Los Angeles Dodgers: Predicting the 2019 NL West standings
By Jason Reed
2. Colorado Rockies — 88-74
The top two in the NL West are going to be exactly the same except it will not take a game 163 for the Los Angeles Dodgers to beat the Colorado Rockies. So before we even get into the Dodgers’ slide, explaining why the team will win the seventh straight NL West, you know it will be the Dodgers.
The Rockies will still have a good season by all accounts in 2019. Colorado will likely be in the wild-card race until the closing days of the season, although 88 wins might not be enough for the team to sneak in there.
The team did re-sign Nolan Arenado, which is a huge win for the front office. However, the team did lose DJ LeMahieu and replaced him with Daniel Murphy, who is poor defensively and has been trending negatively at the plate.
The team lost Adam Ottavino and some veteran role players but did not really lose much altogether.
The Rockies are just not as deep as the Dodgers and that is what is going to kill them in the end. The rotation is nowhere close to as deep and the bullpen lost its best arm in Ottavino. While the team itself might be just as good as it was last year, the improved National League is going to cause the Rockies to lose more games than last season.
The Rockies are certainly a threat and the Dodgers need to win as many games as possible against them in the regular season. However, at the end of the year, the standings probably shouldn’t be very close.