The NL East or The Washington Nationals: Men or Myth?

Amazin' Mets ... probably ain't winning this year

What do you do if you're the Washington Nationals?

It's bad enough that you're one of the worst franchises in the league dating all the way back to Montreal. Even worse, no matter what you do, no matter who you compete against, chances are you'll lose.

Then you have to compete in the AL East, arguably the toughest division in baseball. Maybe professional sports. The Phillies are world champs. The Mets will always compete hard. The Braves won a billion divisions in a row and you could argue they could be back in a couple of years. The Marlins will win a World Series every four years and there's a really good chance that they'll good this year.

The poor Nats have no shot. At least the Rangers only have California to beat. The Royals could find themselves competing in one of the White Sox, Twins and Cleveland's bad years (theoretically).



Philadelphia Phillies -- 95-67
They're back. And they've added a couple of pieces including Raul Ibanez. No reason to think they'll fall off.



Florida Marlins -- 90-72
If those kids grow up fast, this is a really scary team. Those pitchers are big and strong. And they're due for another World Series.




New York Mets -- 85-77
I'm not betting on the Mets. They've let me down far too much. I feel like they have a lot of really good players. Superstars, in fact. But the difference, talentwise, between those guys and the non-superstars is too large. There aren't enough good, middle-of-the-road players. If healthy, the rotation should be fine. Frankie Rodriguez and J.J. Putz could lock down the late innings. Hell, this team could win 97 games. Or 77. It's a crapshoot.



Atlanta Braves -- 70-92
Just don't know if they have the offense to win a lot of games (if some of those dudes show up, they do, but I can't only judge these guys by what they've done, which isn't much). Furthermore. if Tom Glavine wasn't 600 years old, I'd give the rotation the benefit of the doubt. I like the nucleus of Javier Vasquez (who could benefit with a move to the NL) and youngsters JoJo Reyes and Jair Jurrjens with another year under their belt.


Washington Nationals -- 65-97
Their rotation is young, but big and strong. Couple of guys work out (Scott Olsen, Joel Hanrahan, Daniel Cabrera) and they could compete. Another interesting talking point is that young outfield -- Elijah Dukes, Lastings Milledge, Josh Willingham. If Ryan Zimmerman is healthy, they could hit. But they could be a strikeout factory with Adam Dunn, Austin Kearns and Co.