We looked previously at the comments of the Giants’ top executives following the team’s postseason exit, but it seems worth exploring one major long-term question on its own. As Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News reports, the team’s leadership also talked about the possibility of a second extension for workhorse ace Madison Bumgarner.
There have been at least preliminary discussions between the team, Bumgarner, and his new representatives at The Legacy Group, GM Bobby Evans said. As things stand, though, it doesn’t appear that any significant progress has been made — or that there are any firm plans to chat further this winter.
Bumgarner, 27, just turned in his fourth consecutive season with over 200 innings of sub-3.00 ERA pitching, cementing his status as one of the game’s most productive starters. And his value is only enhanced by his remarkable postseason record; over 102 1/3 total frames, he has dominated to the tune of a 2.11 ERA.
Owing to the brilliant original extension reached by the team, San Francisco has plenty of time to think things over and try to exercise some leverage. Bumgarner will earn just $11.5MM next year and can be retained for two more seasons via successive $12MM options, making him one of the game’s most valuable assets.
That contractual control runs through Bumgarner’s age-29 season, so there’s plenty of relatively young seasons still in play. Obviously, risk and reward is inherent in any deal involving pitching, for both player and team. While it’s easy to imagine something coming together — we have seen second long-term extensions for players such as Ryan Braun, Evan Longoria, Ryan Zimmerman, David Wright, Salvador Perez, and (of perhaps greater relevance) Justin Verlander — there’ll surely be plenty of jockeying involved.
There’s little question that Bumgarner is a screaming value who would command a much greater price in another deal, especially with the price of pitching moving northward of late. Acknowledging that while factoring in the team’s locked-in years and dollars could prove tricky, especially with the fiery hurler’s impeccable health history and dogged consistency driving his potential future free agent value up.
There does seem to be a fairly special relationship between the ace and an organization that has a penchant for retaining its most treasured players. CEO Larry Baer acknowledged as much. “[Bumgarner has] been a tremendous asset for us,” he said. “He’s done historic things. But, look, obviously, we want to make Madison a Giant for a long, long time to come – well-beyond his current contract.”
Still, Baer declined to make a firm commitment as to how hard the team would press to get something done. “I think that remains to be seen,” he said of how the team will prioritize extension talks with Bumgarner. And Evans seemingly suggested that the ball is in the court of the pitcher and his advisers at present. “When they’re interested in talking, we want to make sure we’re available,” he said. “But we don’t have a timeline. We want Madison to be here for a long time. At the right time, we’ll address this when his camp is ready to talk.”
Baggarly explores whether the team’s situation with the equally excellent Johnny Cueto could tie into the timing. As he notes, whether Cueto pitches well enough again next year to opt out of the final four years of his deal will have a major impact on the state of the team’s future balance sheet. San Francisco already has more cash promised to veterans than most organizations in the game, with nearly $100MM committed through 2020.
Those broader considerations will surely weigh into the equation, though it’s tough to imagine the large-market, perennial contenders passing up an opportunity to achieve yet more value from their world-class lefty. Whether and when such a chance will arise figures to be a storyline that will grow in prominence as the three remaining years on Bumgarner’s deal tick down.
It would be really interesting to see the average price of a starting pitcher year on year and see if somehow you could project the cost of a pitcher, but 3 years from now I can imagine an ace like him would be worth 30 million a year. Then you have to figure 6 years from now and ace will cost even more.
I’m sure teams think about this all the time. When I see a crazy contract I think “It seems high, but 5 years from now, $20 million a year isn’t probably going to seem like a lot of money”.
Greinke has years at 34.5m, and if you look at recent contracts, premium free agents (top 10-15 players) tend to get a 5% bump, so I wouldn’t think years at 36.25m, if not more, are out of question. Especially if your willing to believe guys like Machado/Harper will be looking for a deal bordering on a AAV 36-40m
Yep. I mean, mike trout is on an incredibly team-friendly contract and he’ll be making 30 million dollars a year by the end of it.
Last season fangraphs put the cost of a win at around 7 million dollars. So for a player like Trout, who is a 9-win player perennially, he’s a steal.
Price just got $31MM a year at the same age Bumgarner will be in 3 years. If Bumgarner is still putting up ace numbers in 3 years you could see that number higher than $35MM a year for 7 years.
If Bumgarner was a free agent today, the only thing stopping him from making $40MM a year would be the risk of injury. His production is worth budget breaking money to any team, especially the Giants. But, with guaranteed contracts, he won’t get his full worth over a long term. If he hit the market today I could absolutely see 7yr/$250MM in play, slightly front loaded.
I just like the picture they picked of him was him batting. When I first saw it I thought it was a picture of Pence and an article about Bumgardner
Must be nice being a big market team and able to sign 3 SPs to huge contracts, even though they are located approx a 20 min drive from a supposedly small market team who aren’t allowed to sign anyone big because they don’t make enough revenue due to a large market team being 20 mins away.
I think when Oakland gets a new ballpark things will change. It’s just such a crappy park and even when they okay well their draw is terrible.
Oaklands demographics is changing because people can’t afford to live in SF so if they do it right, people will go, sponsors will flow and they will have money to sign big too.
Plus SF have diversified their business. They make money out of all other kinds of businesses. Real Estate being one example.
I do wonder how “poor” small market teams really are but I would love to see the As with more money, more attendance and just less complaining.
I feel like the As are a much bigger market than a lot of people realize, The ownership just doesn’t let them spend any money. I mean if you look at the teams they put together during the 80s and early 90s, they had their fair share of large contracts. (Canseco, McGwire, Rickey, Eckersley, etc.)
They are small market…with the attendance and sponsors and not owning their own stadium they just don’t make as much money as most teams.
However they have more money than they say it’s the owners that won’t allow them to spend any. Beane still just doing all he can with the budget…if he’s at the helm we will compete.
The A’s are a small market club always have and always will. They will always be looking up at their neighbors in SF who are obviously a big market club
I agree SF is a big market club but I’m not convinced that Oakland will never be big market. A lot of people are moving there, it’s going to go through gentrification (not agreeing, just predicting) and a lot of businesses are moving there because it’s cheaper than SF, a crap load of artists have moved and the tech workers are following.
If Oakland do what SF have done and diversify into real estate, they will be a very wealthy team.
I’m not sure they will do that though. They might just get the city to build them a ball park and continue with a slightly better version of what they are today.
Pay the man.