In life we all tend to label people, associate them with something, that's not particularly wrong per say, a lot of times that label is a good way to describe someone, but once in a while you'll find someone that gets pushed down by that label, someone who struggles to be seen outside of it. I want to talk about a player who was labeled, but whose career and achievements go beyond that. That player is Madison Bumgarner.
The giants pitcher despite already having 2 rings, including 15 Innings of shutout ball in World Series play was widely viewed as a pretty good starting pitcher, not that much more, but then it came the magical 2014 postseason one that began with a bang, a complete game shutout performance, 9 IP, 4 Hits, 10 K's, he had a solid game in the NLDS, but thet were already up 2-0 and wound up losing that game but winning the series in 4, in the NLCS threw 7.2 Innings of shutout ball with 7 K's in a Game 1 Win, and pitched the clincher in game 5 with 8 IP 5 Hits and 3 Earned Runs. In the World Series he was beyond lights out, overall 21 IP. Only 1 Earned Run, great 7 Innings of 1 Run, a game 5 shutout and a scoreless relief appearance to bring the Giants a WS win.
Basically he carried the team on his back, pitching in 6 different postseason wins, became SI's Sportsman of the year and in the process was labelled as a good regular season pitcher who massively improves his performance in the playoffs, he became a "postseason pitcher" such notion has since gained even more support with his performance in the 2016 Wildcard game shutting out the Mets in NY, the sole fact he has 2 Wildcard shutouts is mind-boggling. But enough stating the obvious, let me tell you why MadBum is better than you think.
Bumgarner entered the league in 09 as a 19-year-old but he only pitched 10 innings that year so I'll be looking at league numbers since 2010.
Here are MadBum's number this decade and how they rank among all starters. (Min. 1000 IP)
3.02 ERA 2nd
1.10 WHIP 6th
32.6 bWAR 8th
Ok so let's begin with this, since becoming a major league pitcher he is tied for the second-best ERA in baseball behind Kershaw, would you've known that, no way, keep this in mind, ranking these players since 2010, all of the pitchers who are ahead of him on WAR get the benefit of discounting their bad starts, when they struggled, the split begins at the same time their dominance does, whether is Felix, Kershaw, Greinke, and others. The problem with Bumgarner is that he doesn't dazzle, he just constantly pitches well with no overwhelming skill, while he ranks 6th in K% at 24.2, he doesn't have Scherzer, Sale, Kershaw stuff, while he ranks 8th in AVG at .229 he's not as crafty as Greinke, Maddux, Hendricks.
My point is MadBum is meh, you know, the dude excels at pitching but he has no overwhelming skill, he's not at the top of any leaderboard but he's close enough to be very good at everything, my final point is for future performance the stata show you shouldn't really count on him to keep up with some of these guys in terms of Runs Allowed (ERA), although it wouldn't surprise me considering he's done it for so long, in terms of past performamce he's been as good as anyone other than Sale and Kershaw in his career, Sale's tied with him for second in ERA since 2010 but his ERA+ at 139, shows he's considerably above, don't kid yourself Madison Bumgarner is among the best in the league and he has been at least one of the top 10 pitchers in the game not as a dominant, not as a crafty but nevertheless really effective.
Hey, i am not an idiot, next season would I take him one year over Scherzer? No.
But his past performance shows they pitched to very close results, Bumgarner slightly better ERA, same FIP (3.18), a slight edge in ERA- for Max 78 to 82.
The point is this comparison is far closer than Scherzer to Kershaw, that one is a consequence of complete recency bias by the media, people look at the numbers, ok let me wrap it up otherwise I'm going to rant in here forever.
As always hit me up on Twitter @E_Max27, comment, subscribe, suggest whatever you feel like it.
See y'all.
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