The Braves win the pennant!
The Braves win the pennant!
Damn!

Dave Paisley

Having checked out the newly rebalanced National League West last time, it's time to look to another division where the balance of power has shifted more than a touch. I'm speaking, of course, of the National League East, where the ever-so-boring Atlanta Braves will finally get a decent challenge from the revamped Mets.

Apparently, John Schuerholz misses the challenge of an actual pennant race, so he's decided that if the rest of division won't get better, he'll just have to make the Braves worse to create some genuine competition. The biggest deal is the one that primarily sent Denny Neagle and Michael Tucker to Cincinnati for Bret Boone. Add the acquisition of free agent Brian Jordan, and that's about it. Oh, and I forgot to mention they retained the services of Ozzie Guillen (for two years, no less) and grabbed Otis Nixon before any of their key division rivals could get him.

The trouble with those moves is that they picked up Jordan and Boone after their best-ever full years and are unlikely to see that kind of production in '99. If the two of them hit previous career troughs, the result will be disastrous. The problem is, they paid top dollar for both.

However, the Braves' offense will continue to be steady, as almost every position player is capable of having at least an average year for his position, and a few, like Chipper Jones and Javy Lopez, can be guaranteed to excel. Of the rest, everyone's waiting for the Galarraga bubble to burst and for Andruw Jones to start living up to the hype. The ups and downs of the rest should even out over the season.

On the pitching front, the loss of Neagle doesn't hurt too badly, apart from the fact that the Braves got rooked in the deal. Millwood moves up to #4 behind the perennial powerhouse trio of Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz, with Bruce Chen penciled in for the fifth spot. In the pen, however, the Braves will once again go the McGyver route, patching a pen together with duct tape and spit. Hey, it's always let them down in the past, why start building a real bullpen now?

Last year, the Mets' pitching was fine, they just couldn't even buy runs in the form of Mike Piazza. They very quickly figured out that one superstar hitter and Rey Ordonez doesn't exactly make an offense, so they did something about it. The acquisition of Robin Ventura was the final piece of a complicated puzzle that upgrades their offense nicely. Slotting Ventura in at third allows Edgardo Alfonzo to move to second, where his lesser production won't be so glaringly obvious. Piazza and Olerud make a formidable pair at the heart of the order, while an outfield built from Brian McRae, Roger Cedeno, Bobby Bonilla and Rickey Henderson should be about average -- a definite step up from past years.

Things haven't changed much on the mound, with a deep rotation of Leiter, Jones, Reed, Nomo and Yoshii. The quality isn't on a par with the Braves' top three, but it's possibly the deepest rotation in the majors, rivaling the Dodgers. And when we get to the pen, the story couldn't be more different than for the Braves. Not only do the Mets have some solid journeymen, they have an aging, yet still effective closer in John Franco, and a closer-to-be in Armando Benitez. In fact, I'll be surprised if Benitez isn't the closer at the start of the season, and shocked if he hasn't assumed the mantle by mid-season.

Without running the numbers, it looks like a horse race in the NL East to me. I will run the numbers closer to the season, of course.

The rest of the division is a cruise ship looking for an iceberg, although it's arguable that Florida actually sank last year. No surviving traces of a baseball team were found. Let's just pencil them in for a hundred losses and move on.

The Montreal Expos aren't a total loss. There's a hint of some decent pitching, a great closer, Vladimir Guerrero and Rondell White. Unfortunately, that's about it on the hitting side. Once again, Vladimir will toil away in obscurity, while Andruw Jones, a mere six months younger, will get all the TBS hype. (Oh, did I mention the hype thing again? Darn!)

Somewhere in the middle of the pack will be the Phillies, who have Curt Schilling to anchor an otherwise patchwork quilt rotation. On the offensive side, Rolen, Abreu and Gant will try mightily to compensate for the deathly offense of Brogna and Relaford, probably with modest success.

At this point, I'd give the division by a slight nod to the Braves, but it'll be really close. After that, I'd pick the Phillies and Montreal to battle it out for fourth with a slight edge to the Phils. That would also be the battle of two of my favorite managers, Felipe Alou and Terry Francona (who was an Expo in my days in Montreal.) Bringing up the rear (in more ways than one) we're left with the Marlins.

Oh, how I'd love the Mets to beat the Braves, but whatever the outcome, it sure will be fun to watch.

about the author

It's not unusual to catch Dave Paisley at the local bar at closing time, stocking up on last call and loudly claiming to all who'll listen that he had the original idea for the rosin bag. Humor him at drdjp@strikethree.com.