been a phenomenal weapon from the bullpen through the first 60 plus games. The one thing the Mets need to do if they want to be successful going into October is keeping up the consistency and if they do that, they will be just fine and a major threat to any team in their way.
The NL East is filled with some great teams and in the end this year it is going to come down to the race between the Mets and the Braves. Some people will say, what about the Phillies? The Phillies in the end really lack the consistency this year and in previous years to keep up in this division. Especially in games against divisional opponents, the Mets have had their number this year. Consistency is key in this division and whoever is the most consistent will come out on top in October.
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