The Braves finish 90-72 to win the East. When I started this thread back in July, I had two basic predictions.
One, the 89 wins was the median of at least tying the division. 88-90 wins, with 89 as the median. I was off by one win, but in general, I and others were correct in predicting that neither the Braves or Phillies would blow it out in the last third of the season and get to 95 wins or something.
Two, I assumed that both teams would fall of their pace at the time, which was above .550. The Braves did a bit better than expected, the Phillies worse than I thought. Baseball history has shown that in the middle of the season, out of two "out of nowhere" teams, especially two in the same division, at least one will collapse. The Phillies didn't exactly collapse, but in finishing with a losing record and with the long losing streak (9 losses in a row) in the last two weeks of the year, they clearly ran out of gas. However, the chances of both "why not" teams collapsing wasn't a likely event.
From the first post in this thread (July 23rd), the Nats improved a bit, from 49-50 (.495) to 33-30 (.524). A whopping three games above .500, which sucks but with the caveat that the team was partially disassembled by trades.
The Braves went from 54-43 (.557) to 36-29 (.554). They had some ups and downs, but like the Nats, pretty much ended the season with the same winning percentage as before July 23rd.
The Phillies went from 55-44 (.555) to 25-38 (.397). A big chuck of those losses were in the last two weeks of the season, when they did seem to throw in the towel, but they would have had a steep falloff from the 90+ win pace they were on in July. Considering that they actually brought in some players via trades for the stretch run and fell way short will leave a sour taste for the offseason.
