NL Central Standings

St. Louis Cardinals (40-21)
The St. Louis Cardinals are very good and they are a veteran team with a lot of playoff experience. They have really good hitters on their team as well that are veterans. One of the veterans they have is outfielder Carlos Beltran. Carlos Beltran is a switch hitter, which means he can hit from both sides of the plate. Being a switch hitter is very rare because learning the concept of hitting from both sides is very hard. The thing that makes the Cardinals such a good team is that they have an experienced catcher behind the plate in veteran Yadier Molina, who is competing for votes to be the starting catcher for the all star game for the NL team. The Cardinals are overall a good team and they should be a contender come October and the postseason. 

Cincinnati Reds (36-25)
The Cincinnati Reds are the defending champions of the National League Central division. They also have many good players that play for them. The face of their franchise is Joey Votto, which is their first basemen and he is currently the leader in voting for the all star game to be the starter at first base for the National League Team. The Cincinnati Reds also have a great second basemen in Brandon Phillips, who is also leading voting for the National League Team for the all star game at his position. They acquired a really good outfielder from the Cleveland Indians in Shin-Soo Choo. They also have some of the best relief pitching in baseball in Jonathan Broxton and closer Aroldis Chapman. 

Pittsburgh Pirates (36-25)
The Pittsburgh Pirates always start the beginning of the season off fast and win many of their games. The biggest problem that the Pirates have is that they can't finish the season the way the start as they always fall short of the playoffs. They have really good pitching this season with veteran starter A.J. Burnett and they also have a really good young starter in Jeff Locke who has an ERA under 3, which is really good for an earned run average in baseball. They have a really fast and talented outfielder in Andrew McCutchen. The biggest free agent signing the Pirates made was signing veteran catcher Russell Martin. 

Chicago Cubs (24-34)
The Chicago Cubs are the loveable loser of all of baseball. They have not won a World Series since 1908. They have had many good seasons since then but just cannot convert in the playoffs. This season's Cubs team are very young and it shows by their record but they play every game hard which is commendable. They have a really good young nucleus in shortstop Starlin Castro, first basemen Anthony Rizzo, and second basemen Darwin Barney, who plays really hard and who any coach would love to have on their team because of his heart and effort. They also have a really good pitcher in Jeff Samardzija, who also is famous for being a really good wide receiver in college at Notre Dame. The Cubs will be a good team next season if they continue to improve. 

Milwaukee Brewers (23-37)
The Milwaukee Brewers are a really young team mixed in with some veteran players. The best young player they have is Shortstop Jean Segura who I talked about in my NL all star voting post. The face of the Brewers franchise, Ryan Braun has been under some scrutiny this week after a report surfaced from ESPN about him buying Performance Enhancing Drugs from a clinic in Florida. Where the Brewers are in the standings was expected for this season because they are young and young teams usually do not play well. The Brewers will be a better team when their younger players start playing better but the problem is that may take a long time for them to develop but the best way is to get them playing experience. 

Here is a Picture of Cubs Pitcher Jeff Samardzija playing wide receiver for Notre Dame.

Here is a Picture of Jeff Samardzija playing baseball, Pitching for the Chicago Cubs.