Division strength

[Frisbee Slider]

After April, which division seems to be the weakest in baseball?
 

Probably the NL Central? The AL Central might be off to a slower start, though. I probably would take Milwaukee and Saint Louis over the Twins and whoever ends up being the second best team in the AL Central.

I have to imagine the Guardians and White Sox improve as the year progresses.

The Reds are on pace to win 24 games this season. The Pirates seem scrappy but don’t seem likely to be close to .500 when the season is over. Cubs have already regressed to a 65 win team.
 

Every other division seems to have four competitive teams.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Cubs are going to have a decent offense. I'd guess they can bash their way to 72 -75 wins. 

it's definitely the 2 centrals though.

[Eye Black]

I think the NL Central is the worst division in baseball by a bit of a margin. This has been a couple of years in the making where the clubs made very few moves focused on present day wins. The one club that did seem to make splashy “win now” type moves in the past three years, the Reds, have had the strategy mostly backfire under poor management. 

In addition to the NL Central being bad in the present, there isn’t a lot of close to the majors prospect talent expected to flood NL Central rosters in the near future. The Cardinals probably have the best “close to the majors” talent in Nolan Gorman, Juan Yepez, and Matthew Libratore. The Cubs have put together an impressive collection of low minors talent (especially hitters), but many of those players are considered high risk as they are still years away from the majors. The Pirates have by far the most depth of quality minor league talent on the horizon, but it’s fair to wonder how meaningful that impact talent will be if they can’t supplement it financially with a competitive roster around them. 

The Brewers under David Stearns don’t tend to prescribe to the “window theory” as was more the practice under his predecessor, so I don’t expect a lot of “all in” type moves to be coming for the Crew. Regardless, it seems like the NL Central truly is there for the taking over the next couple of years. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

It's one of the centrals, for sure, though I'm not sure which one.

I'd probably lean toward the NL Central being worse simply because it has a weaker bottom end of the division. Cincinnati is absolutely terrible and so are the Pirates whereas the Tigers and Royals are just kinda bad (and the Tigers might end up being somewhat competent).

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 hours ago, Eye Black said:

Regardless, it seems like the NL Central truly is there for the taking over the next couple of years. 

Yeah, I'd consider anything less than the Brewers making the postseason two out of the next three years a failure. Their only immediate concern is the Cardinals, though the Pirates might be competitive in three years.

[Frisbee Slider]

@Brock Beauchamp Difficult question for you: which division has the better top two teams? AL or NL Central? 

[Brock Beauchamp]

32 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

@Brock Beauchamp Difficult question for you: which division has the better top two teams? AL or NL Central? 

I think the Brewers are better than anyone in the ALC but both the Twins and White Sox are better than the Cardinals.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Now you have me thinking so this is how I'd rank all ten teams:

1. Brewers
2. White Sox
3. Twins (2 & 3 might flip given what I've seen from the two teams this season)
4. Cardinals
5. Guardians
6. Tigers
7. Cubs
8. Royals
9a. Pirates
9b. Reds

With four of the top six in the ALC, I think I'll stick with that being the slightly better division overall but unless the Twins' pitching somehow keeps up its torrid pace (unlikely) or the White Sox completely reverse the slide they're in (more likely but woof, that defense), the Brewers are a notch above anyone in the ALC.

[KeithStone53151]

To add to your list, The AL Central teams especially the Guardians/Tigers/White Sox will probably improve in the immediate future moreso than really any NL Central team. They are all built with considerable young talent as well that should improve throughout the year. I think we are one healthy season away from Luis Robert being a better baseball player than Ronald Acuna. The Tigers have 2 potential star prospects at the big league level right now. The Guardians basically have a 26 man roster with 25 young talented players on min contracts...and Jose Ramirez. I don't see similar upside in any NL Central team. That fact further buries the Cubs/Pirates/Reds behind 4 AL Central teams.

[Brock Beauchamp]

15 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

To add to your list, The AL Central teams especially the Guardians/Tigers/White Sox will probably improve in the immediate future moreso than really any NL Central team. They are all built with considerable young talent as well that should improve throughout the year. I think we are one healthy season away from Luis Robert being a better baseball player than Ronald Acuna. The Tigers have 2 potential star prospects at the big league level right now. The Guardians basically have a 26 man roster with 25 young talented players on min contracts...and Jose Ramirez. I don't see similar upside in any NL Central team. That fact further buries the Cubs/Pirates/Reds behind 4 AL Central teams.

I completely agree. The Twins also have a very upper-minors-heavy system. Almost all of their top prospects are in AA or higher. I think the ALC is going to get really competitive for awhile and it will be interesting to see which team falls short, as they all have a lot of young talent on the cusp of the majors or already in the majors.

[Jopal78]

22 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

It's one of the centrals, for sure, though I'm not sure which one.

I'd probably lean toward the NL Central being worse simply because it has a weaker bottom end of the division. Cincinnati is absolutely terrible and so are the Pirates whereas the Tigers and Royals are just kinda bad (and the Tigers might end up being somewhat competent).

Of course it's the NL Central. The Reds and Pirates are not even attempting to be relevant. Given the number of question marks with their roster, most likely the Cubs will struggle to stay relevant as summer approaches: is the real Seiya Suzuki the guy who was on base 21 times in his first 35 plate appearances with 4 homers and 2 doubles, or the guy who has hit .212 with 4 doubles and 15Ks in his last 43 at bats. Ditto Hoerner and Madrigal, Come July they will ship out Contreras, Robertson, Givens and anyone else on an expiring contract. The Cardinals do what they always do, overachieve. 

Meanwhile in the AL Central, certainly the Twins, Guardians, Tigers view themselves as relevant, if not contenders.  The most talented team in the Division, the White Sox, are doing that that franchise always does... underachieve. The only team in the AL Central that appears totally outgunned is the Royals. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Of course it's the NL Central. The Reds and Pirates are not even attempting to be relevant. Given the number of question marks with their roster, most likely the Cubs will struggle to stay relevant as summer approaches: is the real Seiya Suzuki the guy who was on base 21 times in his first 35 plate appearances with 4 homers and 2 doubles, or the guy who has hit .212 with 4 doubles and 15Ks in his last 43 at bats. Ditto Hoerner and Madrigal, Come July they will ship out Contreras, Robertson, Givens and anyone else on an expiring contract. The Cardinals do what they always do, overachieve. 

Meanwhile in the AL Central, certainly the Twins, Guardians, Tigers view themselves as relevant, if not contenders.  The most talented team in the Division, the White Sox, are doing that that franchise always does... underachieve. The only team in the AL Central that appears totally outgunned is the Royals. 

I agree but was phrasing it more politely. ?

[NBBrewFan]

Well next year the schedule changes to a more "balanced" approach so we'll have a change in level of competition that if all things remain equal (pitching/hitting) would likely lead to fewer wins for the Brewers (and the Cards).  I'd be interested to see the impact the 2 schedules (this year, next year and beyond) have on the strength of schedule for the Brewers.  Maybe 2-3 win drop?

[Brock Beauchamp]

11 minutes ago, NBBrewFan said:

Well next year the schedule changes to a more "balanced" approach so we'll have a change in level of competition that if all things remain equal (pitching/hitting) would likely lead to fewer wins for the Brewers (and the Cards).  I'd be interested to see the impact the 2 schedules (this year, next year and beyond) have on the strength of schedule for the Brewers.  Maybe 2-3 win drop?

Yeah, I really don't know what to expect when the Centrals need to play other teams more often. I mean, the win total has to drop, I don't see how it wouldn't, but I have no idea by how much.

[NBBrewFan]

39 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Yeah, I really don't know what to expect when the Centrals need to play other teams more often. I mean, the win total has to drop, I don't see how it wouldn't, but I have no idea by how much.

I just did a back of the envelope based on 6 less games against the central teams (for Twins and Brewers). If you assume they will be playing 0.500 teams for those 24 games (the average team) compared to a 0.420 central and the Brewers are a 90 win team or 0.556 then (if I did this correctly) they would go from 16-8 against the NL central in those 24 games (on average) while they would likely go 14-10 against an average team.  About 2 wins for those 24 games. It's more complicated than that, but I would be surprised if the overall effect is more than 3 wins.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Not exactly a surprise to see that perceived division strength rankings mirror the average payrolls across each division, with the AL Central and NL Central ranked at the bottom.  That's even including the other divisional doormats who have extremely low payrolls.  

 

[Eye Black]

The thing that will forever remain confounding to me is the Cubs basically became a real estate development company while making little to no effort to stay relevant on the field during a period of time in which the path to competing with the Cardinals and Brewers really shouldn't have been overly daunting given their financial resources. Even in their trades they opted for talent that's years from making an impact at the MLB level. Unless they take a sharp course correction I have a hard time seeing them be relevant again until 2024 or beyond. 

[homer]

28 minutes ago, Eye Black said:

The thing that will forever remain confounding to me is the Cubs basically became a real estate development company while making little to no effort to stay relevant on the field during a period of time in which the path to competing with the Cardinals and Brewers really shouldn't have been overly daunting given their financial resources. Even in their trades they opted for talent that's years from making an impact at the MLB level. Unless they take a sharp course correction I have a hard time seeing them be relevant again until 2024 or beyond. 

Yeah there's zero reason they couldn't have a $200 million payroll (White Sox are at $193 million) except for the fact that their ownership doesn't really care about winning all that much. 

[Jopal78]

9 minutes ago, Eye Black said:

The thing that will forever remain confounding to me is the Cubs basically became a real estate development company while making little to no effort to stay relevant on the field during a period of time in which the path to competing with the Cardinals and Brewers really shouldn't have been overly daunting given their financial resources. Even in their trades they opted for talent that's years from making an impact at the MLB level. Unless they take a sharp course correction I have a hard time seeing them be relevant again until 2024 or beyond. 

I don't know if that is necessarily true. They got Pete Crow-Armstrong (#19 overall in 2020) for Baez. While he is currently in A-ball, he has an OPS of over 1.000 and will probably be in AA before too long. They also received Caleb Killian for Kris Bryant, he's already at AAA and likely will debut later this year. Nick Madrigal (#4 overall in 2018) is already on the major league roster. Codi Heuer was slated to be in the back end of the bullpen before suffering an arm injury this spring. They did get some low level minor leaguers for Rizzo and Darvish but that is more a byproduct of the fact, Rizzo was having a down year on an expiring contract when traded, and Darvish had an 80+ million dollar guarantee that the Padres assumed. Acquiring a half dozen A-ball players isn't a bad haul given the circumstances of those two trades. 

[Jopal78]

10 minutes ago, homer said:

Yeah there's zero reason they couldn't have a $200 million payroll (White Sox are at $193 million) except for the fact that their ownership doesn't really care about winning all that much. 

It's really no different than Attanasio having a payroll of $63million in 2016 when they didn't have the talent to compete, just economies of scale. I don't think many owners relish throwing away tens of millions of dollars to win 77 games instead of 69

[Fear The Chorizo]

1 hour ago, homer said:

Yeah there's zero reason they couldn't have a $200 million payroll (White Sox are at $193 million) except for the fact that their ownership doesn't really care about winning all that much. 

COVID couldn't have come at a worse time for the Cubs in terms of how the massive financing they took out to renovate the stadium, buy up a ton of surrounding real estate, develop it, and then have ~18 months where it generated zero gameday and event revenue right when they needed it to be operating at full capacity to start paying down debt.

I'm not saying the Ricketts can or should cry poor - they bit off an awful lot more than they themselves could chew when that investment made them no money and their team payroll was through the roof.

They still carry a payroll north of the Brewers this season in what amounts to a rebuild year - mainly due to recent roster mismanagement on the baseball field despite all the accolades.

[homer]

1 hour ago, Jopal78 said:

It's really no different than Attanasio having a payroll of $63million in 2016 when they didn't have the talent to compete, just economies of scale. I don't think many owners relish throwing away tens of millions of dollars to win 77 games instead of 69

But the Cubs got rid of a bunch of really good players because they didn't feel like paying them. The Brewers in 2016 did not.

[Fear The Chorizo]

The current Cub roster got into their current straights by throwing $$ and prospect capital to acquire veteran pitching in hopes their formerly young and cheap position player core would win them a few more WS titles -  that actually started during their WS run.  Doing so dramatically thinned their farm system and jacked up their payroll to the point where their management opted to send a bunch of soon to be free agents elsewhere at last season's deadline on rental trades.

I think if last season's early summer losing streak didn't happen that launched the Cubs into a firesale, at least one of Baez or Bryant + Rizzo would still be on their team.  Their management's plan to go into 2022 with a reduced but not cutthroat payroll has more to do with them acknowledging how bad their organization's MLB-ready pitching talent is - and how 2022-2023 seasons are likely to be gap years before that dramatically improves.  Their once-hyped core of young position players will all be largely past their primes to warrant throwing truckloads of $$ to keep them around, so it made sense for them to restock the bottom of their cupboard and try to get another wave of talent coming up together that can be bolstered via free agency in an offseason or two.  

All that being said, the trade of Darvish two winters ago was just weird, and frankly they've seemingly been in between the past several seasons with how they've built their major league rosters.