#9/10 Seeded Teams
#9 2016 Arizona Diamondbacks
Original Season Record: 69-93, .426, 4th place, NL West
Star Attractions: The D-Backs had an enviable pair of stars in their lineup in 1B Psul Goldschmidt and 2B Jean Segura, who both had 20-plus home runs.30-plus steals and 100-plus runs scored, in addition to being elite defenders
Also Featuring: Jake Lamb slugged 29 homers and Yasmany Tomas hammered a team-high 31 dingers on a top-five Arizona offence.
Potential Pitfalls: In a qualifying league chock full of bad pitching staffs, the snakes take the cake with a league- worst 5.09 team ERA.
#10 2016 Philadelphia Phillies
Original Season Record: 71-91. .438, 4th place, NL East
Star Attractions: In a rebuilding season, there were no standout stars on this team
Also Featuring: The Phillies did have two solid starting pitchers in Jerad Eickhoff and Jeremy Hellickson, who had 3.65 and 3.71 ERAs respectively, and were both solid workhorses with 197.3 and 189 IP apiece. CF Odubel Herrera was a spark plug at the top of the batting order, hitting .286 with a .361 on-base percentage, scoring 87 runs and stealing 25 bases.
Potential Pitfalls:The Phillies were the lowest scoring team in the NL and second last in both batting average and on-base percentage. 6 of their 8 starters had a batting average below .260 and an on-base percentage below .310. The pitching was only marginally better with a 4.63 team ERA that ranked 12 out of 15 NL teams.
Create Your Own Website With Webador