Yankees: Prior history indicates MadBum is team’s real target

Fans can hold out hope all they want, but if history tells us anything, Gerrit Cole won’t be the New York Yankees primary target. Madison Bumgarner is.

The last time the New York Yankees splurged on a top ace starter it was 28-year-old CC Sabathia in 2009. That season, the team had moved across the street to the new Yankee Stadium and spent hand over fist to field a winning product.

Before that, you’d have to look back to 2001 when the team added Hall of Fame righty Mike Mussina. By then, however, Mussina was in the midst of evolving into a different type of starter. The type you see when a pitcher enters the back end of his career.

Since the CC deal in 2009, for the most part, we’ve seen the team add starters that don’t necessarily pitch deep into games and aren’t shut-down starters, like free agents Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg are. Instead, they’ve added starters like Javier Vazquez, Freddy Garcia, Hiroki Kuroda, Sonny Gray, J.A. Happ, and the like.

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This offseason there is a free agent starter that fits the mold of these types of pitchers only he is slightly better and brings with him a resume of big games. What’s more, like Sabathia, he’s a southpaw and has a history of carrying teams on his back.

I’m talking, of course, about Madison Bumgarner.

While I do admit that I would take MadBum over any of the aforementioned pitchers any day of the week, I don’t take him over a Cole or a Strasburg. Especially in this day and age in MLB.

You see, unlike Cole and Strasburg, Bumgarner relies more on contact to produce outs for his team, especially at this juncture in his career. As a result, over the last four seasons, MadBum has a higher HR9 and H9 and a lower SO9 than Cole and Strasburg.

In an age where hitters are hitting balls out of the park and striking out at a higher rate than ever before, Bumgarner’s current skillset just isn’t all that attractive anymore. Also, given just how dominant Cole and Strasburg were this postseason, we just can’t hold Bumgarner’s dominant 2014 playoff performance to such esteem any longer.

Earlier this week Yankees GM Brian Cashman declared that the team would, in fact, target Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg this offseason. I’m sure offers will be placed for either pitcher.

At the end of the day, however, it won’t be enough. Just like it wasn’t enough for Patrick Corbin last season. Instead, what history has taught us is that the New York Yankees will go bargain hunting.

This offseason, the best bargain just so happens to be Madison Bumgarner.