Reasons to Cheer and Reasons to Fear for Every NL Team

Exploring the good and the bad for all 15 NL teams right now

Chris Sale has been one of the few bright spots for the Braves (Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images)

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Last week I wrote Reasons to Cheer, Reasons to Fear for every AL team. I made Royce Lewis the cover boy, and here’s what I wrote about the Twins’ fear:

Lewis, who cannot stay healthy, has played just 89 games over his first three big league seasons. It might not be such a problem if the team did not also count on Byron Buxton, who is made of glass and popsicle sticks, and Carlos Correa, who has the worst ankle at least once physician has ever seen. It’s the longest of shots that all three will be healthy in September and October.

Lewis lasted six whole days after I wrote that before injuring his groin yesterday, leaving the game, and telling reporters afterward that “I'm praying, but it's usually always horrible news. So we'll see." Twins’ beat writers tried to downplay the injury by saying that Lewis was actually talking about how the Twins front office often overreacts when he gets hurt and keeps him shelved for weeks longer than he would like, as if this potential tension between a star player and management is a rosier interpretation of his comments (????).

All of this is to say that I was afraid Royce Lewis would get hurt, he did, and here we are. So let’s turn to the National League and use what we’ve learned through the first half of this season to gauge what success and catastrophe would look like for all 15 of those teams during the season’s second half:

NL WEST:

1. Dodgers (53-33)

   Reason(s) to cheer: They’ve got an all-star starting rotation on the injured list in Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dustin May, and Tony Gonsolin but they’re still in first place by 8.5 games because they’re division is so bad. LA got crushed by injuries to four of those five guys last October, and added depth in Tyler Glasnow and James Paxton so an NLDS flameout wouldn’t happen again. Gavin Stone has been excellent, and Landon Knack has shown (so far) that he can hang in the bigs. The Dodgers also lost Mookie Betts to a broken hand two weeks ago and haven’t ceded any ground in the standings. Oh, and Shohei Ohtani is probably going to win the MVP.

   Reason(s) to fear: Miguel Rojas is this super team’s starting shortstop in the year of our Lord 2024 because Andrew Friedman let Manny Machado, Corey Seager, and Trea Turner all leave in free agency. Gavin Lux was supposed to take over the position but proved he could not handle it. Then Betts moved from right field to short and broke his hand after getting hit by a pitch. While Enrique Hernandez and Chris Taylor have been atrocious at the plate, Rojas has improbably been the team’s unsung MVP, stealing outs in the field, hitting .291, and mentoring young players in English and in Spanish. (Whatever they’re paying him is not enough.)

   With Betts out until probably mid-August the team will have a decision to make re: letting Rojas remain as the club’s primary shortstop over the next six weeks or trading for, say, Bo Bichette. They also need a third base man until Muncy returns, and Cavan Biggio ain’t it. The bottom line is the Dodgers probably need to make the World Series for the first time in four years for this season not to be considered a failure. And with the expanded playoffs turning October into a small-sample size hellscape, the odds of that happening are probably 1/6.

2. Padres (46-43)

   Reason(s) to cheer: It has come to my attention that some people have not yet heard of Jackson Merrill. The Padres used their first round pick on him in the 2021 draft (with the 27th selection) and it appears they did not miss. Despite having just turned 21 in April, he won the club’s starting centerfielder job on opening day. After a lackluster April and May, Merrill took off in June, whacking nine homers and posting an OPS of .987. Those nine bombs tied him for fourth-most in MLB for the month of June, behind Anthony Santander (13), Ohtani (12), Aaron Judge (11). (Royce Lewis also had nine). Also, uh, 11 years after being named MLB’s top overall prospect, Jurickson Profar has finally arrived. (??????)

   

   Jackson Merrill homers at Fenway (Photo by Jaiden Tripi/Getty Images)

   Reason(s) to fear: Manny Machado clearly isn’t himself after off-season elbow surgery— even though he won’t use it as an excuse for why he’s posted an OPS (.720) more than a hundred points worse than his career OPS (.824). Xander Bogaerts also hasn’t been right since he signed a mammoth free agent deal before the 2023 season. Given the nine-figure deals both Machado and Bogaerts are earning, you’d like to see those guys produce comparable to the same level as, say, Aaron Judge/Juan Soto for the Yankees or Shohei Ohtani/Freddie Freeman for the Dodgers. That hasn’t happened yet. Joe Musgrove has been ineffective or injured all year. Yu Darvish is also on the IL, and now Fernando Tatis Jr. is expected to be out until after the all-star break with a stress reaction in his thigh bone. AJ Preller will have to get busy yet again at the trading deadline.

3. San Francisco (42-44)

   Reason(s) to cheer: Heliot Ramos has been a revelation. Matt Chapman and Jorge Soler may (finally) be hitting a little. The team just took 2 of 3 from the Dodgers, which they care about more than any team taking 2 of 3 from anyone except….. the Padres taking 2 of 3 from the Dodgers….and the DBacks taking two of three from the Dodgers. Also, in theory, Robbie Ray, Blake Snell, and Alex Cobb will be back at some point this summer.

   

   Heliot Ramos reacts to hitting a double (Photo by Brandon Vallance/Getty Images)

   Reason(s) to fear: Until those three do return, the Giants currently have two healthy starting pitchers, which is not ideal because a team needs five. Snell has been awful, and now he’s frustrated the Giants are rushing him back from injury.