Miami Marlins news: 2023 MLB season predictions

NL CENTRAL

I'm actually pretty surprised that they're being overlooked in favor of a worse team in St. Louis. Milwaukee has a top 5 rotation and a good bullpen. Their lineup is solid too with 30 home run threats 1B Rowdy Tellez and SS Willy Adames along with bounceback candidate DH Jesse Winker and breakout C William Conteras among others. I think that they will comfortably win the division that they won in 2021 and were on pace to win in 2022 before their surprising collapse.

ST. LOUIS CARDINALS

They have a pretty bad rotation and 1B Paul Goldschmidt and 3B Nolan Arenado arent repeating their career years. I covered this before, but even Fangraphs expects them to lose 7 wins between those two. This is a young team with question marks around the lineup and a weak rotation, that's missing a potential HOF catcher Yadier Molina. Molina's replacement Willson Contreras is notoriously bad at defending, so I don't see much promise here.

CHICAGO CUBS

If you squint, you kind of see the Minnesota Twins. Except it's a tougher division. If they were in the AL Central, they'd have a legit shot at the division, if everything went right. In the NL Central, they're a solid third place team lacking an ace, closer and middle of the order bats.

PITTSBURGH PIRATES

They're a young team without top of the rotation pitching and a weak lineup. They however can be better than Chicago or worse than Cincinnati. It's a coin toss with the last three teams in this division and either one can finish in third or in fifth place. It all depends on who breaks out, who declines and if they trade CF Bryan Reynolds at the trading deadline.

CINCINNATI REDS

Basically what I said about Pittsburgh applies to Cincinnati (minus trading Bryan Reynolds). This is a team with a weak lineup and a weak bullpen, but that has a better rotation than Pittsburgh. Anything can happen and maybe they'll finish third, or maybe they'll finish fourth or fifth.

NL West is next...

Schedule