Every day, Pinstripe Alley offers updates on what the Yankees’ top American League opponents are up to through the Rivalry Roundup. The AL East is well-trodden ground there, but with the season’s final month upon us, we’re going to take a peek around MLB as a whole and check in with each of the other five divisions. Who’s surprising? Who’s underwhelming? Who’s simply mediocre at the moment? Read on and find out.
(Note: Records and standings are up to date through games played on Sunday, August 31st.)
First Place: Philadelphia Phillies (79-58)
Top Position Player: Trea Turner (6.2 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Cristopher Sánchez (5.2 fWAR)
The Phillies sit six games up on the Mets at time of writing, having reversed New York’s hot start, led by a pair of MVP candidates. Trea Turner leads the Senior Circuit in fWAR, while Kyle Schwarber seems to be the only NL hitter capable of keeping pace with Shohei Ohtani (recording the third four-homer game of this MLB season last week against Atlanta). The rest of the lineup is solid if unspectacular — Bryce Harper is his normal excellent self, and everyone else is just above average. It’s not the powerhouse it was a couple years ago, but BOY that pitching rotation…
Losing Zack Wheeler for the season stings, especially as you project a postseason rotation. However, even without the perennial Cy Young contender, the club still boasts three starters with fWARs north of 3.5. Jesús Luzardo has been a revelation for the Phils, dazzling with a career-best 3.01 FIP and filling some of the space occupied by Wheeler’s absence. While Paul Skenes seems to be the odds-on favorite for his first Cy Young, Sánchez isn’t that far behind the Pirates righty, and should get some consideration in his own right.
Second Place: New York Mets (73-64, 6.0 GB)
Top Position Player: Francisco Lindor (4.9 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: David Peterson (3.0 fWAR)
For the Mets, everything kind of boils down to this weekend, with a four-game set on the road for Philadelphia that may just decide not just the division, but whether they’re a playoff team at all. They are sitting four games clear of Cincinnati for the final NL Wild Card slot, but a collapse worse than the Yankees’ over the last two months has injected a considerable amount of doubt in the club. Lindor is as good as always, and Juan Soto will be a five-win player, but the problem is the pitching (despite rookie Nolan McLean’s stellar first few starts).
The Sean Manaea signing has largely been a disaster, Clay Holmes has been fine but nothing spectacular in his starting job and losing steam of late, Kodai Senga has slumped so badly that they’re unsure if he’ll start again, and Peterson’s ERA has ballooned two full runs over the second half, north of five since the All Star Game. The second half has also hit Pete Alonso hard, as he’s managed just a 107 wRC+. The Mets are not out of it — indeed, we saw last year what they can do with a well-timed Wild Card run — but it’s hard to have much confidence in closing a six-game gap in a month.
Third Place: Miami Marlins (65-72, 14.0 GB)
Top Position Player: Kyle Stowers (4.0 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Edward Cabrera (2.1 fWAR)
Congrats to Miami on already winning more games than last year’s 62. Kyle Stowers must have the Baltimore front office gritting their teeth, as he’s broken out as a bona fide star after being dealt alongside Connor Norby for Trevor Rogers at the 2024 deadline. Even with Rogers belatedly breaking out this year, that has to sting. Otto Lopez continues to mature into an extremely well-rounded middle infielder, and 26-year-old Xavier Edwards is taking on the old Juan Pierre role for the club. Cabrera and Janson Junk have taken steps forward in the rotation, and even Sandy Alcantara has had a strong second half, with a 3.16 ERA down the stretch.
You can see bits and pieces of a competitive club here, even in a division that usually features three strong teams with three decent-to-decadent payrolls. The question is how the organization can add, both on the margins and by bringing in or developing one more real star, to get the team playing with the big boys.
Fourth Place: Atlanta Braves (62-75, 17.0 GB)
Top Position Player: Matt Olson (3.3 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Chris Sale (2.7 fWAR)
It’s truly been a season from hell for Atlanta fans. The club has fallen flat on its face, not for nothing because nearly every star has seen some time on the injured list. Ronald Acuña Jr. saw IL time with an Achilles problem, neither Chris Sale nor Spencer Strider will likely hit 140 innings pitched, and Austin Riley, Spencer Schwellenbach, and AJ Smith-Shawver are all out for the remainder of the season.
Top that off with players taking steps back — Ozzie Albies, Marcell Ozuna and Michael Harris Jr. have all been lesser versions of themselves, and while catcher Drake Baldwin is an NL Rookie of the Year contender and Harri has recovered somewhat in recent weeks, this still begins to take on the look of a club at a crossroads. They’re not old just yet, but they’re older, and you begin to wonder how many of these injuries begin to become chronic as players get closer to, and over 30.
Last Place: Washington Nationals (53-83, 25.5 GB)
Top Position Player: CJ Abrams (3.3 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: MacKenzie Gore (2.8 fWAR)
What a lost organization. Three years after dealing Juan Soto out west, the main parts of that prospect package have bloomed for the Nats — nearly 10 wins of value between the two mentioned above and James Wood. The team has absolutely nothing else surrounding that talent, nor do they have much of a farm system to inject more output next year. Wood has fallen hard in the second half but even if he were the kind of hitter he was in early days, this club would be falling to the bottom of a cliff just a tad slower.
Abrams and Wood are under control for a while, but with Gore questionable to play at all for the rest of the year with a bum shoulder, you only have two years left with him. The Nationals may have made off well in the Soto trade so long ago, but if you don’t ever get any MLB wins because of it, it’s hard to count it as a good move.
