New Year, New NL Central Champion?
In the past three years, the National League Central has been won by three different teams. Those three teams, The Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals were all in the playoff picture last year. The word parity gets thrown around a lot, but this is division is very much up for grabs to whoever wants it.
The St. Louis Cardinals seized control of the Central after a two year playoff hiatus and they seem primed to hold position. Their off-season has been pretty quiet, but they are now rumored to be discussing a trade for Nolan Arenado. Marcell Ozuna is currently a free agent, but appears to be a contingency plan if they don’t acquire Arenado. They still have Paul Goldschmidt, who started rough, but looked closer to his former self in the second half. If Matt Carpenter can’t bounce back and Goldschmidt continues to decline, then this lineup probably needs one more bat for a deep playoff run.
The rotation will be led by Jack Flaherty, who was superb in the second half last year. Adam Wainwright will look to beat father time for another year, while Miles Mikolas looks to build off his strong second half. Kwang-Hyun Kim comes over from the KBL, looking to fill out the back end of the rotation. It should be a fine rotation, though it’s tough to call it the most complete rotation in comparison to others in the division.
The bullpen survived Jordan Hicks going down with Tommy John and will look to continue without him in 2020. Giovanny Gallegos was impressive and Carlos Martínez performed well as a high leverage reliever. Andrew Miller continues to strike people out, but walks plenty as well. He’s not the shutdown fireman he once was, but he’s still effective against lefties at the very least. Overall, the Cardinals look good for division leaders or the Wild Card at the very worst.
There’s a bizzaro universe where the Milwaukee Brewers don’t lose on a booted outfield play and maybe win a World Series instead of the Nationals, but that’s not this universe. They will rely once again on Christian Yelich performing like a MVP candidate to lead their lineup. Lorenzo Cain had a down year, probably tied to his BABIP being it’s lowest since 2013, but he was still a very good defender in center field.
Their offseason hasn’t been sexy, with a Eric Sogard signing here and a trade for Omar Narváez there, but these were still incremental improvements. They also acquired Luis Urías via trade, as it looks like their patience with Orlando Arcia has run out. Urías will pair with Keston Hiura up the middle for the foreseeable future. Ryan Braun will work in at first base, since he started to show some decline in left field, but is still at least a serviceable bat. This lineup should still be good enough to support their pitching staff.
There’s no “Ace” pitcher in the rotation, maybe it’s Brandon Woodruff, but the bullpen still has Josh Hader and Brent Suter. There’s a possibility Corey Knebel comes back from Tommy John back to his 2017 self, but expectations should be low for him. Given that the Cubs haven’t done anything this offseason (more on that in a second), the Brewers can still give the Cardinals a run for the division or another Wild Card berth.
Tom Ricketts, the owner of the Chicago Cubs, would like you to know that there is no money to spend for free agents, especially if it means going over the competitive balance tax. Don’t worry that the Cubs went to at least the National League Championship Series from 2015 to 2017 because of their free agent signings prior to 2015 (along with pillaging their farm system post-2015), that doesn’t matter.
Now, we sit here in 2020, coming off a year where the Cubs missed the playoffs, despite being a strong favorite in September:
A quick aside. I don’t think there’s an organization, outside maybe the Dodgers, who have hit on as many first round draft picks as the Cubs since 2011. A list for you:
2011 First Round: Javier Báez
2012 First Round: Albert Almora Jr.
2013 First Round: Kris Bryant
2014 First Round: Kyle Schwarber
2015 First Round: Ian Happ
2016: No first rounder
2017: Brendon Little (2019 in High-A)
2018: Nico Hoerner (made MLB debut in 2019)
There are two MVP candidates above, along with two or three MLB caliber starters. When you have that type of luck, you should be able to build a dynasty, which may require you to spend money to supplement that talent or retain it. There have been more free agent misses for the Cubs recently than hits, and that’s been the main issue (digression: I really thought Jason Heyward would work out). Because of those misses, they’ve had to deal from their once impressive mountain of prospects.
Here are some top prospects who once belonged to the Cubs:
Gleyber Torres: Now with the New York Yankees in Majors
Eloy Jiménez: Now with the Chicago White Sox in Majors
Dylan Cease: Now with the Chicago White Sox in Majors
Without the Gleyber trade, there’s no Aroldis Chapman during the World Series run. Without Eloy Jimenez and Dylan Cease, there is no Jose Quintana in the current rotation, which by the way, should still be good in 2020! Even after losing Cole Hamels and possibly replacing him with Tyler Chatwood. Yu Darvish finally looked like an ace pitcher after the All-Star break. A front line of Darvish-Hendricks-Quintana, really isn’t bad. Jon Lester is still entirely serviceable as a fourth starter.
The bullpen is really where the Cubs need help. They picked up some interesting pieces like Rowan Wick and Brad Wieck, who performed well in short stints, but it remains to be seen if they can sustain it. Gone is Pedro Strop and arguably their best reliever, Steve Cishek. The main hope is that Craig Kimbrel will be better with a regular off-season to prepare.
There was a rumor that the Cubs would want to trade for Nolan Arenado while keeping Bryant and moving him to center field. It sounds like a great deal for the Cubs! They should do it! The only problem, would appear to be that their farm system is a barren wasteland. So, I don’t see that happening. Plus, I’m not sure the offense is entirely their issue.
The window for contention is closing, they will only have those first round draft picks I listed up top for potentially another year or two. At which point, we are looking at potentially another rebuild, if they don’t retain their core.
I wrote about the Cincinnati Reds last week, so I won’t re-hash that entirely. They should be much better than last year, with a very good rotation. Their lineup still probably needs another bat and the bullpen isn’t anything otherworldly, but it isn’t bad either. They might be another year away from a playoff berth, or they could be the fourth different team to win the Central in four years.
Just under five years ago, the Pittsburgh Pirates were in the National League Wild Card game, where they lost to the Cubs. Since then, it’s been a long, hard crash. Please reminisce with me, as we look at a rotation the Pirates could have had in 2019 with Tyler Glasnow, Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon, and Charlie Morton. Now, Cole and Morton were not the same pitchers, nor was Glasnow. The Pirates, under former general manager Neil Huntington, had an innate ability to identify talent, with absolutely no way to develop it correctly.
Pitching coach, Ray Searage, emphasized sinkers and groundballs, despite having four insanely powerful pitchers and an industry-wide shift in hitting. Now, they’ve cleaned out the front office and major league staff to rebuild. We can’t go back an undo the Chris Archer trade (he was a lot better after ditching his sinker) to bring back Glasnow or Austin Meadows. We can’t bring back Gerrit Cole, either. So, the Pirates will run out a rotation with Archer, Mitch Keller and Joe Musgrove, as Taillon recovers from Tommy John.
Look for Starling Marte and Archer (if he can maintain his small second half success) as possible trade bait to re-stock the farm system. It will be hard to see much success for the Pirates in 2020.
