It’s expected to be a tight, three-team race in the NL East this season!
Three of the top 5-7 teams in baseball reside in the NL East.
No matter what power rankings you look at, some combination of the Phillies, Braves and Mets are ranked among the elite squads of the sport. That they all play in the same division should make the 2025 season a real barnburner in Philadelphia, Atlanta and New York.
According to Fangraphs’ projection system, the Braves have the edge over the Phils and Mets as of right now.
A six-game cushion for the Braves over the Phils and seven over the Mets seems a tad high, given the strength of all three teams. Certainly, Atlanta should be better than a year ago, a season in which virtually every superstar on the team was injured for extended periods of time, and still they won 89 games and finished in the No. 2 wild card spot, winning a tie-breaker with the 89-win Mets.
It’s likely the Braves will get Spencer Strider back in the rotation in late April and Ronald Acuna Jr., not long after that. They lost Max Fried but have a starting rotation led by the reigning Cy Young Award winner in Chris Sale, an up-and-coming star in Spence Schwellenbach and a solid mid-rotation arm in Reynaldo Lopez. They also added outfielder Jurickson Profar as a free agent late in the winter to shore up a shaky outfield, and possess a bullpen .
The Mets added the biggest free agent of the off-season when they signed Juan Soto, and bring back a lineup that features MVP candidate Francisco Lindor, a re-signed Pete Alonso, and a couple young stars in Brandon Nimmo and Mark Vientos. The rotation appears weaker to start the season, as both the Braves and Mets have been banged up this spring. The latest projections appear to show that, despite their off-season of spending, they’re still not better than they were a season ago.
The Phillies are healthier than both teams and have a superior starting rotation than both. Atlanta’s bullpen is probably the best of the three, on paper, and all three lineups have their strengths and weaknesses. All three teams should score a lot of runs.
So, are the Braves or Mets the bigger threat to the Phillies in 2025?