March 23, 201214 yr To earn a division title a team typically needs to win mid-90s games. I don't think that the Marlins are even that good on paper. For what it's worth, BaseballProspectus has the Phillies and Braves tying for the division lead at 88 wins with the Marlins at 87. And I don't think it's totally out of the question that the Phillies could have a very middle of the road offense next year at best. And they probably won't be quite as stingy on the defensive side of things. Vance Worley is probably going to regress, and they're replacing 140 innings of Roy Oswalt with, likely, 140+ innings of Joe Blanton. That's a pretty big dropoff over a 280 inning stretch. Especially considering Kyle Kendrick is almost certainly not going to sustain the 3.14 ERA he had in 80 starting innings, either. I can definitely see Miami, Atlanta and Philadelphia all finishing within a few games of each other. Those changes don't bring a 102 win team down to an 88 win team. I absolutely think that the Phillies have come down from last season (and are not a lock to win the division), but I'm highly skeptical that it would only take 88 wins to win the NL East (even with an unbalanced schedule and improved Marlins/Nationals). Ugh. This sounds like a cop out, but I wrote a whole thing about how I think they're going to be at least 10 games worse, based on their rotation having a significant amount of overperformance/luck last season (Worley's whole year and Kendrick's starts; Halladay's career-low HR/FB rate), having to use Joe Blanton every fifth day, and a really subpar offense (likely only better than Houston, San Diego, San Francisco and Pittsburgh). It was a lot more convincing and in depth than that; I crunched numbers and everything, I swear. But I clicked out of the window and now I'm at work, so I don't have time to do it again. But I would put them at between 90-92 and the Marlins at 88-90. I don't think it's crazy to put them close to each other and, as fans, give the Marlins a slight edge. Personally, I would say the Marlins get one of the Wild Card spots. I don't even have the Phillies in the post-season. BOOK IT!
March 23, 201214 yr I still don't see any of this stuff adding up to worse than a 10 game decline. If Halladay's HR rate regresses, that's probably going to amount to 0.5 WAR difference or less (look at 2010 versus 2011). I'll work on assigning WAR values for some of these guys and see what it the total is. There's a chance that I might actually prove myself wrong.
April 6, 201214 yr AL East - Yankees AL Central - Tigers AL West - Rangers WC1 - Red Sox WC2 - Angels MVP - Miguel Cabrera Cy Young - Justin Verlander RoY - Yu Darvish NL East - Phillies NL Central - Brewers NL West - Giants WC1 - Marlins WC2 - Cardnials MVP - Matt Kemp Cy Young - Yovani Gallardo RoY - Mat Gamel
April 6, 201214 yr AL East - Yankees AL Central - Tigers AL West - Rangers WC1 - Rays WC2 - Red Sox MVP - Mark Teixeira Cy Young - David Price RoY - Yu Darvish NL East - Phillies NL Central - Brewers NL West - Giants WC1 - Reds WC2 - Mets (hey, I have to) MVP - Buster Posey Cy Young - Johnny Cueto RoY - Matt Harvey
April 6, 201214 yr Yes, I picked the A's because they have a lot of awesome young talent. It's an upset pick. Chill.
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