Cloverland Leagues: NL Southeast and West

OK, here's a few words about the remaining two divisions, the NL Southeast and NL West.


NL Southeast



1997 Marlins: I am not a fan of the Marlins franchise. Even having Mattingly and Jeter on board has only blunted my dislike. Still, this league needs a Marlins representative, so here they are. This was their first World Series team, from a time before they'd built up a lot of bad karma. This team could even be seen as plucky, knocking off the big Atlanta dynasty and then squeaking out a World Series win over a not-great Cleveland team. There was plenty of star power on the team, from Kevin Brown and Gary Sheffield to Bobby Bonilla and even Al Leiter!  I think this team is going to get killed.






1998 Braves: This was not only the best team of the 90's Atlanta dynasty but the best team this franchise produced in the entire 20th century. They won 106 games, and would be predicted to win 106 games. They got tripped up by San Diego (see below) in the playoffs. The famous members of the team were all there--Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz, plus this was when Kevin Millwood was one of their main pitchers. Chipper Jones and an aging Andres Galarraga led them on offense, along with a still-young Andruw Jones.




2008 "Knights":  This team needs a bit of explanation. As I said in the opening post for this season, if we took the best editions of all 30 current teams, we'd of course end up with 15 in each league in theory.  However, two teams have switched leagues in the DH era--Houston and Milwaukee. It turns out the best year for both of those teams occurred when they were members of the American League. Since it doesn't make sense to stick a DH team into a league where they can't use the DH, I put them both into the AL.  And rather than have one 16-team league and one 14-team league, I opted to add two teams to the NL--the 1994 Montreal Expos and this team, the "Charlotte Knights".  Basically, it's another Marlins team (which is ironic given how much I dislike the Marlins), pretending that they actually went through with a relocation in 2007 as they threatened. I was going to put them in Portland, but the divisions were more compact geographically if I put them in Charlotte, so here they are. The Knights are the name of Charlotte's minor league team. This was a mediocre team in real life, and by all rights they should lose 110+ games facing off against all-time greats every day. But more about that in a season preview post I plan.





2012 Nationals:  Well, here's another case where I misread and took the wrong team--both the 2014 and 2016 teams had higher Pythagorean winning percentages than this team.  Oh well.  Those teams were only a tiny amount better than this team, which has a 19-year-old Bryce Harper and Steven Strasburg just back from TJ surgery. I'll fix it next time around.


NL West




1993 Giants: Two teams tied for the best Pythagorean record in the DH era, I opted for 1993 since they had more real wins and since Barry Bonds was, well, not under a cloud. This team famously missed the playoffs although they won 103 games, and were led by Bonds, Matt Williams, and Will Clark.




1998 Padres: This Padres team won the most games in franchise history and also has the best Pythagorean record, in both cases by rather a bit. This was a pennant-winning team, led by Tony Gwynn putting in a typical Tony Gwynn season and Greg Vaughn putting in a 50-HR season (that was overshadowed by the McGwire-Sosa race).  Kevin Brown and Trevor Hoffman also show up on this team in major roles.




1999 Diamondbacks:  This team, not their World Series winner, was easily the best of the franchise. Jay Bell and Luis Gonzalez led the offense but the story was Randy Johnson and an absolutely monster year he had as a pitcher--364 Ks and an ERA of 2.48. He easily won the Cy Young Award.




2019 Dodgers: Winners of 106 games, their Pythagorean record suggests they "should" have won 107. It's always interesting to me when these franchises that have been around for ages and ages produce one of their best players or best teams just now when we're watching, but it definitely happened--this was the best team in the 60+ years the Dodgers have been in Los Angeles. Joc Pederson had a great year, but may only have been the 4th-best person in the lineup.  Cody Bellinger had a huge year, and Max Muncy and Justin Turner weren't tooo far behind.