The good and bad of Madison Bumgarner joining the Colorado Rockies

Now on to the cons of a Bumgarner deal. First off, intradivisional trades are rare as neither team wants to get beat by their former players. This would be especially be true in Colorado’s case as the kind of prospect haul it would take to outbid a team like the Yankees would help San Francisco win games for years to come.

This would be especially troubling considering Bumgarner would potentially be a rental player since his contract is up after this season.

Another interesting statistic about Bumgarner are his home-road splits. While Rockies fans are tired of hearing about home-road splits when it comes to hitters at Coors Field, we rarely hear the same conversations about pitchers in pitcher-friendly ballparks like AT&T/Oracle Park.

Nonetheless, Bumgarner seems to have received a considerable bump in his numbers from pitching half his games in San Francisco. His career ERA at home is 2.76 while his career ERA on the road is 3.42. Obviously, Bumgarner is still a very good pitcher on the road. However, he hasn’t been quite as good in his career as he has been at home.

It’s also worth noting that Bumgarner has not had the best numbers at Coors Field in his career. His 4.33 ERA and 1.45 WHIP at Denver are well above what he produced in San Francisco. That doesn’t mean Bumgarner would pitch poorly for the Rockies. However, it does mean that the Rockies could end up getting a return considerably below what they paid for.

As noted earlier, Bumgarner is a fierce competitor and has what it takes mentally to take on Coors Field but the question of potential versus reality is yet to be answered.