The Giants received their worst blow of an already ugly season on April 21 when Madison Bumgarner suffered a sprained AC joint in his pitching shoulder after crashing his dirt bike on a team off-day in Colorado.
Does this mean the Giants should dock pay off their ace? Tim Kurkjian doesn’t think so.
Bumgarner is in the last year of his six-year, $35.56 million contract and Kurkjian, who appeared on KNBR’s The Audible Thursday morning, says the Giants should pay him more to stay — regardless of injury.
“I think most people say ‘I can’t believe a pitcher of that quality would do that,’ but I think everyone in the league understands who this guy is,” said Kurkjian. “He’s a great pitcher, ultimate warrior, you want him on your team no matter what.
“The Giants are going to pay him an enormous amount to stay, which they should, but if somehow they decide he’s not, then somebody else is going to pay him an enormous amount to come to their team. In other words, even though he made a terrible mistake here, and nobody discounts that, his track record in the postseason is so good and so long. I think that people will essentially look past this and say ‘A good guy made a bad mistake, it only happened once, it’s not going to happen again,’”
Listen to the full podcast below. To hear Kurkjian on Bumgarner, skip to 8:26.