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Most of the projections have our pitching staff as bad because they don’t believe in good defense as a thing, overly weight 2020 in their computers and generally have some weird year to year variance. I would flip St Louis and Milwaukee in those standings and think it looks fine.
Reyes would be the runaway favorite as MIL’s SP3 and the projection has MIL’s RA best in the NLC by 37 runs? That’s so bad it’s like an error needs corrected.
I have:
St Louis 92-70
Cincinnati 83-79
Chicago 81-81
Milwaukee 79-83
Pittsburgh 57-105The Cards seem clear favorites with the best pitching and defense in the division and at worst the 3rd best offense (but could be 2nd or first easily). The Cubs don’t have the pitching to win, Cincinnati has solid everything but defense, Milwaukee is overrated and the Pirates are gonna be bad, bad, bad. They will bump everyone else up and especially the Cards.
I can understand the love shown the Brewers to some extent. Yelich and Cain are logical bounce back candidates, Wong solidifies their IF defense, Hader and Williams are a good combo in the pen, and Woodruff and Burnes are two good starters, however, I agree that the rest of their rotation and lineup looks soft.
STL 9.35% chance of winning the Central? If vegas agrees I may have to gather up some loose change.
Keep your loose change. Brian posted the following odds for winning the division from betonline.ag Jan 14:
Cincinnati Reds 9/4
St. Louis Cardinals 5/2
Chicago Cubs 11/4
Milwaukee Brewers 13/4
Pittsburgh Pirates 33/1Today they are:
St. Louis Cardinals 7/5
Cincinnati Reds 5/2
Chicago Cubs 13/4
Milwaukee Brewers 4/1
Pittsburgh Pirates 50/1That’s an implied 41.67% chance of winning for the Cards.
These are the most reasonable division odds that I’ve seen.
https://lasvegassportsbetting.com/2021-MLB-Divisions-Las-Vegas-Odds_P44223.html
Fangraphs has us barely winning the division over the Brewers but only projects us at 81.5 wins. Huh?
Fangraphs projects the Cards going with 12 position players and 14 pitchers. Kodi Whitley making the team and Lane Thomas not.
https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/depth-charts/cardinals
Fangraphs comments about the NLC
Central Sadness
Wow, the NL Central projects poorly. The Brewers’ signing of Kolten Wong got them back even with the Cardinals… at a desultory 81.4 wins. We aren’t alone — pretty much any computer model in the world is going to be skeptical of a bunch of teams that haven’t played well in years and didn’t do enough adding to offset the effects of aging.Milwaukee has a superstar, but that’s kind of it. Wong projects as their third-best position player, and while I think that’s too pessimistic of a view on Keston Hiura, it’s still not great. For comparison’s sake, Atlanta has six players who project for more production than Lorenzo Cain, the Brew Crew’s second-best projection as a hitter. It’s not like they make it up with pitchers, either; the Corbin Burnes/Brandon Woodruff top of the rotation is great, but the back end is a little dicey. One thing worth monitoring: with Josh Hader and Devin Williams anchoring the bullpen, the Brewers might be able to outperform their run differential with clever reliever usage.
In St. Louis, the problems are much the same. Nolan Arenado and the various Pauls (both DeJong and Goldschmidt) are the offensive highlights, and Dylan Carlson has a shot at being great, but the vaunted Cardinals depth has slipped a little bit in recent years; we don’t think Tommy Edman, Yadier Molina, or Tyler O’Neill will be average regulars, and that’s a lot of ballast to carry. The team is famous for its Devil Magic, so don’t count these guys out, but they combined to hit .232/.297/.363, good for an 82 wRC+, last year, so they’ll all need to excel on defense or surprise on offense to give the Cardinals a boost.
The Cubs have a shot, too. Their pitching staff is cover-your-eyes awful, even after adding a one win bump for the inevitable Kyle Hendricks underprojection (some things never change). They’re relying a lot on Shelby Miller and Tyson Miller. With such a low bar, though, their dynamic position player core of Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Javier Báez and friends gives them enough offense that we see them as 20% to make the playoffs.
The Reds are the clear fourth-best team in the division, and their offseason, as Dan Szymborski recently chronicled, did nothing to make things feel better. They’re projected for -0.6 WAR at shortstop, and even that feels optimistic considering the players they’re trotting out there.
Nick Castellanos was quietly disappointing last year. Joey Votto can only fight father time for so long. Shogo Akiyama was underwhelming in his first year in the majors. The offense has now been bad for two years, and there’s no one coming to save it. That puts too much pressure on the pitching, and while their pitching is good, it’s not that good. Despite that, we still give them a 14.7% chance at winning the division, which should tell you everything you need to know.
How bad is the NL Central? We project the Red Sox, only 12.8% to win their division, as more likely to win the World Series than the Cardinals and Brewers combined. We think the Blue Jays are as likely to win the World Series as the entire NL Central. On our projected standings page, you can see each team’s true-talent win percentage before accounting for their schedule, and all five NL Central teams are below .500. Not great!
Fangraphs is overly weighting the weird 2020 season and underrating the Cards defense (all projections do). Hence why they come out way low on some teams. I’d definitely take the over on the Cards at 81.4 wins.
The fact that rest of the division either stayed the same or got worse clearly makes the Cardinals the favorite. I think the reds have the best shot at finishing second but that would require them playing to their potential and I haven’t seen that in a long while. The cubs have the cash to make big moves but as they are right now, they shouldn’t be a real threat. The brewers I guess could bounce back but I’m thinking they will be about the same though 500 may be possible. If the Cardinals are 500 or anything close, that will be a disappointment.
The fangraphs explanation for the Cards is not totally unreasonable. The team will be carrying a lot of below average ballast unless several projected regulars do more than they have. And everyone faced the same issues in 2020, its not just our young guys whose 2020 performance shortfalls should be discounted. Or I should say our young batters. Our young pitchers’ impressive 2020 performances somehow shouldn’t be similarly discounted for some magical reason.
And everyone faced the same issues in 2020,
No one else faced 53 games in 44 days. I discount a lot of what happened in 2020, but especially the stats from the Cards as they limped to the finish line. There’s just not much to be taken from a team running on fumes.
I think the addition of another great hitter isn’t being considered enough. If arenado comes close to his averages over his career, and goldy has another solid season, it’s going to make things a lot easier on everyone else. Will they become superstars, probably not, but they won’t have to be. Also defense is always underrated in things like this and we should be about as good as we have been in a long time. Now is pitching a concern, yea, but it is for everyone in the division. I know on paper we aren’t up there with some teams in other divisions, but I think we can dominate in our division if we play up go par. That should be our first step, after that maybe we can make another move or two to get to a higher level.
I think you are onto something there, Willie. It will especially help Goldy to have someone in the lineup that forces guys to pitch to him. So while his walk rate (and OBP) may drop a little this year, I think it’s fair to expect his SLG to rise and his overall OPS to be in the upper .800s. Arenado…probably should be in the same range. When’s the last time our lineup had two regulars with OPS over .850? Looks like 2016 or 2017, but those were more guys who just popped up to do well (Pham, Jose Martinez or Aledmys Diaz) than expected boppers like Carpenter. I’d say you would have to go back to 2013 to see two guys you’d truly say were “Middle of the Order” bats with Carp (of course hitting leadoff), Holliday and perhaps Beltran and Yadi or Allen Craig.
Add in a more steady 2021 performance from Carlson, Edman and Dejong (upper .700s to .800ish OPS) and the offense should be fine. It’s just a matter of whether O’Neill or Thomas can break out and really make the lineup very good.
Batting 1st and 2nd has to improve from last season to take advantage of Arenado and Goldschmidt as RBI bats. The back half of the lineup becomes an afterthought if the top two positions produce a combined 71 ops+ again.
We are sorely lacking in top of order guys since OBP is the thing that matters.
If Edman can match his .350 OBP from 2019 as a part timer and as a minor leaguer he will be serviceable in the absence of something better. If he is closer to his .317 2020 when he was a regular, that will not work.
Hopefully Carlson will do like he did at Springfield in 2019 since he will be top of order. But he’s not in the Texas League anymore. Countless guys have looked good at the plate in the Texas League and not in MLB. Whatever you might say about Carlson could have been said about many of them as well. It is roll of the dice. If he comes up craps we try one of the other outfielders who are even more unlikely. Opponents will have had a better look at all those guys going into this year.
We also have issues with the 5-6 slots with DeJong and Yadi or vice versa. For DeJong to be adequate protection, he needs to reprise his AA self from 2017, 4 years ago, rather than continue with anything he has done since. Even with pop, a 2.50 BA, 325 OBP guy is inadequate hitting 5th. 6th would be better if we had a legit #5. Yadi will likely be a .250-.260/.300 OBP singles hitting DP machine. Not happnin as #5. (or#6).
Again, throw out all 2020 stats. Edman is not going to be a high OBP guy but I do think he will be closer to his .350 OBP than his .317. Carlson came on strong to end the year last year. He has an excellent batting eye and I have no doubt he will run >.350 OBP his entire career. Maybe even pushing .400, although likely not in 2020. I think both of those guys will be fine in the leadoff and #2 spots, over 100 OPS+ between them for sure.
Also, I am going to beat this drum until it falls apart but…Dejong with proper rest will have no trouble in the #5 spot. Career first half: .269/.340/.473/.813. Career second half: .236/.300/.461/.762. This isn’t a guy that pitchers suddenly “figure out” every year at the halfway point. He’s a guy who gets played into the ground since the Cards have had no viable backup. Rest in the form of Sosa or Edman sliding to SS occasionally should do wonders for Paul and I think he may have a career year at the plate thanks to it.
All in all, I don’t see this as a bunch of players who have to “do more” than they have to make the team better. I see it as a group that simply needs to play to expectations and get a little rest and things will fall into place.
stlcard25, can you explain the difference between “do more than they have” and “play to expectations”?
stlcard25, can you explain the difference between “do more than they have” and “play to expectations”?
Sure. Perhaps you are intending it differently, but I see “do more than they have” as a plain view look at the stats as the be all/end all. The 35 year old and the 22 year old are lumped into the same category. So if the guy has hit for a .750 OPS in his career, that’s what he is. To “do more” would be a surprise. This is the general view of projection systems like Fangraphs or Baseball Reference. I’m not saying it’s always wrong (sometimes it’s very right) but it’s only a general view of past performance and nothing else. On a prospect level, this is what happened to Elehuris Montero who got hammered for his “struggle” in Springfield despite the fact that it occurred due to a hamate bone injury, notoriously difficult to come back from.
To “play to expectations” takes other factors into account, such as age, injury, seasonal status, position, etc. For example, Matt Carpenter OPSed .640 last year and Dylan Carlson .616. One is a 35 year old at the tail end of his career and the other is a 22 year old super prospect just getting going. It’s certainly reasonable to expect a step up for Carlson (maybe even a large one as it’s usually year 2 that players of his caliber take off), but no one would be shocked if Carpenter is a below average player again this year. Dejong is another good example. He’s in his prime and the split stats and expectation of having some time off rather than iron manning it indicates we can expect a better full season from him.
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