This offseason we’ve heard theories that Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon would give influence in their free-agent decisions to the places where they were reared. But Cole didn’t go home to Southern California and Rendon didn’t go home to Texas.
This proved to be much more narrative than reality. But maybe rearing did play a factor in the free-agent decision of ex-San Francisco Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner who agreed Sunday to join the Arizona Diamondbacks on a five-year, $85 million contract.
Arizona isn’t where Madison Bumgarner is from, he’s from North Carolina — from a town with a comical number of Bumgarners, if you remember the story about how he once dated a girl named Madison Bumgarner — but Arizona is where his horses are.