Three of the 2020 campaign’s five lowest-scoring offenses belonged to National League playoff teams, but that’s not an ideal outcome if you truly want to make noise in October. Indeed, all three of those clubs (St. Louis, Cincinnati and Milwaukee) failed to advance beyond the playoffs’ initial round during the fall. So what have they and the league’s other two bottom-feeding offenses done to improve themselves this offseason? Not much, as you’ll see below…
Pirates (219 runs scored, 73 wRC+):
- The Pirates look even worse on paper than they did at the end of the season, having traded first baseman Josh Bell to the Nationals last week. While Bell had a horrid season in 2020, he was a star-caliber performer during the previous year, in which he slashed .277/.367/.569 with 37 home runs. The Bell-less Pirates haven’t done anything of significance to bolster their offense this winter, but the good news is that they should get a full 2021 (however many games that consists of) from third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, who ran roughshod over the league during a scintillating 95-PA debut in 2020. There’s also nowhere to go but up for holdovers such as Gregory Polanco, Bryan Reynolds and Adam Frazier, who each posted awful numbers last season.
Rangers (224 runs, 67 wRC+):
- The Rangers have a couple newcomers in outfielder David Dahl and first baseman Nate Lowe, who they hope will improve their attack in 2021. Otherwise, they’ll be counting on bounce-back efforts from the likes of Joey Gallo, Willie Calhoun, Nick Solak, Elvis Andrus and Rougned Odor. It’s hard to imagine things will get any worse next year for that quintet, though Andrus and Odor have been trending in the wrong direction for years. The Rangers are down enough on Andrus these days that they’re planning on using him as a backup shortstop/utilityman behind Isiah Kiner-Falefa next season.
Cardinals (240 runs, 93 wRC+):
- The Cardinals’ place in these rankings is deceiving because a team-wide COVID-19 outbreak cost them two full games. Their 93 wRC+ was closer to average than horrendous, but that isn’t to say they don’t have work to do offensively. First baseman Paul Goldschmidt and outfielder Harrison Bader, two of their best hitters in 2020, are returning. But Brad Miller, who was second on the team in wRC+ (121), is a free agent. Going by wRC+, those three were the only above-average offensive players on last season’s roster. The Cardinals haven’t done anything thus far to better their offense, even though they’re facing questions almost everywhere. Catcher Yadier Molina is a free agent, as is second baseman Kolten Wong, while most of their outfielders underwhelmed at the plate in 2020.
Reds (243 runs, 91 wRC+):
- The Reds made a real effort to upgrade their offense last winter in signing Nick Castellanos, Mike Moustakas and Shogo Akiyama. Moustakas wound up having a typical season at the plate, but Castellanos and Akiyama fell short of expectations. Barring trades, no one from that group is going anywhere in 2021. Likewise, Joey Votto, Eugenio Suarez, Jesse Winker, Nick Senzel and Tucker Barnhart will hang around in key roles. Aside from Winker, who was fantastic in 2020, the Reds will need more from everyone listed in the previous sentence. They also need to upgrade at shortstop, where the largely untested Jose Garcia is their current starter, but it’s unclear whether the team will do so to a satisfactory extent during what has been a cost-cutting winter so far.
Brewers (247 runs, 89 wRC+):
- We’ll cap things off with another NL Central team, Milwaukee, which has joined its division rivals this winter in doing virtually nothing to better its chances of success in 2021. The Brewers opted against retaining infielder Jedd Gyorko, among their most productive hitters last season, instead paying him a $1MM buyout in lieu of exercising his $4.5MM option. They also declined team icon Ryan Braun’s option, but that was an easy decision because the six-time All-Star would have otherwise earned a $15MM salary in 2021. Braun, to his credit, was roughly a league-average hitter last season, which is more than you can say for most Brewers regulars. Whether or not the Brewers bring in outside help, better years from former NL MVP Christian Yelich, Keston Hiura, Avisail Garcia and Omar Narvaez would go a long way in helping the team tack more runs on the board in 2021.
Where does the royals rank in this?
They scored 1 more run than Milwaukee just missing the list I guess.
They should be #5. Cards are #7
Don’t call Harrison Bader one of the Cardinals best hitters. He had a good last series of the season that inflated his numbers because of the low ABs. Take out that last series and he was garbage at the plate.
If Bader rates as above average offensively then we need a different rating system..
Bader 228 AVE, the future is black fOR the substitute of AROZARENA
BADER the last 2 years can’t hit in the MLB
I’d like to see the cards and Mets swing a trade like Cmart for conforto. Obviously we’d have to add a few more players but I like the idea.
Always hoped for success cause he has great numbers in pro ball. Was shocked to see Bader listed as a top hitter for the birds. You gotta hope for better overall production from Paul Dejong, a rebound in production from declining Matt Carpenter or better production from 3rd base in general, better production from Dexter Folwer since they are committed to playing both of them when healthy, as well as consistent performance from the top of the order. Cards seem dead set on not spending money so barring any trades this will be the hopeful course of action
“Arbitrarily take away this players random chunk of numbers and he isn’t as good! I am a baseball genius!”
The Cardinals could really use Eddie Rosario. Dylan Carlson will be a staple in the OF. Put Rosario in LF and have him hit behind Goldy. Bader, Fowler and O’Neill can battle playing time in the 3rd OF spot.
I would love to have Rosario in LF. Then trade Carpenter,Bader, Fowler, Gorman, C-Mart for Arenado
Then your RF could be Tyler O’Neal, Lane Thomas, Justin Williams!!
Bader has more value to the Cards with his speed and defense in the OF than he does as a trade piece currently. Carpenter, Fowler, and C-Mart have no trade value. I get that they would offset salary but I don’t think Gorman is enough to convince another team to take those three. It makes more sense for the Cardinals to keep Gorman. Rosario for the OF and Paxton for the rotation could help a lot and should be within the budget.
Lmao Rockies hang up the phone. They aren’t taking carp or Fowler. Maybe just maybe they take one but there looking to dump salary, they would be gaining salary in this trade suggestion.
I’m surprised the marlins weren’t up here.
Let it go man. It’s getting really sad.
I’m surprised the Mets weren’t… Ped’s must have saved them?
Marlins > Mets
So Bauer and Darvish pitched to the worst offense 50% or more of the time… this is why they had a great season in 2020. They would have gotten exposed in any other division.
That why I kept saying no way Bauer beats Degrom out for CY in a real season.
Jakob deGrom had a record four consecutive starts against that weak-hitting Marlins team you like to degrade.
Btw, does anyone else find it humorous that a Mets superfan can’t spell deGrom’s last name?
He spelled it right, he just didn’t use the proper capitalization.
Which means he spelled it wrong.
By the way, the main point should be that the poster is wrong about the Cy Young Award, which goes to the person who received the most votes. It’s disturbing how some people like to ignore the actual results of the vote for the sake of their own agenda. Fortunately, in this and in other cases, the vote is final. What’s done is done and it can’t be changed. Happy New Year.
No it doesn’t.
If I spell a guy’s name bill williams without capitalizing, that doesn’t mean I spelled his name wrong.
He spelled it wrong because he chose to capitalize part of the name, but that’s not important. What’s more important is that he cannot accept the final vote totals. His argument is fine, but it didn’t persuade the voters. That’s life. It doesn’t always work out like you hope it will. Suck it up and shut up. You’re wasting everybody’s time.
Besides the Sox, the rest of the central wasn’t far behind.
Bauer’s legit. He was awesome in 2018, really good in the first half of 2019, and awesome again in 2020. I don’t blame him for struggling after he got traded in 2019 because he had to play with a whole new coaching staff, which probably messed him up a little. Remember, the Braves had one of the best offenses this year but got utterly dominated by Bauer in the postseason.
It’s why we rarely see Cy Young winners from th AL East.
False narrative. The AL East has had three of the last nine Cy Young Award winners in the American League. The Central has four and the West two. In the NL, seven of the last 10 have gone to Kershaw, Scherzer, and deGrom have gotten seven of the last 10 (Scherzer also got one in the AL). The division has nothing to do with who wins the Cy Young Award.
Did I say Bauer didn’t deserve it??? You face who you face… but the truth is that Bauer faced easier completion. And Degrom would have had a better year in a full year. I’m not saying Degrom deserve CY (even if he had better advanced stats).
If you’re not saying anything, then why do you keep talking?
@Donkatsu You can easily spin this as the NL Central had better pitching overall, hence less runs scored. I don’t necessarily agree with that take, but it’s just as logical.
If you look at the lineups in the NL central you would know that this theory is just not true.
I will say this, we’re NL East fans. Outside of deGrom, the Mets starters were terrible last year (obviously due to Syndergaard and Stroman being out). The Phillies had one of the worst bullpens in baseball history. The Nats lost Stras. The Braves lost a good chunk of their rotation. The Marlins lost their entire roster to covid at points. So it’s not like NL East pitching was lights out in 2020. You can make a case that offensive stats were inflated because of that. Again, I don’t necessarily agree with that take, but it’s something to think about.
David Peterson was good but I get your point. But if you still look at the lineups you would see NL east has better lineups as a whole. That could also have inflated our pitchers era to be worse. It works both ways. At the ends of the day Bauer took advantage of pitching to the worst hitting division in baseball.
Fair enough. Can’t disagree here. I do think Bauer is good enough to pitch anywhere, but he’s no deGrom. So I get your point.
I hate to agree with you but I feel that DeGrom wins the Cy in a full regular season again, and it’s not even a question. Bauer is so up and down and faced the weakest division.
The Marlins were also so pesky to him. 19 hits in 24 innings with 19 hits and 6 walks. 0-1. A very superior strand rate. Cause he’s the best. I wouldn’t call the NLEast opponents last year slouches either (especially compared the NL Central) with the Braves being awesome, the Philles problem wasn’t their offense, and the Nats have Juan Soto.
Would you bet on Bauer faring well against the NLWest? Would he do well against some of the NLEast? Maybe you would. But you don’t bet against DeGrom doing well against anyone.
And before anyone wants to argue, yes I am biased. Being a Marlins fan and watching the NLEast all the time I loved DeGrom in the 2015 playoffs and wondered why it took so long to become what he is. I legitimately root for him. (along with Soto who offensively is the second coming)
Donkey, dismiss Bauer at your own peril. The man is a technician: a true craftsman.
Explain Darvish’s dominant 2nd half in 2019 then.,
Jose Garcia is definitely not the current starter for the Reds, he’ll probably be in Chattanooga in AA. There isn’t an MLB starter in the organization. It’ll be someone from outside.
Cool. An article that’s not about the Padres.
To be fair they are the only team that is doing anything so far.
And here I would have thought that the Indians were on this list, considering all the crap they get about their offensive woes.
The Indians still had Lindor and Ramirez, which probably helped them avoid this list.
They are top 6 if it helps.
4 of the bottom 5 in the NL central….ouch.
Royals should be 5. Not the cards.
They’re ranking by runs scored. Royals were #7, Cards were #4.
Cards played 2 less games… should have gone by average runs per game. Cards would have been 8th worst.
Rangers representing!
Even though scored more runs, they were in my opinion the worst offensive team last year. I was so bad to watch every night.
The Pirates can’t hit, can’t pitch and can’t field. But just wait until 2026
Detroit scored one more run than Cleveland despite playing two fewer games.
They still won’t be able to do any of those unfortunately
Detroit scored more runs than Cleveland? Really?
How in the H are the Tigers not on this dumb list??
Who?
Reds scored 238 runs, not 243. I wonder why they just decided to tack on an additional 5 runs to their tally?
Pity?
Looking over the pirates. Double yuck. Very little to think that anyone will become as good as their minor #s. Or anyone who could recapture old magic. They mostly just play 27-30 year olds. Their best player by far, looks to regress based on his minor league #s.
The league average was 278 runs for the 30 teams. Since everyone used the DH, they can all be lumped together. An oddity is that Colorado was below league average with 275, ranking 15th overall. Gotta wonder if that’s ever happened before. Considering the Coors Field factor, they should probably be ranked worse than their actual run total. You also have to remember that some of these rankings would have been different over a full schedule.
3 of the 5 made the playoffs?
The 2 that didn’t have the first 2 picks in the draft.
A lot of central teams on here. It’s no fun facing Bieber, Darvish, Flaherty, Bauer, Giolito, woodruff, every other night. I do think all but the twins and chi sox lack hitting, but the pitching they face is really good. Will be interesting to see guys like Kuechel and Maeda, and even Darvish and Bauer, how they’ll be against better hitting teams. Not taking anything away from what they did in 2020, but it’s tough to read how these performances would translate to a normal season.
Of the 8 teams that scored fewer than 250 runs in 2020, 7 of them were AL/NL Central teams (the Rangers were the only non-Central team in the bunch). Yikes!
Of the 13 teams that scored fewer than 270 runs, 9 of them were AL/NL Central teams, with 3 from the West (Rangers, Mariners, Dbacks) and only one from the East (Marlins). So 90% of the Central was in the bottom 43% of the league, appearing twice as much in that range as they would have if run production was evenly distributed.
Rangers29, where are ya, man? Damn I didn’t know it was THAT tough being a Rangers fan last season.
Come on, everyone. Let’s give Rangers29 a group hug. He needs the emotional support.
=D
The Penguins might score more goals than the Pirates do runs this season.