Who’s the favorite in the NL East now that Pete Alonso has re-signed with the Mets and all the heavy lifting seems to be done among the three heavyweights in the division?
I set out to find a consensus answer to that question, seeking the opinions of MLB scouts and executives.
The more people I talked to, the less clarity I found.
I wound up stretching my poll to include seven people, none of whom had any affiliation to the Mets, Atlanta Braves or Philadelphia Phillies, and each said that they could easily make a case for more than one team as the winner.
In the end, when pressed for predictions, the tally went like this: Phillies 3, Braves 2, Mets 2.
Perhaps most notably, beyond the vote total, just about everyone made the point that the postseason results in recent years have made it clear that winning the division isn’t as important as being healthy and hot come October, even if it’s as a wild card team.
As one team exec said: “The Phillies and Mets are all you need to know about how it’s all about playing well and riding momentum late in the year, with the way the playoff format is now. The Phillies took out the (division champion) Braves in back-to-back years, and then the Mets took out the (division champion) Phillies last year.
“Ideally, you want to be one of the top two division winners and avoid the wild-card series, but look at the Mets last year -- they were the perfect example of a team carrying momentum into the postseason, playing with loads of confidence.
“So for me, the point is more that the Braves, Mets, and Phillies are all playoff-caliber teams. The bigger question may be whether any of them can beat the (Los Angeles) Dodgers.”
Fair enough.
But let’s not take the fun out of it entirely. We need a favorite, right?
And what jumps out most about the poll of humans I took is that it differs from the projections of the most notable statistical analysis systems, FanGraphs and PECOTA (Baseball Prospectus). Both of them predict that the Braves will bounce back from their injury-riddled 2024 season to win the division, albeit by significantly different margins.
FanGraphs has the Braves as sizeable favorites, projecting them for 93.4 wins, compared to 87.4 for the Phillies and 86.7 for the Mets.
PECOTA, meanwhile, projects a close race between the Braves and Mets, with the Braves (92 wins) followed by the Mets (91) and Phillies (87.9).
It should be noted, though, that both FanGraphs and PECOTA project all three teams to reach the postseason, as was the case last year.
Still, the obvious question is why the analytic systems favor the Braves.
Based on the answers that I got from baseball people, it has to do with projecting better health after Atlanta lost stars Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuna for the season and other key players like Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies, and Michael Harris for significant chunks of time.
“Logic says the Braves should be healthier -- I get it,” said one scout who picked the Phillies to win the division. “But I don’t think you can rule out lingering effects from injury for Strider (elbow surgery) and Acuna (knee surgery). Acuna has had ACLs on both knees now so who knows. Don’t forget, (Chris) Sale couldn’t make a postseason start due to whatever was going on with his arm, and I think they’ll need to protect him a little more.
“Also, they didn’t have a great offseason. Max Fried (to the Yankees) is a major loss for them. They’ll miss (AJ) Minter (to the Mets), too. And (Travis) d’Arnaud (to the Los Angeles Angels) got some big hits for them. Their only big pick-up was Jurickson Profar. So I can’t just assume they’ll be a 95-win team.”
On the other hand, one of the scouts who did pick the Braves explained it this way:
“Even with the injuries, I thought it was just kind of a weird year for them, like the law of averages catching up with them or something. They got great pitching, even without Strider, but they just didn’t hit. They’ve still got the best lineup in the division, they’ve got deep pitching, even though Fried is a major loss, and they know how to win.
“I expect them to pound the ball again and win a close race with the Mets and Phillies.”