KNBR
Madison Bumgarner has a story to tell. But the world will not hear his side of the breakup that took place with a franchise he had owned, with whom he won three World Series, where he starred for 10 years through championship MVPs and four All-Star games.
And then left for a five-year, $85 million deal with Arizona, the Giants’ offer not blowing him away.
“You’re not going to get it today,” the big lefty said of his account of the split.
The Giants’ side is well-documented: The team is in the midst of a rebuild (as promising as this season has turned), and Farhan Zaidi is resistant to lengthy deals for pitchers, especially those with as much mileage as Bumgarner.
It’s the type of difficult conversation that can offend a pitcher as proud as Bumgarner, who was asked if he has any bad feelings toward anyone in the Giants organization. He smiled.
“Uh, no,” he said, a star better known for his arm than mouth.
The early returns have hinted the Giants’ front office was justified to not ensure Bumgarner returns, the 31-year-old struggling big time through four starts with diminished velocity and then hitting the injured list with back issues. The back is better, and his first start will come on the same mound from which he threw 140 games and crafted his legend.
The mound is the same, but the bullpen mounds are not. The park is the same, though the outfield walls are not. The environment looks the same, apart from beloved fans being barred from their seats. The Giants uniforms are the same, as are Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford and Pablo Sandoval, but so much else has changed.
“Guys have been asking me if it’s weird coming in on the other side [of the park] and all that — it’s really not,” Bumgarner said over Zoom on Friday from Oracle Park, before the four-game series began and a day before he was set to return. “It was nice to be back and see a lot of the guys that I knew, that I played with, worked with, staff over there. There’s a lot of new faces for sure. It’s pretty much completely different, it looks like. But I was excited to come back here and just see the city.”
It will be strange for Bumgarner, for his own fans and for Giants fans, who will only witness the strangeness on TV. There were assumptions Bumgarner would finish out his career with the only organization he had known, who could have offered a nine-figure deal to bring him back to the Orange and Black.
Bumgarner said he didn’t know if he imagined retiring as a Giant — after all, he didn’t imagine retiring at all. But yes, he evasively conceded he believed he would play out his career in San Francisco.
“I think especially with the way it was going there for the longest time, everybody that was here kind of hoped for that. Not just me but for themselves, too,” said Bumgarner, who was so brilliant and durable until injuries began striking in 2017, the first of three straight playoff-less years for the club.
He said has no regrets about free agency and his offseason decision, though it’s worth wondering if the Diamondbacks have regrets about the pact to which they signed him. Bumgarner struggled to even hit 89 mph before hitting the IL. Bumgarner blamed the lack of velocity on a summer that didn’t allow him his usual build-up period and said he doesn’t anticipate his return Saturday will see a big bump in speed.
What it will see, most likely, is Belt and Crawford (although Gabe Kapler declined to reveal whether the lefty hitters would face their lefty buddy). They’ve stared each other down in spring trainings over the years, but not like this.
“I feel like I’m pretty good at pushing all that stuff aside, and I think I’ll be able to go out there and just treat it like any other start tomorrow,” said Bumgarner, who also could be trying to miss Pablo Sandoval’s bat. “Same as I would do if it was a postseason start or whatever. I feel like I’m pretty good at staying even-keel when it comes to that stuff.”
The Giants know that to be true.
“Everything is different right now,” Bumgarner said when asked about Buster Posey’s absence, but the sentiment can be applied everywhere.