How does the Nats line-up matchup to the Mets?

Posted on January 21, 2016 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

When sjm308 put together his projection of the Nats vs Mets for positional players, it seemed to be the perfect post as we close in on less than 30 days to the opening of Spring Training.

The NL East looks to be the Mets and Nats once again fighting it out for 1st and 2nd with the Marlins not far behind.

The sjm308 projection:

  1. 3rd Base: Rendon over Wright by a huge margin
  2. Shortstop: Espinosa/Turner over Astrubal Cabrera is a little closer but not much
  3. 2nd Base: Murphy over Walker might be the closest on paper
  4. 1st Base: Zimmerman over Duda – again if healthy this is not close
  5. RF: Harper over Granderson – hell Harper over anyone!! (ok maybe Trout)
  6. CF: Revere/MAT over Lagares
  7. Catcher: Ramos over d’whatever his name is – this one could be argued.
  8. LF:  Conforto over Werth

The Ghost projection:

  1. 3rd Base: Rendon over Wright by a huge margin
  2. Shortstop: Espinosa/Turner over Astrubal Cabrera by a decent margin based on defense and speed.  Tie on the offense.
  3. 2nd Base: Murphy over Walker goes to a small advantage to Walker based on defense but Baker can neutralize that by giving some starts against LHPs to Espinosa
  4. 1st Base: Zimmerman over Duda – Which Ryan Zimmerman shows up for 2016? Advantage right now to Duda as he has the recent track record
  5. RF: Harper over Granderson – Agreed with Harper over anyone!!
  6. CF: Revere/MAT over Lagares/De Aza  This should favor the Nats
  7. Catcher: Ramos over d’whatever his name is – this one could be argued. D’Arnaud provides poor defense and that’s where you begin to judge your catcher
  8. LF:  Conforto over Werth again is subject to Werth’s health

You can go off of 2016 projections or the FanGraphs WAR charts to see which team is better but we can safely say as the teams line up right now the Nats are better on offense and the Mets have a better pitching staff and the Nats have the better bullpen except for the closer.

Steamer600 has Bryce Harper as the 2nd best player projected for 2016 only behind Mike Trout.

Here is the up-to-date FanGraphs projections for 2016 standings and the Nats are projected at 88 wins to the Mets at 83.  

The bottomline is that you have to play the games to determine who wins the NL East, and today everyone is tied at 0-0.

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