The Cincinnati Reds will win the National League Central for the first time since 2012. At least those are the words from Jon Morosi of MLB Network this morning.
“The Reds have one of the top two rotations in the entire sport,” said Morosi. “I believe they’re going to win the National League Central this year. Sonny Gray, Luis Castillo, Trevor Bauer all together in the same rotation for a full season. Castellanos, Moustakas joining the lineup. Saurez and Votto already there. I love the Cincinnati Reds here in 2020. I look for the Cardinals to finish in second and claim a wild card.”
Prediction: The @Reds win their first NL Central title since 2012, as I agree with @Curtcasali’s assessment of their first-rate starting rotation. The @Cardinals claim one of the NL Wild Cards, as @DCarls_06 makes a big impact in STL. @MLBNetwork @MLB pic.twitter.com/5Bam0DyPsZ
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) July 21, 2020
There you have it. The expert has spoken and the Cincinnati Reds marketing department should start designing postseason material right now. It’s not too surprising that one would pick the Reds to win the division – most places do have them as the smallest of favorites to win the National League Central, but it’s a close race with the Reds, Cubs, Cardinals, and Brewers all seemingly neck-and-neck in the projections and predictions no matter where you look.
Nick Lodolo and Jose De Leon to start against Detroit
The Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers will get together tonight and tomorrow to play two exhibition games before Opening Day gets here on Friday evening. C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic reported last night that the two exhibition games would be started by Nick Lodolo, the Cincinnati Reds #2 overall prospect, and Jose De Leon. Lodolo, a left-handed pitcher in his second year as a professional, takes the mound tonight. Jose De Leon will grace the mound with his gorgeous mustache and outstanding change up on Wednesday for Cincinnati. Trevor Bauer, who is scheduled to start the third game of the season on Sunday against Detroit, will stay on schedule by throwing today at Prasco Park.
Would be interesting to see that percentage of time that these ‘experts’ are correct in their predictions. Probably runs about the same as the positivity rate for covid tests.
Last week a handful of experts made their picks for The Memorial golf event. Something like three of the five picks missed the cut and the other two were never in it. So much for experts’ picks!
Ignoring the nonsense Covid portion of your comment, but do you really think that choosing the winning golfer in a field of over 100 golfers is somehow comparable to choosing which of 5 teams is going to win the NL Central????
What was nonsense about the Covid portion of his comment? Just curious? Are we not allowed to compare statistical numbers to Covid statistical numbers? Are we so utterly scared of this disease that we can’t even mention it? Personally, I think the comparison statistically speaking is probably SPOT ON.
Well chris the US positivity rate is around 9 percent, so you believe that experts are only right at picking a divisional winner basically 1 of 10 times? It’s not a “SPOT ON” comparison. That’s not even getting into why he felt it necessary to make a comment about Covid rates into the discussion about the Reds making the playoffs.
Yes Steve, when there is no clear standout team in a division, I’d say they collectively are probably picking a winner at a 9% clip. When you can prove that notion wrong, get back to us, until then, don’t be so overly sensitive; not all of us are scared of our own shadows when it comes to Covid-19.
MLB Power Ranking just out. Reds 16th, which puts them 4th in the division. That’s a lot of people missing the beat, if this team wins the division, don’t you think Steve?
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2901026-mlb-power-rankings-where-all-30-teams-stand-ahead-of-2020-opening-day
MLB Power Rankings by who, though? The author of that article doesn’t give any insight into who voted on those rankings, and well, with all due respect to Joel Rueter (the author) I just have trouble placing any sort of faith in rankings where no one involved is identified and the author of said article has 773 followers on twitter and tweets about baseball once a week (he’s tweeted three times in July).
Well Chris, lets just look at ESPN for the sake of convenience. They polled 32 of their baseball experts to pick division winners for the season…Reds got 14 votes, Brewers got 7, Cubs got 6 and Cardinals received 5 votes. So, if the lowest vote getting Cardinals win, alot of experts got it wrong and yet that still amounts to over 15% of the experts being correct about this season. I am not overly sensitive about the Covid issue, I take precautions just as I want others to. I, however, don’t bring up the issue flippantly when wanting to not only downplay its significance but also trash MLB writers/experts. Of course they are not always correct, they’re projections.
Repeat of 1990 would be sweat
I am with him. I think it is the Reds and Cards.
Cubs have Darvish and a dream in the rotation. No bullpen.
Rizzo will not provide value this year. They still have Bryant, Contreras, Baez, Schwarber and Happ but the Reds easily counter that.
Brewers ace (Woodruff) has a higher ERA than Miley the last 2 years.
Offense anchored by Yelich, Hiura, Cain and Braun, so really only 2 deep.
Cards have pitching and in fact Flaherty is the best SP in the NL Central. But I am not sold on Hudson and Mikolas. Martinez is always injured. Offensively, they have a weak OF and the Reds are much better at 2B and 3B. However, DeJong is much better than Galvis and I think the gap between Goldschmidt and Votto shrinks this year, Goldschmidt is still better.
You forgot the Dreaded Pirates! LOL
No clue what will happen, the offense has to start strong and stay strong, need to average more than 4.5 runs a game and the Reds will win more than then loose which will put them in the mix
Glad that the Reds are no longer being predicted be in last place with a stretch goal of not losing 90 games.
They are at least relevant enough to be discussed outside of Reds Fan sites and local Cincy media
One has to give the GM and President of Baseball operations credit for that.
We will see how it all works out.
The Reds just announced that the game will be available on Reds.com tonight and tomorrow
Awesome! Was really hoping to see Lodolo pitch.
Tonight’s lineup looks like what they will use opening day.