Since the advent of the wild card in 1995, an entire division has finished .500 or better just one time. It happened with the National League East in 2005, when the Braves won the division with a 90-72 record and the fifth-place Nationals were just nine games back at 81-81. Just six games separated the five teams entering September, so the final month began with a legitimate five-team race for the division title.
We could get a similar tightly packed chase in the NL East in 2021. While the projection systems place the Marlins a distant fifth in the division, you can't exactly ignore a team that finished ahead of the Phillies, Mets and Nationals and made the expanded postseason in 2020.
With the Nationals finally getting their season started Tuesday night against the Braves and the Phillies hosting the Mets on ESPN (7 p.m. ET), let's look at some of the key factors that will decide the division race.
1. Bullpens
Yes, we're going straight to the bullpens. The Phillies are the obvious team to mention here, coming off a 7.06 bullpen ERA that was the worst in the majors since the 1930 Phillies, but all five teams have potential issues.
Braves: The 2020 Atlanta bullpen did an excellent job covering for a rotation that struggled, but Mark Melancon, Shane Greene and Darren O'Day are gone after combining for a 2.29 ERA and just four home runs allowed in 66⅔ innings. Will Smith takes over for Melancon as closer, and he had gopher ball problems last year, allowing seven home runs in 16 innings and then a big one in the playoffs to the Dodgers' Will Smith that turned the momentum in the NLCS.
Marlins: The Marlins had one of the oldest pens in the majors in 2020 and have to replace closer Brandon Kintzler, who signed with the Phillies. Anthony Bass, another vagabond veteran, is getting his first shot as closer, but he promptly blew a 4-2 lead on Opening Day.
Phillies: Dave Dombrowski has rebuilt the pen after last year's disaster, bringing in Kintzler, Archie Bradley, Jose Alvarado and Sam Coonrod. Homegrown Connor Brogdon could be an impact middle reliever and Vince Velasquez should be a full-time reliever, where his stuff should play up over short outings. As my ESPN colleague Tim Kurkjian pointed out, it's a group that throws very hard (other than the sidearmer Kintzler). After ranking 22nd in the majors in bullpen velocity in 2020, the Phillies ranked third after the first weekend of the season.
Mets: We saw very bad Edwin Diaz in 2019 (5.59 ERA) and very good Edwin Diaz in 2020 (1.75 ERA, 50 K's in 25⅔ innings), but the bigger issue may be the setup guys, especially with Seth Lugo out after surgery to remove a bone spur. Free agent Trevor May should be the eighth inning guy, but veterans Dellin Betances and Jeurys Familia, who didn't exactly impress last season, looked shaky in spring training. Blowing a lead after Jacob deGrom pitches like, well, Jacob deGrom as the bullpen did on Monday night is exactly what the Mets can't afford to see happen this season.
Nationals: Even when they won the World Series in 2019, the bullpen was thin behind Sean Doolittle, and they basically used two relievers (Doolittle and Daniel Hudson) in key moments in the postseason, with the starters filling in. Doolittle is gone, with Brad Hand the new closer. Tanner Rainey has the best pure stuff and Hudson is still around. Will Harris begins the season on the IL, but should return shortly and will assume a key role.
2. Defense
Maybe the best way to track team defense is just to like at defensive efficiency -- the percentage of balls in play turned into outs. The inverse of that is batting average on balls in play. Here's where the NL East teams ranked among all 30 teams in 2020:
Braves: .294 (19th)
Marlins: .297 (22nd)
Mets: .316 (27th)
Nationals: .317 (28th)
Phillies: .343 (30th)
The Braves at least have a chance to be pretty good with Dansby Swanson, Cristian Pache and Ronald Acuna Jr., although they're faking it a bit in left field with Marcell Ozuna (who mostly was a designated hitter last season). The Marlins' three primary outfielders -- Starling Marte, Corey Dickerson and Adam Duvall -- have been good defenders in the past but are all also on the wrong side of 30. The Mets will be much better at shortstop with Francisco Lindor and catcher with James McCann (they've easily been the worst team throwing out base stealers the past two seasons with Wilson Ramos), but have potential problems in left field and third base, and Brandon Nimmo is a bit stretched in center field.
Note on the Mets' defense: SNY reporter Steve Gelbs told a good anecdote about Lindor's leadership. During a cutoff drill in spring training, after an outfielder missed the cutoff, Lindor stopped the drill and implored the team to do it right. Top of the first inning of the Mets' first game: Rhys Hoskins doubles to right-center, but is caught trying to stretch it into a triple with a perfect 8-4-5 relay.
The Phillies really only have one plus defender in catcher J.T. Realmuto, and perhaps center fielder Adam Haseley, but center field could end up being a revolving door. Still not sure why Jackie Bradley Jr. didn't end up in Philly; it seemed like a perfect fit. The Phillies did have a lot of bad luck on balls in play, so they'll be better by default, but I don't see them as a top-20 defensive team.
The Nationals' defense may be an even bigger concern. Victor Robles is the one potential plus defender, although he slipped quite a bit last year from a terrific defensive season as a rookie in 2019. He's slimmed back down, so that might help. Trea Turner is fine at shortstop, but Josh Bell is well below average at first, Kyle Schwarber below average in left, Juan Soto is average at best in right. The Nationals were middle of the pack in BABIP allowed in 2019 -- when they had Anthony Rendon -- so you can win without being great, but it's hard to win if your defense lacks the range to make enough plays.
3.The COVID-19 pandemic
The Mets-Nationals opening series was just canceled after an outbreak on the Nationals, and the Vancouver Canucks are in the midst of an ever scarier outbreak (16 of the team's 22 players were on the NHL's protocol list, a few with "intense" symptoms), so there is no place yet for complacency in following the proper protocols.
The Nationals will have to tweak their roster a bit to start the season; Turner, Bell, Josh Harrison and both catchers, Yan Gomes and Alex Avila, were among the players not on the field for Monday's workout. The Nationals got off to a slow start in both 2019 and 2020, and while they managed to rebound in 2019 after a 19-31 start, Dave Martinez doesn't want to dig that big hole again.
4. Who challenges Jacob deGrom?
We know deGrom will be great -- and maybe this is also the year the Mets finally give him some run support. But this race could turn on which potential ace ends up challenging him for a Cy Young Award. The candidates:
Zack Wheeler, Phillies. He looked tremendous in holding the Braves to one hit in seven innings in his first start, including 10 strikeouts. He mixed an upper-90s four-seamer with an upper-90s sinker, and he seems to be figuring out how to best deploy his two fastballs. I feel a monster season coming on for him.
Aaron Nola, Phillies: Don't overlook his teammate. That 1-2 punch could be the best in baseball.
Max Scherzer, Nationals: He had his highest ERA since a matching 3.74 mark in 2012, the season before he broke through his first Cy Young Award. He's 36 with a lot of innings on his shoulder, but the stuff is still great.
Stephen Strasburg, Nationals: He's healthy for now, and 2019 was arguably his best season. There's no reason he can't return to that level.
Max Fried, Braves: He went 7-0 with a 2.25 ERA last year, relying on soft contact (two home runs) and pitchability more so than the dominant stuff you see from deGrom, Wheeler or Scherzer. Now he just has to prove he can do it for 30 starts.
As for the Marlins ...
5. How good is the Marlins' rotation?
With a mediocre offense and a roll-of-the-dice bullpen, the rotation will have to carry the Marlins back to the postseason. FanGraphs' preseason projections ranks the Marlins' rotation ... just 23rd-best in the majors. That feels a little pessimistic, but it makes sense as you dig deeper.
Only Sandy Alcantara has pitched a full season in the majors with a full workload. Pablo Lopez has topped out at 111 innings. Sixto Sanchez and Trevor Rogers have pitched one month in the majors. There isn't a lot of depth either, and now Sanchez starts out with mild inflammation, so he isn't on the active roster and Elieser Hernandez landed on the IL after his first start with biceps tendinitis.
6. Pete Alonso
Look, there's huge gap between the Alonso we saw in 2019 -- 53 home runs, .583 slugging, 5.4 WAR -- and the Alonso of 2020 (16 home runs, .490 slugging, 0.1 WAR in 57 games). That's a potential five-win swing with one player. I know my colleague Buster Olney is predicting a big season from Alonso, and the Mets raved about the slugger's approach and swing in spring training. Even if he splits the difference between 2019 and 2020, that could be the difference between first place and missing the playoffs in a close race.
7. Mike Soroka
Soroka went 13-4 with a 2.68 ERA as a rookie in 2019, showing the pitching smarts of a 20-year vet at just 21 years old. I talked to him last spring training, just before everything got shut down, and he said his big goal was to improve his strikeout rate -- theorizing that he wouldn't be able to maintain a 2.68 ERA if averaged just 7.3 K's per nine. I think you can, as long as you limit the home runs and walks as Soroka did.
He never had a chance to unveil any changes in 2020, as he tore his Achilles in his third start. The Braves are bringing him back slowly, and he starts the season on the IL after pitching just two innings in spring training. As with Alonso, there is a wide range of outcomes: He could be a soft ace alongside Fried, or maybe the BABIP regresses from 2019 and he's a midrotation type.
8. Didi Gregorius and Jean Segura
We know Bryce Harper is going to get on base and score and drive in around 100 runs. We know J.T. Realmuto should be the best all-around catcher in the game. We know Alec Bohm can hit and Hoskins will get on base at a good clip. So the Phillies' offense has a pretty high floor. Their middle infielders -- both 31 years old -- may determine whether this is an offense that can compete with the Mets and Braves. Both were good in 2020 as Gregorius hit .284/.339/.488 and Segura hit .266/.347/.422. The defense is also important. Neither is the rangiest player in the league at their position, so if they both lose a step, there could be a lot of ground balls sneaking into the outfield, as in 2020.
9. Back end of the Nationals' rotation
It goes without saying that for the Nationals to have any chance at the division, they need big seasons from Scherzer, Strasburg and Patrick Corbin, as they received in 2019, when that trio went 43-20 with a 3.18 ERA. But Anibal Sanchez also gave them a quality fourth starter, going 11-8 with a 3.85 ERA (after a horrible start) in 30 starts. Veteran Jon Lester, who had a 5.16 ERA in 2020 and led the NL in hits allowed in 2019, and Joe Ross get the first crack at the 4 and 5 spots.
10. Of course ... Juan Soto, Ronald Acuna Jr. and Francisco Lindor
With apologies to 2020 MVP Freddie Freeman, maybe the math needed to win the 2021 NL East is just some old-school superstar math: Which of these three MVP candidates has the greatest season? Back in 2005, the best player in the NL East, at least by FanGraphs WAR, was Braves center fielder Andruw Jones, who led the NL with 51 home runs and 128 RBIs and finished second in the MVP vote. The Braves also had one of the best clutch performers in the league in Chipper Jones, who finished second behind Florida's Carlos Delgado in win probability added even though he played just 109 games. So, be great, be clutch, stay healthy ... and pray for your bullpen.