What I Am Looking Forward To This Season: National League Edition

One day! Only one day until Opening Day!

In Monday’s newsletter, I wrote about what I’m looking forward to watching in the American League this season. Today I focus on the National League. Let’s get to it.

Will the Dodgers miss the postseason for the first time since 2012?

C’mon. You knew I would start here. And it’s not just wish casting by this long time Giants fan. FanGraphs projects the Dodgers to win only 87 games this season and finish in second place behind the Padres. Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projections are much more optimistic, pegging the Dodgers at 94 wins and the National League West division title.

Whatever the number crunchers say, there’s no doubt the Dodgers are entering the season with more question marks than anyone expected after the team won 111 games in 2022. Trea Turner left in free agency and signed with the Phillies. His expected replacement—Gavin Lux—tore the ACL in his right knee early in spring training and is likely out for the season. Justin Turner signed with the Red Sox. Chris Taylor has looked lost all spring.

On the pitching side, Julio Urias is now the Dodgers’ ace and will pitch Opening Day. Dustin May is back from Tommy John surgery and slotted in behind Urias. Soon-to-be Hall of Famer Clayton Kerhsaw will be the number three starter. Noah Syndergaard will likely follow Kershaw. He essentially replaces Tyler Anderson in the rotation after Anderson decamped for the Angels in the offseason. Tony Gonsolin is starting the season on the IL with an ankle injury. Gonsolin, you may recall, had an 11-0 record at the All-Star break last season (which was impressive, despite the ridiculousness of pitcher wins as a stat).

For the best insight on the Dodgers, I always turn to three great baseball writers and Dodgers fans: Jon Weisman, who’s literally written the book on the Dodgers; Mike Petriello at MLB.com, and Eric Stephen, who runs TrueBlueLA at SBNation and is the hardest working person in baseball media. Jon invited Mike and Eric to a roundtable on his Substack newsletter—Slayed By Voices—and while they all remain optimistic, I sense some underlying nervousness about the Dodgers this season. See what you think.

How many innings with the Mets get out of starters Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander?

The Mets won 101 games last season and tied with the Braves for most wins in the NL East. But the Braves held the tiebreaker, which forced the Mets into one of the Wild Card series, against the Padres. Three games later, the Mets were out of the postseason.

New York is bringing back 7 of 8 starting position players. The only new guy is catcher Omar Naváez, who signed a free agent contract with the Mets in December 2022.

The problem with the Mets in 2023 likely won’t be the offense, but the pitching. Jacob deGrom decamped for Texas after starting only 11 games due to injury. Chris Bassett and Taijuan Walker left in free agency.

Max Scherzer, who will turn 39 in July, and Justin Verlander, who turned 40 in February, will anchor the Mets rotation. Will it be a rusty anchor that weighs the Mets down or a lifeline to another postseason berth?

Verlander returned to pitching in 2022 after nearly two years of injuries—first, a forearm strain and then, Tommy John surgery. His 2022 performance with the Astros suggests he may have received a bionic arm and not just a repaired ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. In 18 starts, Verlander threw 175 innings, recorded 185 strikeouts, and gave up only 43 runs. For that performance, he was awarded the AL Cy Young Award.

Verlander’s age, alone, doesn’t suggest that he’ll slow down in 2023. Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens—two fastball pitchers—were effective into their 40’s. But can Verlander continue to average 95 mph on his fastball and 87 mph on his slider, like he did last season? The same questions apply to Scherzer, whose fastball and slider came in just a smidge under Verlander, on average, last season.

Can Verlander and Scherzer repeat their 2022 success this season? Will they be durable? Will they eat up big innings for manager Buck Showalter?

Will the Padres score more than 1,000 runs?

In the divisional era, the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) hold the major league record for runs scored in a season with 1,009 in 1999. I am looking at the Padres’ Opening Day roster and thinking it might be possible for San Diego to reach that mark this season.

Both PECOTA and ZIPS projections think I’m crazy (they predict about 770 runs for the Pads) but the Padres’ everyday roster will include Manny Machado, Juan Soto, Xander Bogaerts and, after he first 20 games of the season, Fernando Tatis Jr. (Tatis must complete the final 20 games of his 60-day suspension for PED use).

And, with the balanced scheduled this season, the Padres will player fewer games against division rivals Dodgers and Giants (who are expected to have above-average pitching) and more games against the cellar-dwelling teams in both leagues.

Is it likely? No. But I’m looking forward to finding out how close the Padres get.