The Brewers are now a better team/organization than the Cards, and have been for several years. Really good at finding pitchers, then trade them for more assets before they hit FA and keep winning. The Tampa system. StL is catching back up but it's gonna take another couple of years.
Unless the CBA changes significantly, it's going to be very difficult to get out of that 3rd place spot in the Central. It's very similar to the order of operations in many of the divisions with the AL Central being the outlier.
Milwaukee has proven to be the best talent development program in MLB, especially with their pitching, with the Cubs probably being the worst.
That said, the Cubs can and do outspend everyone in the division by quite a bit, so they can fill gaps and make up for a lot of drafting/development sins of their operation. They are one of the "haves" in baseball. They are literally the most snake bitten team with regards to pitching injuries in the league. 80% of their starting pitching is gone(for the time being), they lost their closer(for the time being) and the parade of knuckleheads they trot out their for middle relief and high leverage situations is insane, yet, somehow, they're 11 over .500 and are in the top WC spot. They could never survive this over a full 162, but they will address it at the trade deadline because they can. They can take on and eat bad contracts and leverage that to get the guys they want.
The Cards are caught in the middle. They haven't done an A+ job in developing pitching(it's starting to show) and they can't/don't go out and fill significant gaps with in their prime free agents. I think the Goldschmidt/Arenado contracts created a "never again" frame of mind.
I put the Reds and Cardinals in very similar boats. The Reds have taken on water as well with pitching and the dam broke. By the end of the year, I suspect their record will be similar to the Cards.
Pittsburgh is Pittsburgh. They develop beautifully, but lose literally every player that becomes a free agent and spend nothing to replace them.
This is going to be the order of operations unless this lockout changes the dynamic of how free agency works and they truly reward teams for elite draft and development.