1 February Take For Each NL East Team
Phillies fans still have a lot be excited about in 2026 and beyond.
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Pitchers and catchers report in just six short days. Major League Baseball is almost here. (Although it very much does not feel like it here in East Tennessee at the moment.)
As Spring Training draws closer, I’m going to dive into one big take for each team across each division to kick February off right.
First up, the NL East.
Atlanta Braves
Two teams in the National League are projected to win 90-plus games this season: the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Braves and Dodgers are also the only NL teams with a greater than 10-percent chance of winning the World Series. Los Angeles sits at a silly 27.5 percent chance, and the Braves are right behind them at 10.4. With the New York Mets going on a free-agency heater of late, this is the kind of development Braves fans needed to see. A healthy Ronald Acuna Jr. for 150-plus games would obviously be huge for Atlanta. I also wonder what the projections would be had Ha-Seong Kim not torn a tendon in his finger – how much will Mauricio Dubón’s fill-in work affect Atlanta being an NL East division winner or a Wild Card team in 2026?
The Braves still have some major question marks, particularly in the infield between Dubon and Ozzie Albies. Austin Riley has to have a much better WRC+ than 103 in 2026. Mr. Reliable Matt Olson has to maintain that well-earned status at first. Spencer Strider returning to some version of his old self is also very much in play and very important to Atlanta’s rotation. I don’t know how any of it will ultimately turn out, but I do know the Braves are one of two teams in MLB projected to win 90-plus games next year, and the other team has a 2026 payroll nearing $400,000,000.
New York Mets
The Mets have played in the NL East since 1969, but they have won the division twice in my 34 years on this planet. They have not won this division since 2015. Only two games separate the Braves and Mets in the Fangraphs’ 2026 projections model. It feels like the Mets have been so much more active than Atlanta this offseason, like last offseason when New York swiped Juan Soto away from the Yankees. Soto had an OPS+ of 160, hit forty-three dingers, a career-high, and finished third in MVP voting. Swiping a young star from the AL East worked out for the Mets last season. I wonder if it works out this season with Bo Bichette? Only a year separates the duo in age, but Bichette comes to Queens with more questions than Soto did the year prior. Does it work for him at third? Can he make the All-Star team for the first time since 2023? How much would a regression in BABIP affect the two-time All-Star in New York next season – he went from .269 to .342 in 2024 and 2025, respectively. When you can add a young player still in his prime like Bichette, then you do it and figure out the rest later. You just wonder a lot more about Bichette than Soto for New York in 2026.
Miami Marlins
The Marlins are quietly becoming a peskier and peskier team in the NL East. They’re a team in 2026 that you wonder how one would view them if they competed in the NL Central, rather than the NL East. Sure, the Chicago Cubs are the favorite, but the Pittsburgh Pirates – the Pirates! – are projected to have a winning season and a twenty-percent chance of winning the NL’s perennial weakest division. The Marlins and Pirates don’t feel that far apart, right? Unfortunately for Miami, they will play the Braves, Mets, and Phillies a lot this season. On the plus side, Miami has teased a return to its iconic teal uniforms as a Sunday alternate this season. While the Marlins’ current unis are improved from what they were in the Giancarlo Stanton days, a full-time return to the color scheme and look most synonymous with Great Fish Baseball would be the right move for Miami, especially as they inch closer and closer to contention in the NL East.
Washington Nationals
The Nationals’ biggest offseason move thus far has also been one of the bigger headscratchers. Indeed, Washington traded away starting pitcher MacKenzie Gore to the Texas Rangers for a trio of prospects. Outside of Colorado, there is no more obvious last-place team in MLB than the Nationals in 2026. To trade Gore, the former No. 3 overall pick in the MLB Draft and a key piece D.C. received in the Juan Soto blockbuster trade, is just a bummer.
The club’s new general manager, Anirudh Kilambi, is pretty interesting, though, as he is one of the youngest GMs in MLB history. Oh, and the club’s President of Baseball Operations, Paul Toboni, the man who hired Kilambi, is the youngest in his position in MLB this year. Since winning the World Series in 2019, the Nationals have finished last in the division every single season except 2024, when they finished fourth. Barring an unexpected implosion atop the NL East, the Nationals are stuck in a gloomy place for years to come. It’ll likely be a full decade-long drought before Washington is a real, consistent title contender again, dating back to their last postseason appearance in 2019.
Just a really tough scene for Nats fans.
Philadelphia Phillies
Maybe the strangest team in the division.
From an outsider’s perspective, the vibes don’t feel great with the Phillies fanbase right now. And yet, the Phils are projected to win 87 games, should comfortably make the postseason once again, and then who knows what can happen. I’ve always been impartial to the Phillies’ President of Baseball Ops, Dave Dombrowski. The guy goes for it wherever he goes, whether it is in Boston, Miami, or Philadelphia. If your team hires him, you can bet he will try to do what every front office should be expected to do every season – try to win baseball games.
Quite the novel concept.
Alas.
The Phillies have won at least 90 games for three consecutive seasons. That level of winning over that stretch has only happened once in my lifetime, when Chase Utley and the crew won a World Series, lost another, and made it to the NLCS the year after that, in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
Sure, you want to win one title during this winning timeline like that beloved 2008 team did, but that 2008 team didn’t have the Los Angeles Dodgers in their way. The Dodgers have won back-to-back titles with a payroll nearing $400,000,000. Philadelphia is not alone here. It’s frustrating for the Braves, Phillies, Yankees, Blue Jays, Padres, Cubs, and several other contenders, but that kind of context matters. Bo Bichette or Alex Bregman would have been a nice add for Philly, but they’re going to be really good once again without either of them and have another shot in the postseason in all likelihood. The Phillies are in a great spot, just blocked by a ridiculous juggernaut in Los Angeles like the rest of the NL, and, really, the AL contenders. That’s frustrating, but it’s also very OK.