Madison Bumgarner’s Departure Marks The End of A Giants Era.
Every good story must one day come to an end. For this era of San Francisco Giants baseball, the story of what has been the franchise’s most glorious run since moving to San Francisco in 1958 began nearly a decade ago. It was during the summer of 2010 that the club, in serious contention for the postseason for the first time since the heyday of Barry Bonds, called up two of its top prospects in the hopes that they would bolster their chances. The two young men they called up, would become cornerstones of one of the unlikeliest dynasties in sports history.
Madison Bumgarner and Buster Posey were two of the most unlikely people to ever become icons and heroes in the City by the Bay. Both were country boys from the Southeast, with Bumgarner hailing from a small town in North Carolina, Posey from an even smaller one in Georgia. But when the both joined the big league team in May and June, become heroes is exactly what they did. They provided a jolt of electricity in different ways, with Posey doing it with his bat and skills behind the plate, Bumgarner on the mound. They were difference-makers in the Giants winning their first division title since 2003, and then their first World Series title since 1954, back when their home was still the Polo Grounds in New York. Watching them play as a teenager on the verge of leaving San Francisco for college, I was transfixed.
Their stature would only grow over the subsequent years, years which saw the Giants improbably win two more titles in 2012 and 2014. Posey would win the National League’s Most Valuable Player award in 2012 and anchor that championship team’s offense, while Bumgarner’s performance in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series would instantly become an iconic baseball moment. Alas, the dynasty was not to last forever, as nothing can.
It would be an injury to Bumgarner that would start to unravel the Giants’ run of success. In the 2017 offseason, with the Giants coming off a playoff defeat to the eventual champion Cubs, Bumgarner injured his shoulder while dirt biking in Colorado. The injury foreshadowed what would become a lost season for the Giants, as the club would collapse to the second worst record in the majors. Not only that, it also put a hold on talks the Giants were holding with Bumgarner to extend his contract past its expiration date in 2019. The Giants had cause to be wary in the wake of the accident, especially since his former rotation mates Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum had both fallen off a performance cliff due to their own injuries shortly after signing rich long term extensions. But according to NBC Sports, the team had done wrong in his eyes by failing to reward him the way it had Cain, Lincecum, and many of his other teammates including Posey, who the Giants had signed to an eight year, $167 million dollar contract after his MVP season in 2012.
In retrospect, the writing for Bumgarner’s departure was on the wall in how new manager Gabe Kapler described how he was dealing with both Posey and Bumgarner respectively upon his arrival. In a podcast interview with the San Francisco Chronicle’s Henry Schulman, the contrast was stark. When it came to Posey, Kapler stressed how much he was relying on him for advice and input, even consulting Posey on hires for the new coaching staff. But with Bumgarner, Kapler said that he had not reached out and wanted to “give [Bumgarner] his space.”
That comment told veteran Giants beat writer Andrew Baggarly all he needed to know. Reflecting in The Athletic after Bumgarner signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks, he wrote in reference to Kapler’s comment: “And that was it. That was all I needed to know. There was no way that Bumgarner would continue his career with the Giants.” Kapler would have reached out to Bumgarner even before officially being hired if the Giants were truly interested in bringing him back, he reasoned.
A segment of the Giants fanbase has been quick to blame President of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi for being too cheap to keep Bumgarner, prioritizing a cost-saving, “Moneyball” approach (Zaidi previously worked under “Moneyball” pioneer Billy Beane with the Oakland Athletics) over retaining a franchise legend. But according to Henry Schulman, the Giants offered Bumgarner a four year deal that would have paid him more per year than the $17 million per year he will receive from the Diamondbacks.
Furthermore, Bumgarner’s positive preference for Arizona may have been a greater factor than any negative feelings he may have had for San Francisco. According to Baggarly, Bumgarner had told him back in July of 2019 how much he and his wife Ali loved spending time in the area during spring training. And the Diamondbacks, who won 85 games in 2019 and were in the wild card conversation into September, offer Bumgarner a greater chance of getting into the postseason, where he thrives, more quickly than the rebuilding Giants.
As a lifelong Giants fan, I can’t say that Bumgarner’s departure didn’t hurt, for it surely did. However, myself and other Giants fans can at least take solace in the fact that Bumgarner did not go the hated Dodgers, who were rumored to be interested in signing him. Buster Posey now remains as the sole Giant from their championship years, and in the Kapler era he will no longer be the superstar he once was, but rather a clubhouse mentor to the next generation of Giants. Most crucially, Posey will surely play a key role in the development of Joey Bart, like Posey a Georgia native and top catching prospect. Bumgarner’s departure is a bitter pill to swallow, but the memories of what he accomplished in a Giants uniform can never be erased. And when he makes his return to Oracle Park in a Diamondbacks uniform next spring, he should be greeted with the loudest of standing ovations.
