NL Central

[baseball101]

On 9/6/2025 at 4:27 PM, nate82 said:

I thought the Cubs were supposed to be in 1st place by now and the Brewers would be far in their rear view mirror?

Why are the Brewers still in 1st place?  Is this a conspiracy by MLB to keep the Cubs down and not allow them to be in 1st place?  What is going on?

Lots of hot takes 2-3 weeks ago about how the Cubs were going to pass the Brewers. The game threads are a cesspool of negativity. Crazy how a fan can be so up and down game to game in baseball.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

Schedule-wise, the Cubs, you could argue, have a more difficult final 19 than we do. They have two series against bad teams in the Braves and Pirates. Their other remaining series are against the Mets and a bunch of teams right around .500 (Reds, Cardinals, and Rays). Meanwhile, the Brewers have the Reds, Cardinals (x2), Rangers, Padres, and Angels. I think that's pretty much a wash all things considered. We also get one more off day and one fewer road game. 

Anyone feeling extra paranoid might want to throw a ten on the Cubs at 50-1 (which is still too high at DraftKings) for a little insurance policy. 

[gregmag]

Brewers’ division odds now 99.4% at Fangraphs, bye odds at 99.3%. What we’re really competing for now is the best record in MLB. I don’t know that anyone calculates those odds. Given the greater number of teams in play, I would guess maybe 70% right now, but that might be way off.

[markedman5]

1 hour ago, gregmag said:

Brewers’ division odds now 99.4% at Fangraphs, bye odds at 99.3%. What we’re really competing for now is the best record in MLB. I don’t know that anyone calculates those odds. Given the greater number of teams in play, I would guess maybe 70% right now, but that might be way off.

We are 5 games up in the loss column with Phillies in race for best record……and we own the tie breaker.

i would guess the odds are 90% or above…….they also have a tougher closing stretch then we do.

[gregmag]

10 hours ago, markedman5 said:

We are 5 games up in the loss column with Phillies in race for best record……and we own the tie breaker.

i would guess the odds are 90% or above…….they also have a tougher closing stretch then we do.

That sounds right for our odds against the Phillies. But unlike in the division, other teams are close to the Phillies in the “best record in MLB” race. If the Reds and Cardinals were a game behind the Cubs (like the Tigers and Blue Jays are with the Phillies), our division odds would be lower, because there would be more plausible scenarios in which someone else could catch us. (Of course, best record in the NL matters more than best record in MLB overall, because having a better record than any AL team only matters if we get to the World Series, and then only if the AL team with a better record is the one that gets there.) As I write all that, my 70% does sound very low. So if we are at, say, 93% with the Phillies, and then maybe 96% with the tigers and Blue Jays, and let’s throw in 97% with the Dodgers because Projection systems always love the Dodgers, what does that shake out to overall . . . maybe high 80s?

[bucks2281]

The Brewers dropping to the 2 seed would obviously mean that the team has hit a really ugly skid in the final 3 weeks. But it probably would result in a more preferable DS matchup and the 3 straight home games in the LCS might be an advantage. 

[markedman5]

 

[nate82]

1 hour ago, markedman5 said:

 

Tucker going in the IL hurts but Ballesteros is a really good hitter.  Defensively he is not a catcher but offensively he fits anywhere the Cubs want to put him.  Kind of a Schwarber type where his bat will be what keeps him in the majors.  I am not sure he will hit as well as Schwarber but the potential is there.  Probably the best Cubs prospect in a long time. Though he may eat himself out of baseball.  

[Thurston Fluff]

The NL central not only have the best team in the NL, it's worst team has a better record than the worst team in the NL East and West. While the West has more teams above .500, it's best record would only be good for third in the central. By pretty much any measure the central is the best division top to bottom in the national league. Considering where it was predicted to be to start the season it's been a pretty amazing run top to bottom.

[Yaz19]

On 9/4/2025 at 10:49 AM, sveumrules said:

PCA's 6.3 WAR at BRef tops the NL, but his 5.3 WAR at FanGraphs is only 5th in the Senior Circuit.

Typically when the two disagree to such an extent it's over defense, and there is definitely some of that at play here with +24 runs for fielding/position adjustment on BRef versus only +17.9 for the same on FanGraphs.

But PCA's slug heavy profile at the plate is also overrated at BRef with a 124 OPS+ shaking out to +15 batting runs. His 115 wRC+ over at FanGraphs does a better job accounting for his comically low OBP and has only netted him +9 batting runs so far.

I would guess his eventual MVP placement will end up closer to his fWAR ranking than his bWAR ranking.

Speaking of Fangraphs, does the site owner have a BIAS towards the Cubs?   Take a look at how they have had the playoff standings for the past few days.

 

 

[Frisbee Slider]

18 minutes ago, Yaz19 said:

Speaking of Fangraphs, does the site owner have a BIAS towards the Cubs?   Take a look at how they have had the playoff standings for the past few days.

 

 

Sorted by Make Playoffs, I guess the Cubs 100% is weighted higher? 🙂🤷‍♂️

[endaround]

4 minutes ago, Yaz19 said:

Speaking of Fangraphs, does the site owner have a BIAS towards the Cubs?   Take a look at how they have had the playoff standings for the past few days.

 

 

They are so biased they put Chicago ahead of Milwaukee in the alphabet!

[Fear The Chorizo]

19 minutes ago, Yaz19 said:

Speaking of Fangraphs, does the site owner have a BIAS towards the Cubs?   Take a look at how they have had the playoff standings for the past few days.

 

 

Well, the Cubs have the tiebreaker - which has to be like 7 games in the standings, so....

Fangraphs probably also is factoring the charmin-soft remaining Cub schedule.  Just wait until we get into the season's second half... They can trade extra runs scored against previous losses to turn them into wins in the standings against these weak opponents!

[Samurai Bucky]

3 hours ago, Yaz19 said:

Speaking of Fangraphs, does the site owner have a BIAS towards the Cubs?   Take a look at how they have had the playoff standings for the past few days.

 

 

It is probably because the Cubs have a higher percentage of Clinching a Wild Card. 

Boy... the Brewers stink...

[Brian]

Cubs just sent Suzuki from 3rd on a shallow fly ball and he was out by 15 + feet.  Wow what a stupid play. 

[Brian]

2 minutes ago, Brian said:

Cubs just sent Suzuki from 3rd on a fly ball and he was out by 15 + feet.  Wow what a stupid play. 

Follow that with a Cinn 1st inning HR. 

[nate82]

Still waiting for the mythical "easy" part of the schedule for the Cubs to pass the Brewers to happen.  

[LouisEly]

36 minutes ago, nate82 said:

Still waiting for the mythical "easy" part of the schedule for the Cubs to pass the Brewers to happen.  

Weren't they supposed to have overtaken the Brewers by now?  They're the same distance back that they were 39 day ago.

[nate82]

Just now, LouisEly said:

Weren't they supposed to have overtaken the Brewers by now?  They're the same distance back that they were 39 day ago.

Supposedly by the middle of the month if the Brewers would have even had lasted that long.  

[Playing Catch]

I know that traditionalists don't like divisions and expanded playoffs, and that winning the world series is the ONLY thing for many others. But for me --- at the beginning of every season --- winning the division is THE regular season goal, and in some ways the only goal. All the other goals jump off from that point. No team has a goal of being a wild card team at the beginning of the season.

[Thurston Fluff]

1 hour ago, Playing Catch said:

I know that traditionalists don't like divisions and expanded playoffs, and that winning the world series is the ONLY thing for many others. But for me --- at the beginning of every season --- winning the division is THE regular season goal, and in some ways the only goal. All the other goals jump off from that point. No team has a goal of being a wild card team at the beginning of the season.

Yea, not many fans wearing a we're number two t-shirt out there. 

[LouisEly]

This is such a beautiful picture...

 

[Brian]

Mets  6 

Cubs   2

Top of 6th

[gregmag]

Looking back at preseason predictions, it really is amazing not only how many prognosticators underrated the Brewers but how many underrated the NL Central. I really can’t see any argument that ours wasn’t the second best division in baseball this year, after the AL East.

[Frisbee Slider]

9 hours ago, gregmag said:

I really can’t see any argument that ours wasn’t the second best division in baseball this year, after the AL East.

Edit: Wrong info from AI