Diamondbacks 2022 Season Player Reviews: Madison Bumgarner

A world series hero in decline

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Baseball Reference

2022 Season Review

When Madison Bumgarner signed a five year, $85 million dollar contract with the Diamondbacks on December 17th, 2019, it was by far the biggest financial investment GM Mike Hazen had ever made in a player. 

Just that previous year the team declined to offer Paul Goldschmidt a contract extension, preferring to trade him with one year left on his contract rather than pay him the $25 million a year or so it would likely cost to retain him. Then at the 2019 trade deadline the team traded Zack Greinke to the Houston Astros with roughly $85 million due  for the next two and half remaining seasons on his contract   signed by the previous regime. 

So it came as somewhat of surprise when Hazen signed Bumgarner to this deal. It should be pointed out however that the average annual salary of $17 million for Bumgarner  was only half the average annual still due to Greinke.  Nonetheless it was a significant investment, by far the biggest Hazen had ever made for a player. Bumgarner was still just heading into his age 30 season, was a three time world Champion and had over 1800 innings with a 3.13 career ERA. 

The first year in Arizona was a disaster. In nine starts during the pandemic shortened 2020 season Bumgarner posted a 6.48 ERA and 7.13 FIP while going 1-4. He spent time on the injured list with a strain in his upper back between the shoulder blades. His fastball velocity was down a whopping 3 MPH from 2018. However most of this was chalked up to the disruption of being shut down and then restarting again. 

2021 was marginally better. He made 26 starts, going 7-10 with a 4.67 ERA with a 4.63 FIP.  He spent 44 days on the injured list with a shoulder injury. His season long velocity rebounded by two MPH, but still a tick off 2019. He was giving up a lot of loud hard contact, including 24 homers and a .439 slugging against. 

Heading into 2022 new pitching coach Brent Strom started working with Bumgarner and initially things seemed to be starting off well enough. He opened the season with a three inning outing against San Diego on opening day giving up just one run. Due to the delayed start to the season and shortened spring training most starters had short outings the first time or two through the rotation. He did walk four batters in the outing, but that was chalked up to quick ramp up. 

Bumgarner went at least five innings in five of his next six starts. The only exception being the bizarre incident with Dan Bellino inspecting Bumgarner for sticky stuff in a strange manner that resulted in an argument and an ejection after the first inning.

Through his first seven starts of the season Bumgarner threw a total of 30.1 innings, and had a  stellar 1.78 ERA. However there were warning signs. His FIP, or fielding independent pitching ERA, was nearly three runs higher at 4.70. The combination of 12 walks, four homers and only 20 strikeouts in 30 innings were underlying peripherals that suggested some major regression to the mean was coming. 

It did. Over his next five starts Bumgarner went 1-4 and had a 5.59 ERA in 29 innings. He allowed 33 hits, including six homers. That brought his season ERA up to 3.64 at that point. The FIP was still a good deal higher at 4.98. But if Bumgarner could maintain that ERA for the rest of the season it would have been an acceptable result at that point. For a while it seemed like he might do just that.

In his next 6 starts between June 11th and July 9th Bumgarner went 3-3, posting a 3.66 ERA with a 3.89 FIP to match. For the year he was 5-8 with a 3.65 ERA and 4.60 FIP.  While some regression to the mean was still likely perhaps, it seemed he had found his footing. No longer an ace, it seemed he would be able to maintain as a serviceable league average innings eater. Even his velocity was climbing back to previous levels. In a July 15th against the Padres he recorded his highest velocity of his season, throwing several pitches almost 94 MPH and averaging just a tick under 93.  

Unfortunately that was the peak of both his fastball velocity and the beginning of the decline for the rest of his season.

Baseball Savant

Bumgarner made 12 more starts through the end of the year, going 2-7 with a 6.55 ERA and 5.18 FIP, giving up 85 hits including 12 more homers in 67 innings. He had one start pushed back a few days, and after a start on August 5th against the Rockies he admitted to not feeling his best.

“I would like to feel better than that, normally, but sometimes there’s times of the year you don’t feel as good as you do when you’re at your best”

Then on August 25th he was skipped in the rotation one time altogether. It didn't help. He got bombed by the Phillies on August 29th, giving up 11 hits and 7 runs in just 3.2 innings. 

He did have a good final start to the season, going six innings and giving up just one run against the Dodgers, getting the victory in L.A. against the Dodgers. But it was too little too late. 

His year end 7-15 record and 4.88 ERA were the worst full season marks of his career. Somewhat ironically perhaps, his season FIP ended up at 4.84, almost exactly the same as his ERA. In other words, he got what he deserved in the end, as season long peripherals lined up with the actual run prevention. It should be noted that he also gave up 11 unearned runs. While he was victimized by some untimely errors at different points in the season, he did little to limit the damage. 

2023 Outlook

It's somewhat difficult to pinpoint exactly why Bumgarner has entered such a steep decline phase of his career. Even prior to the velocity dip in August and September he struggled on and off. Location mistakes were often pointed to as the primary reasons for his struggles. But it's possible trying to throw max effort to mitigate the velocity losses contributed to a lack of command.I asked Brent Strom about this and he admitted that could be a potential cause.

Trying to throw max effort may have also have contributed to a potential injury as evidenced by his comments, the push backs and skipped start, and the velocity chart above. Strom tried numerous fixes with Bumgarner, including moving him from the left side to the right side of the rubber on August 10th in a start against Pittsburgh.

MLB.com

In the end, nothing really worked however. As if the surface results numbers and his FIP didn't show clearly enough just how steep his decline has been, this image of his percentile rankings in various advanced pitching metrics from Baseball Savant sums it up. Blue is poor. Red is good. The lower the number the lower the percentile rankings. His walk rate was good. Virtually everything else ranked among the worst pitchers in MLB.

Madison Bumgarner Percentile Rankings / Baseball Savant

During his post season media session on October 6th Hazen was asked if Bumgarner had a spot in the 2023 rotation. He said while incumbency matters in spring training, it sounded like Bumgarner will need to perform early in the year to hold his spot. Hazen emphasized the word competition. (Follow link above for story containing full audio of that interview)

Likewise, when asked if Bumgarner would be part of the 2023 starting rotation, Torey Lovullo gave a less than a ringing endorsement, saying  "I'd like him to be" 

Still owed $37,000,000 on his contract through the end of 2024, the Diamondbacks would likely have to absorb all but a few million of his contract in order to trade him. Either that or accept another bad contract back in return. It's hard to imagine the team asking, or Bumgarner accepting a demotion to the bullpen, nor is it clear that such a move would result in any improvement in results, even in short stints. But if Bumgarner is not tradable, and cannot be moved to the bullpen, the only other option should he continue to perform poorly would seem to be outright release with the team eating the remainder of his contract.