Phillies riding high in surprisingly uncompetitive NL East

The Phillies have a firm hold in a National League East that hasn’t lived up to the competitive potential it had coming into the season.

Every division preview this season said the Phillies had an uphill battle to face in the National League East this season. The Braves young core just won their first division crown. The Nationals were still loaded with talent even after losing Bryce Harper. The Mets made a flurry of offseason moves to elevate themselves.

It was a consensus in the industry that the NL East would be one of, if not the most competitive division in baseball this year. However, a month and a half into the season, that has not been the case.

As of Saturday, Philadelphia is the only team in the division above .500 at 21-16. Even after Friday night’s loss to the Royals, they still hold a three-game lead in the division.

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Atlanta is the next-closest team, sitting a game under .500 at 19-20. Their team has been around the league average in runs scored (4.74) and allowed (4.82) per game, ranking 15th and 19th, respectively. They have been an average team so far this year, and their record reflects that.

The Mets are just half a game behind the Braves at 18-20. Their pitching staff has underwhelmed with a collective 4.57 ERA.

Reigning Cy Young champ Jacob deGrom has the lowest ERA among their starters at 3.60, which should indicate how they are performing as a staff.

Their offense, which is scoring .02 runs more per game than the league average team, has been carried by sophomore Jeff McNeil and rookie sensation Pete Alonso. Offseason acquisitions Robinson Cano and Wilson Ramos have contributed little with a .720 and .586 OPS, respectively.

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That brings me to the Nationals, whose struggles this year have made waves nationally. They are 15-23 thanks in no small part to their bullpen, who has a league-worst 6.24 ERA. The bullpen’s struggles led to them firing their pitching coach, a clear sign of stability. Their offense has struggled as well, ranking 21st with 4.50 runs per game. So much for not needing Bryce Harper.

The Marlins, unsurprisingly, have been the worst team in baseball by a wide margin. They are just 10-28, making them on pace to win only 42 games. They have scored only 2.74 runs per game, nearly three-quarters of a run fewer than the next-worst team. Their pitching staff has been a little bit better, ranking 24th with a 4.86 ERA, but by no means good.

While Philadelphia has a firm hold on the NL East, for now, they still have some teams they are looking up to. Their 21-16 record is the worst among the current division leaders and eighth in MLB overall. Their simple rating system score, which indicates how much better they are than the average team, of just 0.1 ranks them 12th overall.

Playing so many of their division opponents early on has given Philadelphia the easiest strength of schedule of any team so far this season based on SRS. They have played just six games against teams above .500 (the Twins and Cardinals) although they have gone 4-2 against them.

You can only play the teams on your schedule, so you can’t fault Philadelphia for their opponents. However, they have upcoming series against the Brewers, Cubs, Dodgers, and Padres, so they will get their mettle tested in the coming weeks.

So far this year, the NL East has not been very competitive with Philadelphia sitting at the top. As last season showed us, that can change quickly. Hopefully, we don’t see a repeat of last year and the Phillies retake the division title.