NL Central Division Preview
While the NL Central might not have the same top-team talent as the NL East’s Braves or the West’s Dodgers and Padres, it should still make for an exciting divisional race and a division to watch with many young players trying to take strides in 2023.
In fact, most sources have the Cardinals, Pirates, and Reds within the top 10 farm systems in MLB. Fangraphs projects the Cardinals and Brewers to lead the pack with the other three having much lower chances of making the playoffs or breaking .500.
St. Louis Cardinals
The Cardinals benefitted from their all-world corner infield duo Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt as well as from a bit of a renaissance from a 40-year-old Adam Wainwright and a 42-year-oldAlbert Pujols who also eclipsed the 700 home-run mark last season. They finished the only team in their division to make the playoffs, earning 93 wins across the season.
While Pujols and long-time beloved catcher Yadier Molina have retired after last year, there is plenty of hope for the Cards this year that they can win the division once again. For starters, they have replaced Yadier Molina’s 0.1 fWAR with the best free agent catcher of the class: Willson Contreras. Contreras will be 31 this season and is coming off a great year where he accumulated 3.3 fWAR in 113 games.
Additionally, St. Louis has Tommy Edman (5.6 fWAR), Brendan Donovan (2.7), Lars Nootbaar (2.7), and Dylan Carlson (2.4) who are all 27 or younger—with the last two being 24 and 23, respectively. If that’s not enough when it comes to young talent, they also have MLB’s 4th best prospect, Jordan Walker, who is set to make his Major League debut on Opening Day. Walker is a power-hitting corner infielder who will likely be bumped to corner outfield with the presence of the Cards’ two superstars at first and third.
With another strong season, the Cardinals would definitely see themselves atop the below-average strength NL Central.
Milwaukee Brewers
Milwaukee is coming off a season where they were poised to make the playoffs but fell just one game shy of earning a Wild Card spot in the NL after being overcome by the Phillies. Willy Adames was the team’s best position player with an accumulated 4.7 WAR, according to Fangraphs. The real position of note for the Brewers is their starting pitching ace duo of Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff, who had 4.6 and 3.5 WAR, respectively.
Burnes and Woodruff are anticipated to have another season where they surpass 8 WAR between them and will be a source of great strength for this team that might lack star power in position players. The Brewers will also be hoping for a return to form from Christian Yelich who, after two 7+ WAR years in 2018 and 2019, has failed to surpass 2.5 WAR across a season despite playing in 154 games last season.
The Brew Crew also have two top-100 outfield prospects who are projected to join the Brewers this season in the bigs: Sal Frelick and Joey Wiemer. This comes alongside 26-year old Luis Urías who should have a strong season after putting up 2.3 WAR last year.
If these many elements are able to shake out in the favor of the Brewers, this team is one that could push to steal the division or earn a Wild Card spot, but that remains to be seen. It’s also possible that the organization has ruined its relationship with its ace in arbitration and will fail to make the playoffs for the second consecutive year.
Chicago Cubs
2022 was not the Cubs year. Plain and simple. As a team at the earlier stages of a rebuild, there was little doubt that this team was not going to make the playoffs and they held true to expectations and failed to win 75 games for the second straight season. As well, there was an expectation that they would trade All-Star catcher Willson Contreras, but this did not come to fruition and they ended up losing him…to the rival St. Louis Cardinals.
Thankfully, the future is not all dim for the Cubs as they signed one of baseball’s biggest free agents this summer, shored up their rotation a bit, and have a few young stars who could set a nice core for a solid team. This team went with a big swing in free agency and signed Dansby Swanson who was a top-10 player in a very very strong free agent class. Additionally, they added Yankees starter Jameson Taillon who has shown good stuff and dependability now with a team who desperately needs it. These signings signify a belief within the organization that a window of competition is not far away. Ian Happ is looking to sign an extension with the club and is even willing to take a discount for the Cubbies. Nico Hoerner, coming off his best season, also just signed a deal that will keep him with the team for at least 3 additional years and will shift him back to second base which is a position where he was a Gold Glove finalist a few years ago before being shifted to shortstop.
While this team still has a couple years left before their top-end prospects are ready to make the jump to MLB, this team is headed in the right direction after a couple more unfortunate and hard to watch seasons. It would not be surprising to see the team finish right around 75 wins, if not even a few more.
Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pirates technically finished last in the division last year but they had the same record as the Reds. There are a few question marks that surround this team like how the pitching staff will perform and whether or not they will deal Bryan Reynolds before this year’s trade deadline.
The team is still years away from competing in the playoffs despite having a very strong, young left-side of the infield in Oneil Cruz and Ke’Bryan Hayes. Bryan Reynolds was far and away their best player last season and very likely will be this season unless Cruz takes a large stride forward. For this reason, Reynolds carries a lot of trade value and would absolutely help a competing team down the stretch. It helps that Reynolds becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year and has made it fairly clear that he wants to play for a competitor (read: not the Pirates, yet).
As well, the pitching staff for the Pirates is one of the weaker ones in the league with no pitcher anticipated to accumulate over 2 WAR, according to ZiPS.
The good news for the Pirates, however, is that they have a consensus top-10 farm system and 4 top-100 prospects set to come up in the next few years.
Cincinnati Reds
The Reds had what can only be described as a rough 2022 campaign. They tied for dead last in the NL Central with the Pirates and did not have a single player accrue more than 2.6 fWAR. The Reds also traded their top pitcher, Luis Castillo, to the Mariners at the deadline. The flip side of that, however, is that the Reds got a HAUL for Castillo in the form of the Mariners top 2 prospects, Noelvi Marte and Edwin Arroyo, who are both top-50 prospects at the estimation of MLB.
While, yes, the 2023 campaign will not be any prettier than 2022 for the Reds, there is a glimmer of hope for this historic club.
If you’re a fan of the Reds or are tuning into a Reds’ game this year, keep an eye out for Jonathan India, Spencer Steer, and Matt McLain for some young talent that could take steps forward. There is also a chance that Noelvi Marte could be up this year and make some waves this year as a potential big piece of this team’s future.
A win for this team would be to develop some of their good, young talent and trade what aging value they do have for any value they are able to get as they look toward the future.