In the MLB Top 10s, here's what we do: rank players according to criteria. Those criteria change depending upon week and whim, but the Top 10s will always be informed by some angle or another, painfully contrived or otherwise.

And that brings us to this week's guiding query: Who are the NL East’s best position players and pitchers for 2015? Yes, we’re in the second week of a six-week tour of each of baseball’s divisions and the authoritative naming of the best performers therein.

All that matters is total overall value. I don’t care about how good the teams in question will be, only how the player in question figures to perform. Oh, and he must play for the Mets, Braves, Marlins, Phillies or Nationals. As always, defense and base-running matter for position players — it’s not about the bat only.

Yes, Giancarlo will be among the honorees this week. (USATSI)
Yes, Giancarlo will be among the honorees this week. (USATSI)

We’re of course just dipping our toe into the 2015 season, so results to date -- small sample size! -- won’t matter as much as they will later on. They’ll be taken into account on a secondary level, but what’s really important is our reasonable expectation of how the player will perform for all of 2015. And the vast majority of 2015 is yet to come.

Painful omissions? Ryan Zimmerman didn’t make the cut. The same goes for Wilson Ramos and Jayson Werth. Chase Utley won’t be on here (this is painful to type). Neither will Marcell Ozuna, Nick Markakis, Dee Gordon, Daniel Murphy, Freddy Galvis (no, his hot start is not sustainable), Denard Span and Ian Desmond.

On the pitching side, this miserable scribe was forced to leave off the likes of Mat Latos, Mike Minor, Shelby Miller, Gio Gonzalez, Jose Fernandez (obviously, he’d be near the top of the NL East pitching ledger if he weren’t recovering from Tommy John surgery)  and Henderson Alvarez (he’d also be on the list absent injury concerns).

And now let us recite baseball names for the dual purposes of SEO and making you angry. Feel free to brandish your incorrect opinions and make idle threats in the comments section.

Weapons-grade complaints and spleen-venting? By all means, reach out to the author at hotmail@hotmail.jpg.

First up, the position players ... 

RANK COMMENT
1 Giancarlo Stanton, Marlins. Not a difficult decision! Stanton is still just 25 years of age and already has 159 career homers to his name. His employer has determined he merited a potential investment of more than $300 million, and he owns a career OPS+ of 144 while also providing value in the field and on the bases. This season, he’s off to a hot start in what could be his first MVP campaign.
2 Freddie Freeman, Braves. Freeman boasts one of the best line-drive strokes in the game today. He’s a career .285/.364/.465 hitter who’s coming off a 2014 season in which he tallied 43 doubles and 90 walks. At age 25, Freeman has plenty more to come.  
3 Bryce Harper, Nationals. At an age when most guys are in Double-A, Harper owns a career OPS+ of 123 in more than 1,500 big-league plate appearances. Yes, he’s still just 22. Maybe the MVP-caliber breakout we’ve been waiting for has begun? Thus far in 2015, Harper is running an OPS of .932. Obviously, long-term I’d take Harper over any other player in the division not named Stanton (and I might take him over Stanton), but in 2015 alone, I narrowly favor Freeman ahead of him.
4 Andrelton Simmons, Braves. The most valuable defensive player in the game today? A catcher or three might have something to say about that, but Simmons is on the short-short-list of candidates. He’s off to a solid start at the plate this year, and let’s not forget that he tallied 17 homers in 2013.
5 Lucas Duda, Mets. Duda in 2014 cracked 30 homers and authored an OPS+ of 136, all of which built off the strides he made in 2013. He also has a pretty good knack for staying out of the double play. He’s off to quite a hot start in his age-29 season.  
6 Christian Yelich, Marlins. The former first-rounder indeed has a high ceiling, which is why the Marlins moved to sign him to a seven-year contract earlier this year. The 23-year-old has an advanced approach at the plate, on-base skills, speed on the bases and gap-power potential. He’s off to a slow start in 2015, but that won’t last.
7 Juan Lagares, Mets. Lagares is on here mostly because of his mega-elite glovework at the key position of center field. He’s a solid enough hitter and can run the bases, but it’s the fielding that drives his value. Lagares, per Ultimate Zone Rating, has been roughly 38 runs better than the average center fielder across almost 2,000 career defensive innings. The sample size isn’t huge, but that kind of excellence dovetails with the eye test. He’s legit.
8 Anthony Rendon, Nationals. Rendon, of course, has yet to play this season after undergoing knee surgery, but he’s presently on minor-league rehab assignment. Even after missing the first month or so, Rendon’s going to provide a lot of value this season via his bat, glove and spikes. Our Jon Heyman reported, the Nats are considering installing Rendon at second base, and if that comes to pass then his value will be potentially increased, as that’s a more premium position than third base, where Rendon spent most of last season. Speaking of last season, Rendon placed fifth in the NL MVP vote in 2014. If healthy all year, Rendon might be as high as no. 2 on this list. 
9 David Wright, Mets. Normally, Wright perhaps would be a little higher on this list, but he’s going to lose a chunk of his 2015 value while he’s on the DL with hamstring woes. Injuries will always be a concern with the 32-year-old face of the franchise, but he’s a producer when healthy. Decline probably isn’t far off for Wright, but for now the Steamer projection system tabs him for 3.3 WAR over the remainder of the season. That’s a reasonable forecast, and that’s enough to earn him a spot. 
10 Travis d’Arnaud, Mets. d’Arnaud is a 26-year-old catcher who has impressive power potential, especially by the standards of his position. Presently, he’s on the DL with a fractured finger, but he’s inching closer to resuming baseball activities. It says here that d’Arnaud gets back in time to provide enough season-long value to justify this ranking. His hot start to the season, pre-injury, doesn’t hurt matters.

And now for the pitchers ... 

RANK COMMENT
1 Max Scherzer, Nationals. While the Nats as a whole have disappointed thus far in 2015, Scherzer, whom they signed to a $210-million contract this past winter, certainly has not. After four starts, he’s pitched to a 1.26 ERA and 7.25 K/BB ratio. Obviously, he’s not going to maintain those kinds of run-prevention numbers, but Scherzer is indeed an elite bat-misser with a history of ace-grade performances over full seasons. In the non-DH league and in front of a more capable defense that he generally had in Detroit, Scherzer will contend for the NL Cy Young for years to come.
2 Matt Harvey, Mets. Suffice it to say, Harvey’s first post-Tommy John campaign is going swimmingly. He’s allowed nine runs in 26 2/3 innings, and he’s struck out 31 batters against just three walks. For his career, he owns an ERA+ of 147 and a K/BB ratio of 4.87. Obviously, Harvey’s arm bears monitoring, but that’s the case with every pitcher. Ace stuff will meet ace results this season.  
3 Cole Hamels, Phillies. You won’t find many more consistent frontline starters. Hamels has logged at least 200 innings in six of the last seven seasons, and he’s posted an ERA of 3.60 or lower in seven of the last eight seasons. All of that hovers around a career ERA+ of 125, which ranks 71st all-time and fourth among active pitchers.
4 Jordan Zimmermann, Nationals. The Nats’ other ace is off to a shaky start thus far in 2015, but the body of work overwhelms any early concerns. Over the past four seasons, Zimmermann has pitched to a 3.00 ERA and 4.34 K/BB ratio while averaging almost 200 innings per. In 2014, he took his command to new heights.
5 Stephen Strasburg, Nationals. Strasburg may have the best raw stuff of any starter in baseball, and the results haven’t been bad, either. For his career, he’s struck out 28.2 percent of opposing hitters, and those hitters have combined to bat .230/.285/.347 against him. Last season, Strasburg topped 200 innings for the first time in his career and also logged a career-best K/BB ratio of 5.63.
6 Julio Teheran, Braves. Full repertoire, good movement, changes levels and location, slow curve to complement hard stuff -- Teheran has the skills and instincts. Just now in his age-24 season, the Colombian-born Teheran has a 115 ERA+ and 3.32 K/BB ratio across parts of five big-league campaigns. 
7 Jacob deGrom, Mets. The 2014 NL Rookie of the Year is off to another strong start in 2015. deGrom pairs a plus fastball with a hard sinker, a very hard slider (said slider is averaging 89 mph thus far in 2015) and changeup that’s got a healthy 10 mph spread relative to his hard stuff. All of that has worked quite nicely for deGrom thus far.
8 Alex Wood, Braves. Wood is a sinkerball specialist who boasts a career ERA of 2.90 (127 ERA+) across 70 games, 39 of which have been starts. Last season, Wood struck out roughly a batter per inning, ran a K/BB ratio of 3.78 and recorded a quality start percentage of 79.2. Still just 24 years of age, Wood figures to be pre-prime in the here and now.
9 Doug Fister, Nationals. Obviously, in a rotation as deep as DC’s, the likes of Fister can be overlooked. But let’s not do that! The veteran right-hander owns a career groundball-fly ball ratio of 1.59 and a career ERA+ of 121. He’s fresh off a 2014 season in which he finished eighth in the NL Cy Young balloting.
10 Bartolo Colon, Mets. Colon is closing in on his 42nd birthday, but he’s had quite a run since being reborn as a fastball-sinker control artist. He backslid a bit last season, but the underlying peripherals remained strong. Thus far in 2015, Colon has struck out 23 in 26 innings of work while walking only one and keeping runs off the board. Sure, sudden decline is always a threat with a pitcher this old, but he’s showing no signs of it yet.

Until next week ...