NL East Gambling Report

While the general order of the National League East (roughly a quarter of the way into the MLB 2024 regular season) isn’t too far off from what the preseason expectations were, the play of two teams — one good, one bad — in the division has been particularly eye-catching.

On the high end, the Philadelphia Phillies are 30-13 and are the first team in MLB to reach 30 wins on the year while the Miami Marlins are a woeful 12-32, flunking the quarterly NL East gambling report card with baseball’s worst record.

Meanwhile, the Atlanta Braves continue to do their thing as one of the best teams in baseball despite dealing with a bunch of injuries, the Washington Nationals have been very impressive at just under .500 with a very young team and the New York Mets are about as mediocre as everyone expected them to be.

At the top, the NL East is one of the tougher MLB divisions but, after Philadelphia and Atlanta, it’s about as run-of-the-mill as was predicted.

Let’s see how each team’s current status compares to their preseason prognostications:

Philadelphia Phillies (30-13): O/U 90.5 Wins, +300 To Win Division

We have to start with one of the biggest positive surprises in the Majors: The Phillies. Thanks to a top-five offense and top-five starting rotation, Philadelphia aces the NL East gambling report card as the Phillies are already one-third of the way to their preseason win total with four and a half months left to go.

Back-to-back seasons in the NLCS — with one pennant win — have built up expectations in Philadelphia and the Phillies are living up to them even with Trea Turner out due to injury and some key pieces, like Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos, struggling out of the gate. For them to have a two-game lead on the Braves for a division they were +300 to win is very impressive.

Now, will they be able to keep up this play? Unlikely because the Phillies have benefited from an extremely weak schedule thus far. But, as any person who likes MLB betting on futures would tell you, banking those wins early in the season is critical. If you took the Phillies to hit their over and/or to win the division outright, you’re feeling very good about your bets at the moment.

Atlanta Braves (26-13): O/U 101.5 Wins,-245 To Win Division

It feels weird to not give the Braves an A+ with how good they’ve been so far but this is pretty much what was expected of them. To be fair, they’re currently pacing for a few more wins than their 101.5 preseason total even as their division odds have taken a bit of a hit with how good the Phillies have been.

Atlanta’s lineup hasn’t been as dominant as it was a year ago due to underperformances’ from Matt Olson, Austin Riley and Ronald Acuña Jr. You just know that those guys are going to all get hot at some point.

What has really carried the Braves has been the pitching staff even without the injured Spencer Strider. New additions like Chris Sale and Reynaldo López have been incredible in the rotation, playing a role in the Braves’ current 6-1 stretch in which they have three shutouts and held their opponent to two runs or fewer six times. No wonder they’re still right in back of the Phillies in the MLB standings.

Washington Nationals (20-21): O/U 66.5 Wins, +8000 To Win Division

The very fact that the Nationals are in third place in the NL East gives them a big boost in the NL East gambling report card. They were expected to take a sizable step back after having a much more successful 2023 season than expected, in which they went 71-91. The young Nationals may have taken another step forward as CJ Abrams is officially taking the star turn, Luis García Jr. continues to rake and MacKenzie Gore looks like a future ace.

Considering that the Nationals were +8000 to win the division, hovering around .500 this far into the season is a massive win even if there seems to be negative regression coming down the ‘pike soon.

New York Mets (19-22): O/U 81.5 Wins, +1000 To Win Division

Cue the Dennis Green speech: This is who we thought the Mets would be. Well, maybe they weren’t expected to be in fourth place in the NL East but certainly right at or right under .500. It has been a season of stops and starts for the Mets who lost their first five games, won six in a row and have now lost four of five.

Losing catcher Francisco Álvarez and still being without ace Kodai Senga has really hurt this team, as has the wild inconsistencies of a pretty star-laden lineup and the league-high walk totals from the pitching staff. Whenever the Mets seem to be turning a corner, they lose in crushing fashion but when it looks as if they’re finally going to go in the tank, they stem the tide with big wins. That screams .500 which the Mets are just under pace to be.

Miami Marlins (12-32): O/U 77.5 Wins, +1600 To Win Division

The Marlins are the single-biggest disappointment in baseball this season. After making the playoffs in 2023 and earning Skip Schumaker the Manager of the Year Award, Miami has been a complete disaster. At this point, it looks like the Marlins would need a miracle to reach 78 wins for the over. The offense can’t score runs, the pitching staff can’t prevent runs and the injuries have been seemingly non-stop.

Things have gotten so bad for Miami that the Marlins traded the back-to-back batting champion in Luis Arráez nearly three months before the deadline. If that doesn’t scream failure, then we don’t know what does.

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