The Nationals, Dodgers, and Cubs were all preseason favorites, and they’re all in very different spots now

Baseball is hard to predict. If you don’t believe me, check in with my preseason predictions, in which I’m a) wrong a lot and b) fond of mentioning that “baseball is hard to predict” seven times before the end of the first paragraph.

The National League before this season, though, wasn’t so hard to predict. Slap the Dodgers in first in the NL West, the Cubs in first in the Central, and the Nationals in first in the East, and figure out the other dozen teams later. While I’m sure there have been three clear divisional favorites in a league before, the lack of ambiguity in these divisions seemed unusual. The Dodgers were going to win because they’ve won four straight division titles, and they improved in the offseason. The Cubs were going to win because they were a freakishly young championship team. The Nationals had the pitching and the lineup.

A few months into the season, though, and these three teams are separating themselves. Not only that, but it turns out that they were capable of surprising us. Sometimes for better. Sometimes for worse. Here’s a midseason check-in on the three (supposed) beasts of the National League.

If the Cubs were in the NL East, they’d be nine games behind the Nationals. If they were in the NL West, they’d be 17 games behind the Dodgers, closer to the Padres than second place. They still have a chance to make good on those near-unanimous first place predictions from the preseason, but only because of the relatively weak Central.

The Cubs have been hovering around .500 so consistently since the very beginning of the season, it’ll be wildly inappropriate to use the term “hovering around .500” for any team over the next decade. Twice they’ve pushed four games over .500. Both times, a four-game losing streak sucked them right back.

Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo both look like the perennial MVP candidates the Cubs were expecting, and they’re still going to form the core of a team that will contend for at least five or six years. The problems are with almost everyone else. Jason Heyward is hitting like Ben Zobrist this year, which means there’s a finger curled up on a severed monkey’s paw somewhere. Other than Ian Happ, the young hitters haven’t progressed nearly as well as the Cubs had hope, with Kyle Schwarber going back to the minors to tinker with his swing, even.

By ERA, Eddie Butler has been the Cubs’ best starting pitcher. Everyone they’ve tried has been astoundingly mediocre or downright awful. The adjusted ERA for every Cubs starter this season (before Jose Quintana’s brilliant debut): 52, 81, 99, 101, 103, 105, 107. That’s like a mathematical proof for a .500 team.

The Cubs are the Ghost of Baseball Past, then, a formerly dominating team with the same roster and young players, most of whom are young and were expected to improve. They can’t stop winning as many as they lose, though, and it’s made for a much more confusing season than anyone was expecting.

Ah, this is when we go back and time and talk to a Nationals fan from six months ago.

Hello. I’m a Nationals fan from six months ago.

Right. I’m guessing you have questions.

How’s Max Scherzer?

A Cy Young contender.

The rest of the rotation?

Gio Gonzalez has been eerily effective. Stephen Strasburg has been fine. They’ve had injuries and inconsistency at the back end, but the starting pitching has been an overall strength.

Is Daniel Murphy still doing a Rod Carew impersonation?

Yes.

Is Bryce Harper better?

Much. He’s back to his old self. His old, young self, which is great news for you.

Any surprises you want to spoil for me?

Ryan Zimmerman is reborn, and his OPS is pushing 1000. Anthony Rendon might be the best hitter on the team. Even Jayson Werth and Michael Taylor are hitting a little bit.

Wow! What about the bullpen?

Whoa, look at that, it’s getting late. I have to go back to my own time now.

The hell was that? You just looked at your wrist, but you’re not even wearing a watch.

Sorry, just out of time. Hope I helped make you feel better.

WAIT. IS THE BULLPEN BAD AGAIN?

[looks at wrist again]

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? HOW CAN THEY HAVE ONE FLAW AND NOT ADDRESS IT IN THE OFFSEASON? HOW HOW HOW HOW

The good news for the Nationals is that they just filled two spots in their bullpen with one trade, nabbing Ryan Madson and Sean Doolittle for Blake Treinen and last year’s second- and third-round picks. The two relievers have combined for 70 strikeouts and eight walks in 60⅔ innings, which vaults them immediately to the top of the bullpen depth chart. And, considering that the trade didn’t devastate their farm system, they can still afford to make another deal.

The story of the Nationals before the season was “great roster, suspect bullpen.” It wasn’t a secret. And this season has been a tale of a great roster and a suspect bullpen. While that seems like a sad tale, it’s not. It’s a completely fixable problem, and Washington just got a huge jump on the repairs. Contrast that with the Cubs, who have no idea how to fix whatever’s broken. Contrast that with the Red Sox, who have wobbled at times, and can’t shake the Yankees or Rays. The Nationals built a huge lead in the NL East, and now they get to address their biggest problem.

The rest of the National League should be scared. Even if it’s right to wonder why in the heck the team with multiple Drew Storen postseason memories waited until the middle of the season. They’re the Ghost of Baseball Present, getting better at the only part of the roster they could still drastically improve. They were a scary team already, and they’re getting scarier.

Before the season started, FanGraphs projected the Dodgers to win more games than the Cubs. It seemed possible, but unlikely, and I’d like to think there were a lot of arguments in the FanGraphs Computer Labs.

Instead, the Dodgers look like the best team baseball has seen since the 2001 Mariners. Clayton Kershaw might win the Cy Young, but Alex Wood might go 20-0. Kenley Jansen is in the middle of one of history’s great relief seasons. The next home run Cody Bellinger hits will give him as many home runs as any Giants hitter has hit in a season since Barry Bonds left. Corey Seager will be an MVP candidate for the next 10 years, and Justin Turner is somehow getting even better at age 32.

The Dodgers are 29-4 over their last 33 games, which is the best such stretch in franchise history. Of all the teams in franchise history, from Duke Snider and Sandy Koufax to Steve Garvey and Fernando Valenzuela, no Dodgers team has had success like this. And while the other two preseason favorites have already made big trades, the Dodgers can still improve the rotation (Yu Darvish?) and the bullpen (Zach Britton?), or they can sort of hang back and gloat like the 64-29 team they are, clutching their prospects tightly to their chest.

I’d make fun of the part where they’re prospect-huggers, except you know that every team has been asking for Seager and Bellinger for the last three years, and they’re probably OK with the decision to hang on to them.

The Dodgers are the Ghost of Baseball Future, unconscionably young and improving, with untapped potential to address whatever weak spots they still might have. They’re going to win the NL West by a million games, and they’ll have home-field advantage throughout the postseason unless something goes screwy.

My point with all this? Well, I guess it’s that of the three obvious contenders, one of them was far worse than anyone predicted, one of them is almost exactly where they were supposed to be, and one of them is threatening to be one of baseball’s all-time great teams. This is a rough spectrum of baseball and baseball-related expectations, then. The Cubs could be worse (see: the smoldering crater in San Francisco), but this is about as reasonable of a worst-case scenario as presumptive favorites and defending champions can have.

Before the season, we didn’t know much, but we did know that the Cubs, Nationals, and Dodgers were going to win their divisions. Now that we’re here, it’s a good reminder that baseball is never that easy.

Unless it’s even easier.