Valuing Madison Bumgarner

Analysis of Strengths and Weaknesses:

Madison Bumgarner’s greatest strength and his greatest weakness are one and the same. His indefatigable tenacity, his will to win and force you to submit to his will is his greatest strength most notably demonstrated during his epic 2014 World Series performance. His analysis that he had “about 200 pitches in his arm” before Game 7 would have drawn guffaws from most teammates, teammates know that is just Madison Bumgarner.

That same quality however has translated into his greatest weakness at times. Not making adjustment in his pitch sequencing to adapt to his lower velocity reading is partly due to his mind-set that he’s going to beat you playing “good old country hardball.” That works until it doesn’t, and you must adjust. The feistiness on the mound, the challenging of hitters for celebrations is part of what makes him great on the one hand, but leaves you shaking your head on the other hand. You must take the good with the bad, and the three rings, which Bumgarner was a large part of every one of them going back to his days as a precocious rookie in 2010 at age 20, demonstrate that there has been much more good than bad.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bumgama01.shtml

from ( http://www.brooksbaseball.net/landing.php?player=518516 )

Post injuries tends – loss of velocity, stuff on FB - Misses plate more than misses bats at times due to stubbornness to want to win the battle his way – without giving in – rather the best, most economical way. This has led to elevated pitch-counts earlier, reaching 100 pitches around 5/6 inning rather than 7+.

Pitch Repertoire At-A-Glance

(from http://www.brooksbaseball.net/landing.php?player=518516  )

Madison Bumgarner has thrown 29,263 pitches that have been tracked by the PITCHf/x system between 2009 and 2019, including pitches thrown in the MLB Regular Season, the MLB Postseason and Spring Training. In 2019, he has relied primarily on his Four seam Fastball (92mph) and Cutter (87mph), also mixing in a Curve (78mph) and Change (85mph). He also rarely throws a Sinker (89mph).

Basic description of 2019 pitches compared to other LHP:

His four-seam fastball generates more whiffs/swing compared to other pitchers' four seamers, has essentially average velo, results in somewhat more flyballs compared to other pitchers' four seamers and has slightly less natural movement than typical. His cutter generates more whiffs/swing compared to other pitchers' cutters, has slightly above average velo, has some natural sink and has strong cutting action. His curve is a real worm killer that generates an extreme number of groundballs compared to other pitchers' curves, has sweeping glove-side movement, has little depth and is slightly harder than usual. His change is basically never swung at and missed compared to other pitchers' changeups, is slightly firmer than usual, results in somewhat more flyballs compared to other pitchers' changeups and has some natural sink to it. His sinker (take this with a grain of salt because he's only thrown 2 of them in 2019) is basically never swung at and missed compared to other pitchers' sinkers, is an extreme flyball pitch compared to other pitchers' sinkers, has surprisingly little arm side run, has slightly below average velo and has some natural sinking action.

Contract Value and Performance Forecast:

Similarity Scores -Baseball Reference: https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/similarity.shtml

I looked at Chris Sale, J.A. Happ, Clayton Kershaw, David Price and Jon Lester as LHP contemporaries and comparables. I added Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija to demonstrate that the Giants have displayed a willingness to pay a premium salary well into the future for free agents based on performance delivered outside of the organization. It would be a difficult PR sell to let a “face of the franchise” iconic figure who has delivered premium results at discounted prices, take his talents to another franchise. 

MLB Salary Distribution and Comparable pitchers to Bumgarner – C. Slavik

To look at the risk of the aging curve working against the extending of a long-term contract, aside from the prior mentioned comparables, is this analysis from Bill Petti and Jeff Zimmerman of FanGraphs.

Pitcher Aging Curves: Starters and Relievers - by Bill Petti  (FanGraphs)

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/pitcher-aging-curves-starters-and-relievers/

To show the differences in starters I decided to plot the career of CC Sabathia against Scott Kazmir. Both were hard-throwing lefties who had great success early in their careers (FIP- in the high 80s and low 90s in their first two seasons), but — as we know — one went on to have a dominant career while the other was out of baseball by 27 years old.

Readers will notice that the ages for the curves differ by pitcher type. This is due to sample sizes at the various age levels. There are more starters younger than 23 who pitch in back-to-back seasons than there are relievers. Similarly, we were able to get enough relievers pitching in their age-37 and age-38 seasons, whereas the sample was just too small to include starters.

As we noted in the introduction to the series, the curves are different in a number of ways. In general, relievers age more dramatically than starters.

Sabathia and Kazmir Aging Curves – Bill Petti (Fan Graphs)

Sabathia Salary History – Baseball Reference.com

Sabathia produced 43.5 WAR through his age 28 year, Bumgarner is comparable at 39 WAR to the completion of 2019, his age 29 year. The Yankees paid for Sabathia from age 29 through age 36, for 8 years @ $190.5M or $23.8125M per year going forward. That is in line with what I project Bumgarner will receive from the Giants. I believe that Bumgarner will age more like Sabathia than Kazmir due to his size, which tends to age and hold up to injuries better, as Sabathia has demonstrated.

Both Sabathia and Bumgarner are legitimate 4 WAR, top of the rotation innings eaters, with the big difference being playoff performance of which Bumgarner is prolific and legendary. Bumgarner will also be chasing legendary pitching greats like Carl Hubbell and Christy Mathewson in various team history categories towards the end of any free-agent contract he signs with them. From a marketing standpoint, this could be a huge potential windfall for the Giants. There will always be considerable risk and angst over the extension of long-term contracts to anyone approaching age 30.

Matt Swartz, also on FanGraphs took a retrospective look at free agent contracts signed between 2007-2012 and found the following general results:

A Retrospective Look at the Price of a Win, by Matt Swartz, February 14, 2012

https://community.fangraphs.com/on-war-its-linearity-and-efficient-free-agent-contracts/

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-retrospective-look-at-the-price-of-a-win/

In fact, if you look at the $/WAR paid for players with at least six years of service time throughout the 2007 to 2011 seasons, you’d get the following ratios:

First year of contracts: $4.25 million/WAR

Later years of contracts: $5.5 million/WAR

Combining all contracts: $4.92 million/WAR

3) Free agents who sign elsewhere generally give their new teams less bang for their buck.

The $/rWAR* for all 196 multi-year deals that ended in between 2007 to 2011:

Re-signed players: $4.9 million/WAR

Players who switched teams: $6.8 million/WAR

Difference: 39%

Looking only at deals between two and four years long, I found the following differences:

Re-signed players who signed before the end of the season: $4.6 million/rWAR*

Re-signed players who signed after the end of the season: $6.6 million/rWAR*

Players who switched teams after the season ended: $8.9 million/rWAR*

*Note that rWAR is different (and usually lower — than WAR used at FanGraphs.

Swartz’s results ranging from $4.9M/WAR - $6.8M/WAR is in line with our findings / range of $6.59M – $7.41M per WAR based on the comps listed. The only question then becomes is Bumgarner more a 3.5 WAR guy or a 4.0 WAR guy and how far out do you go on the contract. A 5 to 8-year range, taking Bumgarner to age 34 – 37.

If the team protected against the outer years of an 8-year deal, then I applied the higher $7.41M per WAR per year and assumed a 4.0 WAR average. If the security to the player of an 8-year, effectively making Bumgarner a career Giant, the lower $6.59M per WAR is used and the lesser 3.5 WAR figure 

applied.

Assuming those conditions, the # years and salary range should look something like this:

Length of Contract        Salary Range             Average Salary

5 years @       $150M - $160M         $30.0M – $32.0M     

            6 years @       $165M - $175M         $27.5M – $29.2M

            7 years @       $180M - $190M         $25.7M - $27.1M

            8 years @       $200M - $210M         $25.0M - $26.25M

Charles Slavik is a Sport Management student at University of North Florida, Go Ospreys!! and  is primarily interested in data analytics and baseball. He can be reached at https://twitter.com/theslav1959  or read at The Slav's Baseball Blog - BASEBALL 24-7-365   http://slavieboy.blogspot.com/.

Crawford's 9th-inning HR gives Giants 1-0 win over Rockies | The Score

https://www.mlb.com/news/brandon-crawfords-hr-backs-bumgarners-gem/c-283221828

JACKSONVILLE - At least there is finally an admission from Giants players that they have been letting MadBum down as far as run support goes. That has been an observation of mine for quite some time, maybe a year or longer. Part of it is he is often matched up against the other teams ace, the other part...IDK. 

It does go to show that a pitcher's W-L record is one of the more useless stats as far as determining value or worth to a team. Bum just keeps stacking one quality start after another and more often than not lately, the result is either a no-decision or worse, a loss.

At least this one fell into the Win column of the team and that's all that matters.

from thescore.com
https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/1563826

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) The only thing that would have made Brandon Crawford feel better about his game-ending homer was if it had come early enough to reward Madison Bumgarner with a win.

Crawford homered with one out in the bottom of the ninth after Bumgarner threw seven scoreless innings, giving the San Francisco Giants their fourth straight victory, 1-0 over the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday night.

''It would have been nice to get him a win,'' Crawford said. ''He pitched well enough that he should have gotten one. ... He looked like vintage Bum out there. He had everything working. His slider has been a lot sharper his last couple of outings, his curveball is looking a lot better and he's locating stuff.''

...

''You always want more,'' Bumgarner said. ''But the spot we're in now is not a bad place to be.''

Sent from my iPhone

Buster Posey showed off some incredible reflexes to corral a ball in the dirt and throw out a runner | MLB.com

It cannot be repeated often enough, "You cannot run on Buster Posey!!" Even when you think you should be able to run on Buster Posey, you should not run on Buster Posey!! He's like a cat going after a mouse corralling that loose ball.



from MLB.com

Buster Posey showed off some incredible reflexes to corral a ball in the dirt and throw out a runner | MLB.com:

Buster Posey has been great his entire Major League career. He has a Rookie of the Year Award and an MVP Award. He's a five-time All-Star and has won the Silver Slugger Award four times. He's been so good for so long, it didn't seem possible for him to surprise us with his ability on the field.

On Sunday, however, Posey proved that greatness always finds a way to impress. With two outs in the ninth inning of the Giants' 9-5 win over the Rockies, a pitch in the dirt looked like it was going to get away from the Giants' catcher and allow Trevor Story to advance. Let's just say that it didn't quite work out that way:

'via Blog this'

OK, so this we know. What do we not know? We really don't know what we have with the 2018 Gigantes due to all the injuries and this game puts us at .500 through 48 games at 24-24. This game wasn't a "must game", but it was a game the Giants had to have. You cannot let the Rockies come in to your house and take three out of four. So, mission accomplished there.

We're all waiting for the wounded to return. Adding Bumgarner, Cueto, Panik, Williamson, Hanson and to a lesser degree Pence and Melancon will help. But how much?

If the returnees elevate the team from a .500 team to a .600 team, when do they need to start playing like one?

Now would be the immediate answer. A .600 pace the rest of the way, with 114 games left, gets you to 92-70. Playoffs!! Can you say Playoffs?

Even waiting another 7 games to get a kick from some of the returnees would take you from 31-31 to 91-71 in the remaining 100 games. Cool, not much of a decrease in our chances.

How about if we wait until the halfway mark? Play 41-41 for the first 82 games and then turn on the jets and win 49 of the next 82 gets you to 90 wins. Still a probable playoff spot, but not by much, right?

Somehow I feel as if the All-Star break is when you see the team that has to pull the train into the station, regular lineup in place and healthy. No turning back at that point, since 45-45 through the first 90 leads you to 88-74 with a .600 pace the rest of the way. That's not likely to make the playoffs, but it is possible.

Let's see what happens, but at least using math plus reasonable assumptions and past history as a guide as to probability of advancement, we shouldn't need to even consider panicking (What who me?? Panik??)

--

No puede repetirse con la suficiente frecuencia, "¡No puedes correr en Buster Posey!" ¡¡Incluso cuando creas que deberías poder correr en Buster Posey, no deberías correr en Buster Posey !! Es como un gato que persigue a un ratón acorralando esa bola suelta.

OK, entonces esto lo sabemos. ¿Qué no sabemos? Realmente no sabemos lo que tenemos con los 2018 Gigantes debido a todas las lesiones y este juego nos pone en .500 a través de 48 juegos en 24-24. Este juego no era un "juego obligatorio", pero era un juego que los Gigantes tenían que tener. No puedes permitir que los Rockies entren a tu casa y tomen tres de cuatro. Entonces, misión cumplida allí.

Todos estamos esperando que los heridos regresen. Agregando Bumgarner, Cueto, Panik, Williamson, Hanson y en menor grado Pence y Melancon ayudarán. ¿Pero cuanto?

Si los repatriados elevan al equipo de un equipo de .500 a un equipo de .600, ¿cuándo deben comenzar a jugar como uno?

Ahora sería la respuesta inmediata. Un ritmo de .600 el resto del camino, con 114 juegos restantes, te lleva a 92-70. ¡Playoffs! ¿Puedes decir Playoffs?

Incluso esperar otros 7 juegos para obtener una patada de algunos de los retornados te llevaría de 31-31 a 91-71 en los restantes 100 juegos. Genial, no hay una gran disminución en nuestras posibilidades.

¿Qué tal si esperamos hasta la mitad del camino? Juega 41-41 para los primeros 82 juegos y luego enciende los jets y gana 49 de los siguientes 82 que te llevan a 90 victorias. Todavía es un lugar probable para los playoffs, pero no por mucho, ¿verdad?

De alguna manera siento como si el receso del Juego de las Estrellas fuera cuando ves al equipo que tiene que tirar del tren a la estación, alineación regular en su lugar y saludable. No hay vuelta atrás en ese punto, ya que 45-45 a través de los primeros 90 te lleva a 88-74 con un ritmo de .600 el resto del camino. No es probable que llegue a los playoffs, pero es posible.


Veamos qué pasa, pero al menos usando matemáticas más suposiciones razonables e historia pasada como guía en cuanto a la probabilidad de avance, no deberíamos siquiera tener que considerar entrar en pánico (¿Qué me di ?? Panik?)

Is the "Perfect Model" always perfect and the pitching guru wars

SMART POWER FOR PITCHERS: SMART POWER TRAINING SYSTEMS FOR PITCHERS

				SMART POWER FOR PITCHERS: SMART POWER TR... The following is a response from Paul Nyman to a post on the internet about over and underload training: The ...
				View on www.setpro.com	Preview by Yahoo

This was the tail end of one of my exchanges with Paul Nyman @ SETPRO one of the early pioneers in the pitching guru wars. He was pretty good with advanced training methods for hitters as well.

The following is a response from Paul Nyman to a post on the internet about over and underload training:

The Slav,

Words can be very difficult medium for communication. Stress for a marathoner is different than stress for a pitcher.

Stress to me means elevating the level of activity beyond the point of normal activity.

So if a person is normally throwing a baseball at 80 mph, we must find a way to elevate the stress on his body beyond the 80 mph level.

There is both physical and mental stress.

One of the least understood training issues is the need to create explosive "intent".

Without opening a can of worms, tribe999 asked the question of what is a difference in philosophy in between "other programs" and SETPRO's.

One significant difference is my belief that we need to train the intent to throw hard as opposed to following a mechanical sequence.

The way that pitching mechanics is being taught (in general) is by "picture association".

In other words a visual and verbal representation of the pitching process is used to convey the "external" picture (information) of the pitching process.

It is then left for the person doing is picture or reading the words to "internalize" this information into a sequence (motor program) of posture and muscular actions.

The problem with this is that a lot of the important information cannot be or should I say is not being transmitted by many of these pitching programs, pitching.com being one of them.

And it is not because they are intentionally doing this. It's because they just don't know how to create a richer picture (more information that can be used to more effectively create the internal actions necessary).

In short this is a long-winded way of my saying there's a difference between a pitcher being mechanical and having good mechanics (maximizing his potemtial).

I don't subscribe to the principal that if you work on your mechanics "that velocity will come".

Your velocity will not happen unless you make it happen.

If this occurs because of a specific pitching program, that all well and good.

But is not the pitching program that develops your velocity, it is YOU the player that develops the velocity.

The pitching program is/was only a means for you to achieve that.

I guess you might say that I have a more "holistic" approach to developing pitchers.

As opposed to the cure by "prescription" approach.

Anyway, back to the question of stress.

By definition as long as the effort to throw as hard as possible is there, throwing a different weight baseball has the possibility of creating greater stress.

One of the physiological aspects of the body that I don't think is really understood as much as it should by those who wish to improve their ballistic performance i.e. throwing or swinging a baseball bat, is a fact that muscular response is not linear to the force applied.

I see this phenomenon very clearly if you measure the velocity of a player throwing different weighted baseballs.

Many players can throw a 6 ounce baseball as hard (same velocity) as a five ounce baseball. Even though the 6 ounce baseball is 20 percent heavier than a five ounce baseball. This is a great illustration (to me anyways) that this particular player(s) is not trained to their maximum throwing capabilities.

The reason I say this is because with players that I work with who I believe are throwing a very high-level in terms of their potential, there is a noticeable or significant difference in velocity of their throwing a regulation five ounce baseball as compared to a 6 ounce baseball.

The same is true with them throwing a five ounce baseball as compared to a four ounce baseball.

So therefore players inability to throw a 6 ounce baseball almost as hard as a five ounce baseball indicates that there is undeveloped potential primarily in the form of neuromuscular capabilities.

And in fact significant gains can be made in short periods of time due to neuromuscular recruitment as opposed to developing additional muscle strength.

The intent to throw hard, the intent to swing hard is every bit if not more important than the actual building a strength of the muscle itself.

And we continue to "bump heads" with the specificity principal. Especially the higher we attempt to rise in our athletic capabilities.

I believe that longer durations or lower level throwing, and we have to be very careful asked what we mean by lower level, can be beneficial because my belief that prolong stress, assuming its above a certain level, will lead to physical adaptations in the form of increased tissue size (tendons and ligaments in particular).

And we have to be very careful in what is meant by duration and intensity.

But low level throwing will not in itself develop the neural systems to be explosive.

For those people or very involved in trying to understand how the body develops athletic power, there are different classifications for this power.

As example for football the training professional is more concerned with strength-speed development.

This is different than what the baseball trainer is concerned with for a pitcher, that being speed-strength development.

As far as Coop DeRenne's program, I think is a very good and very safe program to use.

I believe the SETPRO program goes beyond what DeRenne's program started (my sales pitch for today).

As far as MLB and college coaching and training philosophy, I agree 100 percent that their primary job is to maintain a player's ability to perform everyday. As opposed to maximizing their daily performance.

When I was in Atlanta at the National Strength and Conditioning Sport Specific Training Seminar for Baseball, the head training person for the Cleveland Indians said that if a player injured himself because he was doing something that the trainer recommended and was not part of the normal training routine for that athlete then the next day he would be out looking for a new job.

Dr. Frank Fultz of the Atlanta Braves related the same story about Chipper Jones. That Chipper Jones have to come to him and that Chipper have to take total responsibility for his decisions before Dr. Fultz would designed a more aggressive training program for Chipper. This training program resulted in Chipper Jones increasing his strength significantly and going from 20 plus homeruns to 50 homeruns the next season.

I have said hundreds of times that if you expect to perform at the highest level you have to accept the risk of this expectation.

But the key point is that it is "managed" risk.

You use sound training principles, something which most baseball people haven't or won't learn about.

Training principles that former "high jumpers" knew about thirty years ago.

Principles that former major league pitchers or s should I say say someone who pitched three innings in the Major Leagues has no idea about.

Slav, I'm sorry, your post was such a good one, good questions and no sarcasm, but I couldn't resist.

Paul Nyman

Theses discussions around a set of "perfect" pitching mechanics came back to me front and center when I heard Mark Prior on MLB/Sirius say that he "cringed" when he heard the term used to describe his mechanics.

https://www.si.com/thecauldron/2016/08/03/mark-prior-chicago-cubs-no-regrets

Given what happened, I still grimace when I think about those people who said I had perfect mechanics. The Kershaws, the Greinkes, the Arrietas — even they have times when their mechanics are off, and they are the best pitchers on the planet. As a pitcher, there are just times when you feel like you can’t sync up; when your sequence is off. That’s a big part of a pitcher’s responsibility: To execute and to find that groove. I never thought my mechanics were perfect. I just thought that I had a solid delivery that suited my body. I threw the way I had been taught; the way I had since I was six years old.

This was Tom House's doing, using words more to sell than to inform, but it is what it is. If I were to apply the term "perfect" to anyone's mechanics, and I would use the word optimal, it would be Nolan Ryan, who threw 95+ from 19 years old to 45 years old at the MLB level, without much injury down time, except his blister problems early in his career, which may have been related to his National Guard duties. Next, would be Tom Seaver. 

We've come full circle in trying to change arm-slots and mechanics around some pre-conceived models, that we almost ruined guys like Jake Arieta, Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner and others, who were changed, floundered and then insisted on their own that they were going to either succeed or fail by doing it "My Way" like Sinatra.

If it ain't broke, stop trying to break it! - CS