Sean Logan-USA TODAY Sports
Madison Bumgarner began his tenure with the Diamondbacks with $85 million worth of expectations, trading NL West teams and arriving with three World Series titles, a legend already crafted and a resume that already might send him into the Hall of Fame.
Bumgarner left the first season of his five-year deal with a challenge from the team that saw little of the ace it hoped it see.
“We challenged him at the end of the year to make sure that he has … a very targeted and very specific kind of offseason with his work habits and the work that he does,” Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said on a Zoom news conference Monday. “I know that he works hard no matter what — he’s always done that. But this was a little more targeted in certain areas. So I do know that he’s been working out and working at it.
“I’m really anxious to see how he comes back to us in spring training, whenever that may be.”
The Diamondbacks would like to see a reversal of the velocity dip that left Bumgarner particularly vulnerable. He’s never blown hitters away with heat, but a fastball that averaged 91.4 mph in his final season with the Giants averaged 88.4 mph last season. His cutter, which averaged 87.3 mph in 2019, fell to 83.5 mph last season. The stuff was diminished and the results followed, finishing with a 6.48 ERA in 41 2/3 innings. According to Fangraphs, among pitchers with at least 40 innings thrown he was the second-least valuable in all of baseball (-.5 WAR).
The Giants looked smart in not anteing up to bring the rodeo legend back to San Francisco, especially after four poor-to-disastrous starts to begin the 2020 campaign, the streak leading to his being placed on the injured list with a back strain.
“We watched Bum have a frustrating year, numbers wise. I’m sure those that were there every single day saw his frustration,” said Lovullo, who saw the lefty finish with a bit of optimism with 10 straight scoreless innings. “You got to remember, he threw some pretty good games, despite not being at his competitive best. Why wasn’t he at his competitive best? I think we can all come up with some ideas. Maybe it was the start-stop reload, short and condensed spring training 2.0, and then being thrust into the start Opening Day. His stuff never really took off the way he wanted it to, by his own admission.”
Bumgarner’s habits are nearly as esteemed as his accomplishments, having thrown nearly 2,000 regular-season innings while knowing how to build up and take care of his valuable arm. Whatever the process was like last season, which threw every bit of order into chaos, it did not work, and the velocity that was missing was never found.
Arizona will hope it can be rediscovered because it has an awfully lot invested in the four-time All-Star, especially because the franchise is cutting payroll after the pandemic didn’t allow customers into seats.
For Lovullo’s part, he saw some of the fire that made Bumgarner’s personality so cultishly loved in San Francisco. He’ll just need to see some fire follow with his pitches.
“No matter when I came to take him out of the game, he always told me, ‘I have more,’” Lovullo said of the 31-year-old. “And that’s just one of those great qualities that he walks around with.”