LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — The NL East currently exists on three tiers.
The Nationals are the powerhouse. The Mets and Marlins are the rising contenders. The Braves and Phillies are used-to-be contenders falling precipitously – but don’t use the word “rebuilding” with any of their executives.
This structure of the division is not inconsequential. A top executive from an NL team outside the East wondered whether — at a time when most teams are trying to contend, mainly due to the second wild card in each league and increased revenue sharing — the Mets and Marlins may have a distinct edge toward the wild card with 38 games each against the Phillies and Braves.
As you would expect, when I inquired about this with Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins and their Marlins counterparts, general manager Dan Jennings and manager Mike Redmond, all four dismissed such a notion via the anybody-could-beat-anybody-on-any-given-day nature of baseball and how the overall picture changes so swiftly over the course of the schedule.
Indeed, a season is an organic thing. It will twist and turn, defy prediction.
The Nationals, for example, lost Denard Span this week for at least a month, likely more, when he needed abdominal surgery. Jayson Werth is still recovering from offseason shoulder surgery that, he said recently, might rob him of his key opposite-field power. That is two-thirds of what might be the NL’s best outfield in limbo. The remaining piece, Bryce Harper, is the most fragile due to his frenetic play. Plus, the Nationals are currently operating without second baseman Yunel Escobar (oblique).
Still, without a plague overwhelming its superb rotation, Washington is going to be hard to beat in the NL East.
It is harder to make a case for the Braves or Phillies being anywhere close to good. Execs from both organizations are doing the spring hope game, talking about how if all goes well they could see the team contending. But those good things would probably have to do with the sale of Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw to those teams.
The Phillies’ already dismal picture worsened Tuesday when a second diagnosis said Cliff Lee likely will need season-ending elbow surgery. That leaves a Phillies rotation of “Cole Hamels and pray for a typhoon” – and Hamels might be traded.
The Braves, meanwhile, might have Chien-Ming Wang make their rotation and Eric Young Jr. start in center field while (whatever-happened-to) Melvin Upton Jr. recuperates from a foot injury. And Young is the likely starter because he is better than Yankees castoffs Zoilo Almonte and Eury Perez.
The Braves scored the second-fewest runs in the majors last year and decided to try to shed their all-or-nothing tenor by trading Justin Upton and Evan Gattis plus Jason Heyward. The remaining lineup essentially will scream to the opposition: “Don’t let Freddie Freeman beat you.” As if to accentuate that point, Freeman hit a three-run homer off Bartolo Colon on Tuesday and the Braves beat the Mets, 3-2. The NL executive said, “If the Mets throw their power starters in a series at that lineup, tell me how the Braves score enough to win?”
At the moment, it feels like there are four high-end NL teams: Nationals, Cardinals, Pirates and Dodgers. No NL Central team has surrendered on this season, which could make it more difficult to have a wild card come from that division. But St. Louis and Pittsburgh just might be too good to miss out on October. Thus, the other wild card could come down to the NL East and NL West, where the Rockies and Diamondbacks may be that division’s equivalent of the Braves and Phillies.
Teams play 19 games against each divisional foe. That means the Mets will have 38 games against the Phillies and Braves. That is more than 23 percent of a whole schedule. The difference between putting up a 28-10 record against division weaklings versus 21-17 could set apart the Mets from the Marlins — and the Padres and Giants.
The Mets were 23-15 against the Phillies and Braves in 2014. They project better in 2015, the Phillies and Braves worse. To his credit, Collins kept his eye on the biggest prize and said, “For me, we just must play better against Washington [4-15 last season].”
Alderson said: “If it turns out that some teams in the division are weaker, then that is the way it will be, we still better just concentrate on winning X number of games. Right now, it is all just speculation.”
Indeed, but it is hard to ignore that after years of being the team contenders figured they better beat up to make the playoffs, the Mets are suddenly on the other side of that proposition.