The NL Central Is Topsy Turvy, Madison Bumgarner Is Out In Arizona, and The A's Are Likely Headed To Las Vegas.

Welcome to Free Friday

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, you missed two interesting newsletters this week.

On Monday, I dove into MLB’s struggles to attract Black ballplayers and Black broadcasters. I discussed why the the game needs more Black broadcasters, to tell more accurate and compelling stories about Black ballplayers to an increasingly diverse fan base.

On Wednesday, I explored what makes the San Francisco Giants so hard to watch. It’s not just the bad play on the field. The team is just soooo boring.

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The Cubs are good? Or just lucky?

After Thursday’s action, the Cubs occupy third place in the National League Central with a record of 11-7, 2.5 games behind the division-leading Brewers. The Pirates are in second place at 13-7.

Most baseball experts picked the Brewers and the Cardinals to vie for the NL Central title and a wild card bid. Very few, if any, predicted the Cubs or Pirates would have have a winning season.

What’s going on? I think the Cubs are for real and the Pirates are not. Let’s examine the Cubs.

First, the Cubs are hitting the ball and cashing in the runners on base. At .282, the Cubs have the second-highest batting average in the league. Their .347 wOBA (weighted on-base average) is good for fourth-best overall. As FanGraphs explains, “[w]eighted On-Base Average combines all the different aspects of hitting into one metric, weighting each of them in proportion to their actual run value.” And while the Cubs aren’t setting Statcast on fire with hard hit balls, they have hit 22 home runs—more than all but 12 teams in the league.

The Cubs’ offense attack is balanced, with five of the team’s regulars—Patrick Wisdom, Nico Hoerner, Dansby Swanson, Ian Happ, and Cody Bellinger—all at .350 wOBA or higher. Yes, that Cody Bellinger, the former Dodger who appears to have found his swing after two absolutely dismal seasons at the plate. Wisdom is on a home run-hitting tear to start the season, with 8 so far, one shy of Pete Alonso’s league-leading 9.

Chicago’s pitching has been solid, lead by Marcus Stroman’s renaissance as a pitcher who can induce a lot of ground balls. Stroman’s 3.89 ground ball-to-fly ball ratio is the best of his career. Inducing all those ground balls has led to a very low BABIP against of .211 (batting average on ball in play), which suggests either that the Cubs defense has been spectacular or that Stroman’s been lucky so far. Or a combination of both.

Cubs relievers have been excellent at the one thing relievers need to do well: strike out batters. The bullpen’s 30% strikeout rate is the best among all bullpens in the majors. (The bullpen did cough up a grand slam to the Dodgers last night in the 9th inning).

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the Cubs’ early success is that they’ve played a tough schedule. Yes, they just finished beating up on the A’s, but the Cubs have also taken two out of three from each of the Rangers, Dodgers, and Mariners.

Could be a fun summer at the corner of Addison and Clark Streets.

The Diamondbacks designated Madison Bumgarner for assignment

Madison Bumgarner’s career may be over after the division-leading Diamondbacks dropped the lefty from their roster on Thursday. As ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweeted Thursday morning, Bumgarner’s numbers over 4+ seasons in Arizona were utterly unimpressive, particularly for a three-time World Series Champion with a career postseason ERA of 2.11 over 102.1 innings.

Bumgarner, of course, played 10 seasons for the San Francisco Giants. In 289 career regular-season games for San Francisco, Bumgarner pitched 1,846 innings, recorded 1,794 strikeouts, and amassed an impressive 3.13 ERA. He also hit 19 home runs, back in the days before the National League adopted the designated hitter. And he blew thousands of snot rockets.

As a Giants fan, I cherished Bumgarner’s time in the Orange & Black, particularly come October. What he did in the 2014 postseason is still difficult to fully comprehend—a complete game shut out in the National League Wild Card Game over the Pirates; two victories over the Cardinals in the Championship Series; and 21 innings of nearly flawless pitching in the World Series, including the final five innings of Game 7 on two days’ rest.

But I wasn’t so blinded by my fandom to miss Bumgarner’s flaws, particularly the red-ass bullshit he pulled too often on the mound when facing non-White players. Bumgarner is a top cop on the Unwritten Rules To Play The Game the Right Way Enforcement Task Force™. I’m a firm believer in the Unwritten Rules Ruin The Game and Are Racist Club™.

My recollection is that I was in favor of the Giants letting Bumgarner walk after the 2019 season. His dominance had started to wane after the 2016 season and it didn’t make sense to me to give a five-year deal to a pitcher with that many innings on his arm. Even so, I didn’t expect him to pitch so poorly for the Diamondbacks.

Maybe a team that plays in a pitcher-friendly ballpark will swoop in and sign Bumgarner to the minimum after he clears waivers. Or maybe this is the end of an historic, if not Hall of Fame-worthy career.

The A’s take big step toward relocation to Las Vegas

Late on Wednesday night, news broke that the Oakland A’s had entered into a purchase agreement for a 49-acre property in Las Vegas on which the team could build a 35,000-seat ballpark.

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao responded to the news immediately, telling the San Francisco Chronicle:

Mayor Thao held a press conference on Thursday and reiterated that she would not allow Oakland to be used as leverage in the A’s negotiations with Las Vegas. Thao also said she was shocked by the A’s announcement because the two sides had meeting daily and getting closer to a deal.

I’m not quite sure how Oakland officials could be shocked by the A’s move. As I wrote about the A’s mess last week:

It doesn’t feel good to be right, because this outcome is awful for A’s fans in Oakland and around Northern California. As Marc Carig at The Athletic wrote yesterday, fans did support the A’s for decades. (Marc grew up near Oakland, fell in love with baseball, and now is a baseball editor at The Athletic.)

In my view, the City was right to drive a hard bargain with the A’s because municipalities shouldn’t be in the business of handing out millions of dollars to billionaires for their private gain. As much as that stinks for sports fans, it’s the right thing to do.