Corners Report: NL Central Cornerstone Or Corner Pieces?

As many predicted, the corner infield landscape is a barren field littered with mines that might go off at any second. If your powers of prognostication were correct, your team is built with corners that are good, aka cornerstones. If not, well, you do have to fill in a 1B, 3B, and CI spot in most leagues, right? These could become viable corner pieces, I suppose.

This week, and until I get sick of doing it, is a division dive into the five teams that make up the NL Central. It’s not a great group, but there’s always knowledge to be gleaned, kinda like a wheat field, gleaning, or something like that. So team by team, from the top of the standings to the bottom, let’s see where they stand at first base and third base.

Chicago Cubs:

Michael Busch and Matt Shaw have been given the keys to their positions. Busch is off to a solid .272/.372/.459 start mainly from the cleanup spot. A mild concern for Busch is that he has sat twice against lefties for the elderly bearded warrior Justin Turner. Long term, what this means is that he’s on pace to start 121 games. If this holds, we need to downgrade Busch a bit because his counting stats take that 40 game hit.  I would float some offers to see if people will buy high on it. Now Justin Turner isn’t exactly producing here, so this could all be wrong, but he didn’t sign in Chicago to just sit the bench all season.

Matt Shaw predictably is struggling at the dish a bit. His stance is weird and looks like he’s spraining his ankle on purpose in the batter’s box. The plate approach is good though (.333 OBP) compared to his .190 batting average and 1 home run. He’s going to get the long runway at third since his backups are a Rule 5 guy who struck out over 30% of the time in AA and Jon Berti. Shaw has 10 runs already reflecting his underrated speed. I’d stick with Shaw.

Milwaukee Brewers:

Oh, dear, this is not going well in Wrigley North. People hoping for a rebound to Philly days for Rhys Hoskins have been treated to a .136 batting average main course with a side dish of zero home runs. Joey Ortiz at third is no better. He’s at .162 and has as many home runs on the season as I do. Now granted, Ortiz is at SS most of the days so someone named Vinny Capra is out at third base.

Capra has bounced around the minors since 2018 after being drafted in the 20th round by Toronto. In Triple-A Nashville for Milwaukee, he had a very nondescript .730 OPS. If you still are excited, keep in mind the Brewers got him off of waivers from Pittsburgh. Nothing to see here.

Advice for this group would be to hold Hoskins for a bit. He’s still getting on base at a .321 clip and isn’t going to slug .136 all season. Oof. After reading that, if there’s someone more interesting you should do that more interesting thing. Ortiz has some bounce back maybe, but he’s not a power or speed or average guy, so hopefully you can do better. He’s a deep league CI guy. And Capra, just ignore for now.

St. Louis Cardinals:

Willson Contreras now mans first base, and of course, you shouldn’t be playing him there. He should be your catcher. Contreras is not off to a good start (4 for his first 39) but his bat speed is still intact. He’s swinging at everything leading to a bottom 5th percentile in K rate, whiff rate, and chase rate. He will likely rebound since this is an approach issue, not a skills one. But I do repeat, play him at catcher.

Alec Burleson has played in all ten games so far. Is he still platooned though? Seems like he is! Burly has played all ten games as of this writing, but 3 were entered as pinch hitters. 31 at bats have been against RHP, and only 3 vs. LHP. Clearly they don’t wanna smell what the Burly’s cooking against the same side pitching. Adjust accordingly. In a weekly league, he may be droppable. He’s sitting against EVERY lefty so far, placing him below Michael Busch in the 1B hierarchy.

Now, for the first time in the article, some abundant positivity! Nolan Arenado has turned back the clock and is pretending he still plays in Colorado, slashing .343/.439/.514 in the early going. The bat speed is up over 2 mph from last season and all other metrics are stable, so this might be a good season for Arenado. I’d buy just to see. He’s 33, not a geezer or anything, and weirder things have happened than aging good players being good again.

Cincinnati Reds:

The Reds corner infield batting average is .454. Before you think “Hey, that’s good!” keep in mind these are three guys who get playing time averages combined. Their average average is .151!

Spencer Steer was expected to miss time with injury but then didn’t. His bat speed is down, and the shoulder probably isn’t right yet. His plate approach continues to be solid; Steer simply is making awful contact. We wanted Spencer Steer, not Nick Madrigal! In the early going, his pull rate went from 23% down to 5%. All of this smacks as a guy who’s just not healthy.

Christian Encarnacion-Strand at least has 2 dingers to his name but only 3 runs and 3 RBI. I’m not sure, but that’s kind of a reflection of a struggling offense. CES has a top 25% bat speed but is at the bottom of the barrel with chase rate. Maybe he’ll settle in, seems like he’s pressing at the plate. I haven’t given up hope here.

Jeimer Candelario, yes, I’ve given up hope. You don’t want to read about him at all, do you? Good! Let’s move on.

Pittsburgh Pirates:

Ke’Bryan Hayes is playing again, hopefully, recovered from last year’s balky back. He’s stealing bases again, and sluggin .421, so here’s your deep league guy if you need something.

No, don’t look at their first base until Spencer Horwitz gets back. Just don’t. Move on.

Thanks for reading, and let me know in the comments if you enjoyed this format!