2007 National League East Preview:

Something in the NL East was different last year, something was odd. Was it the Nationals finishing at the bottom? No. Was it Philadelphia disappointing? No. Was it the Marlins surprising people and having a better year than anyone expected? No? Maybe, just maybe, it was the New York Mets doing what no one has done before… Did you hear the trumpets sound? Did you hear bell tone? The fat lady finally sang for the Atlanta Braves and their division winning streak. And while it was inevitable that one day someone else would win the East, that didn’t make it any less surprising. The Mets were clearly the better team, but that hadn’t stopped the Braves in the past. And after 14 straight division championships (strike year excluded, the final eleven in the “East”), the Braves fall came not with a bang, but almost a whimper. Perhaps it was the reality that after an 11 game losing streak in late June, the Braves were all but done, but when reality finally struck, in October and postseason baseball kicked off without John Smoltz, well, surprisingly, you’d hardly have known.

This year, the Braves have improved, but like everyone in the National League East, they have questions. How will Tim Hudson respond after his worst major league season? Will Jeff Francoeur learn to control the strike zone? Or will he remain a tantalizing player whose overall effectiveness is horribly limited by an anemic walk rate. Can Chipper Jones stay healthy? Will Scott Thorman hit enough to justify being the everyday first baseman? So while it’s easy for Braves’ fans to be excited about Smoltz and Chuck James, or about their revamped bullpen, and their strong looking lineup, the Braves no longer get the benefit of the doubt. Now, like the starter-less Mets, and the consistently underachieving Phillies, the Braves go into the season as something of an unknown. Tantalizing, but no longer the pencil them in as division champs and let somebody else prove you wrong. The last time they were underdogs, they didn’t even play in the East, they played in the West. The old (NL) West, it was 1991 and baseball was ruled not by Braves and Yankees, but by Royals, Tigers, and Twins. It’s so long ago, it’s hard to imagine.

Philadelphia Phillies (85-77 Last Season)
Projected Win Range: 92-96
Best Player: Ryan Howard – Last year’s NL MVP probably wont hit 58 home runs again, but he could swat 45 without even waking up.
Best Pitcher: Bret Myers – If Cole Hamels can stay healthy, then this might be him, but Myers, who has gone 25-15 over the past two years, is just entering his prime and has the raw stuff to lead Philly’s rotation for the rest of the decade.
Best Kid: Cole Hamels – Nobody questions Hamels ability, he pitches with a savvy that can only be obtained inherently (think, Greg Maddux). However, his past is checkered with arm injuries and for the Phillies to contend this year, they need him to throw in 30 plus starts.
Impact Offseason Move: Acquiring right hander Freddy Garcia gives the Phillies an innings eating horse for the middle of their rotation.
Questionable Offseason Move: Well, their bullpen is 39 year old closer Tom Gordon and…? So maybe they should have found another live arm to help finish games.
Bottom Line: The Phillies aren’t without fault, that bullpen will be a problem at some point, but their offence is primed up and ready to win a lot of 9-7 games. The reigning NL MVP is flanked in the order by the game’s premier second baseman, Chase Utley, and the underrated Pat Burrell. It took years, but Burrell’s contract no longer seems so egregious, now, rather than being a perpetual disappointment, he can just be what he is: a good, but not great hitter. With Utley and Howard hitting in front of him, that’s all the Phillies need him to be. The pitching staff has two great youngsters only getting better, Myers and Hamels should capably lead a solid rotation all summer. They are followed by Garcia, the rejuvenated Adam Eaton, and the ageless Jamie Moyer. While none of those three throw fireworks, they each work capably and deep into games, which is all the Phillies need of them. If they can pitch late enough, often enough to combine for 35 wins then Phillies fans, will have something to cheer about in October for the first time since Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams hung a bad pitch to Joe Carter…

New York Mets (97-65)
Projected Win Range: 91-95
Best Player: Carlos Beltran – Last year, Beltran was the player that his skill set (and contract) have been suggesting he could be. A gold glove fielder, he hit 41 home runs, with a .982 OPS and finished fourth in the MVP voting. David Wright is a borderline superstar, Jose Reyes is the sparkplug at the top, and Carlos Delgado is trying to clinch a hall of fame birth, but Beltran’s the King of Queen’s.
Best Pitcher: Tom Glavine – I love Glavine, but he’s 41 years old now, and while he still pushes the edges of the strike zone with the best of them, he’s well, a 41 year old finesse pitcher.
Best Kid: Mike Pelfrey – After Glavine, the Mets rotation is the ancient, and injury prone Orlando Hernandez, and…? At some point the Mets may acquire another good starter, but they will need Pelfrey to rapidly hone his secondary stuff and earn a rotation spot.
Impact Offseason Move: In what was an oddly quiet offseason in Shea, the Mets best move was bringing in grizzled, pee stained veteran, Moises Alou (.923 OPS last year) to offer lineup protection to Carlos Delgado.
Questionable Offseason Move: Baseball is a lot like real estate, only instead of location, location, location, it’s rotation, rotation, rotation. The market for pitching was ridiculous this offseason, but I still wonder how the Mets, with their massive resources, failed to add another innings eater or two.
Bottom Line: Lets start with the good news: with a one through five of Reyes, Wright, the Carlos’s and Alou, the Mets could win 90 games with my Grandma pitching for them. Of course, the bad news is that the Mets might be better off with my Granny in the rotation than Oliver Perez. Heck, my Granny might even be younger than Orlando Hernandez, you just don’t know… While Tom Glavine continues to be a given, right hander John Maine had better be as good as he was last fall, when he allowed a WHIP of 1.13, and Hernandez had better stay healthy. Even if those two things happen, the Mets need something out of Oliver Perez and they need Mike Pelfrey to ascend to the majors. Mets fans like to list their bullpen among their strengths, but here’s a dirty little secret about bullpens: they’re inherently unstable. What was a great bullpen last year, could be a terrible one this year, even without much overhaul of talent (and injuries hae claimed to arms from the pen until early summer). The pens effectiveness is often related, at least in part, to the strength of the rotation. A good rotation pitches deep into games and makes the bullpen look better simply by giving them less exposure to hitters. Whether the Mets’ rotation can limit the exposure of its bullpen will go a long way towards determining whether they can repeat as division champs.

Atlanta Braves (79-83)
Projected Win Range: 83-87
Best Player: Andruw Jones – An untold story is how Jones’ defense has declined to the point where he’s probably not a gold glover anymore, but he still covers enough territory and hits enough home runs to be a very good player.
Best Pitcher: John Smoltz – Like Roger Clemens and, to a lesser degree, Randy Johnson, Smoltz just continues to chug along as a dominant flamethrower.
Best Kid: Jarrod Saltalamacchia – Salty had a down year last year, but should recover quickly and push the Braves for promotion. The only question is where? With Brian McCann entrenched at catcher, Salty may be more valuable as a trade chip, or he might be switched to first.
Impact Offseason Move: I absolutely love the trade of fringe starter Horatio Ramirez for right handed set-up man, Rafael Soriano. With wicked stuff, Soriano will step into the closer role should Bob Wickman falter.
Questionable Offseason Move: Scott Thorman had better hit the ball far and reasonably often to account for the trade of Adam LaRoche for Mike Gonzalez. Of course, Thorman’s a Canadian boy, so maybe I shouldn’t be questioning a move that clears a major league spot for him.
Bottom Line: The Braves will be better than last year, but I think proclamations that have them winning the NL are a little premature. Second baseman Kelly Jonson has never played second base, McCann will not be quite as good as last year, and Francoeur has to prove that he can take a pitch, or two, or four. None of that would matter if these were still the Mazzone led Braves of the Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz era, but while Smoltz remains as good (or close enough) as ever, the rest of the rotation is riddled with question marks. Mark Redman is far removed from being a passable fourth starter, and Tim Hudson might be past being a number two. Chuck James was awesome last year, and he unquestionably has the coolest name in the majors, but he’s a second year pitcher and that makes him questionable. The Braves should be good enough to be in contention, but the days of taking them for granted are done, and this team just has too many holes to pencil into a date with October.

Florida Marlins (78-84)
Projected Win Range: 75-79
Best Player: Miguel Cabrera – If he played in NY people, Cabrera’s name would regularly be bandied about as the best in baseball.
Best Pitcher: Dontrelle Willis – He goes into the season as the biggest Fish that might be available to pitching poor teams in July.
Best Kid: Taylor Tankersley
Impact Offseason Move: After an apocalyptic 2005 offseason, the Fish were pretty quiet this year. Not trading Willis would count as an impact move, but only if they tie him down long term.
Questionable Offseason Move: With all the talent they’ve assembled, and all the pitching depth they have, how could they not complete a trade with their Florida brethrens for either Rocco Baldeli or B.J. Upton?
Bottom Line: The Fish were last year’s biggest surprise, as a team comprised completely of rookies, most had them pegged for 100 losses. Even pundits (cough, cough) who claimed that they would be better than people thought (and soon would be really good) were shocked by just how good, how fast they were. But here’s the rub, the Marlins wont be quite as good this year. That doesn’t mean they aren’t still a team on the rise, they are, but young teams often show incredible growth one year, and then a stark regression the next. In the case of the Marlins, I think the regression will be tempered by how talented they are (particularly Cabrera), but I’d still expect a worse record than last year. This will be particularly true if management decides that they don’t want to pay Dontrelle Willis and find a new home for him in July. Long term, things look rosy for the Marlins, but their closer situation is unsettled, they lack a strong centerfield candidate, Cabrera’s better suited to left field than third base, and Josh Johnson (12-7), 3.10 ERA) is starting the year on the DL.

Washington Nationals (71-91)
Projected Win Range: 60-64
Best Player: Ryan Zimmerman – The runner up in the NL rookie of the year voting is an excellent talent for the Nats to build around.
Best Pitcher: John Patterson – Patterson has had trouble staying healthy and might be better acclimated to the third spot in a rotation, but the Nats have nobody else in their rotation.
Best Kid: Matt Chico – The Nationals don’t have any top flight talent ready to help the big club this year. Chico has number four starter abilities and should help the club this summer, but his arrival wont exactly mirror what Jared Weaver did for Anaheim last year.
Impact Offseason Move: Swapping the decrepit Jose Vidro to the Mariners for a bag of balls would have been a good deal, but getting a couple of prospects for him is a better one.
Questionable Offseason Move: I’m not wild about brining in Dmitri Young, who was cut by the Tigers in the middle of a pennant race, despite batting in the three hole two days before.
Bottom Line: The Nats are beginning a long, slow rebuilding process, that should see several seasons of around 65 wins. The drawn out process of leaving Montreal, finding a new owner, and settling on a stadium deal has taken the focus off of the product on the field for so long that Washington is barren of talent at every level of their system. A strong draft in 2006 will help, but it will be two or three years before kids like Chris Marrero and Colin Balester can help the big league club. The situation in Washington is so dire, that after parting ways with mercurial, headstrong manager Frank Robinson, the Nationals had trouble finding someone interested in taking the starting job. In the end, GM Jim Bowden settled on Mets third base coach Manny Acta. While he may ultimately prove the right man for the job, Acta will have a tough time matching the 71 wins the team won last year. And if Acta goes through with his plan to hit shortstop Christian Guzman, who had a .260 OBP last year, second then things could get a lot worse. Instead he should hit first baseman Nick Johnson, .428 OBP last year, second, with the run producing Zimmerman in the three hole. That would allow Washington to maximize their offence, by having their two best hitters come to the plate in the first inning of every game. And this team will need to score some runs, because they might just have the worst starting rotation in baseball. Unfortunately for the new fans in Washington there is no quick fix for anemic pitching, which means they’re looking at a long, slow rebuilding process.