The Cardinals have finalized their Opening Day roster and announced Albert Pujols will be in the lineup come Thursday. With injuries to both Jack Flaherty and Alex Reyes, and with 2022 being the final season of Pujols, Yadier Molina, and presumably Adam Wainwright, St. Louis has seen its fair share of breaking news headlines. How are things looking across the National League Central, though?
Mike Ferrin, host of MLB Network Radio's Power Alley, joined Kevin Wheeler on Monday night's Sports Open Line to lend his thoughts on how the division will fare this upcoming season:
"Outside of Milwaukee, there’s not a team that you look at and go, ‘Yeah, that’s a playoff team,’ so there should be some wins for the [Cardinals'] taking," Ferrin tells Wheeler. You can listen to their full conversation in the audio clip at the top of this page. Milwaukee won 95 games last year and was the best in the division. Their starting rotation, which features the likes of Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta, makeup "the best trio of starters of any team in the majors," Ferrin says. "Milwaukee has the smell of a 100-win team, or close to it."
The Cincinnati Reds stirred waves in the off season after trading away Tucker Barnhart, Jesse Winker, Eugenio Suarez, and Sonny Gray. "From a talent standpoint, they're not where they were over the last two years," Ferrin says on Sports Open Line. "There's probably going to be some growing pains in the rotation, but the lineup has a chance to be pretty decent." The Reds finished third in the NL Central last year, winning seven fewer games than the Cardinals.
The Chicago Cubs signed right handed pitcher Marcus Stroman to a three year, $71 million contract in December of 2021. "Their bullpen the last five or six years has been pretty good, but I do not think this is a particularly good Cubs offense," Ferrin admits. "They should have a pretty good infield defense, with Andrelton Simmons and Nick Madrigal up the middle, although Simmons is hurt to open the year." No team signed more major league free agents than the Cubs did this winter, which gives Ferrin the impression that they're trying to catch lightning in a bottle. "They're trying to be better than what they were the last two months of last season, which was atrocious." The Cubs ranked fourth in the NL Central at the end of the last season with 71 wins.
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Wheeler makes his thoughts on the Pittsburgh Pirates clear. "We know that there's not much of a lineup. There's not much in terms of starting pitching. The bullpen is still being sorted out. They're the Pirates, and they're doing Pirates things." The Pirates finished last in the Central with a mere 61 wins in 2021. The Cardinals take on last year's cellar dwellers on Opening Day at 3:15pm CT with Adam Wainwright on the mound.