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San Francisco Giants: Madison Bumgarner's injury turning out to be a good thing
Everything seems to work out for the San Francisco Giants in the end. Even when their ace goes dirt biking on a day off and lands himself on the disabled list, it works out for the Giants.
On Twitter, when a rival team does well by what seems like pure luck, people call it (that team's) devil magic. Being from the Bay Area, the two that I have seen most commonly are Giants' devil magic (from A's fans) and Cardinals' devil magic (from everyone else). Well, there is some sort of sorcery hanging out in the San Francisco Giants clubhouse, that's for sure.
Last night the team lost their seventh straight game, which makes them losers in nine of ten and 16 of 20. The season ain't going well. A lot of the blame will be pointed at the injuries that the team has suffered, and chief among them has been the loss of their ace, Madison Bumgarner, who hasn't pitched since April 19.
Sure, they stink without their ace. But they also would have stunk with him. At 26-46, Mad Bum by himself isn't going to make up that difference, even if he had won every start he's missed. Given that the club was 0-4 in his starts when he got hurt, that seems unlikely.
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So in the meantime the Giants have been rolling with Ty Blach in the rotation, and he should have been there to start the season, but they have to pay Matt Cain a ton of money, so Blach was being used as a bullpen option. As a starter Blach is 4-4 with a 4.18 ERA, but outside of a couple of extra rough starts that ballooned that ERA, the 26-year-old lefty has actually pitched fairly well.
So the Giants have found another competent arm for their rotation moving forward for next year, giving them some flexibility with how they use top pitching prospect Tyler Beede moving forward.
Without Bumgarner, there will be no illusions (hopefully) of where the Giants stand come the trade deadline, which should mean that they will move Johnny Cueto and any other player that holds a little bit of value and isn't a core piece of their operation. The Giants need to rebuild their farm system badly, and their ineptitude this season is making that apparent. With Bumgarner in the fold, they'd likely be a few games better and could be fooled by a hot run before the break into letting this all play out.
Cueto has an opt-out option in his contract following this season, and there shouldn't be any doubt that he's going to use it. The Giants have to get some value from him, and now they will.
In Bumgarner's four starts he put up a fWAR of 0.9, the same total that Blach, his replacement, has through eleven starts (18 appearances). It's fair to wager that the team would have an extra two to three wins than they do right now with Bumgarner in the rotation, which means they'd be drafting lower next season.
This is extremely important for the club. With all of the winning they've been doing, they've been drafting towards the end of the first round most of this century, but right now they're two games behind the Philadelphia Phillies for the worst record in baseball–which means the first overall pick in next year's draft.
Since 2000, the Giants have had three picks in the top ten. Those picks: Tim Lincecum (10th overall, 2006), Madison Bumgarner (10th overall, 2007) Buster Posey (5th overall, 2008) and Zack Wheeler (6th overall, 2009). They have a track record of hitting on their high draft picks, and they're going to get at least a top-10 pick in 2018, if not a top-5 pick.
Finally, this also means that Bumgarner will likely take a little bit off of his asking price on a contract extension because of his poor decision earlier this season.
So an emerging rotation arm, rebuilding the farm system through deadline deals, a top draft pick next year and one of the best pitchers in baseball at a discount? That's devil magic.
