NL Central Discussion 2026

[Playing Catch]

9 hours ago, Team Canada said:

Crazy stat of the day: every team in the Central is better than EVERY team in the AL besides the Yankees.

I think we could use a thread dedicated to crazy stats and discussing them.

I couldn't believe the other day when I saw Teddy Higuera's 1986 season, when he led the league with 9.4 bWAR. That's more than Ohtani's 50-50 season.

[Underachiever]

Last year, the Brewers won 97 and had the best record in baseball. Currently on a 96-win pace and out of the playoffs. Would lose the Central by 12 games. LOL. Apparently, that difference between 96 and 97 is HUGE!

[igor67]

I'm assuming that what were seeing is that the NL Central has a really great interleague record at this point. And possibly even the NL as a whole since there is a small number of really bad records in the NL compared to the AL. If so some of the extreme's will have to settle in closer to .500

[SeaBass]

If we threw all of MLB into one division, 2/3 of teams would be at maximum 6 games out of first place. It's just so early that records don't really mean a whole lot right now. Even for the Mets, with the worst record in baseball, being 9 games back.

Brewers are 2.5 back.

[sveumrules]

38 minutes ago, igor67 said:

I'm assuming that what were seeing is that the NL Central has a really great interleague record at this point. And possibly even the NL as a whole since there is a small number of really bad records in the NL compared to the AL. If so some of the extreme's will have to settle in closer to .500

Yup, National League is currently +25 wins on the AL in Interleague play.

NLC teams are...CIN (11 W - 3 L), MIL (11 W - 5 L), STL (9 W - 6 L), PIT (5 W - 2 L), CHI (5 W - 4 L)...so they account for +21 of those +25 wins by themselves.

[Brian]

On 4/20/2026 at 9:35 PM, Frisbee Slider said:

The Reds outfield has been jarringly below replacement level. 

Maybe but at 16-8  I would hate to see them get even hotter ♨️ 

[gregmag]

The Pirates, who are presently in last place in the NL Central, would be in first place in the AL Central and AL West, second in the AL East and NL East, and tied for third in the NL West.  To put the point in a different, more fun way, only one AL team, the Yankees, presently has a better record than the worst team in the NL Central.

What many people don't seem to appreciate is that the NL Central was the second-strongest division in MLB last year.  The AL East in 2025 was 48 games over .500.  The NL Central was +32.  The AL West was +2, NL East -10, NL West -26, AL Central -36.  If you think it's unfair to judge a division by its worst team, we can ignore the last-place team in each division.  That leaves AL East +60, NL Central +52, NL West +40, NL East +20, AL West +20, AL Central +6.  The NL Central was strong at the top (#1 and #6 records in MLB) and well balanced.   

[wiguy94]

1 hour ago, gregmag said:

What many people don't seem to appreciate is that the NL Central was the second-strongest division in MLB last year.  The AL East in 2025 was 48 games over .500.  The NL Central was +32.  The AL West was +2, NL East -10, NL West -26, AL Central -36.  If you think it's unfair to judge a division by its worst team, we can ignore the last-place team in each division.  That leaves AL East +60, NL Central +52, NL West +40, NL East +20, AL West +20, AL Central +6.  The NL Central was strong at the top (#1 and #6 records in MLB) and well balanced.   

Thank you for being one of the few to acknowledge how good the NL Central has become. It was easily the 2nd best division in baseball last year behind the AL East. I'm tired of the NL Central being looped in with the AL Central as the little brother division when the NL Central has consistently been much better than the AL Central in the recent past and now the NL Central looks more like a powerhouse division filled with young talent all over the division.

[owbc]

1 hour ago, wiguy94 said:

Thank you for being one of the few to acknowledge how good the NL Central has become. It was easily the 2nd best division in baseball last year behind the AL East. I'm tired of the NL Central being looped in with the AL Central as the little brother division when the NL Central has consistently been much better than the AL Central in the recent past and now the NL Central looks more like a powerhouse division filled with young talent all over the division.

I know it's unfair because postseason baseball is its own thing, but the NL Central needs to win pennants to get recognition.

[adambr2]

All the piling on we did on the Cubs on page 1 has not been aging well.

[Brian]

Hope the Cubs catcher cools off before we play them. 

https://www.mlb.com/player/moises-ballesteros-694208

[markedman5]

 

[BruisedCrew]

On 4/27/2026 at 10:02 PM, Brian said:

Hope the Cubs catcher cools off before we play them. 

https://www.mlb.com/player/moises-ballesteros-694208

More immediately you should hope that the Cardinals, especially Jordan Walker, cool off before the Brewers play them next week. 

[Jopal78]

On 4/22/2026 at 8:43 AM, Playing Catch said:

I think we could use a thread dedicated to crazy stats and discussing them.

I couldn't believe the other day when I saw Teddy Higuera's 1986 season, when he led the league with 9.4 bWAR. That's more than Ohtani's 50-50 season.

Crazier to think that Clemens threw 6 more innings than Higuera (254 to 248) that year while starting one less game (33 to 34). Clemens allowed 47! fewer hits (179 to 226) and struck out 31 more (238 to 207). 

[gregmag]

I’m feeling weirdly good about the Brewers’ chances in the division. The Reds and Cardinals have negative run differentials. I’m not sure how the Cubs and Pirates get better than they have played so far. Meanwhile, the Brewers have underperformed their run differential while missing key guys. Not a single offensive player has done anything unsustainable. They seem to be playing the rotation shuffle as effectively as we could have possibly hoped. The bullpen has been surprisingly shaky, but they have candidates in the minors, and the rotation shuffle gives them a lot of options for longer stints. It’s just very easy to see how they could get better.

[sveumrules]

With a pair of NL Central series kicking off today (MIL vs STL and CHC vs CIN) and the season a lil over 1/5th in the books, now seems like as good a time as any to check in the on the five NLC teams to see where they are at, how they got there and how some of the prediction models think they might end up.

Every team in the division is currently at least three games over .500, largely on account of playing each other only 32 times so far versus 72 games against the American League with a combined  44 W - 28 L record.

CHC (22 W - 12 L) 
RunDiff: +42 (5th)
BaseRuns: +53 (4th)
PECTOA (93.6 W)
80.9% WinDiv | 95.2% Plyffs
FanGraphs (89.3 W)
52.9% WinDIv | 83.2% Plyffs
Position Players
122 wRC+ (2nd) | 5.44 R/G (2nd)
+3.27 WPA (3rd) | +13 DRS (6th)
Starting Pitchers (179 IP | 12th)
96 ERA- (13th) | 96 FIP- (11th)
+0.97 WPA (11th) | 2.9 rWAR (13th)
Relief Pitchers (123 IP | 21st)
95 ERA- (14th) | 109 FIP- (22nd)
+0.77 WPA (10th) | 0.6 rWAR (15th)
[preseason favorites and they have lived up to that billing mostly on account of an across the board dominant position player group while the pitching has been better than average but nothing particularly eye popping]

STL (20 W - 14 L)
RunDiff: 0 (10th)
BaseRuns: -5 (16th)
PECOTA (74.4 W)
0.1% WinDiv | 6.0% Plyffs
FanGraphs (80.2 W)
6.1% WinDiv | 26.0% Plyffs
Position Players
106 wRC+ (7th) | 4.88 R/G (9th)
+2.04 WPA (4th) | +15 DRS (4th)
Starting Pitchers (177 IP | 13th)
106 ERA- (20th) | 119 FIP- (27th)
+0.15 WPA (19th) | 2.3 rWAR (17th)
Relief Pitchers (130 IP | 15th)
122 ERA- (27th) | 109 FIP- (23rd)
+0.81 WPA (9th) | -0.8 rWAR (27th)
[kinda like the Cubs but with a not quite as good position player group and way worse pitching staff. To their credit, the bullpen has held leads with a WPA rank that sticks out and an MLB fewest three credited losses] 

CIN (20 W - 14 L)
RunDiff: -22 (24th)
BaseRuns: -29 (27th)
PECOTA (78.8 W)
2.0% WinDiv | 22.7% Plyffs
FanGraphs (80.6 W)
6.0% WinDiv | 27.1% Plyffs
Position Players
88 wRC+ (26th) | 4.15 R/G (23rd)
-0.29 WPA (16th) | -3 DRS (23rd)
Starting Pitchers (171 IP | 18th)
112 ERA- (24th) | 106 FIP- (22nd)
+0.33 WPA (16th) | 2.0 rWAR (21st)
Relief Pitchers (132 IP | 10th)
96 ERA- (15th) | 110 FIP- (24th)
+2.96 WPA (1st) | 1.3 rWAR (7th)
[surviving almost exclusively on Win Probability Added from the bullpen]

PIT (19 W - 16 L)
RunDiff: +31 (6th)
BaseRuns: +35 (5th)
PECOTA (81.9 W)
6.5% WinDiv | 39.9% Plyffs
FanGraphs (85.2 W)
23.1% WinDiv | 59.6% Plyffs
Position Players
105 wRC+ (8th) | 5.14 R/G (6th)
-1.41 WPA (22nd) | +3 DRS (19th)
Starting Pitchers (175 IP | 15th)
89 ERA- (8th) | 82 FIP- (2nd)
+1.40 WPA (6th) | 3.3 rWAR (10th)
Relief Pitchers (143 IP | 6th)
88 ERA- (8th) | 96 FIP- (12th)
+1.52 WPA (4th) | 1.0 rWAR (8th)
[right there with the Brewers for the best pitching in the division but have been held back somewhat by an unclutch group of hitters so far with that negative WPA ranking]

MIL (18 W - 15 L)
RunDiff: +45 (4th)
BaseRuns: +22 (7th)
PECOTA (83.7 W)
10.5% WinDiv | 54.3% Plyffs
FanGraphs (82.6 W)
11.9% WinDiv | 40.6% Plyffs
Position Players
96 wRC+ (18th) | 5.21 R/G (4th)
+1.29 WPA (7th) | +11 DRS (8th)
Starting Pitchers (158 IP | 23rd)
85 ERA- (5th) | 88 FIP- (7th)
+1.30 WPA (8th) | 3.7 rWAR (6th)
Relief Pitchers (135 IP | 7th)
90 ERA- (9th) | 87 FIP- (7th)
-1.10 WPA (25th) | 0.4 rWAR (17th)
[offense has run boom or bust largely on account of injuries and being among the worst with bases empty (74 wRC+ | 29th) but among the best with RISP (136 wRC+ | 2nd). Pitching has been great outside of a 23 game stretch where the bullpen was credited with eight losses]

[Roderick]

2 hours ago, sveumrules said:

MIL (18 W - 15 L)
 Pitching has been great outside of a 23 game stretch where the bullpen was credited with eight losses]

Thanks for the information, I just thought it was humourous that you said that other than a 23 game stretch when we have only played 33 games.  Other then 2/3 of the time the bullpen has been good.😎

[sveumrules]

51 minutes ago, Roderick said:

Thanks for the information, I just thought it was humourous that you said that other than a 23 game stretch when we have only played 33 games.  Other then 2/3 of the time the bullpen has been good.😎

Yeah, I mostly framed it that way just to point out how compressed of a time it really was that the bullpen was melting down (even though it is still the majority of the season to this point).

Over their last 486 games prior to this season the bullpen was credited with 78 losses (16% of all games). Their worst season out of the last three was 28 losses (17.2%) in 2024. From 2017 thru 2022 before that they were credited with 154 losses in 871 team games (17.7%).

The bullpen losing eight of 33 games (24.2%) is still a healthy clip ahead of those paces and with those eight losses all occurring over a stretch of just 23 games (34.8%) positive regression was bound to be incoming.

Maintaining that 16 to 18 percent clip from the last nine years might be tough with eight losses already on the books, but I'd hope by the end of all 162 we're closer to 20% than the current rate.

[torts]

I am not mentally ready for the cardinals to be good again.  I needed a solid decade of mediocrity.... Please revert back.

[umphrey]

1 hour ago, torts said:

I am not mentally ready for the cardinals to be good again.  I needed a solid decade of mediocrity.... Please revert back.

Looks like their pitching is likely going to hold them back at least this year but they will probably add there soon. That offense looks like it's coming up though I'm not sure if I believe in Jordan Walker over a larger sample size. However he has a lot of room to regress yet still be good.