NL EAST Preview
We made it. This is the last entry in my MLB Hobby Preview. If you’ve missed any of the others, feel free to check them out here. It’s been a blast to write these and I’ll be checking in on my preseason takes at the All-Star break to see what type of prognosticator I am.
I held off on the NL East as I knew that as a Braves fan, I’d be verbose. I was, but I hopefully gave the other teams their due as well.
Atlanta Braves
The Braves have more hobby-relevant players than any other team in baseball. Yes, even more than the Dodgers. With one exception though, the Braves players all had down, or injury-plagued, years in 2024 and many will need big years to stay on the hobby radar in 2026.
Last year I was bemoaning the Chris Sale trade as I thought he was undependable. Now, he’s the Braves player I’m most confident in this season. He’s an older pitcher though so is unlikely to get much more attention than he’s currently getting. Another Cy Young will draw attention, but winning last year’s award went relatively unnoticed in the hobby.
Michael Harris has a ton of upside and could wind up as the face of the franchise even in a stacked lineup. Injury concerns are the primary concern along with some stretches of poor production. If he can put up a full season and avoid the slumps, he’ll get MVP votes.
Collectors have jumped off the Harris bandwagon and there are deals galore to be had on nice Harris RC autos. You can get some nice autos for $60 and some absolute stunners for around $100.
Ronald Acuna Jr. is coming back! Huzzah! Still, I’m more worried about him than any other Braves player. His running at the least will likely take a hit after a second ACL surgery.
What really worries me though is the fact that Acuna was unproductive in the third of the season he did play in last year. Fans have written off last year due to his injury, but he wasn’t even at an All-Star level, much less the expected MVP level that is expected.
Acuna cards are still priced as if he’s a top 5-10 player. His cards are only about 10% lower from when he got injured as many fans are optimistic about his long-term future and were looking to “buy the dip” even if the dip neve materialized in a big way. I’m not sure how long that optimism will hold out if he comes out swinging like last year.
Matt Olson changed his swing last year (I still don’t understand why) and had a large dip in pretty much every stat across the board. Olson will be 31 this year and needs 5 or 6 seasons of 5-7 WAR production to mount a good HOF case.
He can’t afford any more down years in his prime. If he plays like last year, his value in the hobby will tank as he’s the first of many NL East players that need decent years to maintain their hobby value.
He’s popular enough with Braves fans to retain solid value if he bounces back to 2023 levels. He looked like he finally figured out his new swing in August and I’m hopeful he can get back to All-Star form.
Austin Riley also took a major step back last year. Some of the loss of production comes from playing fewer games, but his OPS dipped from .863 in 2023 to .783 last year. With the first number, Riley is a mid-tier hobby star. At the latter, he’s bargain box fodder.
Ozzie Albies is on the verge of losing his hobby relevancy. He needs the next few seasons to be his peak years to get back into the HOF discussion. If he can get to 60 WAR with 8 All-Star games he’s got a good case.
Those are obtainable goals for Albies, but he needs a few 5 WAR seasons in a row. Another year like 2024, and collectors will start to abandon Albies.
Spencer Strider has historically elite strikeout numbers. Skenes gets all the buzz, but Strider has the second highest K/9inning rate in a season with a minimum of 150 innings pitched behind Gerrit Cole and right ahead of Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and teammate Chris Sale.
The question is what kind of pitcher will Strider be when he comes back? No one knows unfortunately as information on his recovery has been scant, but he looked awesome in his first action in Spring Training. I’m betting he gets back to his elite form, but it might take a year, and one wonders what limitations the Braves will put on him.
The Braves even have some youngsters of note. Spencer Schwellenbach looks like the real deal and the hobby esteems Braves pitchers. His cards have been moving briskly, and he’s being valued more than most young pitchers not named Skenes.
Drake Baldwin has been thrust into catching duties with Sean Murphy injured. He’s got a shot to get some hobby love as Braves fans are just looking for the slightest sign of production to get on board with him as a fan favorite.
That’s a stellar nine hobby-relevant players on just one team. As a Braves fan, I should be pumped. Instead, I’m worried that out of those nine, several won’t be relevant after this season.
Olson, Riley, and Albies are all on the cusp of being hobby afterthoughts. If they play like they did in 2024, they won’t get a mention here next year. Schwellenbach and Baldwin are question marks and might not be hobby relevant next year.
Florida Marlins
Sandy Alcantara is the Marlins player with the most hobby potential and he’s likely to be traded. He showed true ace potential in 2022 and is coming into what should be his prime years.
It’s hard for pitchers in the hobby and it will take a lot to get collectors to jump on the bandwagon of a 29-year-old pitcher coming back from injury with only two All-Star games and only one clearly HOF-worthy season. He does have a bit more buzz than most pitchers and a trade to a contender will help him get noticed.
Outside of Alcantara, the player I’m most excited to see is Eury Perez who is actually younger than Paul Skenes. Perez has filthy stuff and is eyeing a return around midseason. That leaves a few months to try to find bargains. I’m very curious what his card prices will do when he returns in a post-Skenes market.
Connor Norby might be interesting if he were on another team. The Marlins don’t have a good track record of getting much out of young hitters unfortunately. At least he’s not on the Cardinals.
Max Meyer and Ryan Weathers are interesting young pitchers, which is the most dangerous thing in the hobby for wallets. Weathers is also sadly starting the season on the IL after looking like a breakout guy.
New York Mets
The Mets don’t have anywhere near as many hobby-relevant players as the Braves, but the ones they do have are top-flight talent.
Juan Soto is a special hitter, and I’ve enjoyed watching Yankees fans do mental gymnastics to make themselves feel better about missing out on him.
Soto has a rare blend of power and contact. Soto is the only player that ranks in the top 25 in bat tracking data that targets power and the top 25 in contact categories. The intersection of skilled power and contact hitters is where the game’s best hitters can be found, and Soto is at the very top.
I’m positive Soto is an elite hitter. I’m less sure of his place in the hobby. The amount of vitriol and dislike around him is high and caps his hobby ceiling. In that way he reminds me of Bryce Harper. Soto will be a top 10 guy in the hobby. I’m not sure he can be a top 5 guy.
Francisco Lindor is overlooked. There are no two ways about it. I don’t expect that to change much unless he gets serious MVP buzz. There are some players that just don’t get quite the attention they deserve, even first-ballot HOF inductees.
It’s very easy to find underrated guys in the hobby. It’s much harder to find players over 30 that have seen their place in the hobby change for the good. Buy Lindor cards because he is awesome and HOF-level talent. Be wary of buying them expecting the rest of the hobby to realize that fact in the hope to catch a spike in his cards. Hobby momentum is real and almost impossible to change.
Pete Alonso’s offseason hurt his place in the hobby massively. The lack of suitors and the Mets’ nonchalance at signing him have cooled his cards way down. His ticket to the HOF is getting to 500 homers. He’ll need seven more seasons averaging 40 homers to get there which is tough to see happening.
I’m a bad Braves fan and have a small Alonso section of my PC. I’m not out on Alonso. I’m just holding off on expanding my Polar Bear collection as I think his prices will continue to drop as his HOF case gets less likely.
Philadelphia Phillies
Bryce Harper is a surefire first-ballot HOF induct, and at 32 his place in the hobby is pretty well cemented. That means it’s hard for him to do anything to cause a massive spike in card prices. He’s also polarizing, and some collectors will just never be won over.
The one thing that could is winning a third MVP award which would put him in a very select company of the game’s best players. I’ve seen Harper’s name floated as a popular MVP pick and he’s certainly still hitting at an MVP level.
J.T. Realmuto has a shot to wind up with more WAR than Yadier Molina and Buster Posey. He’s going to be an interesting HOF case. If he can get to 50 WAR, he’ll be a shoo-in. That’s way too tall an order unless he plays productively until 40 and mid-40s WAR seems more likely.
Molina and Posey will get in with WAR around that, but they have awards, accolades, and postseason heroics to put them over the top. Realmuto doesn’t stack up well there. He will finish up playing for only one team which aids popularity. It hasn’t been enough for Jorge Posada, Thurman Munson, or Bill Freehan who all have better resumes than Realmuto.
Helping Realmuto is that he is a clear top two catcher of his generation with Salvador Perez. A few more productive seasons
Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola are good baseball players, but irrelevant in the hobby. Neither has a real path to the HOF and without that, pitchers don’t get hobby attention.
Andrew Painter could get the Skenes treatment as an absurdly talented young pitcher. The question is if he’ll get time in the majors this year. The Phillies brass have said he will, but with a young pitcher rebounding from injury and the Phillies likely in contention, there are multiple reasons why his debut gets pushed back.
Washington Nationals
Dylan Crews and James Wood are giving the Nationals hope for the first time since they gutted their World Series roster. Crews has more immediate potential, but Wood has a higher ceiling.
Wood already crushes the ball at a superstar level. By some measures, he’s a top 10 hitter in terms of how hard he hits the ball. Unfortunately, he hits it straight into the ground with a launch angle under 3. Only four players who had 100 ABs had lower launch angles.
He also has a chance to up his barrel percentage. If he does that, he has a good shot to be the hardest hitting player in the majors this season. Whether or not that translates to production is dependent on improving that launch angle.
Luis Garcia is only 25 and if he had spent more earlier seasons in the minors instead of playing for the Nationals, I think he’d be getting more buzz this offseason. He was a high pedigree prospect who now is figuring out how to be an elite hitter.
Garcia produced at an MVP level in July and August last year and if he can get more consistent, he has the ability to be a 30/30 guy who hits over .300. Garcia flashed enough talent last year that if he does wind up getting MVP votes this year, the phrase “he came out of nowhere,” should not be uttered.
C.J. Abrams was a 20/20 guy as a 23-year-old All-Star last year. That should make him big in the hobby. He’s not. Abrams is the victim of an early call-up like Garcia. If he had
The bigger issue was the team throwing him under the bus for late night gambling and drinking binges. Lots of folks do stupid stuff at 23 and bounce back. Hopefully, Abrams will. With so many high ceiling youngsters in the hobby, there are just too many more attractive options for collectors looking for the next big thing.
I don’t know if Mike Soroka will ever be relevant in the hobby again. I’m cheering for him though and hope he does.
Wrap Up
That’s over 10,000 words of baseball preview. Next week, I promise that I’ll swap to football. I do expect a lot of baseball writing in the next couple of months though.