2025 NL Central Team Previews
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 875 Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2025
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eno and DVR return to their 2025 Team Previews Series in the NL Central. Can the Brewers continue to exceed projections? Who will emerge from the Cardinals' position player group to take on everyday roles as they try to identify their current core? Are the Cubs deserving of frontrunner status from 2025 projections? Will the Reds surprise us with better starting pitching than expected, but less production from their lineup? And, will the Pirates find enough steady bats to support their young aces?
Rundown
3:44 2025 Milwaukee Brewers Preview
26:43 2025 St. Louis Cardinals Preview
42:06 2025 Chicago Cubs Preview
53:34 2025 Cincinnati Reds Preview
1:05:40 2025 Pittsburgh Pirates Preview
1:18:13 A Selection of Sleepers From the NL Central
Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social
Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social
e-mail: ratesandbarrels@gmail.com
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe
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Note: Win Total Projections for the episode are from Baseball Prospectus' PECTOA system at the time of the recording. Support BP -- they do great work!
Current PECOTA Projections: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/
Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris
Producer Brian Smith
Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Rates and barrels. |
| 0:12.7 | It is Tuesday, February 18th. |
| 0:14.8 | Derek Van Riper, Inoceris, here with you. |
| 0:16.4 | Getting back into our team preview series, the focus for this episode will be the NL Central America's |
| 0:23.7 | Division, as I like to call it. Eno, how'd the extra day off treat you? I saw a little Pliny |
| 0:29.4 | the Younger photo from you in our Discord. Yeah, it was my 17th wedding anniversary. Congratulations. |
| 0:37.5 | Yeah, we went out to a nice bite to eat, |
| 0:40.1 | and then we went back to my local, |
| 0:44.0 | which has been a bar that we've gone to for, |
| 0:48.8 | I don't even want to say the number. |
| 0:50.1 | Your bar has been there for 17 years, right? |
| 0:52.0 | Yeah, but we've been together for longer than that. |
| 1:11.6 | Yeah. So we've been going there for a long time since school, and we went and played darts, and there was no line. There was no hubbub about fantasy, about Plenty the Younger. There was, uh, it was just happening to be on tap. And I was like, okay, that's fun. You know, so that was fun. |
| 1:12.6 | I took my dad out to Point Reyes. |
| 1:15.6 | And so we did a nice hike on Saturday where it was like high 50s, not even that windy, super sunny, beautiful day out there. |
| 1:25.6 | What I love about the Bay Area is that like it was like an hour |
| 1:29.2 | drive to an awesome hike that was just beautiful. All sorts of birds everywhere and the surf. |
| 1:37.1 | I love the sound of the surf. It's super important to me. I don't know from when I was I was born in |
| 1:41.7 | Jamaica. So like I don't know. The sound of surf is like, my body's like, ah, you know. |
| 1:48.3 | You're wired for it, yeah. |
| 1:49.3 | Yeah. |
| 1:49.9 | So that was good. |
... |
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