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Why National League Central is most interesting division in MLB as spring training opens

gordon wittenmyer, cincinnati enquirer
·7 min read
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The Reds won't have Corbin Burnes to kick them around this year after Milwaukee traded the former Cy Young winner to Baltimore Thursday. He has a career 2.57 ERA against the Reds, and the Brewers won three of the four games he pitched against Cincinnati last year.
The Reds won't have Corbin Burnes to kick them around this year after Milwaukee traded the former Cy Young winner to Baltimore Thursday. He has a career 2.57 ERA against the Reds, and the Brewers won three of the four games he pitched against Cincinnati last year.

With barely a week left before spring training starts, the Chicago Cubs haven’t finished spending their big free agent bucks; the Milwaukee Brewers might not be as finished as people think after trading the best pitcher in the division to the Baltimore Orioles; and the Cincinnati Reds say they’re feeding the sizable “hunger” of unfinished business after finishing two wins shy of the playoffs in 2023.

In other words, get a load of the most interesting baseball division in the world as pitchers and catchers report — a National League Central that has five teams with at least modest expectations of competing for a playoff spot for the first time since, well, maybe ever.

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“It’s not like the East or the West, where you feel like there’s just a juggernaut,” St. Louis Cardinals president John Mozeliak said.

But even the micro-budget Pittsburgh Pirates and, yes, the low-budget Reds have scary young talent — the Pirates jumping out to 20 wins faster than anyone in the league last year and the Reds pulling off that shocking would-be playoff run that ended in St. Louis with an elimination loss in the second-to-last game of the season.

“Our take on it is that 2023 was a really good year for the NL Central as far as how competitive it can be going forward,” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said. “We think we took a step ahead. But certainly the Cubs did, and the Reds did. And the Brewers have been tough, and as we all know, the Cardinals are going to be back.

“Just expect the division to be even more competitive (right now) than we thought it would be a year ago.”

To Mozeliak’s point, there’s no Shohei Ohtani and Los Angeles Dodgers in the Central, or Juan Soto Yankees or star-powered Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies.

But in the 30 years since realignment created this division, the NL Central has never looked more wide open and competitive top to bottom.

Even Cherington’s Pirates like their chances enough that they signed a potential Hall of Fame closer to an eight-figure deal in former Reds star Aroldis Chapman.

The Cubs’ biggest splash of the winter was their shocking hiring of Brewers manager Craig Counsell, and then they signed Japanese starting pitcher Shoto Imanaga, closer Hector Neris and traded for touted first base prospect Michael Busch from the Dodgers.

Cody Bellinger, who resurrected his career with a big season with the Chicago Cubs, is a free agent at the moment, but many in the industry think the Cubs could reach down in their deep pockets and resign him.
Cody Bellinger, who resurrected his career with a big season with the Chicago Cubs, is a free agent at the moment, but many in the industry think the Cubs could reach down in their deep pockets and resign him.

They lost a pair of two-time All-Stars to free agency in Cody Bellinger and Marcus Stroman, but might yet open the wallet again to bring back Bellinger and run back a similar looking team to their near-miss 2023 contender.

“Chicago’s always that sleeping giant,” Mozeliak said. “You never know what they may or may not do. Their resources tend to be a little different than the other four.”

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Mozeliak added three starting pitchers in the offseason before most executives had stirred from Thanksgiving tryptophan slumbers after his team’s surprising last-place face plant.

And before assuming Milwaukee’s blockbuster trade of Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes to the Orioles means a step back in 2024, take a look at the two major-league-ready players the Brewers got back — including stud left-hander DL Hall, who shined in a late-season debut last year that included striking out six of the 12 Texas batters he faced in two scoreless playoff appearances.

And then listen to Brewers GM Matt Arnold.

“I wouldn’t look at this as any kind of rebuild at all,” Arnold told Milwaukee media after the Burnes trade. “This is something, in fact, that we think helps us right now and helps us in the future.”

And this: According to last week’s top-150 starting pitcher ranking by The Athletic, the Brewers still have the top starter in the division in Freddy Peralta (15th on the list) after trading Burnes (who ranked second to Atlanta’s Spencer Strider).

So what does it all mean for the Reds as they report to spring training with last year’s roster almost entirely back, along with $108 million (not a typo) worth of free agents?

Reds manager David Bell takes questions from the audience during a Reds on Radio affiliates luncheon this offseason. Bell will be managing a team this season that added $108 million worth of free agents.
Reds manager David Bell takes questions from the audience during a Reds on Radio affiliates luncheon this offseason. Bell will be managing a team this season that added $108 million worth of free agents.

“We had enough success and failure last year that no one’s satisfied, so I think that helps,” Reds manager David Bell said. “We did come up short, which we didn’t like at all. But there’s plenty of motivation there."

Said outfielder Will Benson: "We're hungry to get that next step."

The Reds added switch-hitting corner infielder Jeimer Candelario, and perhaps most significantly potential starting pitchers in upside/bounce-back candidate Frankie Montas and swingman Nick Martinez, along with bullpen help in veteran lefty Brent Suter and right-hander Emilio Pagán.

And consider that even with the Cardinals adding 2023 Cy Young runner-up Sonny Gray — a Reds target — the Reds landed six starting pitchers in the top 125 on that Athletic list (which measured quality of “stuff” and projected performance).

That’s twice as many as the Cubs and three times as many as the Brewers and Pirates combined. In the most important position area of the game.

The NL Central’s top 15, according to that list (with overall rank in parenthesis):

  • 1. Freddy Peralta, Milwaukee (15)

  • 2. Justin Steele, Chicago (28)

  • 3. Sonny Gray, St. Louis (29)

  • 4. Hunter Greene, Cincinnati (32)

  • 5. Shota Imanaga, Chicago (39)

  • 6. Mitch Keller, Pittsburgh (60)

  • 7. Nick Lodolo, Cincinnati (64)

  • 8. Lance Lynn, St. Louis (80)

  • 9. Jameson Taillon, Chicago (90)

  • 10. Miles Mikolas, St. Louis (96)

  • 11. Graham Ashcraft, Cincinnati (99)

  • 12. Frankie Montas, Cincinnati (100)

  • 13. Andrew Abbott, Cincinnati (102)

  • 14. Kyle Gibson, St. Louis (118)

  • 15. Connor Phillips, Cincinnati (125)

As Nick Martinez said during Redsfest, “Who knows what this team can accomplish? This division is up for grabs and we’ve got a lot of guys who are hungry. It’s going to be a dogfight.”

And it might only be the beginning of the intrigue for what’s already the most interesting division in baseball. Especially if Arnold is right about what the Burnes trade did for the Brewers and the Reds’ youth-movement gamble pays off with its still too-young-to-be-sure core.

In an MLB Pipeline poll of major league executives published last month, the Pirates, Brewers and Cubs all got first-place votes for baseball’s best farm system, and the Reds, Brewers and Cubs were all among the 10 most underrated farm systems.

As recently as August, MLB Pipeline’s top five farm systems, in order, belonged to the Orioles, Pirates, Brewers, Cubs and Reds. The Cardinals were ranked ninth before the season started, and before sending most of their top prospects to the majors.

The Cubs, Brewers and Reds all rank among ESPN’s latest top 10 farm systems; and the Brewers, Cubs, Pirates and Reds are all in the top 12 of Baseball America’s preseason farm system talent rankings.

Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Ronald Acuna, Jose Altuve, Julio Rodriguez, Ohtani and Soto are all playing for other would-be contenders on big contracts.

But for exciting young players, much of baseball is keeping its eyes on the NL Central this spring, from Cincinnati’s Noelvi Marte and Elly De La Cruz to Milwaukee’s Hall and Jackson Chourio ($82 million before he’s played a big-league game). And the Cardinals’ Masyn Winn, Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong and Pirates’ Jared Jones in between.

“It’s going to be a fascinating division over the next four or five years,” Cubs president Jed Hoyer said. “I mean, you look at all the young talent that’s coming up. You’ve got five teams that have a lot of young talent.

“I know the last few years we haven’t been quite as talented as the East and West in the National League, but I expect that’s going to shift over the next few years.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: How Cincinnati Reds stack up in most interesting division in baseball