December 17th, 2019 at 8:00 am 
by Ron Cervenka When the news broke on Sunday evening that longtime Dodgers nemesis (and antagonist) free-agent left-hander Madison Bumgarner had landed with the Arizona Diamondbacks on a five-year/$85 million deal, it came as quite a shock to not only Dodger fans but to the entire baseball world. I mean, let’s be honest here, who saw this one coming, right? But while it is impossible to believe that the surprise MadBum signing does not immediately make Arizona a considerably better team, is it enough to make them a serious threat to the seven-time consecutive NL West champion Dodgers?
Here again, it is impossible to believe that it does not, but consider this: When the 2019 regular season ended, the record-setting 106-56 Dodgers finished a remarkable 21.0 games ahead of the 85-77 NL West second-place Dbacks and 29.0 games ahead of the 77-85 third-place San Francisco Giants, the team from which Bumgarner came.
Obviously, it takes more than just one good – or even great – starting pitcher to make any team a legitimate postseason contender. That being said, of those 77 Giants wins in 2019, only nine belonged to MadBum, of which none were against the Dodgers. However (and you had to know this was coming), MadBum has a 15-14 career record with an exceptional 2.72 ERA against the Dodgers over his 11 major league seasons.
(Photo credit – Matthew Stockman)
The real head-scratcher is why did Dbacks general manager Mike Hazen sign the 30-year-old Hickory, NC native and Giants first-round draft pick in 2007 out of South Caldwell High School in Hudson, NC when his 2019 numbers were significantly better at AT&T Park than they were on the road. Whereas Bumgarner had an outstanding 2.93 ERA at AT&T Park in 2019, his ERA was a less-than-stellar 5.29 on the road – including a 1-1 record and 5.84 ERA at Chase Field. However, and you again had to know this was coming, MadBum has a career mark of 8-4 with a career 3.13 ERA at Chase Field. As such, Hazen undoubtedly felt that it was better to have MadBum pitching for him than against him.
And then there’s Madbum the hitter.
As every baseball fan knows, Bumgarner is a pretty good hitting pitcher. In fact, over his 11 major league seasons and despite his somewhat pedestrian .177/.228/.303/.532 slash line, he has hit 19 home runs and 18 doubles. He has also driven in 62 runs. Of those 19 career home runs, two were at Chase Field. In other words, the Diamondbacks got a pretty decent two-time Silver Slugger right-handed bat in addition to his three-time World Series champion (and four-time All-Star) left arm.
Needless to say, there is now considerably more pressure on Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman to re-sign (now free-agent) Hyun-Jin Ryu, with all of the other top-tier free-agent starting pitchers now off the table. That said, Ryu definitely won’t come cheap.
It’s your move, Andrew.
Play ball!
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Posted in 
It’s getting late…
And so far we’ve brought in 1 reliever. We need to do something…
Soon
That’s the first thing I thought of. Now there’s a better chance that the Dodgers would sign Ryu.
Dodgers need to sign Ryu
Then sign Nick C for LF
Then trade Kiki Joc P Pollock and Maeda for prospects and relievers
Therefore we keep
Lux May Urias Beatty Rios Ruiz j Downs giving us the best young nucleus of players who will develop and we will keep on being a dominant force in the NL
Here’s to another failed offseason. This is starting to become comical. One reclamation-project with a mythical “spin-rate” isn’t going to fix our problems. Great pitching beats great hitting and we’re lacking SEVERELY in the pitching department.
Here’s to another year with an early postseason exit.
Acording to Ron’s counter up there we still have 99 days until opening day (55 until spring training begins). I think it’s just a wee bit too early for giving up.
Mat
Astros had 320 million Cole, greinke at 35 mil a year and Verlander at 28 mil and lost the series. Let Freidman at least finish the off-season before he gets slammed.
Cole wanted Yanks, Strasburg went back to Nats, Rendon didn’t want dodgers and Madbum wanted to go to Az.
Hello there. As ya have said before, starting pitching is a Need TO GO ALONG WITH BUEHLER, BUT AN IMPACT RH BAT is just as much of a need IMHO. We can have that without trading anyone by signing Josh Donaldson to a deal he want s and perhaps after 2 or 3 years he can turn into a David Freese type guy for the Dodgers and be successful
Paul get any new albums.
Yes I have few new ones, including the Original Soundtrack from A Charlie Brown Xmas show on and blue and white snowflake colored picture disc. I also got Crosby, Stills and Nash’s debut album as part of that “Summer of ’69 Peace, Love and Music” limited editions that came out his past summer. This CSN album is a a very one time limited edition on a burgundy colored 180 gram high quality vinyl!
Sounds like great stuff. Enjoy
Last yr the snakes had Greinke and couldn’t keep up with the Big Blue machine. Replace him with madbum and they aren’t any better, maybe a little worse.
Not worried, not sorry!
Word has it that they’re looking to trade Robbie Ray, who’s always been tough on the Dodgers. Bummer replacing Ray should be good for our guys.