The National League may be the Most Competitive League Ever

The 2019 National League playoff race will realistically begin in April as nearly every team in the league has a legitimate shot at making the postseason.

This year is shaping up to be one exciting year of baseball in the National League. Last season ended just about as tight as possible with two divisions needing a 163rd game to determine a champion, and this year may end similarly. Nearly every team in the league has made improvements, especially the teams that projected to be near the bottom of their respected divisions coming into the off-season. It’s clear that teams view 2019 as a year where anyone can win and they have made moves accordingly.

The New York Mets and Cincinnati Reds have probably been the most aggressive teams this off-season as they try to work their way into contention for 2019. To this point neither team should be considered a favorite for their respective division by any means, but they have each worked their way into contention for that discussion. By making a flurry of moves each team can realistically sell their fans on a potential pennant race this summer.

On Thursday, The Philadelphia Phillies acquired J.T. Realmuto from the Marlins for catcher, Jorge Alfaro, pitching prospects, Sixto Sanchez and Will Stewart, as well as international money. This move propelled the likely fourth place team in the National League East right into the thick of the divisional race. This is yet another example of a team on the periphery of playoff contention making a big move to enter the playoff discussion.

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This trend may even continue further over the next few weeks as spring training draws near. Two of the three teams remaining with projections of less than 79 wins in the National League happen to be the two teams that have most recently been rumored as landing spots for the two biggest free agents, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. Machado would be an excellent fit for the San Diego Padres at short stop in 2019 as top prospect, Fernando Tatis Jr., finishes his minor league seasoning. Manny could then slide to third in 2020 when Tatis is ready to be an everyday contributor for the big league team.

Harper, on the other hand, was recently reported to have a meeting scheduled with the San Francisco Giants. While the fit there does not seem as perfect, it would at least make the team much more competitive for the 2019 season. If these moves were to materialize, the projections for both teams would jump up into that 80 win range.

As things stand today after the J.T. Realmuto trade, 12 of the 15 teams in the National League project to finish with 79 wins or better. Pretty much any team in this range has a reasonable shot at competing for a playoff berth.

To contrast, only eight teams in the American League are projected to meet that benchmark. In fact, 12 teams have never finished with 79 or more wins in a season since MLB was expanded to 30 teams. These projections also do not yet account for potential big moves made by either the Padres or the Giants. These teams could possibly make the projection systems predict 14 of the 15 National League teams to finish with 79 wins or more, which would be unprecedented.

The difference between these win totals is also unprecedented. The National League standard deviation of projected wins comes out to between 6.0 and 7.3 wins depending on which projection system you use. These could potentially be lowered even more if the Padres and Giants make significant moves. These spreads are already historic as there has never been a league this close in the 30 team era. T

he big caveat here of course is that projections are typically conservative. They rarely predict very high win totals for the best teams or very low win totals for the worst teams. Therefore, it is very possible that a couple teams could far outperform or under-perform their projections and mess this whole thing up. However, this spread appears to be very low even for a projection as the standard deviation for American League win totals is between 10.7 and 11.7. Even if the projections do end up being conservative, there is still a good chance that we see the closest league ever in 2019.

The National League as a whole should be really fun to watch this season, but some of the division races may be even more exciting. Pecota currently projects every team in the NL Central to finish with a .500 record or better. With a division this tight, every single game will matter and divisional match ups ought to have playoff-like atmospheres as soon as April.

The NL East is in nearly the same situation where they project to have four team with at least 82 wins each. The big difference between the East and the Central is that the East has the worst team in the league in the Marlins. While Marlins games may not be as entertaining, they will still be instrumental in deciding the fate of the division. The team that wins the East will not only have to perform well against the other three tough opponents but they will need to avoid slipping up against the lowly Marlins.

The NL West is a little more spread out with a clear favorite in the Dodgers, but the other teams are all good enough to at least push the Dodgers and they could factor into the wildcard race.

There is a small chance that the designated hitter finds its way into the National League this season, but there is a much greater chance that it does by next year. If this really is the last season of old school baseball in the National League, it sure will be a fun year to end the era.

There may be super teams in the American League, but while those divisions are largely wrapped up by July, the National League will have exciting, competitive baseball all year-long. I for one am excited to get it started.