Thirty Thoughts on Thirty Teams
Let's check the vibe around the league after one week!
Hi friends-
Some housekeeping first:
We are still doing our book club discussion on Lords of the Realm by John Helyar this month. I will have a date for our zoom soon. Thank you for your patience!
Also, I’m gonna experiment with turning our Sunday night chats into all-day marathon yap fests instead because Sunday Night Baseball can be…. hit or miss. I’m gonna experiment this weekend by starting our Sunday chat at 10:30 AM PT/1:30 PM ET, and continuing until the final pitch is thrown around nine hours later. This way we have a space to talk about every team—which also gives us a better shot of watching truly great games and stellar pitching matchups together. I hope you’ll join us!
As always, Friday chats are open to paid subscribers. Our Sunday chats will be open to free and paid subscribers.
In the spirit of talking about every team, we’ve now had a week of baseball. It’s totally appropriate to draw wild conclusions about how every single ball club will do this season after they’ve played 3% of their schedule. As a highly rational human being, I encourage Cardinal fans to celebrate this division championship on April 3rd, and Braves fans to throw their televisions into the Atlantic Ocean.
So let’s dive in!
THIRTY THOUGHTS ON THIRTY TEAMS:
NL WEST
Dodgers (8-0): The Dodgers are hitting .233 collectively and none of their starting pitchers have lasted six innings in a game yet. They are still undefeated. Concerning for the rest of the league. Someone should look into this.
Padres (7-0): The Padres are playing like the best team in baseball right now, which is concerning for the Dodgers, who may win 120 games then get swept by San Diego in the division series. Someone should look into this.
Giants (5-1): The Giants have the third best record in MLB and also the third best record in their division. This is excruciating if you are a San Francisco fan and hilarious if you are anyone else. Uh. Gah. Their defense has yet to make an error.
Diamondbacks (4-2): Arizona being 4-2 means the top four teams in the NL West are 24-3. They may only be in fourth place in the division, but the DBacks are my heroes of the week for (hopefully!!) ending the insane torpedo bat discourse, after striking out 14 Yankees hitters on Tuesday and Wednesday—the first time the Bombers have struck out that many times in two consecutive home games in franchise history.
Rockies (1-4): Still exist, apparently, because the Internet is telling me their hitters have taken nine walks and struck out 61 times. Would be facing relegation along with the Marlins if I ran MLB.
NL CENTRAL
Cardinals (4-2): Lars Nootbaar may be embarking on a breakout season as the team’s new leadoff hitter, but how good can this team be if they just dropped two of three to the Angels?
Cubs (5-4): I expect the Cubs to win this division, and Kyle Tucker has shown that trading for a superstar player will help your favorite team! I’m gonna need Pete Crow-Armstrong to get rolling before I get excited about the Cubbies, though. Plz, PCA.
(Photo by Masterpress/Getty Images) Reds (2-4): The Reds participated in the best baseball game of the year, a 1-0 contest on Tuesday in which Nate Eovaldi threw a Maddux. Unfortunately for Cincinnati, they were on the losing end. On the plus side: Hunter Greene looks like a star, and they do have Elly, so they *might* be a fun team worth watching. Monitoring the situation!
Brewers (2-4): Stink!!! Even worse: their bad pitching is largely responsible for the torpedo bat discourse, so this team is dead to me until further notice. Trevor Megill, in particular, should not know peace.
