How will the NL Central Turn Out

[stripmallp]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

The gap may be gettting smaller, but the Cards are still the favorites as long as Pujols is wearing the birds on the bat. After that it doesn't much matter, cause the wildcard will come from the East this year.

Cards
Astros
Cubs (at least they now have a leadoff guy)
Brewers (kids don't mature that fast)
Pirates or Reds

[ZM Punk]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

Would like to say the Cubs have a fighting chance this year but with a pitching staff that has Mark Prior and Kerry Wood I really don't like our chances.

Though I will say one thing getting a quality leadoff man in Pierre is going to help more than people think. Especially if Dusty lets him loose on the basepaths.

[Birdsonbat]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

Would like to say the Cubs have a fighting chance this year but with a pitching staff that has Mark Prior and Kerry Wood I really don't like our chances.

Though I will say one thing getting a quality leadoff man in Pierre is going to help more than people think. Especially if Dusty lets him loose on the basepaths.

He'll have to get that average, and more importantly that OBP, going in the other direction from last year to be a good leadoff man. He is better than Patterson, although that's not saying much.

[dalnet22]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

The Cardinals' potential 25 man roster embarrases me this year. However, their young pitching should keep them in contention for many years.

[BigRed]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

The Cardinals' potential 25 man roster embarrases me this year.

I think your standards are way too high.

[rsox]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

The Cardinals' potential 25 man roster embarrases me this year. However, their young pitching should keep them in contention for many years.

Lineup:
SS David Eckstein
2B Junior Spivey
1B Albert Pujols
CF Jim Edmonds
3B Scott Rolen
RF Juan Encarnacion
LF Larry Bigbie
C Yadier Molina

Bench
C Gary Benett
IF Deivi Cruz
IF Scott Spiezio
OF John Rodriguez
OF So Taguchi

Rotation
LHP Mark Mulder
RHP Chris Carpenter
RHP Jeff Suppan
RHP Jason Marquis
RHP Sidney Ponson

Bullpen
LHP Randy Flores
RHP Jason Isringhausen
RHP Braden Looper
RHP Jeff Nelson
LHP Ricardo Rincon
RHP Brad Thompson

The last roster spot is up for grabs and could go to either 1B Brian Daubach, IF Aaron Miles or P's Josh Hancock or Brad Voyles.

I wouldn't call that embarrasing. It may not be the best roster they have ever fielded but it is as good as any in the NL.

[BigRed]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

I wouldn't call that embarrasing. It may not be the best roster they have ever fielded but it is as good as any in the NL.

I would say it's better than the strong majority.

[stripmallp]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

I would say it's better than the strong majority.

It's still better than any other NL club. The management seems to be going on the theory that you could put just about anybody around Pujols and the team would win and that has been a formula that has worked very well the last 2 years. As soon as we got away from turds like Brett Tomko and moved on to guys like Jeff Suppan, I think that has made a big difference.

Positive attitude plus playing with Pujols equals winning!

[dalnet22]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

Thank you for posting the projected 25 man roster.

The outfield is extremely questionable with two shaky guys and one old slugger. The infield consists of one super star, two more shaky contact hitters, and an injury prone 3rd baseman. The catcher should be good, but the bench is very unreliable.

There are two top starters, and at the same time I wonder how long Carpenter and Mulder can last. Suppan and Marquis could blow up at any moment, and the fifth starter, whether not ready or washed up, shouldn't be there. The bullpen has faded over the years, and now all I see is a quality closer.

Versus other NL teams, this will probably rank two or three assuming the Dodgers and Mets can live up to expectations.

Nevertheless, that doesn't mean it's a good roster. The Indians, White Sox, Yankees, and Athletics could easily take this team in a series.

[Birdsonbat]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

Thank you for posting the projected 25 man roster.

The outfield is extremely questionable with two shaky guys and one old slugger. The infield consists of one super star, two more shaky contact hitters, and an injury prone 3rd baseman. The catcher should be good, but the bench is very unreliable.

There are two top starters, and at the same time I wonder how long Carpenter and Mulder can last. Suppan and Marquis could blow up at any moment, and the fifth starter, whether not ready or washed up, shouldn't be there. The bullpen has faded over the years, and now all I see is a quality closer.

Versus other NL teams, this will probably rank two or three assuming the Dodgers and Mets can live up to expectations.

Nevertheless, that doesn't mean it's a good roster. The Indians, White Sox, Yankees, and Athletics could easily take this team in a series.

The Dodgers? You mention questionables...their entire starting 8 is a question mark. Talk about injury prone (which both of Rolen's serious injuries were suffered in collisions, so I don't see how that is injury prone). The Mets, the same Mets that were locks to win the east last year after adding Pedro and Beltran. Your questions about the Cardinals can be subsituted for any of the other 29 teams, there are never any sure things.

This is a team that went into last year with three 36+ year old OF's, and won 100 games despite missing their all-star 3B for the majority of the year. The bench has been quesitonable going into each of the previous two seasons when it saw a huge turnovers each time. How did a bench of Abraham Nunez, Roger Cedeno, Einar Diaz, and Taguchi sound going into 2005? And if you say anything other than quesitonable, you are lying.

Will they win 100 games this year? Probably not, but they won't have to. They have the best chance of winning the NL Central, which is what the topic of this thread is.

[CoRruPt-]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

As long as Looper doesn't collapse like he did with the Mets last year, then the Cards will be fine. Hopefully Duncan works some magic on this kid.

[BigRed]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

As long as Looper doesn't collapse like he did with the Mets last year, then the Cards will be fine. Hopefully Duncan works some magic on this kid.

Keep in mind, Looper is the right-handed set-up man. Not the closer.

[stripmallp]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

For the last 3 years the Cards have looked a little suspect in spring training and I don't expect much of a drop off. But look at what we are competing with. We have the Cubs and their Blue Cross (Prior) Blue Shield (Wood) rotation, the AStros minus Clemens and I don't see much competition from our division. The Brewers won't be a doormat this year, but come on, takes more than a year for a team like this to actually compete into September.

As for the Mets and Dodgers I don't see anything but mediocre playoff chances. The Dodgers have added Furcal as the only significant upgrade, most of the other moves were better than lateral at best and 2 of their best players are coming off injuries (Drew, Gagne). THe Mets are hopeless, their pitching is really gonna suck this year. The best thing about the Mets is David Wright. That guy is gonna be the best 3B in baseball very soon.

[rsox]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

This division is the Cardinals to lose. The Cubs are a mess with Prior, and Wood all banged up and Todd Walker may be dealt soon.
The Astros rotation after Oswalt and Pettitte is probably the weakest its been in years, the organization does not want Jeff Bagwell to play and if Bagwell does play it is uncertain to how productive he can be.
The Brewers and Pirates are heading in the right direction but i don't see them staying in the race for the whole season and i think it will be another year before the Reds are able to make some noise. Just as the Braves are the class of the NL East the Cardinals are the class of the NL Central.

[Stoud]

Re: How will the NL Central Turn Out

Am I the only one that sees the Astros challenging for second? I mean, I'm not riding on their World Series berth either.

People are saying they don't have the offense to win? uhh...am I crazy? Or is Preston Wilson going to jack out 30-40 in that tiny little home run friendly park? Give me a break, people. Think about how many homers he hit last year in...well...a park that isn't home run friendly? I know homers don't make a good offense, but they sure do help.

With Biggio, Berkman, Ensberg, Lane, Taveras in there you've got a solid hitting lineup. Then you add on Oswalt and Pettitte in the rotation...I mean...it's as good as anything the Cubs have in the rotation considering that they're ALREADY having problems and the season HASN'T EVEN STARTED.

I pick the Cubs for fourth as well. Fans might think they have addressed some needs...well...maybe DEFENSIVELY, but seriously..that outfield couldn't hit the broad side of the world's largest barn...Jacque Jones? Jerry Hairston? John Mabry? Good luck. They have Lee and Ramirez and Pierre and...oh wait, that's right...that's all they have! The Cubs have the same problem the Cards have, only much much worse. They have a pretty good, solid Rotation to which their hitting does nothing but pale in comparison.

The only reason the Cards will win the division is because the differences in talent between their pitching and their hitting are not too much to make a huge difference. I expect Encarnacion to have a pretty good year for a good team with some good pitching behind him. Whoever picked Spivey over Miles must have some kind of learning disability because there's a huge difference between .230 and .280. The only question for me is whether or not So Taguchi will get more playing time in left than Bigbie (god, I hope so). They don't have much competition, but you will start to see the difference between this year and the past few years when they play teams in different leagues, especially when they play AL teams. Instead of the high 90's-100's wins that they have been getting each year, it will be down to the low 90's-high 80's. I expect Houston and the Brewers to fight it out for second.

The Brew Crew is still a little young, inexperienced, poor at fielding, and whether the pitching can bounce back and be as good as it was last year remains to be seen. I'll only be suprised if they challenge for first place in the Central, and that will only happen if more than a few of their players mature and start playing to their full potential.