The Competitive Landscape in the NL is Shifting East and Other Bullets

December 5, 2018, by Brett Taylor Chicago Cubs

My stomach is angry at me this morning. What did I do to you? Was it the extra candy bar(s, plural) last night? Was it the larger-than-usual combo at Raisin’ Cane’s? Was it because you think I forgot our anniversary? What do you think the candy bars were for?

Powering through …

Watching the NL East try to one-up each other in every transaction of late has me thinking about the competitive landscape in the National League. There have been 14 NL Wild Cards in the two-team Wild Card Era (since 2012). Half of them have come from the NL Central (woot), and five came from the NL West. Just twice (ATL in ’12, NYM in ’16) has an NL East team made the WC Game. They are clearly fixin’ to change that in 2019.
… though obviously your best path to a Wild Card appearance is being in a division with more rebuilding teams, not fewer, thanks to the unbalanced schedule that has you playing your divisional opponents 19 times each. Sure, you’re still probably going to have to play to a winning record outside of your own division anyway, but if your division has four very competitive teams, you might just wind up beating each other up and make a Wild Card (or at least a multiple Wild Card situation) less likely.
Right now, you could only say for sure that the Diamondbacks and the Marlins are aiming to be non-competitive in 2019. The Reds are probably going to be non-competitive, but they are at least signaling that they want to add this offseason. The Giants are a bit of an unknown right now, but it’s looking like they may go into a down period. If that happens, and if the Padres don’t finally surprise, it could be a very nice situation for the Dodgers and Rockies, disproportionately so when compared to the four contenders in the East and the three(?) or four(?) contenders in the Central.
As the hoped-for madness of the Winter Meetings approaches, I am reminded of my favorite such stretch:

I cut about 1,000 words on the debacle that was those fake kid reporters from The Arm because it simple didn't fit. Just went back through my notes and found some wonderful quotes from Jon on Dec. 1, 2014. The last on is particularly prescient, well beyond its intended scope. pic.twitter.com/hWIVXA8pVT

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 5, 2018

Every year we remember the anniversary of Ron Santo’s passing, and then a couple days later the anniversary of his induction into the Hall of Fame – which came more than a year too late:

#OTD in 2011, Ron Santo was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Golden Era committee. pic.twitter.com/5N1CfjPoMZ

— Cubs Talk (@NBCSCubs) December 5, 2018

Farewell to Vine Line:

After 33 years and nearly 400 issues, it’s time for Vine Line to say goodbye to the best fans in baseball. Thank you and farewell to all our loyal readers. Go Cubs! pic.twitter.com/9qS4IlOQDX

— CubsVineLine (@cubsvineline) December 4, 2018

Congrats to the Smokies:

Congratulations to the @smokiesbaseball on winning the Freitas Award from @BaseballAmerica for Excellence in @Milb operations.

— Mick Gillispie (@BroadcasterMick) December 4, 2018