ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - It's true, you did read that headline correctly. The St. Louis Cardinals are just the third-best team in the National League Central, according to the 2021 PECOTA projections from Baseball Prospectus.
Every February, the baseball analytical experts come out with their guess for how many wins every MLB team will have. This year, they have St. Louis going 81-81 and finishing third, behind the Milwaukee Brewers (89 wins) and the Chicago Cubs (85 wins).
This is something that KMOX Sports Open Line host Kevin Wheeler spent a segment explaining earlier this week. Take a listen to what he had to say, here:
So how can that be? The Cardinals added the best third baseman in baseball. They return almost every piece of a pitching staff that had the second-best ERA in the NL. And no one else in the division made a big, difference-making addition, plus, the Reds lost their Cy Young Award-winning pitcher in Trevor Bauer.
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"Don't look at these projections and say, "Yeah, this says what I think so it's good!' Or say, 'Boo, this doesn't say what I think so it's bad.' They're not good or bad, they're gonna be both," Wheeler explains. "In the end, you're going to see that some will be right on the money and some will not be close."
Like many in Cardinals Nation, MLB insider Jon Morosi seemed a bit surprised by the projections too. He asked for some thoughts from Cardinals fans:
The best thing to remember about these projections are that, that's all they are. Projections. When looking back at recent history, it's easy to see that sometimes they're absolutely right. And sometimes they are absolutely wrong.
These were the win-total projections for the Central in 2019: MIL - 89, STL - 89, CHI - 84, CIN - 84, PIT - 66.
This is how the division finished: STL - 91, MIL - 89, CHI - 84, CIN - 75, PIT - 69
And last year, it said the Reds would win the NL Central, but they finished second.
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“I think the Cardinals will safely be one of the three or four best pitching staffs in the National League," Wheeler says. "They were fourth last year, second in 2019 … this is something that’s pretty consistent and I think this will be more like 2019 when they had one of the best pitching staffs in the Major Leagues.”
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