NL Central position power rankings

You know a writer has run out of things to write about when he or she starts doing lists.  The first official workout of spring training is still days away, so you are damn right I’m out of ideas.

How about we rank every starter in the National League Central at every position?

Does that sound pointless to you?  Sure it does.  Let’s do it anyway.

Here’s how it works.  These are the projected starters.  If there’s a platoon like there is in left field for both the Cubs and Brewers, I’m ranking the guy who will likely get most of the at bats.  If a job is still up for grabs, I’m picking a winner.  If there’s a spot where a player isn’t likely to start the season, but is going to get the majority of the time there (gee, who could I be thinking of), that’s who I’m going to rank.

This isn’t a look back at a good player’s career, it’s an assessment of where he is right now (let’s just say Brandon Phillips is going to be pissed if he ever finds out.)

Right Field

1. Ryan Braun, Brewers
2. Jay Bruce, Reds
3. Jason Heyward, Cardinals
4. Jorge Soler, Cubs
5. Gregory Polanco, Pirates

Right off the bat we have to hold our nose and pass the Valtrex.  Braun is unlikely to ever put up the huge numbers he did from 2007-2012 before he was outed for using PEDs.  His numbers last year were depressed from (presumably) him having to play clean, and playing with a bad thumb. Braun benefits from Jason Heyward’s offensive regression and injury history, Jay Bruce’s wild inconsistencies and the fact that the two most talented players in this group, Soler and Polanco have only played 113 big league games between them.  A year from now, there’s a good chance that those two are 1-2 with Braun and Bruce third and fourth and Heyward playing in another division.

Center Field

1. Andrew McCuthen, Pirates
2. Carlos Gomez, Brewers
3. Dexter Fowler, Cubs
4. Jon Jay, Cardinals
5. Billy Hamilton, Reds

Gomez is a great player, and kind of a dick, but it’s not even close against McCutchen who was the MVP two years ago and might have been again if the D’bags hadn’t cheap shotted him and broken one of his ribs last year.  So the real interest is in the bottom half of the list.  Fowler, whose only noticeable weakness is that his defense doesn’t rate well in any metric, will benefit from the smaller centerfields in NL Central ballparks (he’s so far played his home games in the two biggest–Coors Field and whatever Enron Field is named now).  Jay is also average or below in center, but Mike Matheny loves him almost as much as he loves pudding, and Hamilton has one incredible skill (his unbelievable speed) which is greatly diminished by his terrible on base average (.292 last year) and the fact that he gets caught a lot for a guy that fast (his 23 caught stealings led the National League, and you can say ‘well he runs a lot’ and be right, but he didn’t lead the league in successful steals.)

Left Field

1. Matt Holliday, Cardinals
2. Starling Marte, Pirates
3. Marlon Byrd, Reds
4. Chris Coghlan, Cubs
5. Khris Davis, Brewers

Holliday will be 35 this year and his offense is starting to decline (his 20 homers and 90 RBI were the fewest he’s had in a full season since coming to St. Louis), and his defense has always been laughably bad.

But even in a decline year, Holliday’s stats still outpace his closest competitor, Pissburgh’s Starling Marte.  Marte’s a good player and in a season or two will likely establish himself as the division’s best leftfielder.  In fact, unless the Cubs decide left is where either Kris Bryant or Kyle Schwarber need to end up, it won’t even be close.  The rest of his list is unimpressive with another PED cheat, Marlon Byrd in Cincinnati and part-timers Coghlan and Davis in Chicago and Milwaukee.  Left field should be easiest spot on the field to play a bat.  Somebody tell that to the Cubs, Reds and Brewers.

Third Base

1. Matt Carpenter, Cardinals
2. E-ramis Ramirez, Brewers
3. Kris Byrant, Cubs
4. Josh Harrison, Pirates
5. Todd Frazier, Reds

Here’s a spot with a lot of talent.  Carpenter gets the nod because he’s the best all-around player, especially when you factor in his ability to stay on the field, unlike the number two guy on this list.  E-ramis is still a very good hitter, even at 37, but he’s played only 225 games the last two seasons.  Cubs fans, more than anybody, should realize what a great player he’s been the last decade, but thanks to a strange and completely mean-spirited smear campaign by former Cubs TV analyst Bob Brenly, the dumbest of Cubs fans think E-ramis was lazy.  It’s a lot to ask of a rookie to be higher than third on this list, so I won’t ask that of Byrant.  There are some concerns about how often he struck out in the minors and about his defense, but the strikeouts, at least in the minors, have been mitigated by the number of walks he takes, and his defense has steadily improved.  He could still very well end up in the outfield, especially once Addison Russell makes a push to play someplace on the infield soon (but probably not until 2016).  There are no doubts about Bryant’s power.  I hope the Cubs bought a shitload of replacement light bulbs for that JumboTron in left because Bryant is about to wage a full-scale assault on it.

Josh Harrison was an All-Star last year, when he was still shuttling around the field for Pissburgh.  It was a reach by NL Manager Matheny, but Harrison’s second half proved he was one of the best players in the NL last year.  He played mostly third in the second half once the Pirates made Pedro Alvarez go away, and now Pedro is moving to first with Harrison at third full-time.  Fourth on this list isn’t bad, and Harrison’s AAA track record was good.  He won’t turn 28 until July so he could very well be the long term answer at third.  Frazier being fifth on this list shows how deep this position is.  He hit 29 homers last year, and like Harrison, E-ramis and Carpenter he was an All-Star.  Frazier strikes out a fair amount and doesn’t walk, and his breakout season last year was really just a breakout half.  After the break he hit .247/.312/.393/.717 and hit only nine homers and drove in 28 runs (compared to 20 and 50 in the first half.)

Shortstop

1. Starlin Castro, Cubs
2. Jhonny Peralta, Cardinals
3. Jean Segura, Brewers
4. Jordy Mercer, Pirates
5. Zach Cozart, Reds

As deep as third base is in the NL Central, shortstop really lacks depth.  A major league scout said last year that the Cubs had the three best shortstops in the entire division with Castro, Javy Baez and Addison Russell.  Castro is clearly the class of the position, especially since his 2014 season erased doubts after he followed up two great seasons in his first two years with subpar seasons in the next two.  He’s 25, has already led the league in hits (and admittedly, errors) and made three All-Star games.  Peralta is basically a statue in the field, albeit one who who makes plays on anything hit at him.  He is not young (33) and was in a pretty steep decline in Detroit the past few seasons, until a renaissance year in 2013 until he was busted for PED use and suspended.  He drove in 75 runs for the Cardinals last year but his average, on base and slugging averages all took steep drops over his ‘roid enchanced final Tigers season.  Jean Segura is still living off a great start to his 2013 season.  At the All-Star Break that year he was .325/.363/.487/.849.  But he struggled in the second half hitting only .241/.268/.315/.583 and then was bad last year at .246/.289/.326/.614.  He was off to a bad start and got horrific news that his young son had died in the Dominican Republic and things never got better.  Segura has to prove this year that his hot start to 2013 was not a fluke.  But it looks like that’s exactly what it was. Jordy Mercer had been splitting short with Clint Barmes the past few years, and this year he’ll share time with Jung Ho Kang.  Jordy’s not very good.  Zack Cozart has not hit at all in the big leagues and was even worse last year.

Second Base

1. Neil Walker, Pirates
2. Kolton Wong, Cardinals
3. Javier Baez, Cubs
4. Scooter Gennett, Brewers
5. Brandon Phillips, Reds

Walker is a good all-around player and might not get much of a challenge from anybody on this list this year.  He stepped up his power last year without sacrificing plate discipline and is a solid defender.  Wong was unimpressive through most of the regular season (that was partly due to Matheny giving some of his playing time away to the human out machine Mark Ellis) and struggled in the NLDS against the Dodgers, but he had two huge hits in the NLCS against the Giants which gave people the impression he has finally figured it out.  Baez is the wildcard here.  He could put up power numbers that have rarely been seen at second base, or he could strike out 200 times, or he could do both.  Baez struggling after his promotion last year (albeit with some flashes of brilliance at the plate), was no surprise, in fact, it was expected, but he had no trouble making the in-season switch from short to second.  He could very well be a plus defender at that spot.  Gennett won the second base job from Rickie Weeks and had a solid offensive season.  But come on, this is Scooter Gennett.  He has no power, and has had trouble consistently reaching base anywhere above class-A.  Even last year when he batted .289 for the Brewers he walked only 22 times in more than 470 plate appearances.  Little guys with no power who don’t walk don’t end up with a lot of value.  Phillips has been a league average or worse player for three straight years now, and has seen his average, on base and slugging averages all decline.  He’s never been good at getting on base and that dropped to a career worst .306.  He’ll have to bat seventh or eighth to have any value, and he won’t like that and will bitch about it.  Fun times.

First Base

1. Joey Votto, Reds
2. Anthony Rizzo, Cubs
3. Matt Adams, Cardinals
4. Adam Lind, Brewers
5. Pedro Alvarez, Pirates

If healthy, Votto is still the class of this position in the division, but not by a lot over Rizzo, and so the fact that he missed 100 games last year and 51 three years ago (while, strangely squeezing in 162 games in 2013) brings him back to the field.  At his best, Votto is an on-base machine.  He not only led the league in average, on base and slugging in his MVP season of 2010 but he went on to lead the league in on base average the next three years in a row, too. Rizzo solved his biggest deficiency last year (hitting against lefties) by stealing a page out of Votto’s book and taking a two-strike approach in every situation against left handed pitching.  It worked and Rizzo put up the kind of power and on base numbers that the Cubs had him projected for when they traded Andrew Cashner to get him in 2012.  Adams has not yet figured out how to hit lefties and is basically platooned because of it.  He was a miserable .190/.231/.298/.528 against them last year, so it just figured this asshole hit a homer off Clayton Kershaw in the deciding game of the NLDS, and of course, that it was the only homer Kershaw allowed all season to a lefthanded batter.  Lind puts Adams struggles with lefties to shame.  He was basically hidden from them last year in Toronto hitting only .061/.162/.061 in just 33 at bats.  He crushed righties to the tune of .354/.409/.533/.942 but with just six homers and 40 RBI in 318 plate appearances.  Toronto used him sparingly in the field (only 43 games at first), and how he handles a mostly full-time load there will be interesting.  This is a make it or break it year for Pedro Alvarez.  Pissburgh has finally given up on him at third base (he made 25 errors there last year in only 95 starts) because his throwing problems are as much in his head as in his arm.  They hope a move to first will allow him to focus at the plate.  (But first basemen have to throw, too, just ask Frank Thomas.) He led the NL in homers in 2013 with 36 (and led the league in strikeouts with 186), and was a monster in the NLDS against St. Louis two years ago.  There’s too much power there to give up on, but the emergence of Josh Harrison at third meant Pedro had to find a new home.

Catcher

1. Jonathan Lucroy, Brewers
2. Yadier Molina, Cardinals
3. Devin Meseraco, Reds
4. Miguel Montero, Cubs
5. Franciso Cervelli, Pirates

Blah, blah, blah Yadi Molina is the greatest, blah, blah, blah.  Even the biggest Cardinals hater in the world (me) will admit he’s been a great player, but after 1300 starts behind the plate last year he finally had an injury he couldn’t make a miraculous return from.  This is more about Lucroy’s emergence than Yadi’s decline, however.  Lucroy had this third straight good offensive season, which included a league high 52 doubles (though Miller Park is, for whatever reason, a doubles paradise–hell, even Scooter hit 31 last year), and deserved to start the All-Star Game even before Yadi’s injury kept him out of it.  Of course, Lucroy just tore his hamstring, a nightmare injury for a catcher.  Even before the injury, Lucroy was expected to get a lot of starts at first base against lefties (see Lind’s numbers against them for the reason why) and that might increase if the team is afraid that he’ll re-injure the hamstring with a normal workload behind the plate.  In that case, Devin Mesoraco may be the one to pass Molina for best catcher in the division.  He finally hit the way scouts always thought he would (25 homers, 80 RBI and .893 OPS) last year, and it probably helped that Dusty wasn’t around to inexplicably give his at bats away to Ryan Hanigan.  Man, Dusty is just the worst.  The Cubs got Montero for his game-calling and pitch framing skills, and hope his offense rebounds after two years in decline.  The Pirates catching situation is kind of a mess without Russell Martin, and they have to really hope Francisco Cervelli doesn’t get the bulk of the at bats there.

Number One Starting Pitcher

1. Johnny Cueto, Reds
2. Jon Lester, Cubs
3. Adam Wainwright, Cardinals
4. Gerit Cole, Pirates
5. Kyle Lohse, Brewers

Cueto will at least start the season with the Reds, but because he’s a free agent after the season and has no intention of signing an extension, unless the Reds make an unlikely run at the pennant, he’ll be traded during the season.  He could very well swing a race for somebody.  Lester was a great get for the Cubs, but only Wainwright’s late season arm troubles and offseason “clean up” of his elbow put Lester ahead of him on this list.  Cole is only 24, but if he can make 34 starts (he only made 22 last year) he’d establish himself as one of baseball’s best starters.  Lohse is not a real number one, but the Brewers don’t really have one, so he gets to pretend.

Number Two Starting Pitcher

1. Jake Arietta, Cubs
2. Michael Wacha, Cardinals
3. Homer Bailey, Reds
4. Matt Garza, Brewers
5. AJ Burnett, Pirates

Like Cole, Arietta needs to make a full season’s worth of starts to establish himself as a top starter, but what he did in 25 starts last year (10-5, 2.53 ERA with 167 K’s in 156 innings and three near no-hitters) has the Cubs dreaming.  Wacha had a lost season last year due to the very scary diagnosis of stress fractures in his shoulder, and his most memorable moment of the year was giving up the pennant clinching homer to the immortal Travis Ishikawa.  Bailey is paid like an ace but has never been consistent enough to pitch like one.  Garza similarly is paid like a top of the rotation pitcher, but nagging injuries, an inability to field bunts and his own temper continue to hold him back.  Burnett took the money and ran to Philly last year and now is back in Pissburgh.  He did not pitch as bad as his 18 losses indicated last year, but he did lead the league in runs allowed and walks, so he didn’t pitch great.

Number Three Starting Pitcher

1. Lance Lynn, Cardinals
2. Wily Peralta, Brewers
3. Jason Hammel, Cubs
4. Francisco Liriano, Pirates
5. Mike Leake, Reds

Cardinals fans have an irrational hatred for Lance Lynn.  It’s the kind they normally reserve for people who are of a different ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender than them.  Fact is, Lance Lynn is good.  They claim they hate him because he is a “choker” in the postseason.  He’s been up and down, but they don’t win the pennant in 2013 without his two wins against the Dodgers.  Anyway, you don’t need another example that proves Cardinals fans are dopes.  Wily Peralta might end up being the Brewers best pitcher, and actually, if they’re going to contend, he probably needs to.  Jason Hammel enjoyed the best half of his career last year with the Cubs, and his Oakland struggles are exaggerated.  He struggled in his first few starts with the A’s, but was pretty good for them down the stretch.  He even pitched in the Wild Card game in KC (he only faced one batter, it was Salvador Perez and Perez doubled to win the game against him—never mind.)  Liriano can be great or terrible, he’s almost always great against the Cubs.  Leake backed up a really good 2013 with a pretty good 2014.  I think I ranked him fifth because he shoplifted those t-shirts a few years ago.

Number Four Starting Pitcher

1. John Lackey, Cardinals
2. Mike Fiers, Brewers
3. Tony Cingrani, Reds
4. Kyle Hendricks, Cubs
5. Vance Worley, Pirates

Here’s where the Cardinals’ depth shows up.  Lackey is legitimately their fourth starter, he won 14 games last year (11 in Boston, three in St. Louis) and pitched great against the Dodgers in the playoffs (not so great against the Giants.)  Incredibly, he’s being paid the league minimum this year as part of creative contract he signed with the Red Sox when Theo was still in charge.  I don’t get it either.  Mike Fiers made some big starts for the Brewers last year after coming up for good in August.  He pitched well, but the Brewers managed to lose the last four of them in a row.  Cingrani’s a lefty out of Lincoln Way who had an injury shortened season last year.  Two years ago he was pretty good, so I gave him a slight edge over Kyle Hendricks, who has only made 13 starts in the big leagues, but they were 13 pretty damned good starts.  Hendricks takes a lot of shit because he doesn’t throw hard, but he misses bats, he throws strikes and he keeps the ball in the ballpark.  His minor league track record is one of a guy that scouts always expected to finally meet his match at the next level up.  He’s at the top level now.  He didn’t meet his match there last year.  Vance Worley has had a weird career.  He came out of nowhere to pitch really well for the Phillies in 2011, then was just OK in 2012 and terrible for the Twins in his one season there in 2014.  He got picked off the scrap heap by the Pirates last year and gave them 17 pretty good starts.  In his career he’s been good more than he’s been bad, but when he’s been bad, he’s been awful, and he met his wife on Twitter.  Then again, she’s pretty cute:

Number Five Starting Pitcher

1. Jimmy Nelson, Brewers
2. Carlos Martinez, Cardinals
3. Jeff Locke, Pirates
4. Jacob Turner, Cubs
5. Dylan Axelrod, Reds

Brewers GM Doug Melvin loves Jimmy Nelson, and why not? Jimmy’s a second round draft pick out of Alabama and he went 10-2 with a 1.46 ERA in AAA before getting called up.  Nelson is the reason the Brewers traded the overrated Yovani Gallardo (is still only 29, but his numbers have been sliding the last two seasons) to open a spot for Nelson.  Carlos Martinez has been a perennial prospect for the Cardinals, and he should get a shot as the fifth starter.  If he fails, he’ll go back to the bullpen where he’s been pretty good.  The Pirates rotation strength is their depth and Jeff Locke has had his moments.  He was solid last year in 21 starts.  Somebody has to win the Cubs fifth starter spot and it might be Travis Wood, though they’d like to trade him, and it could be Felix Doubront who has never been excited about going to the bullpen (though that might be the thing that establishes him in the big leagues), and the Cubs have Tsuyoshi Wada who will either start or be in the bullpen.  I think they’d like Turner to win it.  He’s the most physically talented of this group and he won’t clear waivers if they try to send him down.  Dylan Axelrod never quite put it together for the White Sox, and I think that’s mostly due to the fact he doesn’t really have much to use to put anything together.

Closer

1. Aroldis Chapman, Reds
2. Trevor Rosenthal, Cardinals
3. Hector Rondon, Cubs
4. Mark Melancon, Pirates
5. Jonathan Broxton, Brewers

Remember when the Reds tried to make Aroldis a starter?  Yeah, once they gave up on that he got back to concentrating on blowing people away in the ninth inning, and he did just that last year.  Not only did he throw twice as many fastballs over 100 MPH than the rest of the league combined did last year, his fastball averaged more than 100 MPH for the entire season.  Holy shit.  One of the tense moments of the season last year was when Rizzo turned around one of those 100 MPH heaters and missed a game winning homer by just a few feet.  As for closers, it’s Chapman and the Braves’ Craig Kimbrel and then everybody else.  Trevor Rosenthal also throws really hard, and he finally got the closer job last year and did very well with it.  Rondon took over when the Cubs told Jose Veres to go home, and was excellent in the role.  Rondon had missed two full seasons due to injury before his Rule 5 season in 2013, so his emergence in 2014 as a top notch closer is very impressive.  Melancon took over when Jason Grilli proved to no longer the answer in Pittsburgh.  What hurt the Pirates was that Melancon had been one of the very best set up men in baseball, and once he had to close they struggled to find anyone to fill his old role.  The Brewers don’t really want Broxton to close, that’s why they’re talking to K-Rod again, and have had on again off again discussions with Philly for Jonathan Papelbon.  That trade just feels like a bad idea for the Brewers.

Manager

1. Joe Maddon, Cubs
2. Clint Hurdle, Pirates
3. Mike Matheny, Cardinals
4. Ron Roenicke, Brewers
5. Bryan Price, Reds

If there’s a better manager in baseball than Maddon then there’s only one and it’s three time World Champion Bruce Bochy of the Giants.  Maddon arrives at the perfect time for the Cubs.  They are ready to start contending and Maddon has already proved adept at the delicate balance of winning games while still developing young talent.  He absolutely fell into the Cubs lap, and after 100 years of suck it’s about about time they caught a break.  Hurdle is an excellent manager who has a Pirates team with some really good players and some weird pieces that don’t quite fit, and he’s making it work.  He’s also turned orange, which is interesting.  You can’t argue with Matheny’s sucess.  He’s only been the manager for three years and he’s been to the playoffs three times and won a pennant.  At the same time, there’s a fair chance that his Dusty Baker-like unwillingness to play young players over inferior veterans has cost the Cardinals at some inopportune times (opportune for those of us who can’t stand to watch them win.)  Roenicke is getting a lot of crap for the Brewers “late season collapse” and that’s bullshit.  His Brewers were not good last year.  They had a great start (15-5), and at one point were 20-7, but from that moment on they were a sub-.500 team.  They were in first place for 150 days, mainly because of that start and because it took the Cardinals and Pirates forever to get their shit together.  The Brewers didn’t lose because of their manager, they lost because they weren’t very good.  If they finish under .500 again this year he’ll get fired, and it’s unlikely that it will be fair.  Injuries, and overrated players (think Phillips and Bruce, especially) have held the Reds back.  Price will be the scapegoat if they struggle again this year.

So what, if anything did we learn from this pointless exercise?  We learned the Cardinals are the most balanced team in the division, which is precisely why they’ve been winning the damn thing over and over again.  The Cubs have a few key pieces in place and a lot of question marks.  Pittsburgh wins with some great players and more than their share of average (or worse) players.  The Reds really, really need Joey Votto to play a whole season.  The Brewers have three really good players and a pitching staff full of threes and fours.

All in all, there’s a lot of talent in this division, which might very well be the toughest in all of baseball.  The Cardinals, much to our chagrin are probably going to win it again, and you can make a pretty solid case for the other four teams in the division to finish in any possible combination.

The Cubs acquisitions of Lester, Hammel (again), Fowler, Montero and Jason Motte (I probably should have ranked each bullpen as a group–if I did it’d be 1. Cardinals, 2. Cubs, 3. Reds, 4. Pirates, 5. Brewers) have pushed them closer to the rest of the pack than most expect, so that if even one of Soler, Baez or Bryant breaks out they’ll make things interesting.  If more than one of them does it, they’ll make it very interesting.

And, I speak for us all when I say, it’s about damned time.