San Francisco Giants Rumors: Madison Bumgarner wants to avoid trade
Despite all of the recent trade rumors, San Francisco Giants ace pitcher Madison Bumgarner has made his hopes for the future perfectly clear.
It’s been an interesting past couple of months for San Francisco Giants ace pitcher Madison Bumgarner, who’s found himself embroiled in trade rumors. The whispers of his removal from the Bay Area just won’t seem to go away.
Despite that, Bumgarner isn’t willing to let his voice go unheard. After all of these years and championships with San Francisco, he deserves that much, right? Well, either way, the four-time All-Star made his stance on the situation known on Tuesday.
After arriving at Scottsdale Stadium for his physical, Bumgarner spoke to the media, making it clear that he’d prefer to stay put (via NBA Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic).
"Obviously, this is where I came up. I’ve been through a lot here. A lot of good times and a few bad times, also. Obviously I would love to stay here. If that happens or not, I don’t know. Some parts are in my control, some parts aren’t. For right now, I’m just focused on getting this year started and getting back to the postseason."
It’s the right mindset to have, and one I’m sure Giants fans appreciate. Since the 2019 Winter Meetings, it seems everything about Bumgarner has been trying to figure out which team would be trading for him this offseason. The stove was smokin’ hot. As we all know, though, nothing ever materialized despite the slew of rumors.
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Now that Bumgarner is ramping up for the Giants’ 2019 campaign, the team may simply decide to keep him around. We must remember that, back in January, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi went as far as saying San Francisco wasn’t actively shopping Bumgarner (via the San Francisco Chronicle’s Henry Schulman).
Then again, there’s been heavy speculation that the Giants would wait until later in the year to deal Bumgarner — possibly after he’s played and had an opportunity to boost his stock.
Bumgarner is coming off a down year of sorts, posting a 6-7 record and 3.26 ERA. Although he hasn’t been the same unstoppable starter in recent years that he once was, it’s clear he still has enough juice in his arm to make an impact for any club.
With the Giants in the middle of a rebuild, it made sense for Bumgarner to be placed on the trade block. Zaidi was looking to acquire assets for the future, and trading Bumgarner for prospects seemed like the logical solution. However, with nothing coming to fruition, San Francisco may decide to hang on to their outstanding arm.
Next. It's time for Giants to trade Brandon Belt. dark
Right now, Bumgarner’s future is cloudy at best. What isn’t unclear is his hopes of remaining in San Francisco and trying to help the Giants get back to their winning ways. If he gets what he wants, he’ll have every opportunity to do exactly that during the 2019 MLB season.