New York Mets
Where the Phillies are better: Hitting for power. The New York Mets may have renovated Citi Field to make it more homer-friendly, but it’s still no Citizen’s Bank Park. Rhys Hoskins led the Phillies with 34 homers, Carlos Santana had 24, and Maikel Franco and Odubel Herrera both hit 22.
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Yoenis Cespedes–the Mets best thumper–missed a big chunk of the season, and Michael Conforto led the Mets with 28 homers. No one else had 20 or more. The return of Cespedes should give the Mets more pop, and the loss of Santana will hurt the team’s home run totals.
However, the Phillies made some other upgrades, most notably swapping Jorge Alfaro (10 home runs) for J.T. Realmuto (21 home runs).
The balance of home run power could shift even more towards the Phillies if they sign Bryce Harper and his 34 homers from last year.
Where the Phillies are worse: Starting Pitching. Aaron Nola may have finished third in Cy Young voting last year, but Jacob DeGrom (10-9, 1.70 ERA, 269 K) won it, and deservedly so.
Hitting against New York doesn’t get much easier after that, with Zack Wheeler (12-7, 3.31 ERA, 179 K) and Steven Matz (5-11, 3.97 ERA, 152 K) following DeGrom. Oh yeah, and that Noah Syndergaard guy is pretty good too (13-4, 3.03 ERA, 155 K).
The Mets starters combined to post an ERA of 3.54, allowing 387 total runs and 103 homers. By comparison, Phillies starters posted a 4.12 ERA, allowing 438 total runs and 104 homers. While the Phillies have some good arms on their staff, the Mets easily have a top-five rotation in the MLB.