Play Now
Men’s Brackets
Play Now
Women’s Brackets
A Daily SportsLine Betting Podcast
NFL Draft is coming up!
With only a week-and-a-half in the books of a six-month marathon, drawing sweeping conclusions on the entire league right now would be foolish. We know that. It would also be incredibly boring to just leave the rankings the same as they were in spring training without accounting for what we’ve seen so far. As I’ve preached now every April for over a decade here with the Official Power Rankings, we’re in “react without overreacting” mode. 
In terms of reacting, the National League East (henceforth: Least) really hasn’t covered itself in glory so far. In fact, it appears to have three of the worst teams in baseball behind the juggernaut Braves and 4-5 Phillies. 
It wasn’t that long ago that they hoisted a World Series trophy, but more recently they traded a dude who appears to be a future Hall of Famer. They lost 107 games in 2022 and 91 last year and my hunch is this year they settle between those figures (we’ll go with 97 losses). This ballclub was the best bet for a last-place finisher in the Least heading into the year and everything is right on schedule with the futility we’ve seen thus far. They sit 3-6 with an anemic offense and thin pitching staff. 
Sure, they were a playoff team last season, but so much went right for them and they still barely snuck in before getting bounced in two games. They also entered spring training without ace Sandy Alcantara (Tommy John surgery) and the rotation has been further ravaged since, with shoulder injuries to Braxton Garrett and Edward Cabrera, and Eury Pérez is also now headed to Tommy John surgery. The offense was lackluster last year and now it’s without big-time power man Jorge Soler. 
Things have spiraled on the field, too, unsurprisingly. They started a pathetic 0-9 despite it being a relatively friendly schedule. Sunday brought the first Marlins’ victory, but they are the worst team in baseball at the moment. 
As a reminder, this is the team with the highest payroll in baseball. Those MLB needs a salary cap! people will be aghast to learn that spending doesn’t necessarily equal winning in this sport. These Mets went 1-5 on a season-opening homestand against two teams that most believed heading into the season were mediocre. They now sit 3-6 with a four-game series in Atlanta on the docket next, so they’ll likely be 4-9 or even 3-10 heading to next weekend. 
Perhaps worst of all, if things continue on this path, Pete Alonso will get traded in front of the deadline instead of being handed a long-term extension. 
As I said, we shouldn’t be overreacting, but there are a lot of expected elements at play here. Even the best-case scenario for these three teams was mediocrity and things have already, rather dramatically, pushed that scenario further down the scale of likelihood. None of them have faced a difficult schedule and they still sport bad records. 
It really does look like the National League East houses three of the worst teams in baseball.
© 2004-2024 CBS Interactive. All Rights Reserved.
CBS Sports is a registered trademark of CBS Broadcasting Inc. Commissioner.com is a registered trademark of CBS Interactive Inc.
Images by Getty Images and US Presswire

source