Houston Astros Rumors: Three ways to add another ace starting pitcher
By T.A. Mock
Madison Bumgarner, LHP, San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants tried to piece together another even year run by adding some aging stars to their already aged core. It did not go well and the Giants rapidly slipped below the Dodgers, Rockies, and Diamondbacks ultimately falling 16 games below .500.
The organization decided a new decision maker at the top was going to be the solution to their recent woes. They went out and added now former Dodgers GM Farhan Zaidi to be their President of Baseball Operations. Many expect that Zaidi will try to restructure the team and rebuild a farm system that is borderline bottom five in the MLB.
One of the best ways to begin to rebuild a vastly depleted farm system is to trade Madison Bumgarner. Bumgarner is entering the final year of his contract that he signed back before the 2013 season. Trading a franchise icon like MadBum is tricky but now may be the best time to capitalize on his value before potentially losing him for nothing next offseason.
They could look to trade him at the trade deadline next summer but his value could be even lower then than it is now. He’ll only be a couple month rental and could very well get hurt between now and then as he’s only pitched 240.2 innings the past two seasons.
More. Possible landing spots for the Astros free agent class. light
Bumgarner has a career 3.03 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 3.25 FIP, to go with 1,591 strikeouts to only 385 walks in 1638.1 innings. Bumgarner is a tried and true ace even though he’s never finished higher than fourth in Cy Young voting.
Sure, as I mentioned earlier, he’s been limited to less than 130 innings the past two seasons, only one of those injury-shortened seasons is concerning as the first one was due to an off the field incident. So, betting on MadBum to bounce back in 2019, especially in a contract year seems like a safe one.
The Giants would be aiming too high to seek after Whitley, Kyle Tucker, or Yordan Alvarez in return, but the next tier of prospects is a good place to start. Cionel Perez or JB Bukauskas could be the key piece to land him along with another prospect or two. However, MadBum may not be the best option as he, like Verlander and Cole, is slated to be a free agent after next year so the Houston Astros may be in a similar problem one year from now.