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What should the Giants do with Madison Bumgarner?

Over the last ten seasons, Madison Bumgarner has been one of the faces of the San Francisco Giants franchise. However, the start of the 2019 season for the San Francisco Giants began with rumors that MadBum would be traded by the trade deadline in order to restock the Giants minor league system with the hopes of competing for a title in 2021 or 2022. Suddenly, halfway through June, the Giants players began to put the puzzle together and now halfway through July they are the hottest team in baseball and, more importantly than that, they are competing for a wildcard playoff spot. Now, the Giants’ President of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi has a huge decision to make. Trade MadBum or keep MadBum?

Let’s go back to the beginning, shall we? Madison Bumgarner was selected 10th overall in the 2007 MLB draft by the San Francisco Giants. Coming out of high school and straight into the draft, MadBum was a beast. He had a record of 12-2 his junior year of high school and posted a staggering ERA of 0.99. He continued his high school success during his senior year, posting a 11-2 record and an ERA of 1.05. After his high school team, South Caldwell High School, was runner-up to the state champions during his junior year, they came back to win the state championship during his senior year. Scouts, of course, took notice as Bumgarner did not last long in the draft. The Giants knew they had gotten a competitive pitcher in the form of MadBum during that draft.

Bumgarner struggled, at first, in the minor leagues as he worked on his secondary pitches and location, but once MadBum got rolling he was hard to stop. He won the pitching triple crown in the South Atlantic League with 15 wins, a 1.46 ERA, and 164 strikeouts. This had scouts raving over his talent as he was ranked the third best overall prospect in all of baseball. He followed that success the next year in both single A and AA baseball. In 20 starts at the AA level, MadBum had a record of 9-1 with an ERA of 1.93. Once again, he was dominant. By 2009, the Giants has called him up to replace an injured Tim Lincecum, but the stay didn’t last long as he was in and out of the minor leagues through 2009 and 2010.

For 2009 and 2010 combined, MadBum would post a record of 7-6 in 22 appearances (19 of which were starts) with an ERA of 2.77 and 96 strikeouts. The Giants would go on to win the 2010 World Series for the first time in the franchises tenure in San Francisco with rookies Madison Bumgarner and Buster Posey at the helm of that success. This was only the beginning for MadBum. He followed the championship run with a 13-13 season for a team that struggled dearly and then followed that year with a 16-11 season in which the team would go on to win their second World Series in three years. The 2013 season was MadBums first of four straight all-star appearances, in which he posted a 13-9 record. Most of MadBums fame, however, came the following year in the 2014 season.

2014 was the year of MadBum. In 33 starts for the Giants, he record 18 wins and 10 losses with an ERA of 2.98 and a career high 219 strikeouts. He looked absolutely unstoppable. He finished fourth in Cy Young award voting and had Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers not posted a 21-3 season, he might’ve been the front runner to win it. However, the postseason for MadBum would be ultimately the decisive award. MadBum went on to pitch in 52 postseason innings and allowed only ONE RUN. He easily won the World Series MVP award as the Giants went on the win their third World Series title in 5 years and created the San Francisco Giants Dynasty along with it. Madison Bumgarner currently holds the record for the lowest ERA in the World Series with a staggering 0.23 ERA. Nobody is even close.

The Giants Dynasty would begin to fall in the 2015 season, but nobody could tell Bumgarner that. He posted another outstanding year, going 18-9 with an ERA of 2.93 and setting his career high strikeouts at 234. The Giants did not do as well as MadBum, however and missed the playoffs. The 2016 season began to look much better for the Giants as they contended for the Division most of the season but ended up taking a wild card spot. Bumgarner posted a record of 15-9 and a career low ERA of 2.74 all while setting a career high in strikeouts at 251. The Giants would go on to win the wildcard game behind MadBums shutout start but would end up falling short of another miraculous playoff run when the Cubs eliminated them from the playoffs and went on to win the World Series for themselves.

The next two season for Bumgarner were unfortunate. He suffered an injury while riding a dirt bike and missed a majority of the 2017 season. His numbers weren’t that great upon return as well as he posted a record of 4-9. The 2018 season didn’t start at all for Bumgarner, thanks to a comeback linedrive in Spring Training in which Bumgarner broke a bone. He missed a few months and came back, but with the team struggling, his numbers did not improve much. He ended the year with a record of 6-7 and the Giants, for the first time in 9 years, missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons.

Now, in 2019, the Giants are rolling and they are led by their superstar pitcher once again. So far, Bumgarners season has been a healthy one, and his numbers are improving from the last two years. He currently sits with a record of 5-7, which is extremely decieving considering that his last 6 starts were very good. The Giants are 5-1 in the last 6 MadBum starts and their lineup is finally putting up some amazing hitting numbers. What started as a rebuild year has surprisingly turned into a contending year. But that is nothing new for the Giants or their fans, as they saw them do that in 2010, 2012, and 2014.

President of Baseball Operations for the Giants, Farhan Zaidi, is in his first year with the team and he has been marketed as the saviour of the franchise. A title that is very annoying for most Giants fans considering their very recent success. Of course, the talk of trading Madison Bumgarner comes with the rebuild idea because the trend in the league is trade away players with expiring contracts to get a core of new and young talent. It’s a smart strategy too because it allows the team to get something for an expiring player rather than lose them for nothing. However, this isn’t the case with MadBum.

Bumgarner’s agents reached out to the Giants organization with interests in resigning. Claims have come out saying that MadBum wants to finish his career in San Francisco, and why not? When you win three world titles and become an icon in a city, I can imagine you’ll want to stay there. But is resigning MadBum in Zaidi’s best interests? Apparently not. Farhan Zaidi has not responded to the extension idea and according to sources he doesn’t have an insterest in resigning the former World Series MVP. Maybe Farhan should reconsider, though, and here’s why.

Madison Bumgarner is a once in a lifetime pitcher. Very rarely does somebody come out of high school as the 14th best prospect in baseball and very rarely does a 24 year old allow 1 run in 52 postseason innings. On top of that, Bumgarner is about to turn 30 and hasn’t lost a significant amount of velocity or accuracy. Plus, the only injuries that Bumgarner has suffered weren’t interior injuries like tendon or muscle related, but rather forced injuries like dirt bike accidents and comeback linedrives breaking bones. He’s considered to not be in his prime any longer, but the Giants can use him as a solid ace in the pitching rotation until they can bring up some solid youngsters.

Not only is Bumgarner a once in a lifetime talent that the Giants should hold on to, but how many times do you see a player start and end their career with one team through all of their years? Madison Bumgarner is a legend in San Francisco and will have his number retired no matter what, as will fellow legend Buster Posey. The Giants owe it to MadBum to let him finish what he started in the franchise. You can rebuild using other players who are commodities throughout the league that haven’t spent their entire careers in the City. Not to mention, how fun has it been to watch the Giants make this comeback run in July? If they can make the playoffs as a wild card team, the first guy I want on my postseason roster is the postseason legend himself, Madison Bumgarner.

From another perspective, people ask, “Is one year of contending worth ten of missing the playoffs?” I don’t know the answer to that, because nobody does. Nobody expected the Giants to make it to the 2010, 2012, or 2014 World Series’. Nobody expected the Cubs to win their first title in 100 years. Nobody can predict what the future holds. That’s why you compete today. That’s why there are 162 games in a season; because if everybody else in the world doesn’t believe in your team, you have 162 chances to prove them wrong. October baseball is difficult to make it to, but that doesn’t mean you trade away your legendary players for a bunch of young guys who’s talent hasn’t been proven yet.

Madison Bumgarner’s future in The Bay is questionable, but the facts are that it shouldn’t be. He belongs in San Francisco and the fact that he, himself wants to stay and wants to finish his career in the Giants organization should speak for itself. The Giants aren’t likely to trade him away, thanks to this astonishing run the team is on. However, I’ll take them one step further; resign Bumgarner and let him lead the next group of young guys into the future. You may have to sacrifice a few postseasons in the near future, but you can’t win every year anyway. Enjoy your extraordinary talent when you have them, and don’t let them walk away without a proper goodbye.

[aironwrites]

Durant’s Endless Chase for Immortality

In the summer of 2016, the NBA’s top free agent Kevin Durant made a decision that ruined his image in the eyes of millions. Three years, two championships, and two Finals MVP’s later the world was beginning to forget about that awful decision, but that’s when Kevin Durant went and proved all of the millions right.

In 2007, the Seattle SuperSonics (Who would become the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008) drafted Kevin Durant from the University of Texas with the second overall pick in the NBA Draft. Durant was coming off of an amazing year at Texas where he averaged 25 PPG (points per game) and 11 RPG (rebounds per game). He was one of the top prospects heading into the draft, but despite that he wasn’t selected number one overall. That honor, instead, went to Greg Oden.

Since being drafted by Seattle/Oklahoma City, Kevin Durant would go on to do great things in the league. He won the rookie of the year award for the 2007-2008 season and he would lead the Oklahoma City Thunder to multiple playoff appearances and even a Finals appearance. Kevin Durant led the league in scoring four separate times and eventually he would win the MVP award for the 2013-2014 season. However, the most important run in Kevin Durant’s tenure came in the 2011-2012 season when he won a scoring title and led the Oklahoma City Thunder to the NBA Finals. This was Durant’s moment, as he was set to face the powerhouse Miami Heat led by the once in a lifetime talent LeBron James. Durant and the Thunder would fall short of victory to the Heat and watched as LeBron would celebrate his first NBA title.

Ever since that defeat, things would begin to change for Kevin Durant. The following year, he failed to defend his scoring title but despite that the Oklahoma City Thunder still finished the season with a 60-22 record and the number one seed in the western conference. The Thunder looked good behind the leadership of Kevin Durant and other superstar teammate Russell Westbrook, up until Westbrook tore his miniscus and was forced to miss the remainder of the playoffs. Durant and the rest of the Thunder would fail to make it through the second round.

Now this is where things begin to get interesting, as Durant would follow the early loss in the playoffs by taking more action on the team. He would go on to win the MVP award the next season and led the Thunder to the western conference finals before losing to the San Antonio Spurs. However, you could see a shift in Durant’s play. He was more of a difference maker than ever before and it was almost a guarantee that the Thunder would be contenders for a long time to come. That is, until the Golden Stare Warriors started their Dynasty.

The Golden State Warriors had just begun to get hot. They had made a few playoff appearances but never seemed to get over the hump. However, during the 2014-2015 season, that seemed to change. With LeBron James signing with the Cleveland Cavaliers after winning two titles in Miami, everybody’s focus was on the return of the King to his hometown of Cleveland. Nobody really paid attention to the Warriors. Behind a solid core of players including Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Draymond Green, and Andrew Bogut, the Warriors would go on to finish the year 67-15 and as the number one seed in the west, they would almost too easily find themselves in the Finals against LeBron and the Cavs. Of course, since the Cavs were the talk of the season, the Warriors were considered underdogs, but they proved everybody wrong by beating the King in the Finals to win their first championship in 40 years. Steph Curry would be awarded the MVP for the season and the Bay Area was feeling on top of the world... and they were just getting started.

The Warriors followed their championship season by looking absolutely unbeatable. They won their first 24 games in a row and would go on to break the 95-96 Bulls regular season record of 72-10 when they finished the year with 73 wins and 9 losses. Steph Curry would also go on to win his second straight MVP award. The Warriors were looking unbeatable in the playoffs as well, at least, until they ran into Kevin Durant and the Thunder. People had forgotten about the Thunder in the wake of the Warriors and Spurs success. But the Thunder were a hot team and Durant was beginning to get tired of getting overlooked. Durant and the Thunder came at the defending champs hard taking a nice 3-1 lead in the series, but that was when Steph Curry and the Warriors showed who they were exactly. The defending champs rallied to win three straight games to defeat the Thunder to advance to the Finals for the second straight year to find themselves facing LeBron and the Cavs again.

Now this is where things get REALLY interesting. The Warriors would run into multiple problems in the 2016 Finals, despite being the better team. They found themselves leading the series 3-1 before LeBron James with the help of Kyrie Irving came back to win the series and win their first championship in Cleveland’s franchise history. It’s arguable, however, that the Warriors would have won the series if Draymond Green didn’t get suspended in a game where he probably shouldn’t have. That argument aside, the Warriors fell short of a historic finish to a historic season.

The offseason of 2016 is where the story comes to a climax. Kevin Durant, after having lost to the Warriors in the conference finals, was now becoming a free agent and he was set to get paid a ton of money to be the top guy on any given team. Durant took meetings with teams such as the LA Clippers, Oklahoma City Thunder, and surprisingly, the Golden State Warriors. Despite reports of Durant’s interest in staying in Oklahoma City, he announced that he would be signing with the Golden State Warriors. Yes, the team that won 73 games the year before and probably should have been a back-to-back champion, had just signed a four time scoring champion and a former MVP. You can understand why the public was upset. In fact, everybody except Warrior fans found the signing unrespectable.

Unsurprisingly, the Warriors (now centered around Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Kevin Durant) destroyed the league and went on to win the championship after going 16-1 in the playoffs. Kevin Durant would go on to win the Finals MVP award for being the best player on the winning team in the Finals. The following year after that, the Warriors ran into a few injury problems, but still managed to destroy the league and go on to win yet another championship. In that Finals series, Steph Curry looked like the clear favorite to win the MVP award for the Finals but somehow it ended up in the hands of Kevin Durant. The move seemed to pay off for Durant as he now had what he so desperately wanted. Two championships, two Finals MVP awards, and one more season to do it again. Yet still, something was missing for Durant.

The following year, being the 2018-2019 NBA season, the Warriors were the team to beat. From the beginning of the season there was speculation that Kevin Durant would be leaving the franchise whether they won a title or didn’t and that he would go to play for the New York Knicks after. Despite these rumors, the Warriors were still the best team in the league and they would go on to earn the number one seed in the western conference. The Warriors defeated the LA Clippers in the first round of the playoffs and were seeming to have problems with Houston Rockets in the second round. The series was tied 2-2 and it was game five when Kevin Durant went down with a calf injury. The best player on the best team in the league had been injured and for most people, they thought it would’ve been an opportunity for the Rockets to beat the monster of a team in the Warriors. Those people must’ve forgotten who the Warriors’ true superstars are. Behind their core three players, Curry, Thompson, and Green, the Warriors would go on to win game 5 and game 6, defeating the Rockets and moving on to face the Portland Trailblazers in the conference finals. They didn’t stop there though, Curry was untouchable in the next series and the Trailblazers went down quietly as they got swept by the Durant-less Warriors allowing the Warriors to advance to their fifth straight finals appearance in franchise history.

I know what you’re thinking; the Warriors never needed Durant in the first place, right? Well, it certainly looked that way, but most of us were proven wrong by that assumption. The Warriors struggled against Kawhi Leanord and the Toronto Raptors in the Finals and found themselves down 3-1. But we’ve heard this story before, haven’t we? Kevin Durant comes back in game 5 and looks untouchable in his own right, scoring 11 points in the first quarter. The Warriors looked like a team that was going to come back and defeat the Raptors, that was, until Durant tore his achilles. Only a few minutes into the second quarter, Durant went down and this time, there was no coming back. He had very obviously torn his achilles and would be gone for the rest of the series and probably all of the next season. The Warriors rallied behind Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, however, and found themselves able to defeat the Raptors in game 5 forcing a game 6 back in the Bay Area. Either way, Durant or no Durant, the Raptors were looking in trouble. The Warriors were competing at a high level in game 6 and were holding a lead for most of the game. And then the real shocker happened. Klay Thompson, the next best player behind Curry and Durant, would tear his ACL on a dunk. The air had been knocked out of the Warriors lungs for the last time. Curry and Green fought alongside their bench players, but Kawhi and the Raptors were too much. They would go on to lose game 6 and the Raptors had won their first NBA title in franchise history.

The story fixed Durant’s image in the eyes of millions who believed him to be a snake. All of the haters who thought that he shouldn’t have joined such a powerhouse team already, were proven wrong in just how much the Warriors needed him... or were they? The argument could be made that the Warriors still never needed Durant. Afterall, they lost only one playoff series without him in their entire tenure as this dynasty. And their record with him sitting out or being injured was pretty astonishing at 30 wins and 4 losses. Does one series really show how important Durant is?

The 2019 free agency is where all of the truths came out. Despite Durant being ruled out for the entire 2019-2020 season, many teams were still willing to offer him a max contract, including the Warriors. And despite the Warriors being the obvious best option when it comes to winning championships, Durant chose a different route. Within minutes of free agency opening, Durant signed with the Brooklyn Nets to play alongside Kyrie Irving and DeAndre Jordan. That’s when everything became clear.

Durant left Oklahoma City because he wanted to win a championship, but why was winning a championship so important? Because everybody accumulates greatness with championships. At least, that’s what Durant thought. However, after winning two championships and being named Finals MVP for both of them, Durant was still not as important as LeBron James was. It could even be argued that Durant wasn’t even as important to his own team as superstar Steph Curry was. And that’s where Durant needs to come to see the reality of things.

LeBron James was the No. 1 overall pick in his draft while Durant was the No. 2. LeBron has won the MVP award 2 times and Durant has only won it once. LeBron has been to the Finals 9 times in his career and has won a title 3 times. Durant has been to the finals 4 times in his career and has won 2 titles. Despite all of that, what makes LeBron James the superstar of this generation, the same way that Jordan and Kobe were the superstars of theirs, is that he makes a difference on a team just by being on the team. Kevin Durant does not do that.

The Warriors were successful before Durant, and they will be successful after Durant. The Thunder, since Durant leaving the team, have seen Russell Westbrook win MVP and have made the playoffs without Durant. And now that Durant is on the Nets, he may or may not win a championship, but if he doesn’t then he has left that organization exactly where it started. And that is something that LeBron James has not done in his career. That is something that Kobe and Jordan did not do in their career. If Kevin Durant was to be immortalized like LeBron, Jordan, and Kobe, then he needs to be the reason why a team goes from last place to the Finals, not from losing in the Finals to winning a title. Because, guess what, they probably would’ve done that without you.