How weak is the division?

The Stats Geek writes today about the Pirates in comparison to the rest of the NL Central and how they don't appear to stack up too badly when considering the team records after April 30th. I'm not really a huge fan of this comparison, to be honest because I think the talk about the weak division probably severely underrates the Cardinals. I do realize this is a bit of a departure from what I've said about the Cardinals in the past, but watching the NFL playoffs this winter made me think about things a little differently. Everyone has already made the Colts/Cardinals parallel, but it's really there. The Colts have been a fantastic team the past couple years that couldn't get over the hump for one reason or another. Faced with a weak division this year, they rested players and coasted into the playoffs to be prepared for what was really important, the playoffs themselves.

After the games on September 19th, the Cardinals stood at 80-69, seven games up on the division and with the second best record in the National League. That record put the Cards on pace for about 87 wins, not a ton of wins but enough that no one would've batted an eye if they won a World Series with that total. The Cards then dropped 9 of their last 12 and when coupled with a huge rush from Houston, almost lost the division. But they didn't lose it and we all know what happened next. But in those 12 games, what happened? Edmonds was being rested (he didn't play at all), other starters were being rotated around, LaRussa was being careful with the pitching staff, and of the nine losses, four came by one run. My point? The Cards clearly had another goal in mind and coasted into the finish. They miscalculated and it nearly cost them everything, but I think they were better than an 83 win team last year.

So where is this headed? Well, I think the Cards are pretty close to the same 87 win team they were last year. We can laugh all we want about their rotation, but Suppan and Weaver were not impressive at all during the regular season last year and there's no reason to think that the rotation won't be better next year even though it may include Kip Wells and Braden Looper. As the Geek notes, the Astros and Reds may not have gotten much better, but the Brewers and Cubs have, either by addition or maturation. The Pirates have improved, but I still think that last year's second half represents a best case scenario for the team, playing lucky and over their head to finish around .500. I don't think 83 wins takes the division this year.

The last time the Central was as bad as it was last year was the freakshow year of 1997 when the Astros won the division with 84 wins and the Pirates finished second with 79. In 1998 the Astros won 102 games and the Cubs and Cards both finished over .500. In 2005 the Padres won the NL West with 82 wins, in 2006 they tied with the Dodgers for the division lead (they won on a tiebreaker, the Dodgers were the Wild Card) with 88 wins and every other team in the division won 76 games. Just because things were bad one year doesn't mean they will be the next.