![\"MlbHlSq\"](\"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/wp-content\/MlbHlSq.jpg\" "\\"MlbHlSq\\"")
2010 proved to be the year that the Cincinnati Reds finally got back to the postseason for the first time since 1995.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n2010 proved to be the year that the Cincinnati Reds finally got back to the postseason for the first time since 1995.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
BaseballGB Predictions<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Cincinnati Reds (91-71)<\/strong><\/p>\n The Reds had been a trendy pick to emerge as a playoff contender in 2008 and 2009 due to their crop of young talent arriving in the Majors.\u00c2\u00a0 It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite happen in those years, but the team came of age in 2010 and deservedly took the NL Central crown.<\/p>\n It was the Reds\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 misfortune that their first postseason game since 1995 was against Roy Halladay and the Philadelphia Phillies.\u00c2\u00a0 It was as if Game One was Cincinnati\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s birthday party, long in the planning and eagerly anticipated, to which Halladay turned up and promptly walked off with all the presents. The Phillies\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ace pitched a no-hitter and thoroughly deflated the Reds, leading to a 3-0 sweep and a brutally blunt end to Cincinnati\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s season.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n The obvious disappointment will be tempered by the knowledge that the Reds\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 2010 success was built on a mix of youth and experience that should hold them in good stead for the next few years.<\/p>\n Joey Votto stood out in the batting lineup, and in the National League MVP award stakes, but the Reds\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 offence was potent because he was far from the only threat.\u00c2\u00a0 Scott Rolen, Brandon Phillips, Ramon Hernandez, Jay Bruce and Drew Stubbs all made significant contributions alongside a bit of thump from Jonny Gomes.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n In the pitching department, Bronson Arroyo held everything together in typically understated fashion, while Mike Leake and Travis Wood had impressive rookie seasons and Arthur Rhodes rolled back the years in the bullpen.\u00c2\u00a0 And then came Aroldis Chapman.\u00c2\u00a0 The Cuban exile jumped up to the Big Leagues down the stretch and caused a sensation with his 105 MPH fastball and filthy slider.<\/p>\n Dusty Baker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s men might have been dismissed quickly from the playoffs in 2010, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good chance they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be back again in 2011 and maybe it will be them getting the brooms out next time.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n St. Louis Cardinals (86-78)<\/strong><\/p>\n The Reds may be seen as the new force in the Central, but let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not dismiss the 2009 champions too quickly.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n In fact, the 2010 Cardinals were eerily reminiscent of the previous year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s team when you look at the numbers.\u00c2\u00a0 The difference between the runs they conceded in 2009 to those conceded in 2010 was one (640 in 2009 to 641 in 2010) and the difference in runs scored was six (730 in 2009, 736 in 2010).\u00c2\u00a0 Ordinarily you would expect a team with those runs scored-allowed totals to finish with a 91-71 record, which is exactly how they ended up in 2009.\u00c2\u00a0 Had they done so in 2010, they would have tied the Reds in the Central and the Braves in the Wild Card race.\u00c2\u00a0 That they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t was down to very small margins of error along the 162 game season.<\/p>\n So the Cardinals were still genuine contenders in the Central and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hardly a surprise.\u00c2\u00a0 Albert Pujols was outstanding as usual, Matt Holliday had a strong year one in his seven year\/$120m contract, Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter were as intimidating as ever and Jaime Garcia was a rookie revelation.<\/p>\n However, there are two clouds hanging over the Cardinals.\u00c2\u00a0 The first is that manager Tony LaRussa doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to be able to get along with the team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s young outfielder Colby Rasmus.\u00c2\u00a0 He was their third most significant contributor to the offence in 2010 (behind Pujols and Holliday) and yet LaRussa started benching him for lesser players like Jon Jay as the season went on.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe there are issues we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know about that justify LaRussa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision, but it wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be the first time he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been in a feud with a player (Scott Rolen being a good relatively recent example) and the Cardinals cannot allow a young talent like Rasmus to go to waste.<\/p>\n The biggest cloud, of course, is Albert Pujols\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 impending free agency at the end of the 2011 season.\u00c2\u00a0 It seems unimaginable for him to wear anything other than a Cardinals uniform, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the best player in the game and therefore any contract extension will need to reflect this.\u00c2\u00a0 Can the Cardinals afford to keep him?\u00c2\u00a0 Their fans will surely say they cannot afford not to.\u00c2\u00a0 If an extension isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t agreed before or during Spring Training, Pujols\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 future will be the dominant story next season in St. Louis regardless of what happens on the field.<\/p>\n Milwaukee Brewers (77-85)<\/strong><\/p>\n The Brewers have their own first baseman on the brink of free agency.\u00c2\u00a0 Prince Fielder isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t in \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcPrince\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Albert\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s regal class, but he still figures to command a sizeable contract at the end of 2011 and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unlikely to be the Brewers that are paying the cheques.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Milwaukee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s disappointing 2010 campaign may increase the chances of Fielder being dealt over the offseason in a bid to add some pieces to make the team a contender two or three years down the line.\u00c2\u00a0 That would partly depend on how far away they feel they are from contending now. While the NL Central is far from the deepest division(*), you would think only a series of significant additions would really push this team forward in 2011 and such developments do not appear to be on the horizon.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n The pitching staff was awful in 2009 and wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t greatly improved in 2010, with Yovani Gallardo and Randy Wolf being the exceptions.\u00c2\u00a0 Ryan Braun had another very productive year and Rickie Weeks finally played a full season and showed why so many baseball fans (not just those with a rooting interest in Milwaukee) had bemoaned his injury misfortune in recent years.\u00c2\u00a0 Other than that, there wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t much to shout about, unless you were a Brewers player shouting off the record that you didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get on with manager Ken Macha.<\/p>\n You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to be popular to be successful, but you do have to be successful if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not popular.\u00c2\u00a0 The Brewers finished eight games below .500, so Macha was sacked and replaced by Ron Roenicke after the season closed.<\/p>\n (* On that note, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a curious fact that in 2010 the Reds became the fourth straight NL Central champions to be swept out of the playoffs in the divisional round. Is that purely a random fluke produced by the short, best-of-five series format, or does it say something about the quality of the NL Central compared to the East and West? )<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our review of the 2010 MLB season moves on to the NL Central. Part One looks at the Reds, Cardinals and Brewers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[122,121,553,119],"class_list":["post-9802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-milwaukee-brewers","tag-mlb-2","tag-st-louis-cardinals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9802"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9814,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9802\/revisions\/9814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\n
\n Joe<\/strong><\/td>\n Cardinals<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Mark<\/strong><\/td>\n Cardinals<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Matt<\/strong><\/td>\n Cardinals<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Russ<\/strong><\/td>\n Cubs<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Steve<\/strong><\/td>\n Brewers<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n