The 2025 MLB season is almost upon us! With about one week to go before the Cubs and Dodgers do battle in Tokyo, each team is gearing up for the long, annual 162-game grind.
Each day this week at Call To The Pen, we'll take a look at every team in every division and analyze their best and worst-case scenarios for the 2025 season. We've already looked at the AL East. Now, let's see how their neighbors in the National League stack up.
Atlanta Braves
Best-case scenario: Everybody stays healthy. Right away, that’s an upgrade over last year, since Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley, Ronald Acuna Jr., Spencer Strider and Michael Harris II all missed significant time in 2024. If they return to established form for 150 games, the Braves are automatically two or three games better than their 89-73 record of a season ago.
It would also be nice if Matt Olson re-discovered the power strike he lost last season. His .790 OPS was nice by human standards, but it was 200 percentage points down from 2023.
The third piece of Atlanta’s dream scenario involves one of their pitching prodigies — A.J. Smith-Shawver is the logical candidate — making his mark on the rotation. As long as Chris Sale, Reynaldo Lopez, Spencer Schwellenbach, and Strider stay healthy, the Braves don’t really need Smith-Shawver, except what are the odds of all starters staying healthy?
Give Atlanta those three elements, and the Braves are capable of making a run at any goal: division title, NL pennant, World Series.
Worst-case scenario: The Braves saw the worst-case scenario play out in 2024. Albies missed 60 games, Riley and Harris each missed 50, and Acuna sat out more than 100. Strider, meanwhile, made just two starts before elbow issues sidelined him.
And the injury bug is already biting again. Acuna is still recovering from his ACL tear and probably won’t take the field until some time in May. Strider isn’t due back until late April at best, and Riley ‘s spring progress has been slowed.
Still, it’s worth noting that despite all that 2024 pain and misery, the Braves won 89 games and played October ball. Not well, but they played it. Since it’s hard to imagine the manpower situation getting more dire than it was, even the worst-case scenario finds room for the Braves this October.
Most-likely scenario: Acuna plays two-thirds of a season, and Riley is something approaching his old self. But Olson struggles to find his consistent power stroke, Albies and Harris are only average, and Strider maybe works in 20 starts and 120 innings. The Braves make a run at Philadelphia, come up short, and get into the playoffs as a wild card.
Miami Marlins
Best-case scenario: Sandy Alcantara demonstrates enough recovery from the arm problems that cost him all of 2024 to become a valuable trade piece. Whatever he brings in return joins infielders Connor Norby, Otto Lopez and Xavier Edwards, who each demonstrate in their second full seasons that they can be foundational pieces.
With Alcantara gone, Ryan Weathers finally begins to fulfill the starring role that has been forecast for him since he arrived from San Diego in 2021. Weathers showed some reason for hope last season, achieving career bests in wins, ERA, and strikeouts, while posting a 125 ERA+.
Griffin Conine establishes himself as a mid-order threat and summons echoes of his dad, longtime Marlins star Jeff Conine.
Even all of that in combination probably doesn’t extract the Marlins from the NL East cellar. But it would be progress.
Worst-case scenario. Alcantara returns as something demonstrably less than his former self, or worse, suffers an injury relapse. Either way, he has no on-field value and no trade value.
The Marlins offense, meanwhile, holds in the static position that saw Miami finish 27th in home runs and 29th in OPS+ in 2024. The big off-season acquisition, first baseman Matt Mervis, demonstrates why the Cubs gave up on him: three homers and a .155 career average. Conine only sort of lives up to expectations, and Lopez, Norby and Edwards all suffer from the absence of lineup support.
The Marlins pass 100 losses by mid-September.
Most likely scenario: Alcantara shows enough to be attractive to a contender. But neither Weathers nor any of Miami’s other penciled-in starters are up to the task of leading the rotation.
Offensively, Lopez, Edwards, Norby and Conine all establish themselves as legit big leaguers. But it’s not enough to prevent another 100-loss season in Miami.
New York Mets
Best-case scenario: Juan Soto hits 40 homers, drives in 130 runs, and walks away with the NL MVP trophy. Pete Alonso hits 45 bombs with 100 RBIs. Matt Vientos continues his offensive maturation, pushing 40 homers and 90 RBIs. Francisco Lindor builds on his 2024 second half, hitting .295 with an .860 OPS.
All that production takes the heat off the Mets’ pitching staff. With plenty of run support, Sean Manaea survives a mediocre ERA to win 15 of his 25 starts. Kodai Senga shrugs off the health problems that cost him almost all of 2024, pitching 140 innings with an ERA that ducks below 3.00. Clay Holmes makes a case for why he should have been viewed as a starter all along.
With an offense that leads the majors in run production, the Mets make a strong playoff run that includes turning the tables on the Dodgers in the NLCS.
Worst-case scenario: In Queens, the worst-case scenario is all about recovery from injuries. It begins with the failure of Senga to carry anything approaching a full load in his recovery from that disabling shoulder strain. Frankie Montas’ lat strain sidelines him most of the first half of the season, and Manaea’s strained oblique costs him more than the first month of the regular season that is projected.
Likewise, catcher Francisco Alvarez misses a full two months in his recovery from a hamate bone fracture and is sub-par when he returns.
Without Senga, Manaea or Montas, the Mets pitching collapses, and by the time they return, the gap between New York and the top of the division is too large to overcome.
Meanwhile, Griffin Canning demonstrates why the Angels were so willing to let him go, and Holmes fatigues somewhere around the 100-inning mark. In that dire event, it’s all the Mets can do to stay above .500 and hold off Washington for third place in the division.
Most likely scenario: Fueled by Soto, Alonso, Lindor and Vientos, the offense lives up to its billing. But Senga, Manaea and Montas are limited to 75 starts between them, and Mets manager Carlos Mendoza struggles all season to patch Holmes, Canning, David Peterson and Paul Blackburn into the remaining 55 percent of a workable rotation.
The result: New York chases the Phillies and Braves all season and stares down the final two weeks of September needing a healthy winning streak to secure a postseason spot.
Philadelphia Phillies
Best-case scenario: Bryce Harper goes for a career best 125 RBIs and his .320 average wins the batting title. Kyle Schwarber tops 40 homers, and Trea Turner rediscovers the value of the stolen base, swiping more than 30.
Similarly, Alec Bohm joins them and reprises his 2024 All Star Game selection, this time hitting .300 with 30 homers.
On the mound, Zack Wheeler improves one step from his 2024 runner-up finish in Cy Young voting, winning 20 games with a 2.50 ERA. The trio of Ranger Suarez, Aaron Nola and Christopher Sanchez give Philadelphia, not Los Angeles, the game’s deepest front four, combining for 120 starts and something approaching 800 innings.
The Phils breeze to their second straight NL East title, power through the playoffs and win the World Series.
Worst-case scenario: The Phillies’ every-day lineup is so solid that the biggest threat to a repeat divisional title is probably health, as in a lack of it. Obviously any injury to Wheeler, Suarez or Nola would be hard to overcome. Fortunately, none has a recent injury history.
Worriers can, if they choose, fret over whether Max Kepler, signed this off-season as a free agent, is really the answer in left field. Kepler hit .253 with little power last season. They can also worry whether J.T. Realmuto, at 34, is finally losing it behind the plate. His defensive numbers were basically average in 2024.
Most realistic scenario: Led by Wheeler and Harper, the Phillies have more than enough weapons to contend in 2025. At worst, they’ll battle Atlanta for the division title; at best, they’ll pull away.
Washington Nationals
Best-case scenario: The Nats have one of the youngest core groups in baseball. Among projected regulars Keibert Ruiz, Luis Garcia, CJ Abrams, James Wood, Trey Lipscomb and Jacob Young, the average age is not yet 25. If that youthful exuberance matures as Nats fans expect it to, Washington could be the surprise of the NL.
The pitching depth isn’t there to support competitiveness with the division’s heavyweights. But if MacKenzie Gore can improve on his 10-12, 3.90 ERA performance in 166 innings from last year, he’ll give the Nats an anchor. Mitchell Parker is only 25 with the talent to knock at least a half point off his 4.29 ERA. The same holds true for DJ Herz.
Give Nats manager Dave Martinez all that and it’s not impossible to envision a 10-game improvement to the .500 level.
Worst-case scenario: Or perhaps the kids don’t mature. Among the six youthful regulars mentioned above, none produced an OPS pushing .800 last year… what’s to say any of them will do it in 2025?
Washington was last in the NL in homers last season and 14th in runs per game. Abrams did manage 20 homers, but he also led the team in whiffs. The Nats imported Nathaniel Lowe to play first base and provide punch, but he only hit 16 homers last season with a 762 OPS. Is that really the answer?
If the offense doesn’t improve, it’s hard to see Washington doing much more than floating through the season in fourth place.
Most likely scenario: With that much young and developing talent, some of it almost has to mature. That alone should make the Nats better than a 71-win team. But it would take a lot — probably too much — to work all the way up to 81 wins, much less contend.