End-of-season reactions for every NL team

After Opening Day 2021, theScore overreacted to small samples. Now that every team has completed its 162-game campaign, it's time to take in all the reasonable reactions one can glean for each club.

Let's take a look at the 15 National League teams.

Arizona Diamondbacks: At least they'll get a good draft pick. Somehow, the Diamondbacks were the worst team in the NL by a pretty wide margin despite entering the season with what seemed like a reasonably competitive roster. Losing Ketel Marte and Zac Gallen for large portions of the year likely had a significant impact, and the team should be expected to bounce back next year. How successfully the Diamondbacks do so may be linked to how many players graduate from their elite farm system.

Atlanta Braves: Alex Anthopoulos is a genius. After the Braves lost Ronald Acuna Jr. to a season-ending ACL injury, the seemingly cooked club added four outfielders to try to piece together Acuna's missing contributions. Those four players were Joc Pederson, Eddie Rosario, Jorge Soler, and Adam Duvall, and all of them wound up playing integral roles in the team's first World Series title since 1995.

Chicago Cubs: The new front office says it wants to spend this offseason rebuilding a championship roster, but ... the Cubs had a championship roster. It's infuriating that a team incapable of finding the right complementary pieces for Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Kyle Schwarber, et al. would rather hit reset than simply pay the stars it already had.

Cincinnati Reds: Something is amiss. This is the second straight season the Reds performed worse than expected, but this time, they scored more runs than every NL team besides the Dodgers, Giants, and Braves. With Nick Castellanos opting out, the Reds need to decide if their core - led by a resurgent Joey Votto this year - is worth retooling around or if they're back to rebuilding.

Colorado Rockies: It's more of the same. A somewhat surprisingly mediocre campaign (considering everyone expected much worse) was enough for ownership to commit to interim GM Bill Schmidt for the foreseeable future. While he isn't Jeff Bridich, he's had a major say in roster moves for this organization for over two decades. That doesn't sound ideal for a team starving for change.

Los Angeles Dodgers: What made this team so special turned out to be its depth, not its stars. Enrique Hernandez and Joc Pederson left, going on to take important roles for teams that played deep into October while making a combined $14 million in 2021. Instead of retaining that depth, the Dodgers opted to pay $40 million to Trevor Bauer this year alone. If Dustin May, Clayton Kershaw, and Max Muncy hadn't all suffered costly injuries, maybe we're not having this conversation. But if the Dodgers want to be a true dynasty, they need to insulate themselves better from those kinds of losses.

Miami Marlins: The Marlins seem to be adopting an interesting rebuild strategy: acquiring all the pitching. Over the next two seasons, it will be fascinating to see which starters become mainstays on a potential contender. There's a lot to choose from between Trevor Rogers, Sandy Alcantara, Jesus Luzardo, Sixto Sanchez, Elieser Hernandez, Pablo Lopez, Max Meyer, and Edward Cabrera - all of whom are 26 or younger.

Milwaukee Brewers: If the Brewers could develop hitters half as well as they develop pitchers, they'd have a shot at being a dynasty. Between Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta, Devin Williams, and Josh Hader, Milwaukee was expected to make a deep playoff run. However, the Brewers' lineup foiled them, failing to get much production from former MVP Christian Yelich or homegrown prospect Keston Hiura. Midseason acquisition Willy Adames carried the team for a while and Luis Urias took a step forward, but it just wasn't enough.

New York Mets: Turns out running a baseball team might be harder than just throwing around cash. And now owner Steve Cohen and president Sandy Alderson are having trouble finding anyone willing to run the Mets' baseball operations department. They've got the makings of a contender, but old cultural problems continue to loom in Flushing.

Philadelphia Phillies: An MVP-caliber season from Bryce Harper and a Cy Young-worthy campaign from Zack Wheeler (even if they don't take home the awards) were somehow not enough to get this team into contention. That must be frustrating, but finishing above .500 for the first time since 2011 is a step in the right direction for the Phillies. Hopefully, Dave Dombrowski has some more tricks up his sleeve.

Pittsburgh Pirates: Hey, another high draft pick. That's good.

San Diego Padres: 2022 will tell us a lot about the Padres. Are they more like the 2020 breakout team that won the second-most games in the NL? Or are they really like their miserably underperforming 2021 version, which added Yu Darvish and Blake Snell but struggled to a sub-.500 record? With Mike Clevinger healthy and Bob Melvin at the helm, there will be no excuses.

San Francisco Giants: Did Farhan Zaidi and the rest of the Giants' front office even expect this? San Francisco had looked like it was on the right track for a while, but arriving this early and with this much dominance was truly remarkable. If the Giants regress even a little bit next year, there will be a lot of talk about their 2021 being a mirage, but they deserve recognition for a lineup and pitching staff where no one ever seemed to struggle.

St. Louis Cardinals: Mike Shildt was an incredibly rare manager in the sense that he'd never played professional baseball. Despite that, he seemed to get the most out of his team, leading a pretty ho-hum Cardinals roster to three straight postseason berths. That wasn't enough to save his job, though. St. Louis turns to 35-year-old Oliver Marmol, who immediately becomes the youngest active skipper in the sport. Maybe it's unfair, but anything short of a playoff appearance will feel like a failure for the Cardinals after replacing Shildt.

Washington Nationals: No beating around the bush - the Nationals were terrible. They might not be as far away from competing as their record implies, however. By trading away Max Scherzer and Trea Turner, Washington expedited its rebuild, adding two major-league-ready prospects in right-hander Josiah Gray and catcher Keibert Ruiz. Juan Soto is 23, giving the Nationals ample time to rebuild around him, but he might not have to wait that long.