Make it two for Madison Bumgarner, the only pitcher to ever hit a home run off Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw.
The San Francisco Giants ace drove the solo shot over the left field wall at AT&T Park on Saturday—his second career homer off Kershaw—lifting the Giants to a 1-0 lead in the second inning.
San Francisco won the first two games of the series, which will end with the fourth on Sunday.
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The San Francisco Giants and first baseman Brandon Belt have agreed to a new contract extension that will keep Belt in the Bay Area through the 2021 season.
Alex Pavlovic of CSN Bay Area first reported the two sides agreeing to a new contract. John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle reported the extension is worth $79 million and said the deal became official after Belt passed his physical on Saturday.
Shea reported Belt will earn $6.2 million in 2016, $8.8 million in 2017 and $16 million in the following four seasons.
However, Shea clarified Belt’s terms on Saturday, saying “Belt’s deal is five-year, $72.8M extension, not six and 79, because ’16 salary remains same.”
Pavlovic noted the deal is in the range of Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford’s six-year, $75 million deal he signed this past offseason.
Belt, who will turn 28 on April 20, has had an erratic career in San Francisco largely due to injuries. He is a strong hitter for average and gets on base at a good clip when healthy, but that’s been a problem the past two seasons.
Last year, despite missing 25 games, Belt did set a career high with 18 home runs. His versatility has also helped the Giants, who have started using Buster Posey at first base to preserve his legs while still keeping his bat in the lineup. When Posey plays first, Belt can shift to the outfield.
Rumblings of a potential extension ramped up when Belt’s representatives met with Giants general manager Bobby Evans, who detailed those conversations to Pavlovic:
We’re exploring options. There’s no pressure — we have him for two more years. There’s no pressure, but if we have the opportunity, it’d be wise to take advantage of it. We’ll see how it plays out.
We have a fan base here that appreciates him and a club he fits well on, and he’s been a big part of our success.
Belt certainly is one of San Francisco’s most important hitters. He finished in the top three in most major offensive categories in 2015, including doubles, homers, walks and slugging percentage.
According to August Fagerstrom of FanGraphs, the Giants were projected to have the seventh-best production at first base thanks in large part to Belt:
A concussion derailed Belt’s 2014 and another one ended his 2015. Belt is supremely talented; his mix of power, speed, and defense from the first-base position is like a really poor man’s Paul Goldschmidt, and even through all the ailments, he’s never failed to produce. Just, please stay away now, concussions. Nobody wants you here.
The Giants are certainly taking a risk on Belt, but not one that’s unwarranted. His injuries have lowered his value, at least somewhat, as well as given them a lot of power in negotiations.
Belt is still at an age in which he could reasonably expect to get better. The Giants have shown in the past with extensions for Posey, Madison Bumgarner and Crawford they will take care of their own.
An extension for Belt is the Giants’ latest commitment to locking up one of their development success stories. He’s been part of two title teams in 2012 and 2014, with a long-term deal giving him ample opportunities to win more before his career is over.
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Hunter Pence is excited about an Opening Day victory and the rest of the month of April.
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The first time the San Francisco Giants won the World Series, they scored the fewest runs of any team that made it to that postseason. They won the National League Division Series in October 2010 despite scoring just 11 runs in four games and won the National League Championship Series with just 19 runs in six games.
They were built on brilliant pitching, and it worked.
And even as the Giants have changed, even as they have won games and championships with slightly different formulas, it’s hard to get that image out of our mind.
The Giants win in even years, and the Giants win with pitching.
Remember Madison Bumgarner in 2014?
Bumgarner is still there, it’s an even year and the Giants have geared up to try to win again. But you wonder if we’re now at the point where the formula really has flipped—that it has to flip.
You wonder if the four-homer, 12-3 Opening Day win over the Milwaukee Brewers is what the Giants are going to be—or what they’re going to need to be if the every-other-year thing doesn’t end this year.
When I was working on Bleacher Report’s bold predictions for 2016, one Arizona-based scout texted to say the “Giants’ pitching [is] not nearly as solid as people project.”
He wasn’t talking about Bumgarner, who overcame an awful case of the flu and bad travel to make a creditable start against the Brewers on Monday. But this isn’t the 2014 World Series, and the Giants can’t get by with one dependable starter the way they did then.
The Giants tried for Zack Greinke, but they didn’t get him. There’s a reason that during that failed chase, one scout who follows the Giants closely said Greinke was the lone “difference-maker” the Giants could sign.
They didn’t get him, and they ended up with Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija, who will start the next two games against the Brewers. They’ll start Jake Peavy and Matt Cain in the first two games against the Los Angeles Dodgers later this week.
Cueto, Samardzija, Peavy and Cain all have good resumes. But it’s 2016, and all four of them come with big questions.
That’s why we come back to the offense. That’s why we come back to Denard Span, who might have been the most important player the Giants signed this past winter.
Of all the things that went wrong with the 2015 Washington Nationals, the injuries that limited Span to just 61 games may have been the most damaging. The health questions no doubt hurt Span in free agency, and if he stays healthy, the three-year, $31 million deal he signed with the Giants in January will turn out to be a bargain.
Span is a true leadoff hitter in an era when those can be hard to find. He’s a true center fielder, too. He’s not often going to hit three-run home runs and drive in five runs in a game, as he did on Monday, but he can do that once in a while, too.
Incidentally, the five RBI were the most ever by a Giant in his debut for the team, according to Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. They were also the most by any Giant on Opening Day since Barry Bonds drove in five in 2002 at Dodger Stadium.
If you’re looking for omens, the Giants went to the World Series in 2002. But who’s looking for omens? The Giants have the ultimate omen: an even-numbered year on the calendar.
They won in 2010, 2012 and 2014, so why not 2016?
Why not, if Span stays healthy? Why not, if the young infield that looked so good last year keeps developing—third baseman Matt Duffy had a big day on Monday, too—? Why not, if Buster Posey is Buster Posey?
Why not, if they can look the way they did on Monday?
“Not that we needed a reminder, but it shows how good we can be,” Span told reporters.
They’ll play better teams than the Brewers. They’ll face better starters than Wily Peralta, starting this Saturday when they face Clayton Kershaw for the first time this season.
The rotation beyond Bumgarner will need to contribute. The bullpen can’t look as old as some fear it will.
But the Giants don’t need to be all about pitching. They need to be about their lineup, and there’s a real chance that lineup can deliver.
On Opening Day, it did.
Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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It must be an even year.
The San Francisco Giants put together a dominant Opening Day performance against the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park, slugging three consecutive home runs in the top of the eighth inning.
Center fielder Denard Span cracked things open for the Giants, driving in his three-run blast on a 3-2 offering from right-hander Ariel Pena.
Second baseman Joe Panik followed suit, crushing his solo shot to right field, while catcher Buster Posey rounded the trio out with a first-pitch homer.
San Francisco came away with its first win, trumping the Brewers 12-3.
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Johnny Cueto has yet to throw a meaningful pitch for the San Francisco Giants, so it’s a bit early to be talking about his opt-out clause. Right?
Well, yes. But let’s do it anyway, because speculation is fun and opt-outs matter in today’s MLB.
The Giants, in case you missed it, handed Cueto a six-year, $130 million deal this winter after whiffing on Zack Greinke. Like many big contracts these days, Cueto’s has an escape clause wherein he can test the free-agent waters again after the 2017 season.
This sets up two possible scenarios:
Scenario A: Cueto gives San Francisco its money’s worth this year and next, then hits the market ahead of his age-32 season.
Scenario B: Cueto struggles or gets injured and decides to stick around for the duration of the deal.
Now, if you’re the Giants, obviously you prefer Scenario A. Two years of prime Cueto—the guy who eclipsed 200 innings in each of the last two seasons and led the National League in strikeouts in 2014—would look mighty nice next to ace lefty Madison Bumgarner.
It would also sting to watch Cueto walk away under those circumstances. But it could end up a blessing in disguise.
Think of it this way: In 2016, the Giants are getting Cueto in his prime. Yes, there are questions about the subpar stat line he put up after a trade-deadline swap to the Kansas City Royals.
And there are the elbow issues that forced him to miss a start last year with the Cincinnati Reds. “Johnny, a little bit unfairly, had a lot of questions about his arm,” Cueto’s agent, Bryce Dixon said, per CSN Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic.
But, as he showed with his sparkling start for KC in Game 2 of the World Series, Cueto still has the stuff to be one of the most dominant right-handers in the game.
Here, take a look for yourself:
The projection systems are optimistic, with ZiPS foretelling a 2.87 ERA in 207 innings, per FanGraphs. And in 2017, Cueto will be in a pseudo-contract year, with all of the added motivation that implies.
Pitchers can break down at any time, but the probability of Cueto throwing at an All-Star level for the next two seasons is high, especially when you factor in the Giants’ excellent defense and the spacious confines of AT&T Park.
So, back to Cueto’s opt-out. If he exercises it, he’ll join the post-2017 season’s free-agent class. The following year, however, boasts an impossibly deep pool that could also include the likes of Bryce Harper, Josh Donaldson, Andrew McCutchen, David Price, Clayton Kershaw, Manny Machado, Jason Heyward, Jose Fernandez, Dallas Keuchel and Matt Harvey.
“That’s decent talent,” an unnamed general manager told MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince, presumably with his tongue inserted firmly in his cheek. “That’s a good year.”
With the remainder of Cueto’s contract off the ledger, the Giants would be free to go after one or more of those franchise stars in 2018. Sure, bidders will be plentiful and salaries will melt eyeballs. But with that much talent for the taking, everyone should be angling for payroll flexibility.
Imagine, for a moment, that instead of a six-year deal, the Giants signed Cueto for two years. Then imagine he acquits himself admirably for those two years before signing a longer deal with someone else and allowing San Francisco to ink any of those players listed up there.
Sounds like something close to a dream scenario, right? At the very least, it’s nothing to lose sleep over, as McCovey Chronicles’ Grant Brisbee outlined:
…the biggest downside to every contract is that the team will have to pay the entire contract to a pitcher who isn’t worth it. That’s still true with a traditional contract. If you’re telling me that the biggest downside specific to an opt-out deal is that another team might get the chance to absorb the risk of a pitcher entering his mid-30s, and the consolation prize is that the Giants get two fantastic years and exactly what they paid for, I’m just not that scared.
That runs counter to Commissioner Rob Manfred, who made it clear in December he’s not a fan of the opt-out.
“Personally, I don’t see the logic of it,” he said, per Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal. “But clubs do what they do.”
If Manfred wants an example of why opt-outs can benefit the team as well as the player, Cueto might be the poster boy.
Maybe he’ll crash and burn for the next two seasons and the Giants will be on the hook to pay him. Or maybe he’ll opt out and they’ll choose to bring him back. Remember, we’re hanging out in Speculationville.
But if you’re trying to game out the best outcome for San Francisco, it’s two years of top-shelf Cueto and dollars to spend in 2018.
First, though, let’s watch him throw a meaningful pitch in the orange and black.
All statistics and contract information courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.
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San Francisco Giants first baseman Brandon Belt is entering the 2016 season with a new one-year, $6.2 million deal he signed in February before he hits a second year of arbitration next offseason, per Spotrac.
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Unrestricted free agency looms after the 2017 season, and the Giants look keen on locking Belt down long term. On Monday, Giants general manager Bobby Evans met with Belt’s representatives to continue talking about a contract extension, per Alex Pavlovic of CSNBayArea.com.
Evans spoke with Pavlovic about negotiations:
We’re exploring options. There’s no pressure — we have him for two more years. There’s no pressure, but if we have the opportunity, it’d be wise to take advantage of it. We’ll see how it plays out.
We have a fan base here that appreciates him and a club he fits well on, and he’s been a big part of our success.
This season will be Belt’s sixth season in MLB, all with the Giants, as he’s been a part of two World Series-winning teams in 2012 and 2014.
He’s looking to follow up one of his finest seasons in the league after he hit .280 with a career-high 18 home runs and 68 RBI while being ranked 17th in the league in WAR, per Pavlovic.
The Giants have been a busy team already this offseason, having signed big-name free agents such as pitchers Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija while re-signing shortstop Brandon Crawford to a six-year deal.
Those three signatures alone cost around $285 million this offseason, but Giants management told Pavlovic that it has enough space to sign Belt to a “significant extension.”
The team might be hesitant to sign Belt to big money, though, because of his troubles staying on the field. He’s never played in more than 150 games in a season, as he’s suffered three concussions, a broken thumb and, most recently, underwent knee surgery during the offseason to repair a torn meniscus.
That kind of track record could deter the Giants and Belt from agreeing to a deal. Per Pavlovic, the two parties have already had difficulties in negotiations during the arbitration process, and if they don’t find a middle ground in the next year or so, then it will become difficult to keep Belt in San Francisco.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
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The San Francisco Giants did what they needed to do with their starting rotation this winter, rebuilding it into a unit strong enough to put them back atop the NL West.
But now, their rebuilt rotation is having trouble even surviving spring training.
On paper, what’s there still looks good. Madison Bumgarner, Major League Baseball’s most Hugh Glass-ian ace, and the $220 million dynamic duo of Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija form an impressive trio. Bringing up the rear is former Cy Young winner Jake Peavy and perfect-game maestro Matt Cain.
“I can’t think, in all my years, where we were this solid,” Giants skipper Bruce Bochy said of his rotation last month to Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com. “And that’s saying a lot, because we’ve had some very good rotations here. But when you add two guys like this, they make you that much better.”
Following a modest 84-win season in which Bumgarner basically had to do it all on his own, the Giants’ 2016 rotation will indeed be a dandy if all goes well. Call it a hunch crossed with some well-calculated numbers, as FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus both offer strong projections.
But the Giants rotation is making it hard to have faith in the “if all goes well” part. Its spring training performance has led to this table full of eye-poppingly large numbers:
The good news? There are some small sample sizes here. Bumgarner, Cueto and Cain have combined for fewer starts than Samardzija and Peavy.
The bad news? Health woes are responsible for that. Bumgarner lost reps to foot and ribcage issues. Cain just recently returned to active duty after having surgery on his right arm. Concerns over Cueto’s workload delayed his spring debut, and he recently took a line drive to his dreadlocked noggin.
In times like these, our instincts tell us to stand in front of a mirror, say “it’s only spring training” three times and wait for the spring training fairy to show up with a reassuring pat on the back. But last week, even Bochy was starting to feel uncomfortable.
“All these guys, we think we’ll have them ready,” Bochy said, per Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News. “At the same time, the margin of error is getting cut back a little bit.”
There is one reason for everyone to chill. The ugliest number up there is the rotation’s 9.76 ERA, but Mike Podhorzer of FanGraphs tells us that spring ERAs are “completely useless” as a predictive tool.
As for which spring stats are predictive for pitchers, strikeout and walk rates pass the grade. To this end, Bumgarner suddenly doesn’t look so shabby next to his 9-0 K/BB ratio in 7.2 innings. And with a 4-2 K/BB in 4.1 innings, Cueto could be doing a lot worse.
It’s too bad that’s only 40 percent of San Francisco’s starting rotation. With the other 60 percent, it’s not quite as easy to think in terms of rainbows, gumdrops and sunshine.
Samardzija’s strikeout issues are a continuation of a not-so-awesome trend that’s been ongoing since 2012. And when his strikeout rate finally dipped below league average in 2015, he failed to prove he could survive with so many extra balls in play. In posting an ugly 4.96 ERA, he led the American League in hits (228) and home runs (29) allowed.
It doesn’t take a good pair of spectacles to see Samardzija’s root problem. High-velocity fastballs from him used to be as common as misspellings of his surname, but Brooks Baseball shows his fastball velocity is also declining.
And as Eno Sarris of FanGraphs observed last week, the radar gun had further troubling news to report during Samardzija’s shellacking at the hands of the Seattle Mariners:
As Mike Fast found at Baseball Prospectus in 2011, spring training velocity readings can indeed carry over into the regular season. If that happens with Samardzija, the $90 million roll of the dice the Giants made on his 2015 season being an outlier could turn out snake eyes.
In a way, the concerns about Samardzija extend to Peavy.
The 34-year-old’s velocity is long gone, and his strikeout ability is following suit. And though he managed a 3.58 ERA despite that in 2015, the 27 hits he’s allowed this spring look like a warning. The curiously low .267 BABIP he posted last year puts him in line for a harsh regression. It seems it’s already begun.
Small sample size be damned, it’s probably safe to put Cain in the same boat as Peavy.
The 31-year-old’s velocity and strikeouts are also past their prime. And though we’re only looking at one start, the ease with which he was hit is in line with his reality in recent seasons. Between 2009 and 2013, he allowed 7.4 hits per nine innings. Since 2014, that figured has jumped to 9.1.
The recent realities department also makes it harder to ignore Cueto’s rough spring. The nine hits he’s allowed in his 4.1 innings call to mind the many hits—101 in 81.1 innings, to be exact—he gave up as a Kansas City Royal last summer. That didn’t stop the Giants from spending $130 million on him, but he hasn’t erased the questions about whether he deserved that much.
If poor performances don’t bring down the Giants rotation, maybe injuries will.
That concern definitely applies to Cain, whose arm injury this spring is a reminder of the setbacks that have limited him to just 26 starts over the last two seasons. Peavy’s track record of injury proneness extends even further. He’s averaged only 23 starts per season since 2008.
Cueto and Bumgarner may not be safe either. Though it sounds like his head is fine, the way in which Cueto has been pampered this spring calls to mind his history of shoulder trouble and the questions orbiting around his right elbow. And though durability has been one of Bumgarner’s many virtues, he’s racked up enough mileage to suggest that maybe this spring’s aches and pains are overdue.
Thus concludes our look at the many excuses to freak out about what’s going on with the Giants rotation this spring. Exactly how much everyone should be freaking out, though, is another question.
The answer isn’t “a lot.” As bad as it all sounds, we’re still only talking about spring training. Even things that have some predictive powers aren’t foolproof, and even the cruddiest pitching staffs during the spring can go on to do great things. Look no further than last year’s Chicago Cubs.
But the answer isn’t “not at all” either.
Look closely at the projections above, and you get a picture of a model rotation. Bumgarner, Cueto and Samardzija are projected to post ERAs in the 2.70-3.40 range and eat a bunch of innings. Peavy and Cain, for their part, are expected to be perfectly serviceable back-end starters with ERAs in the 3.60-4.10 range across decent innings totals.
But like with the Royals and what’s expected of them in 2016, this is one of those situations where the projections should be served with a grain of salt or two. The Giants rotation may look like a model group in theory, but reality is and always has been another story.
In theory, the Giants rotation has three of the best pitchers in baseball up top. In reality, that front three contains one legit star and two stars who are teetering on the edge of being fallen stars. In theory, the Giants are lucky to have two pitchers like Peavy and Cain at the back end. In reality, the Giants will be lucky if either their health or their performances allow them to stay at the back end.
There’s no escaping the notion that the Giants rotation was due for a reality check eventually. That’s what they’ve been hit with this spring, with the only real surprise being Bumgarner’s involvement in it. Aside from that, well, it all adds up.
An optimist will say that it’s better for reality checks to happen during spring training than in the regular season or the postseason. And hey, not even Negative Nellies like ourselves are going to deny that.
But all the same, the Giants must now hope that what’s happened in spring training will stay in spring training. Otherwise, the top of the NL West could continue to elude them.
Regular-season stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked. Spring training stats courtesy of MLB.com.
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Johnny Cueto, one of the San Francisco Giants‘ two big offseason acquisitions, is recovering from a possible concussion after being hit with a line drive on Monday.
Continue for updates.
Jon Morosi of Fox Sports talked to Bryce Dixon, Cueto‘s agent, who said his client is “doing fine” and will follow up with the Giants staff on Tuesday.
Cueto is being checked by team doctors for a concussion, according to Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. He will be observed for concussion symptoms, per Schulman, but manager Bruce Bochy believes he’ll be fine. Alex Pavlovic of CSN Bay Area noted Cueto had a bump on his forehead but didn’t show signs of having a concussion.
A line drive off the bat of Billy Burns of the Oakland Athletics hit Cueto in the head, as Casey Pratt of CSNBayArea.com shared:
He would continue to pitch after trainers checked on him, but he was taken back to Scottsdale Stadium to be further examined, per Schulman.
Injuries have always been bubbling under the surface with Cueto, even though he’s been able to avoid a major problem in the past two seasons.
Cueto missed time early in 2015 as a member of the Cincinnati Reds with elbow stiffness, though an MRI revealed no structural damage, and he was able to return without going on the disabled list.
Injuries have slowed the 30-year-old throughout his career, as he’s crossed the 180-inning threshold just four times in eight seasons. When healthy, he’s one of the best pitchers in baseball, with two top-five finishes in National League Cy Young Award voting (2012 and 2014).
Cueto wasn’t his normal self after Kansas City acquired him last July. He had a 1.45 WHIP and 4.76 ERA in 13 starts following the trade, but he did end things on a high note with a complete-game two-hitter in Game 2 of the World Series against the New York Mets.
Losing Cueto would hurt San Francisco’s rotation, but the Giants are fortunate to have Madison Bumgarner as their ace and Jeff Samardzija to support him if Cueto indeed misses regular-season starts because of the injury.
This isn’t how the 30-year-old wanted to start his career with the Giants, but hopefully he’s able to rebound from this setback quickly.
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What has four legs, six rings and the undying affection of the City by the Bay?
That’d be the San Francisco Giants‘ Madison Bumgarner and Buster Posey, hands down the best battery in baseball and, in fact, the best pitcher/catcher pairing the sport has seen in decades.
Oh, sure, this week we learned that Bumgarner will miss one or two Cactus League starts with injuries to his foot and ribcage that he termed “minor,” per Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. The big left-hander, Schulman added, insists he’ll make his scheduled Opening Day start.
Based on his track record of grit under pressure, we’re inclined to believe him. And we’ll assume that when he does, Posey will be in the squat.
If so, it’ll be another in a long list of watershed moments for San Francisco’s dynamic duo.
Despite their relative youth—Bumgarner is 26 and Posey turns 29 on March 27—the Giants’ ace and MVP backstop have shared a trio of championship runs. In 2014, Posey caught Bumgarner‘s transcendent Game 7 relief appearance against the Kansas City Royals, as well as all 52.2 frames of the southpaw’s historic postseason.
When Posey catches Bumgarner, whether in a Fall Classic elimination game or the Cactus League, one of the first things you notice is how infrequently Bumgarner shakes him off.
They’re simpatico, like all successful batteries must be. It’s a rhythm they began developing in the minor leagues, after the Giants drafted Bumgarner out of North Carolina’s South Caldwell High School in 2007 and Posey from Florida State the following year.
“They both kind of came up together at almost the same time,” Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti said, per Schulman. “When they did, I noticed there was a rapport between the two of them right off the bat.”
They dress at adjoining lockers in Scottsdale, Schulman noted, and joke and tease like brothers.
They even manage to push each other at the plate. On July 13, 2014, they became the first pitcher and catcher in MLB history to each hit a grand slam in the same game, an 8-4 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks. And last year, both took home Silver Slugger Awards for the second straight season.
Mostly, though, their success comes with 60 feet, 6 inches of separation between them. Posey is good no matter who he’s catching; he was the fourth-best pitch-framer in the game last season, per StatCorner, and seems destined to eventually win a Gold Glove. But his bond with Bumgarner specifically is undeniable.
So are the results. Bumgarner has eclipsed 200 innings in five consecutive seasons and made three All-Star teams in that stretch. And Posey, of course, has grabbed a batting title and an NL MVP Award during the same period, in addition to toiling capably under the tools of ignorance.
We said up there that they’re baseball’s best battery, and that’s a pretty uncontroversial statement. Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright of the St. Louis Cardinals have had plenty of superlative moments together, but both are attempting injury comebacks and appear to be on the downside of their careers.
Other than that, what’s the competition? The Toronto Blue Jays‘ Russell Martin and Marcus Stroman? The Kansas City Royals’ Salvador Perez and Edinson Volquez? No offense to those perfectly respectable twosomes, but they’re not even in the same stratosphere.
No, to find adequate comparables for Posey and Bumgarner, we have to reach further back into baseball history.
In the early 2000s, Jorge Posada was a perennial All-Star behind the dish for the New York Yankees. And he caught his share of excellent pitchers, including Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina and Roger Clemens. In the ’90s, Javy Lopez framed pitches for Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine during the Atlanta Braves‘ run of dominance, but he was nowhere near the talent Posey is.
So how far back do we go? Johnny Bench and Tom Seaver? Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford?
Yes, we’re dialing deep into the 20th century and dealing in legends and Hall of Famers. But that’s the company Posey and Bumgarner are moving into, and they’re each locked into long-term deals with the Giants—Bumgarner through 2019 and Posey through 2022—meaning they’ll have ample opportunity to pad their mutual resume.
OK, here’s the part where we’re legally obligated to mention that it’s an even year. Which, since 2010, has meant orange and black confetti and a parade down Market Street. And, right on cue, the Giants spent $220 million to bolster their rotation with free agents Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija.
Bumgarner, however, remains the unquestioned ace. That’s why news of him missing a spring start or two is a big deal, even if the reason for it isn’t necessarily.
Along with Posey and skipper Bruce Bochy, he’s the thread that ties the Giants’ title trilogy together. If they’re going to get another one, the stud left-hander and his cherub-faced catcher will surely be in the middle of the magic yet again.
It almost feels like destiny, though as Schulman opined, “To say they were destined for greatness together is prosaic but inaccurate. Destiny in sports is earned.”
True enough. And as their ring-covered fingers attest, Bumgarner and Posey have earned it several times over.
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