Something that doesn’t get a lot of ink in the greater realm of baseball coverage these days is how bad the Central Divisions are. Maybe this isn’t an historic anomaly. Maybe the Centrals have always stunk. But cumulatively, teams from the Centrals are 0-8 in postseason series these last two years, a team from a Central hasn’t won a pennant since 2016, and the Central Division champion has been the worst division champion in its league, by regular season win-loss record, seven of ten times in the last five years, including the season where the Central teams got to only play each other.
The Centrals are bad, and they may be getting even worse. Right now, the AL Central only has one team at or above .500, that team is at .500 (not above it), and while the Brewers and Cardinals are both heavily above even in the NL, neither is as good as the Mets, Dodgers, Giants, or even Rockies so far by win-loss, and neither is as good as Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, or Philadelphia on paper (using FanGraphs’s Depth Charts’s projected rest of season win percentage, which I believe is schedule-independent). The Central Divisions are bad. They are so, so bad. It is astounding how bad they are. Some of it’s payroll, but the teams beating them aren’t always outspending them. I mean, hell, the Rays are winning. The A’s have won a little.
Thankfully, the schedule setup is changing next year to expose the Centrals more (by making them play more out-of-division games), which will hopefully make it clear prior to the next round of expansion that we need two eight-team divisions in each league rather than four four-team divisions (making it harder and more meaningful to win a division). Maybe in the meantime things will shift and make this irrelevant, but who’s going to get good? The White Sox and Twins are spending rather aggressively relative to their norms and neither is expected to top 85 wins. The Brewers can only pull rabbits out of hats for so long, and they’re not projected to top 90. The Cubs have a lot of eggs in the basket of hypothetical breakouts from unheralded prospects and hypothetical future free agent spending that actually works, which is far from a guarantee and still leaves them peaking in…what, 2025? 2026? The Cardinals have realized they can improve their local marketing by going the Angels’ route and loading up on aging stars rather than by trying to get on level with the titans in the East and West. Best yet, because the Central teams compete with one another for playoff berths, two of their ten members get into the postseason, with a best-of-three series with home-field advantage starting them off. We don’t spend enough ink on the ridiculousness that is the Centrals.
In related news…
The Pirates Beat Up the Cubs
To be fair, the Cubs won on the aggregate, taking Saturday’s game by 21 runs while losing the other three by a combined four. Somewhat paradoxically, the results wouldn’t be that concerning if the Cubs were a clear contender, but they feel worse in this context: The Cubs need to overachieve in the early going if they’re going to convince the front office that this is a year to attempt to contend, and they’re now 7-9 (with a 2-4 mark against the Pirates) entering fourteen games against Atlanta, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, San Diego, and the White Sox. Of those games, nine (the Atlanta, Milwaukee, and San Diego series) are on the road. A difficult stretch coming up, and even if the Cubs can tread water during it, which would be impressive, they’ll likely come out below .500.
The big positive development from the weekend wasn’t so much the offense—it’s hard to praise a unit that forfeited as many opportunities as the Cubs did, especially yesterday—but Kyle Hendricks, who put together a great start on Saturday, throwing seven scoreless on just 76 pitches and walking no batters. Exactly what you want to see out of that guy, whose xERA is a respectable 4.43 and whose FIP is a good 3.33 through four starts. In other check-in news…
Seiya Suzuki, Ian Happ, Nico Hoerner (!), Willson Contreras, and Alfonso Rivas have all been hitting the ball unambiguously well. Above-average results (100 or better wRC+), above-average contact (.320 or better xwOBA). Jonathan Villar is almost in that category, sitting at a .319 xwOBA. Yan Gomes is not in that category but is a catcher and is providing value elsewhere. Michael Hermosillo has a great xwOBA (.366) but a bad wRC+ (65) over 22 plate appearances, implying bad luck. As for the rest…
Frank Schwindel is a problem: He’s at a 94 wRC+ and a .284 xwOBA. Patrick Wisdom has had some good luck: his xwOBA’s only .308 though he’s gotten up to a 130 wRC+. Jason Heyward has had a lot of luck: .268 xwOBA (atrocious), 112 wRC+ (good). Nick Madrigal is struggling. Rafael Ortega is also struggling.
Madrigal’s a big part of the future plans. If there’s a second guy the Cubs are building around, in addition to Suzuki, it’s Madrigal (though Happ’s making a case for an extension, as is Contreras, and at this moment we’d greet news of an extension for either with excitement at the right price). These are small-sample stats, he missed a ton of time last year, Madrigal should continue to play as much as his legs will allow. Schwindel and Wisdom are odd ones because they were so good last year for stretches, aren’t that old yet, and have some marketing value. Heyward’s an odd one because the Cubs are stuck with him for another year and they seem to value his leadership. Ortega, though…
Why is Rafael Ortega getting as many at-bats as he’s getting? He’s 30, the traditional peak age in player development. He’s below-average defensively in center field, at least by the FanGraphs metric. He posted an impressive wRC+ last year (120) but had a below-average xwOBA (.310). He’s neither part of the future plans nor an especially marketable current piece, and he’s blocking both developing players (Rivas indirectly, Hermosillo, Happ sometimes) and guys with higher offensive upside (add Villar to those three guys we just listed). Maybe this will change soon, but at the moment, the commitment to Ortega is the least explicable in any lens.
More on the Cubs tomorrow, as they actually begin the gauntlet, but Keegan Thompson was dominant again on Friday in relief, in another bright spot, and Alec Mills should be back soon to round out a fairly serviceable rotation overall. The Cubs have a 4.11 ERA but only a 3.81 FIP, and they’ve faced the Pirates a lot but hopefully it’s a good sign. This team could end up competitive, and could even be in a division it only takes 82 or 83 games to win if things take a bad turn for the Brewers (no current indications that will happen, but they’re thin on depth, so their bad cases are worse than most teams of their quality). But if these next two weeks go badly, it’s not going to feel very hopeful in Wrigleyville.
Around the Leagues
The weekend’s best performers, what awaits each team on the front half of this week:
David Bednar got some attention for his celebration yesterday after escaping a jam at Wrigley, and he earned that celebration. The Pirates’ closer struck out eight of the fourteen batters he faced over the series, walking just one and allowing no runs. He’s up to eight innings pitched on the season, which isn’t many, but he hasn’t allowed a run in any of those, which is noteworthy. The Pirates host the Brewers for three this week.
The Brewers have a weird one against the Giants today—making up one of those rescheduled lockout games—and they’ll enter it feeling good, having won two of three over the Phillies. Ángel Hernández’s incompetence may have stolen the show last night, but it was Eric Lauer’s start that most impressed. Six innings of shutout ball, 13 strikeouts, only one walk…we’ve called attention to the Brewers’ thin depth, but what that neglects is the possibility they’ll roll out another surprising ace, which Lauer—never much of a prospect, but only 26 years old—would certainly be. The Phillies host the Rockies for four beginning today.
It was a fun trip to Detroit for the Rockies, who won two of three games and got to see Miguel Cabrera’s 3,000th career hit. Colorado’s 10-5, and Randal Grichuk’s big weekend (five hits in eight plate appearances, including a double and a home run) has them looking pretty smart at the moment, which isn’t something folks like us often say about this franchise. The Tigers will visit the Twins for three beginning tomorrow.
The Twins had a great time hosting the White Sox, taking all three and climbing into first place in the AL Central at 8-8. The bad news for the Sox was the loss of Eloy Jiménez, who will miss extended time with a hamstring injury. The good news for the Twins is that Byron Buxton might be the best baseball player alive. A three-homer weekend for the guy, and he got Friday off. The White Sox host the Royals for three beginning tomorrow.
Kansas City had a rough trip out west, losing all three to a Mariners team that’s so far picked up where it left off last summer, contending in a division in which they should not contend. Ty France homered twice on the set and had a five-hit, five-RBI day on Saturday. Not too shabby. He’ll take the Mariners down to Tampa Bay beginning tomorrow.
Are the Rays good? We still don’t really know. They did take two of three at home against Boston, with Shane McClanahan great yesterday, twirling seven innings without a walk. His ERA’s at 2.45 and his FIP’s at 2.27 through four starts, with an xERA at 2.79. The Red Sox are in Toronto tonight and through Thursday, without unvaccinated Tanner Houck.
The Blue Jays have not only impressed to start the year, but have done it while getting their series in Houston out of the way and seven games done on the road in the Bronx and Boston as well. They’re 4-2 against non-contenders, 6-4 against contenders. Not a bad split. This weekend Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was merely quite good in Texas, notching two hits in each of the three games. The Astros head up to Arlington tonight for four against the Rangers.
In the AL West’s pillow fight, Texas topped Oakland, two games to one. Glenn Otto had a good season debut on Friday, striking out five over five one-run innings. The A’s are over in San Francisco tomorrow and Wednesday.
The Giants enter tonight’s game in Milwaukee coming off a three-game sweep of the Nationals and having gone 7-3 on their road trip so far. Joc Pederson had a monster game yesterday, homering twice and doubling. He’s carved out a nearly everyday role in San Francisco, and they’re happy to have a guy with a 225 wRC+. The Nats host the Marlins for three this week.
It was a series win for the Fish in Atlanta, and things aren’t going spectacularly for Miami but they’re at least in second place in the East. Jazz Chisholm had a four-hit day on Saturday that began with a leadoff home run off Ian Anderson. Atlanta hosts the Cubs for three this week.
If you’ve been waiting on Mike Trout to break out, he hit two home runs on Saturday and is up to four on the year, hitting .333 and reaching base nearly half the time. In other words, he’s doing his thing, and while he doesn’t always grab headlines part of it’s because, well, it’s happening while the Angels do things like lose two out of three against the Orioles. Anaheim will now host the Guardians for four.
Rough weekend for Cleveland, who was swept by the Yankees and lost Steven Kwan to injury after he collided with the wall on Saturday. This set up a confrontation between Yankees fans, who were heckling the injured Kwan, and Myles Straw, who was upset that Yankees fans were heckling the injured Kwan. Gerrit Cole had a strong outing yesterday to lead the way for the home team, who now hosts the Orioles for three beginning tomorrow.
Things aren’t going well at all for the Reds, but highly-touted prospect Nick Lodolo pitched them to a win yesterday, striking out seven Cardinals and snapping an eleven-game Reds losing streak. The Cardinals are right there with the Brewers so far in the Central but have a challenging three beginning tonight against the Mets. The Reds head to San Diego to start a three-game set tomorrow.
The Mets began their road trip winning two out of three in Arizona, which finishes their competition with Arizona for the season and does so successfully, with the contender having taken four of six from the non-contender. Starling Marte was on base six times in fourteen trips to the plate, which isn’t spectacular but look, not a lot happened in this series, ok? The Diamondbacks host the Dodgers for three beginning tonight.
For the Dodgers, it was more good. Two wins in their first trip down to San Diego of the season, and Mookie Betts was busy, homering twice on Friday to break what had been a season-to-date homerless stretch.
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Cutting these short for today—apologies for those looking for college basketball things or anything else. More on our other foci tomorrow. Have a good night out there.
