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Sunday, April 29, 2018

Bold Postseason Predictions: NL East

Por Jack Leyva

Foretelling in baseball is always very amusing. Although you may keep a very long statistics sheet with precise data about which the best players are, none of that guarantees a 100% of effectivity in the prognostics, mainly because numbers don’t really show the whole dimension of the game. However, in a creative exercise, we adventured ourselves to predict which will be the teams that will classify to the MLB postseason of this 2018, starting our foreboding with the East Division of the National League.

Although anything can happen, there should not be many surprises between Washington, the Mets, the Braves, the Marlins and the Phillies, because the Nationals and the ones from the Big Apple are favorites by a big margin, something that has been like that for some time now.

Atlanta Braves: Nick Markakis, Kurt Suzuki, Peter Bourjos, Freddie Freeman, Julio Teheran y Brandon Mc Carthy are worth mentioning, but until their best prospect and number one in the whole MLB, Ronal Acuna, does not play, there won’t be an actual impact from the Braves. The team is also waiting for Dansby Swanson’s contribution and for a second positive year for the player from Curaçao Ozzie Albies, who has an excellent projection. The fans are waiting anxiously for the resurrection of the franchise, which should not take long, although I don’t think it will happen this year. Anyway, they can be good rivals and improve last seasons’ records.

Miami Marlins: Derek Jeter and his crew are fighting for the Unpopularity Prize in the Sunshine City after having traded the solid core of the roster last winter. “Trust me”, asked Jeter and some might give it to him but that simple detail will not give back to the team the more than 100 homers and 300 RBI achieved by Stanton, Yelich, Gordon and Ozuna. I am not being pessimistic if I say that 2018 may be the year to set the franchise’s loss record and get close to the MLB’s. Darkest times are closing in on Marlins Park.

New York Mets: They are eternal aspirants to the World Series. But don’t be surprised, this will only be possible if injuries don’t get in their way and wreck their roster and if Jacob DeGrom, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz and Noah Syndergaard, a talented group of power starters very difficult to gather nowadays, can stay consistently active. With them and the combination of youth (Michael Conforto, Brandon Minmi, Wilmer Flores) and experience (Todd Frazier, Jay Bruce, Yoennis Cespedes) of the roster, they can perfectly fight for the divisional title, although my guess is that they will end up as the wildcard.

Philadelphia Phillies: When they get to consolidate all of the players that they have farmed, they will be contenders in little time. Maikel Franco, Odubel Herrera, J.P. Crawford and the talented Rhys Hoskins (do you remember last season when he hit 18 HR in his first 30 games?) are very good batters. They have also solidified their rotation with Jake Arrieta and Aaron Nola, two pitchers that can prove crucial in the postseason. With the Nationals and the Mets ahead of them it will be complicated for them to move upward, but they seem to be a team to watch out for the next five years along with the Braves.

Washington Nationals: Not even the most enthusiastic fan from any other team would be nuts enough to leave this one out. They have the right amount of power hitters to intimidate the greatest pitchers. Anthony Rendon, Trea Turner, Adam Eaton and Bryce Harper are the face of the Nationals, who also have Roark, Gio Gonzalez, Scherzer, Strasburg, Ryan Madson and others to cause havoc from the pitchers’ mound. The eternal question with this team is their level of response in the postseason, to which they have to get as division champions. Without the certainty if they are keeping Harper after the coming free agency, this has to be the year of the Washington team.