Hot Stove Update: A Giants Legend Moves On

Well, that's it folks.  Madison Bumgarner's time with the Giants has run out after one of the better runs in Giants history.  Today we learned that he will be playing for division rival D'Backs for at least the next 5 years.  That's the times we are living in.  The days of players spending an entire career with the team that signed them and brought them up through the minors is over.  We'll have to be satisfied with getting the best of Bumgarner's career as well as Buster's, Timmy's and Cainer's.  Hey!  We got all of Cainer's career and could get all of Buster's too!

The Giants have had some great pitchers in the organization starting with Christy Mathewson then Carl Hubbell.   I grew up in the Marichal/Perry era.  Bumgarner is special out of all those because not only was he an ace level pitcher, without his postseason heroics, it is likely the Giants would not have won any World Series during his career let alone 3.  For all his greatness, Juan Marichal never won a World Series(not his fault).

So yeah, this is a sad day.  What make it harder to swallow is the contract he ultimately signed seems to be well within Giants budgetary constraints and within the performance levels he can reasonably expected to produce over the next 5 seasons.  It would not put the Giants in danger of having to pay a payroll tax either in 2020 or in subsequent years.  In short, re-signing Bummy to this contract(5 year/$85 M) would not halt or delay any "rebuild" in any way shape or form.  OK, maybe the extra draft pick turns into a Hall of Famer, but it's highly unlikely.

On the other hand, I am not going to lead the "fire Farhan" charge over this.  Bummy has a ton of mileage on his arm and large longterm contracts haven't exactly worked out well for the Giants over the past decade, so I understand the argument for letting him go.  I've made it myself!  I actually really like the deals Farhan made at the Winter Meetings.  In fact, I was just thinking of writing a post about how the Giants should be included in those lists of Winners of the Winter Meetings!  Hopefully Farhan has a few more of those up his sleeve and will re-allocate money that might have been used to sign Bummy for other good things.

One more thing:  I wish Bummy the best, but not his team.  I think he may find that he misses pitching half of his games in Oracle Park.

*********************************************************************************

The Rangers traded Delino DeShields and RHP Emmanuel Clase to the Indians for RHP Corey Kluber.  Kluber missed most of last season with injuries, although the main one was a freak fracture of his arm on a comeback liner so should not have a lasting impact.  Of some concern, is the loss of velocity he showed prior to the injury.  This seems like a light return for a pitcher of Kluber's stature. This shows how tough it is to trade a player without proof of current health.  If he does bounce back, the Rangers have built themselves a formidable starting rotation to open their new ballpark with.

*********************************************************************************

CORRECTION:  I corrected a mistake in the text above in which I originally said Juan Marichal never pitched in a postseason game.  A reader pointed out he pitched in the NLCS in 1971 against the Pirates.  I could be mistaken, but I think he also may have pitched in the 1962 World Series against the Yankees.