State of the Division: 2025 Rotations Across the NL East

The Atlanta Braves finished 2024 with one of the best rotations in all of baseball. What are the odds of repeating that feat in 2025?

The 2024 Atlanta Braves rotation was one of the best in baseball, somewhat surprisingly.

It’s not that we didn’t realize that the Braves rotation was going to be good entering the season. But with losing Spencer Strider after just two starts coupled with Max Fried allowing eleven runs (ten earned) in his first five innings, it was fair to question how effective the staff would be over the grind of a 162-game regular season.

In the end, Atlanta had the third-lowest rotation ERA at 3.58 (Kansas City was at 3.55 and Seattle was at 3.38) and the third-highest WAR total from their starters at 8.6 (Cincinnati had 9.3 and Kansas City had 10.3).

More crucially, in a season where the offense underperformed their historic 2023 season by more than by what standard regression would imply, this rotation kept the Braves in the playoff hunt all season despite not featuring as many top names as the divisional rival Philadelphia Phillies. (Philly finished 6th in rotation WAR at 5.3 and 8th in ERA at 3.81).

What are the odds that Atlanta maintains their pitching excellence in 2025? Let’s look at FanGraphs’ Roster Resource tool to predict each NL East team’s starting five, likely depth pieces, and guess if they’ll come in under or over 2024’s WAR totals.

Atlanta Braves

Starters:
LHP Chris Sale
RHP Reynaldo López
RHP Spencer Schwellenbach
RHP Ian Anderson
RHP Grant Holmes

Next men up:
RHP Bryce Elder
RHP AJ Smith-Shawver

Eventual injury return: RHP Spencer Strider (internal brace)

This is a formidable group on paper - last year’s Cy Young winner, one of last season’s success stories in the reliever-to-starter conversion category (Reynaldo López), and breakout star Spencer Schwellenbach.

The team’s got a lot of depth options, with my prediction of Ian Anderson and Grant Holmes filling the final two spots on Opening Day based on the fact that they’re both out of options - if a MLB starter is signed this offseason, Holmes likely starts in the pen as the long man and spot starter.

Last season’s WAR of 5.8: OVER

I’m taking the over here, simply because I’m assuming (hoping?) the Braves won’t need to give as many starts to some of the underwhelming depth options like Darius Vines (8.56 ERA), Allan Winans (15.26 ERA), and a not-ready Hurston Waldrep (16.71). This is a risky bet, though, as one injury could wreck the best-laid plans of Atlanta here.

Philadelphia Phillies

Starters:
RHP Zack Wheeler
LH Cristopher Sanchez
RHP Aaron Nola
LHP Ranger Suárez
LHP Jesús Luzardo

Next men up:
RHP Taijuan Walker
RHP Tyler Phillips

Eventual injury return: RHP Andrew Painter (UCL w/ internal brace)

The Phillies have the strongest 1-5 in the division, with a good mix of veterans and youth, lefties and righties, and potential (if the health holds out for Luzardo).

I still have my doubts about the depth outside of the top five, though - Walker was atrocious last season and Phillips is a sinker/slider guy with a decent floor but a low ceiling with that defense behind him. While Painter’s looked the part of a MLB regular in his limited playing time. he’s coming off of Tommy John surgery and will be asked to make his MLB debut when he’s first called up. The rest of the depth options (Mick Abel, Seth Johnson, Michael Mercado, etc.) are all unproven and underwhelming so far.

Last season’s WAR of 5.3: UNDER

Similar to Atlanta’s situation, injury can wreck this entire thing, although I do think Philly’s better suited to withstand one injury given the presence of Walker and (eventually) Painter.

New York Mets

Starters:
LHP Sean Manaea
RHP Kodai Senga
RHP Frankie Montas
LHP David Peterson
RHP Clay Holmes

Next men up:
RHP Tylor Megill
RHP Justin Hagenman

Eventual injury return: RHP Christian Scott (UCL w/ internal brace)

And here’s where we start to see the dropoff. We already know Luis Severino’s not walking back through that door, as he signed with the Athletics on a “please don’t file a revenue sharing grievance against us” contract. Manaea’s back and the hopes are that Senga’s healthy return can make up for Severino’s absence, but this still feels like a weaker group than last season.

At the same time, if there’s anyone likely to sign a starter that moves the needle this winter, it’s the Mets with Steve Cohen’s money.

Last season’s WAR of 2.5: OVER

This is a bet that the Mets and an underrated pitching development group can successfully navigate the Clay Holmes relief-to-starting conversion, as well as the financial resources to go out and take on a contract to get pitching help via trade midseason.

Washington Nationals

Starters:
LHP MacKenzie Gore
RHP Jake Irvin
RHP Mitchell Parker
RHP Michael Soroka
LHP DJ Herz

Next men up:
RHP Cade Cavalli
RHP Jackson Rutledge

Potential injury return: RHP Josiah Gray (UCL w/internal brace)

This is rough.

I like MacKenzie Gore, don’t get me wrong…just not as a #1 starter. It’s still a pretty young group overall, with the oldest of the group being 27-year-olds Michael Soroka and Jake Irvin.

The one thing that Washington should feel good about is innings - Gore, Irvin, and Parker combined for 505 innings last season, with Herz adding another 128 between AAA and the majors. That’s not nothing. This team used only nine starting pitchers last season, and one of them (Joan Adon) was an opener.

But the upside here feels limited - Irvin somehow led the NL in losses with 14 despite being on the same team as Patrick Corbin, while Gore threw a MLB-high 14 wild pitches while allowing opposing hitters to put up a .263 BAA.

Last season’s war of -2.7: OVER

Despite all of that, I’m going to give them a prediction to improve on the negative WAR total from last season, mostly from no longer having Patrick Corbin on the roster. The veteran led baseball in hits allowed (208) and earned runs allowed (109) despite pitching only 147.2 innings across 32 starts. He was worth -0.9 WAR all by himself and even getting league-average production out of whatever 5th starter ends up absorbing his outings means statistical improvement for this rotation.

Miami Marlins

Starters:
RHP Sandy Alcantara
RHP Edward Cabrera
LHP Ryan Weathers
LHP Braxton Garrett
RHP Max Meyer

Next men up:RHP Adam Mazur
RHP Valente Bellozo

Potential injury return: RHP Eury Perez (Tommy John with internal brace)

And now you have the massive unknown of the division in the Miami Marlins.

All five of these pitchers were hurt for portions (or in Alcantara’s case, all) of last season. There’s a lot of potential here - Weathers looked particularly good when he was healthy and Meyer’s a top prospect for a reason - but also giant question marks.

What makes this worse is that the minor league depth is also incredibly questionable, as so many players have cycled in and out of the organization ever since Peter Bendix took over as general manager. This team gave starts to TWENTY different pitchers last season (a few of those were openers, but still) and many of them aren’t even in the organization anymore - Trevor Rogers (Baltimore), Jesús Luzardo (Philadelphia), A.J. Puk (Arizona), Yonny Chirinos (free agent), Sixto Sánchez (free agent), Adam Roller (free agent), and Roddery Muñoz (St. Louis) are all players that have been traded, waived, or DFA in the last few months.

Last season’s war of -1.4: UNDER

This one’s tough - I like the five starters, in a vacuum. But over the course of 162, I worry about their workloads and the (lack of) depth behind them. Give me the under for now and bookmark this so you can laugh at me in October when they’ve somehow managed to keep four of those guys upright for 25 starts each.