Arizona Diamondbacks sign Madison Bumgarner to a 5-year deal

The Arizona Diamondbacks have signed Madison Bumgarner to a 5-year, $85 million deal, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.  

This is a huge deal for the Arizona Diamondbacks. They were never mentioned as teams in the hunt for Madison Bumgarner at all.  He brings a wealth of experience to a young pitching staff who will definitely benefit from his presence.

The Diamondbacks, who finished second in the division a distant 21 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers have made several improvements.  They were able to add to their farm system by trading Zack Greinke.

Bumgarner, who is 30 years old, is 119-92 with a 3.13 ERA, 1,794 strikeouts and a 37.1 career WAR.  More importantly he can continue to help develop the young pitchers on the squad including Robbie Ray, Merrill Kelly, Zac Gallen and Luke Weaver.

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Bumgarner will help to replace Greinke, who was traded to the Houston Astros at the trade deadline this past season.  More important for the Diamondbacks is the wealth of postseason experience he brings to the table.

He is a career 8-3 in the postseason with a 2.11 ERA, 84 strikeouts and three World Series titles.  This is valuable as the Diamondbacks made trades to put themselves in a place to contend, with young additions to the rotation and a decent core.

The starting rotation last year for the team, was middle of the pack.  Keep in mind Greinke was there for three-quarters of the season.  They were 13th in the league in starting rotation ERA and WAR at 4.23 and 11 respectively.

The deal will definitely make the NL West more interesting with Bumgarner staying in the division and the Dodgers rumored to be in the running to acquire him.

We’ll continue to monitor as the rest of the details of the contract emerge throughout the rest of day.  This is a significantly better deal financially for the team than the Greinke deal of a few years back and helps to close the gap with the Dodgers.