The long-awaited National League East edition of “Explaining MLB Teams in College Football Terms” is finally here! The NL East is interesting as the top teams are very good, and the bottom teams are very, very bad. This is Part 4 of 6, so make sure to check out the other parts after you’re done here. This is the NL East explained in college football terms.

Atlanta Braves – Georgia Bulldogs

How fun is this? Two Georgia teams that just won championships and are expected to make runs again in 2022! What’s that? The Braves are seriously underperforming and have massive questions about their pitching? The Braves have already given up 161 runs through 37 games, including three games giving up double digit runs so far this season. Their pitching last year was very good, so I expect some regression to the mean as the season goes on. I still think that the Braves could make a playoff run, but their difference makers just need to come into their own. Not to mention the fact that the Braves just got a top five position player in the league, Ronald Acuña Jr., back from injury after an ACL tear before the All-Star break last year. Much like Georgia, the defense will be at the top of the league with their extremely rangy outfield, but the offense will be no slouch either, as they’ll be close to the top of the league in runs scored as well. The comparison to that outfield would have to be Georgia’s front seven, because very little is going to get through it once it comes into its own, much like the combo of Jordan Davis, Travon Walker, and Nakobe Dean.

Miami Marlins – Minnesota Golden Gophers

This comp is definitely helped by Miami’s season so far, as the Marlins’ pitching core has been one of the top groups this season. Where the comp really shines is their position players in the field, as their defense has been extremely fun to watch and their infield has made some amazing plays. Jazz Chisholm, Joey Wendle, and Jesús Sánchez have all been very good to start the season. Going back to the pitching, the Jesus Lizard himself, Jesús Luzardo, has been fantastic, and Pablo López has been on a tear as well. This team’s offense has been the issue for many seasons now, and while they have some solid players, many of their everyday position players are negative offensive assets. Five of their nine everyday batters are below average so far this season by WRC+. Just like Minnesota last season, their defense grades out amazingly, but without an offense to score, the defense is going to have to carry this team to several wins. A Marlins postseason game would likely be similar to Minnesota’s bowl game last year — low scoring and boring. But I would expect the Marlins to lose if they make it to the Wild Card game.

New York Mets – Memphis Tigers

This is a weird one, for sure, but hear me out: a great content creator named Foolish Baseball has a fantastic video about the 2020 Mets that dives into why they were such a strange team, but I’ll sum it up here. The 2020 Mets are the fifth-best team all-time by WRC+, which is a statistic that combines batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage into one stat (wOBA) and then adjusts for the scoring environment the team played in (park factors and era). Strangely enough, the Mets were 13th in runs scored in 2020, and missed the playoffs. This is due to sequencing; WRC+ doesn’t take into account what order hits happened in, but that affects runs scored immensely. The 2020 Memphis Tigers were 22nd in total yards, but 44th in scoring — the largest gap I observed among the top 25 schools by yardage in 2020. Memphis also started 2021 off hot, going 3-0 to start, only to finish 6-6. The Mets were winning the NL East for the majority of the 2021 season, but they ended up missing the playoffs, which was the first time that had ever happened in MLB history. Both teams look to bounce back, with the Mets having signed some of the biggest names in free agency, and Memphis adding several solid recruits as well as transfers while publishing plans for what might become the coolest stadium in college football.

Philadelphia Phillies – Oklahoma Sooners

Oklahoma has been really, really good since 2000, when it was the BCS champion, but since then, it hasn’t been able to put it all together, losing several playoff games, as well as multiple BCS championship games. The Phillies have had a couple bad seasons with good teams, falling short of expectations almost every year since winning the 2008 World Series. Similar to Oklahoma’s quarterback dynasty, the Phillies have almost always had a Cy Young-caliber pitcher since 2008 with Cole Hamels, Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and now Aaron Nola and Zach Wheeler. After Gabe Kapler left after the 2020 season and went to the Bay Area to join the San Francisco Giants, the Phillies looked to hire one of the most successful managers on the market in former Yankees manager Joe Girardi. Oklahoma lost its coach to a California team and went out to get one of the most successful assistant coaches in college football in Brent Venables. Both teams look to capitalize on talent-filled rosters and prove their doubters wrong in 2022.

Washington Nationals – LSU Tigers (but not in reverse)

The Nationals had been competitive throughout the 2010s but could never put it together to win a World Series, much like LSU was unable to sustain its championship-level success after its 2007 BCS win. Then, both the Nationals and LSU won it all in 2019 with absolutely dominant performances from Anthony Rendon for Washington and Joe Burrow for LSU. Since their title runs, both teams have heavily underperformed, with the Nationals going into immediate rebuild mode and LSU not surpassing .500 in a season since then. These teams both have a lot of questions revolving their roster, and that shows perfectly with LSU’s quarterback battle mirroring Washington’s pitching rotation. Nobody really seems to know what will happen with LSU at the quarterback position, as Jayden Daniels, Myles Brennan, and Garrett Nussmeier are getting some press as the possible starter in 2022. The Nationals have no idea what to do with their starting rotation, as they don’t have a single starting pitcher with an above average ERA+, with the only bright spot being former top prospect Josiah Gray, who has shown flashes of ace material but definitely has room to grow. Both of these teams look to be years away from competing as over the last few years they have hemorrhaged talent, but the Nats’ farm system and LSU’s recruiting skill should keep fans optimistic for the future.

Check out the first three parts of the series below!

AL East

AL Central

AL West