Who Should Be the NL Central Favorite?
Cody Bellinger of the Chicago Cubs (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
The Cubs have landed their new star without committing to major years, giving Cody Bellinger a pillow contract that is essentially a one year, $30M deal with player options for 2025 and 2026. The Cubs would have faced major backlash from fans if they weren’t able to ink Bellinger or Matt Chapman, especially after a nice 2nd Half run and close Wild Card Race that culminated in a narrow Postseason miss for the Cubs. The Cubs are the only NL Central club in the last decade to make a World Series appearance, and they’d certainly like to find themselves in the Fall Classic again. Are Shota Imanaga, Hector Neris, and Cody Bellinger enough coming off of an 83 win season to have an edge over the rest of the division? The sportsbooks don’t think so, with Draftkings pricing the Cubs at +180 and the Cards at +185 to win the division. Fanduel notably has the Cards priced at +145 and the Cubs priced at +210 as of February 26th, with the Reds and Brewers long odds to win at +430 and +550 respectively. If you’re feeling optimistic about the Bucs this year, you can grab the Pirates for NL Central Division Winner at +2500 at Bet365.
2024 NL Central Winner Odds (Vegas Insider)
I think Jed Hoyer is a great choice to run your baseball operations, and I also think Tom Ricketts knows Jed can put together a competitive team this year without going over the luxury tax. While this roster will be competitive, I don’t think adding Shota Imanaga, a couple relievers, and rookie Michael Busch is going to be enough to have a major edge in the division entering the season. However, I do like the additions of Hector Neris and Yency Almonte to a bullpen that was 13th in the MLB year with a 3.85 ERA. The rotation was also around the middle of the pack despite Justin Steele’s breakout, and now Imanaga will replace Marcus Stroman. The Cubs were tied with the Cards in offense last year (104 wRC+), with solid but not elite overall production. They added rookie Michael Busch in the trade with the Dodgers, and will slot him at 1B full time to replace their 2023 deadline acquisition Jeimer Candelario, who signed with the division rival Reds this winter. Overall, the Cubs team is probably going to be about as good as they were last year, and will finish within the standard deviations of an 83-84 win team.
The Cards, as previously mentioned, had about as much offensive punch as the Cubs last season. I expect their offense to be even better in 2023, with potential breakouts from young players like Jordan Walker and Masyn Winn. The issue last season was that their pitching staff couldn’t do anything right all year. The bullpen was in the bottom third of the league for most of the year, and the starting rotation was even worse, finishing 26th in the MLB with a 5.08 ERA. The Cards’ front office responded by adding frontline starter Sonny Gray, as well as inning eaters Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn. Innings were a huge problem for St. Louis in 2023– only Miles Mikolas threw more than 130 innings for the Cards. Jack Flaherty and Jordan Montgomery each threw over 100 innings before being traded for prospects, while the Cards descended into last place in the NL Central. The Cardinals are essentially sticking with their 2023 offense, which is fine since that was a strength of theirs, and pretty much everybody is coming back for 2024. Adding relievers like John King and Keynan Middleton are fine, but I don’t think it’s enough to offset the losses of Jordan Hicks, Chris Stratton, and Genesis Cabrera. Overall, I like that they added an All Star like Sonny and some additional innings in the rotation, but I think the bullpen will take a step back. I’m expecting 84-85 wins for the Cards, and the contest for most wins between Chicago and St. Louis could come down to the last week of the season, which wouldn’t surprise me.
2023 NL Central Standings (MLB)
The Reds have much to look forward to in 2024, including a full season of Elly De La Cruz. I just wrote an article on the Reds emergence here, so I will keep this one brief. The Reds showed flashes in potential in every phase of the game last year, and they’re only going to get better. Nick Krall added some bullpen pieces, and the Jeimer Candelario signing is a nice touch for the Reds lineup. If the Reds can find the innings from their starting pitching and they get breakouts from their young core, they have the potential for a 90 win season. That’s if everything clicks though, an 83-84 win projection is more appropriate when considering the variance of injuries and performance.
The Brewers obviously won the division last year, but they also traded one of the best pitchers in baseball in Corbin Burnes, and Brandon Woodruff is essentially out for the year. I’m concerned that they didn’t add enough to the offense, considering their biggest signing is a power hitter who hasn’t played since the end of 2022 and had extensive rehab from a torn ACL. I like Rhys Hoskins, but I don’t think it’s fair to expect him to transform an offense that struggled to score consistently last year and finished substantially below average (92 wRC+). My secondary concern is they haven’t done enough to replace Burnes and Woodruff in the rotation, though Jakob Junis is a nice pickup. Right now, DL Hall is the projected 5th starter, and we’re not even sure he’s a starter really. Colin Rea is slotted at #4, which is concerning if the Brewers are looking to compete for the Postseason. I’m projecting 77-78 wins.
Finally, the Pirates have exciting arms coming through the farm system, including Paul Skenes. I also think Ke’Bryan Hayes could be on the verge of becoming a star, and Oneil Cruz is finally healthy. It’s nice to see that they extended their ace, Mitch Keller, but the rest of the rotation is backend starters. If the stars align for Pittsburgh, they’re a middle of the pack team. If they have a series of unfortunate events or even don’t get the aforementioned breakouts from their core players, they could easily find themselves 5th in NL Central at the end of the year. I have the Pirates win 73-74 games, probably less if they have more injuries on their pitching staff than expected.
*Stats are as of 2/27/24