Armchair GM: Should the Giants Re-Sign Madison Bumgarner?

With the World Series heading into its middle or final stages(BTW, baseball has to do something about the pace of games.  Last night's game had zero reason to not move right along and it clocked in a well over 4 hours.  Ugh!), the moment of truth for the Giants and Madison Bumgarner fast approaches.  There are multiple factors at play here which will undoubtedly lead to a chess match between Farhan Zaidi along with Giants management and Madison Bumgarner and his representatives.

I believe I was one of the first to write in the Giants blogosphere that they should trade Bumgarner and get prospect talent back in a preemptive rebuild rather than waiting to sign another big, longterm contract with an aging pitcher with ton of mileage on his arm.  Circumstances evolved to cause me to re-evaluate my position including 1.  It's now too late to get talent back in return.  2.  Bummy had a modest bounceback last year after two years of missing time with injuries.  Fortunately, the second of those injuries, the fractured hand, should not be a longterm problem and the infamous shoulder separation seems to have fully resolved. At this point it looks like a decent bet he has a few more seasons left in the tank.  3.  While 2 years ago, it appeared he would be wildly overvalued as a free agent, the two injuries, industry trends and the QO may have suppressed his market value to the point of being seriously undervalued.

There are plenty of reasons why both sides want to gauge his market value before agreeing to a new contract so there is close to zero chance he won't reach free agent status.  The no brainer is the Giants making a Qualifying Offer.  At this point, a 1 year contract for $18 M for a pitcher of his caliber is a sweet deal for the team.  The chances of a QO are close to 100%.  Now, it's possible Bumgarner and his advisors have estimated his market in the context of a QO, looked at what happened to Dallas Keuchal last year and Hyun-Jin Ryu this year, and he's decided to bet on himself.  In this scenario he would accept the QO, hope he stays healthy all season with stats at least as strong as 2019 and be free of the QO weight next offseason.  I'll say there is maybe a 10% chance of this outcome.

This brings us to the 90% chance he turns down the QO and goes on the market.  Let me pause right here to say the Giants can easily afford whatever Bummy's market turns out to be, now and into the future.  Even if we stipulate an absolute salary cap at the CBT threshold, with Mark Melancon's contract off the books they are about $90 M under for 2020.  Shark's contract comes off next year, the Brandons, Buster and Johnny Cueto come off after 2021 and Longo comes off after 2022 except for some relatively small buyouts, but books are clear after that.  The narrative that the Giants are hamstrung by a bunch of albatross contracts or that they cannot field a competitive team until said albatross contracts have run their course has been grossly blown out of proportion. Not only can the Giants easily afford to sign a free agent contract with Madison Bumgarner, but they can sign him plus Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon and still have payroll flexibility going forward!

There are a whole host of business reasons why re-signing Madison Bumgarner is beneficial for the Giants which we won't detail here.  Unless his market unexpectedly goes crazy and he commands a Scherzeresque contract, the baseball factors have caught up to the business factors.  A 3-5 year contract for $70-100 M would make a lot of sense for both Bummy and the Giants although if that happens, it can't be their only big move of the offseason.  Farhan has to stop thinking he's still working for the A's or trying to help the Dodgers get under the CBT threshold and spend money on more help for MadBum.