The NL East is competitive enough that — like a baking recipe — slight alterations will create wide variance.
And, even at this late offseason date, a few changes register as way more than slight. The Mets named a new manager before the old one showed up for the first day of spring training. The Braves and Nationals battled back and forth for Josh Donaldson, and he wound up … a Twin. Atlanta, thus, needed a third baseman and signed … an outfielder, maybe the best one available in free agency, to, of all things, a one-year contract.