How do the Cubs stack up in the division when it comes to starting rotations?

4. Reds: Green, Singer, Martinez, Lodolo, Abbott

I might have the Reds too low here. They have an elite ace in Green and some depth around him. Greene took a huge step forward in 2025, majorly improving his ability to limit hard contact and further decreasing his BB %. He's a legitimate Cy Young candidate heading into this season.

Nick Martinez is a name to watch in his first full season of starting. He has been really good at inducing weak contact for several years now and the Reds saw enough to award him with a pretty large one-year contract via the qualifying offer. Singer joins from the Royals and is due for some regression this year. He's probably not as bad as his 2023 stats, but not as good as his 2024 numbers. Andrew Abbott and Nick Lodolo both seem like solid back half of the rotation guys- Lodolo is more likely to break out in my mind than Abbot, even though the latter had a better stat sheet in 2024.

5. Cardinals: Gray, Fedde, Mikolas, Pallante, Matz

The Cardinals staff won't be throwing to Willson Contreras at all this year, which might help guys like Sonny Gray post an ERA closer to their FIP. The rotation overall is just fraught with health risks and mid-level talent after Gray. Erik Fedde came out of nowhere last year with the White Sox, Miles Mikolas has struggled his last two years since his All-Star campaign in 2023. He still has an elite walk rate, but he offsets that by the mass quantity of hits he gives up. Pallente is younger than the rest of them but doesn't offer any elite skills or pitches. He strikes out hitters at a low clip and walks them at a significantly above-average rate; not a good combination generally even though the paper results seem solid last year.