Why the San Francisco Giants should sign Gerrit Cole, not Madison Bumgarner

With the offseason rapidly approaching, the San Francisco Giants will have to make a tough call on whether or not to bring back Madison Bumgarner. But they should be turning their eyes to Gerrit Cole instead.

The San Francisco Giants already have their hands full trying to figure out a replacement for Bruce Bochy next season, as well as pinpointing who will co-pilot with Farhan Zaidi as the new general manager.

But their busy offseason doesn’t start and end there.

As the team enters what is likely to be a new era — one that welcomes a new skipper and an overhauled roster that cuts ties with some fan favorites — there has been a nagging question in the form of looming contract negotiations with Madison Bumgarner.

Out of all the prospective free agents and trade chips, Bumgarner is by far the one most closely tied to recent San Francisco excellence.

Bumgarner has been with the Giants for the past decade, posting a 119-92 record with a 3.13 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, and 1,794 strikeouts. He’s been selected for four all-star games, has two silver sluggers, and has finished in the Cy Young voting five different times.

Even more than that, Madison Bumgarner has established himself as an iron horse, accumulating nearly 300 starts in his career and leading the league twice in games started.

He’s been durable. He’s been consistent. And he’s been legendary in the postseason, too.

His ability to show up in big games couldn’t possibly be overstated. He was a contributing factor in all three of the San Francisco Giants’ World Series rings earlier this decade, and he took home both NLCS and World Series MVP honors in 2014.

His 2014 postseason campaign may have cemented him as one of the greatest World Series performers of all time. He’s 4-0 with a 0.25 ERA, a 0.52 WHIP, 31 strikeouts, and only five walks.

Those are ridiculous numbers.

It’s difficult for fans not to get sentimental about MadBum. He’s become a San Francisco Giants legend — a baseball legend, for that matter. He’s arguably been the face of the franchise for the better part of the last decade.

But a line must be drawn on sentimentality.

This past season, a 29-year-old Bumgarner put together a 9-9 record with a 3.90 ERA. As he approached his age 30 season, there are some serious concerns about his ability to replicate some of the better numbers he’s put together in years past.

There’s been a distinct drop-off since his 2017 season, where he was out until the All-Star Break thanks to a Grade 2 sprain of the AC joint in his shoulder sustained from a dirt-bike incident.

The numbers surely don’t jump off the page as being anything atrocious, but for the past few seasons, we’ve seen a version of Madison Bumgarner that has looked human.

He’s allowed slightly more hits. He’s served up slightly more home run balls.

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There seems to be no strong indication of a decline in his pitch velocity or spin rate, but the 30’s are a volatile age for pitchers across the league. The San Francisco Giants may be very well aware of the gamble they’d be taking in giving a hefty contract to a pitcher who will eventually see a decline.

Based on an unstable market for free agents in general, it’s a little difficult to predict exactly what Bumgarner’s asking price would be.

The Chronicle’s Henry Schulman speculates that Bumgarner could be offered a contract similarly structured to Clayton Kershaw’s three-year, near-$100 million extension.

That isn’t necessarily to say that Bumgarner will be seeing a contract that breaks down to north of $30 million each year, but it will be somewhere close to that if it ends up being short-term.

Front offices have learned their lesson on giving players secure contracts that take them into their late-30’s. Teams across the league are still feeling the effects of what essentially works out as dead money thanks to rapid player declines.

But the comparison to Clayton Kershaw is an interesting one. While Kershaw is unanimously considered one of the greatest pitchers to ever play the game, Bumgarner has arguably had just as much — if not more — of an impact in San Francisco than Kershaw has had in Los Angeles.

It seems ridiculous to nit-pick a 3.03 ERA and a 16-5 record, but there have been legitimate concerns since the Kershaw extension. His numbers have gotten worse. He has looked more human.

While he’s certainly still producing, it’s come as a result of a reinventing his pitch mix and strictly limiting his pitch count. There have been caveats to keeping him around thanks to nagging injuries that have begun limiting him.

And Kershaw might be one of the better-case scenarios. Names like Felix Hernandez, Rick Porcello, and Yu Darvish have all fallen victim to the inevitable decline of the early-30’s. Not everyone can drink from the same fountain of youth as Justin Verlander.

So, on paper, to keep Madison Bumgarner with the Giants next season, it will likely cost somewhere in the neighborhood of three-years, $85 million. Even then, it could end up being a sunk cost thanks to a decline.

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The reality for the San Francisco Giants this offseason is that they stand at a crossroads between nostalgia and moving toward the future. Is it best for a franchise to secure the faces of their franchise despite an inherent risk? Or to admit that the time has come to move on?

Luckily, there is an alternate option to re-signing Bumgarner this offseason.

While the San Francisco team enjoys a long offseason, the Houston Astros are barreling down their path toward destiny in the form of probably beating the Dodgers in the World Series again.

And leading that Astros pitching staff is the man who the Giants should look to replace Madison Bumgarner: Gerrit Cole.

Gerrit Cole has absolutely dominated the league this year, putting together a 20-5 record with a 2.50 ERA, 0.89 WHIP, and 326 strikeouts in 212 innings. He’s punched batters out at an elite rate in back-to-back seasons now.

In Saturday night’s ALDS game, Cole tossed nearly eight shutout frames with one walk and fifteen strikeouts. He was punching batters out with a 100-mph fastball in the seventh inning.

He’s struck out at least 10 batters in his last 10 starts dating back to the regular season.

The San Francisco Giants should be willing to at least pick up the phone and set up a meeting with Gerrit Cole on the lone fact that he’s been this good. But there’s more.

Earlier this week, Astros owner Jim Crane candidly admitted that Houston might not be able to re-sign their Cy Young favorite.

That seems asinine at first glance, but with arbitration raises to several key players on the roster and a handful of talented young pitchers returning next season from injury, Gerrit Cole may not be in the cards.

The Astros, like many teams, are doing everything they can to avoid the luxury tax threshold. Gerrit Cole, alone, would likely push Houston right up against that threshold.

In the Astros’ case, it would mean that they would be taxed 20% on every dollar spent.

The San Francisco Giants, meanwhile, are looking at having approximately $90 million to play with before even worrying about a potential luxury tax this coming season.

Gerrit Cole will be entering his age 29 season next year, but with significantly fewer miles on his arm than Bumgarner. He’s tossed under 1,200 innings in his career.

As a Scott Boras client, Cole will probably looking to secure a contract that knocks on the door of about $200 million.

Sure, the Giants will eventually have to face the inevitable decline when more miles are racked up on Gerrit Cole’s arm in his mid-30’s, but the jump from Bumgarner to Cole is worth the risk.

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If the Giants were able to offer somewhere around six-years, $200 million to Gerrit Cole, they would likely be paying just about $5 million more a year for a better pitcher and a much better investment.

It feels almost certain that Cole has at least a couple more years before he sees the kind of decline that other pitchers around his age have shown.

Even with a contract twice as long, it would equip the Giants rotation with an arm that can be depended on for more than just innings.

This won’t be an easy thing for San Francisco Giants fans to accept. Madison Bumgarner has been the face of the franchise for years. But the front office cannot be foolish in giving away that kind of money to a player for what they’ve done.

Rather, they need to look at what a player still has to offer. The Giants have been fortunate enough to have Bumgarner on a team-friendly deal for his prime years, but baseball is a business. They do not owe him anything now because they got a steal in the past.

That money is better utilized if it’s on a big-time free agent like Gerrit Cole.

It seems clear that Cole will come down to some sort of bidding war that the Houston Astros — as well as many other teams linked to him — will be capped at because of tax incentives. The Giants need to utilize their status as a team with payroll flexibility.

They need to make this kind of splash.

And they shouldn’t waste time getting caught up in their past. The Madison Bumgarner that was scintillating during the 2014 World Series against the Kansas City Royals will always exist in fans’ hearts but he may never return to the team of the future.

The Giants have to come to terms with leaving the past in the past.

There is no better time than now to move on.