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Since most of the major activity of the offseason has now concluded I will offer my predictions for the NLC in 2025.
1. Cubs 89-73
2. Brewers 85-77
3. Reds 81-81
4. Cardinals 78-84
5. Pirates 74-88I suppose there is a slight chance we overachieve but I am not seeing it. I think we will be major sellers in July. Sad but true.
Brewers 90-72
Cubs 85-77
Cards 83-79
Reds 76-86
Pirates 73-89Cards have better pitching and hitting than expected, but it’s not enough to overcome and Mo finishes off with a winning year, yet no playoff spot.
Fangraphs predictions:
ZiPS Projected Standings – NL Central (2/13)
Team W L
Cubs 86 76
Brewers 84 78
Cards 79 83
Reds 79 83
Pirates 77 85The 2025 Start of Spring ZiPS Projected Standings: National League
Finishing up 7 in back seems pretty close to reality. That’s 3 full games better than last season and a full 14 games better than ’23. Things are looking up, so let’s just call it another mundane and wearisome season.
I expect the reds to be better than most. I think they will finish at worst second. I expect brewers to be worse so third seems likely. I expect the cardinals to be fighting it out with the pirates for last place but the cardinals pitching could be ok, just not sure about the hitting. Pitching def could go well south if there are any major injury stints. So they could sneak past brewers if all goes well which hardly ever happens.
1. Cubs 91-71 (Excuse me while I get a bit sick.)
2. Brewers 86-76
3. Reds 82-80
4. Cardinals 75-87
5. Pirates 72-90I could see up to as high as 84 wins or as low as 68.
Cubs 91-71
Reds 84-78
Cards 83-79
Brewers 78-84
Pirates 76-86Not a lot of of distance between last and first here. I think the Cards get off to a hot start and are 7 or 8 over .500 by end of May and then taper off a bit with just under .500 ball the rest of the way.
You’ve got both the Cardinals and Pirates with the precise same W/L record that they placed into the books in ’24, J. I wonder what the odds of that happening would be?
It’s a much better team than some think.
Compare any plausible 2025 roster to the 71 win 2023 roster.
In my view the position player portion along with the BP doesn’t look too bad. It’s my guess that the potential for a genuine disaster is located in the starting rotation. It could get real ugly before the kids get out of school.
Worst case scenario, hanging around on the periphery of the last wild card spot at the trade deadline. Mo doesn’t want his last season to be a bomb and may do something stupid. Even if it is only making no moves.
This is a tough year to project our club as we could be much better than things appears now, or we could fall off a cliff. A wide standard deviation of outcomes.
I think Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Chicago will all be better this year, and Milwaukee will drop some. But since we do not play as many divisional games as we had in the past, who knows.
All I can say is Chicago is the clear cut favorite, and you can toss the other four in a cup and randomly draw them out and be about as accurate as any other method of projecting. So I did just that – put their names on a piece of paper and drew them out of a Starbucks cup. It came out this way, with the arch rival Cubs not part of the drawing and the top club:
Chicago
Cincinnati
Pittsburgh
Milwaukee
St. Louis (ouch!)I agree that the Cubs are the clear cut favorite.
I have been predicting the demise of the Brewers for years now and it never happens. They defy gravity so it is hard for me to pick them below 2nd.
I give the Reds the edge over the Cardinals for 3rd because of Tito Francona. He is a HOF manager in my book.
The Cards are my 4th team and well the Pirates are the Pirates. They have a few nice young talented players but their owner refuses to bolster the roster. He is a real scrooge.
Based on what GC? He was on the team the last two yearsand we didn’t win the division. In 2023 we finished last and in 2024 we were tied for 2nd. We have added zero players this winter except for a few NRI and minor league contract types.
And tied for second in ’24 may as well have been tied for last. They finished 10 games back in ’24 after finishing 21 off the pace the previous season. Both those seasons were indentical in the sense that the team never came close to creating the impression that they could compete. They were exposed as a second divion type organization straight out of the gate in both of the aforementioned seasons and I fully expect that to be the case in ’25. We’ll see what happens.
I think it would be fun to win the World Series with Arenado in spite of the …. reset? or whatever the FO is calling it today.
Well we will see. Whitey’s 1985 team was expected to finish last, and ended up winning over 100 games. It looked like a disaster going in to the season though. They had traded Keith Hernandez a season and a half before and now the division rival Mets had added some talented youngsters to suddenly become good. They traded their only power hitter for a soft tossing lefty who had not done anything noticeable in Boston or Pittsburgh, and acquired Jack Clark to replace him. But they were going to make a first baseman out of Clark as they had no else to play there with Hernandez gone. They lost their HOF caliber closer in free agency, and shortstop Ozzie Smith was in a contract haggle. Things seemed to be in a mess.
Imagine the chaos level our players could create by positioning the org into buyer status this deadline. That would be hilarious.
It’s really hard to pick b/c if Arenado and Helsley have good first half’s they could be easily dealt to contending teams…I’m pretty sure they would also deal Grey and Contreras if they have any demand and would waive their no trades to go to a contending team, and thus putting quite a bit of money back into Dewitt’s pocket over the next few years.
Reds………..…..86 wins
Brewers…..….85 wins
Cubs…………….82 Wins
Pirates………..77 wins
Cardinals…..75 wins
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