Look Ahead to 2021 Season: Reds

Bauer's gone, and much like their friends in Milwaukee, the Cincinnati Reds will have difficulty competing with the Cubs and Cardinals.

2020 Record: 31-29

The Cubs and Cardinals are multiple steps ahead of the rest of the division, and the Reds are way up on the Pirates. That leaves them in the middle ground with Christian Yelich and the Brewers. The Reds lost ace and Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer to the Dodgers, and aren't good enough to be a contender. The expanded postseason forces teams to be in win-now mode and spend money, but the Reds don't seem like they'll be doing much.

Tier: 4 (Wild Card Straggler)

The expanded postseason rewarded the Reds in a shortened season, but a regular 162 game schedule will benefit better teams, and the NL has a power disparity that has more good teams in the east than in the central and west. The best two teams are in the NL West in the Dodgers and Padres, and everyone in the NL East is pretty good, probably all better than Cincinnati. This makes life difficult for the Reds and might not allow them to make the postseason, unless the east teams tear each other apart and the Reds have a slightly better record than a couple of the bottom three teams in that division.