Landing Madison Bumgarner Gave Arizona an Ace and a Mentor

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — When the Arizona Diamondbacks met with Zac Gallen late last season to review his rookie year, they issued a challenge. Gallen, a 24-year-old right-hander, had thrived in his first taste of the majors — before and after his trade from the Miami Marlins — and the team gave him a model for the kind of pitcher to emulate: Madison Bumgarner. Study him, Gallen was told, and learn all you can.

At that point, the Diamondbacks did not know Bumgarner wanted to join them. He had played 11 seasons for the San Francisco Giants, helping them to three titles by becoming the best pitcher in World Series history: He allowed one earned run over 36 innings and got four wins and a save in five appearances.

But the Giants were rebuilding, and Bumgarner had admired the Diamondbacks as a rival in the National League West, appreciating their effort and the competitive roster they had assembled. In December he signed with the Diamondbacks for five years and $85 million, giving Arizona an ace and making Gallen’s studies much more efficient.

“When I found out he was going to actually be in the clubhouse, picking stuff up was going to be a lot easier than trying to learn from across the field,” Gallen said on Wednesday. “I was ecstatic when I heard that news.”

The Diamondbacks have a brief but rich history of prominent starters: Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling led them to their only championship in 2001; Brandon Webb won a Cy Young Award in 2006; and Zack Greinke made three All-Star teams for Arizona before his trade to Houston last July.

Bumgarner had a locker next to Johnson’s as a rookie for the Giants in 2009. He found Johnson, who was finishing a Hall of Fame career, to be more engaging than he expected, and he considered himself lucky to have so many supportive teammates, like Matt Cain, to guide him. In Arizona, Bumgarner is returning the favor with Gallen.

“I just try to treat people how I want to be treated, just the simple stuff, nothing fancy,” Bumgarner, 30, said. “I’m looking for help from him and other guys as much as they’re looking for stuff from me. The day you stop learning is the day you quit getting better.”

Bumgarner rebounded last season after missing parts of 2017, when he hurt his shoulder in a dirt-bike accident, and 2018, when he broke his hand on a comebacker. He ranked second to Washington’s Stephen Strasburg in innings among N.L. pitchers, with 207⅔, and while his earned run average was a career-high 3.90, his underlying numbers were strong.

“He figures out a way to compete even when he doesn’t have his best stuff, and to me that’s invaluable when it comes to a young staff like we have,” said Arizona’s Stephen Vogt, who caught Bumgarner with the Giants last season. “A lot of his numbers were up last year, like his spin rate, and he’ll try whatever it takes to figure out how to get outs. He’s an ultimate competitor.”

Gallen is Bumgarner’s daily catch partner and has noticed the life on Bumgarner’s fastball, though Bumgarner otherwise goes easy on him. (“He doesn’t blow me up too much with his cutters and his sliders.”) Gallen said he had tried to learn the intangibles of a proven winner.

“He’s pretty open,” he said. “With a guy like that, you’re usually feeling around, seeing how he’s doing, but I was super-pumped when he was like, ‘Hey, listen, if you have any questions, ask me anything.’”

Mike Hazen, the Diamondbacks’ general manager, worked for Boston when stalwarts like Josh Beckett, John Lackey and Jon Lester helped pitch the Red Sox to championships. He cited them — along with Bumgarner and Clayton Kershaw — as examples for Gallen and other Diamondbacks pitchers.

“It’s not always just raw stuff, it’s work ethic, determination, execution, competitiveness,” Hazen said. “We can’t notice that all the time, because you take it for granted, maybe. But it is a separator, for me, with top-of-the-rotation starting pitchers, that they have those types of skills. MadBum has them. Watching and modeling that behavior every day, it’s got to help those guys.”

Bumgarner was hit hard by the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday, allowing five runs in two and two-thirds innings, three on a long home run by Francisco Lindor. He said he was not concerned — he often struggles in spring training — but on the field he took things seriously, pounding his glove in frustration when his pitches missed their location.

He takes the same approach to hobbies. The Athletic revealed last month that Bumgarner, who grew up in North Carolina and has a ranch in Arizona, uses an alias, Mason Saunders, to compete in roping events at rodeos in the winter. He has not discussed the topic since, but he said then that he did no activities strictly for fun.

Bumgarner always needs an edge, and he said that was part of the reason he found the Diamondbacks appealing. Chasing the most lucrative contract from a major-market team would not have been in character.

“I like the way they go about it here — it’s more my style of baseball than a lot of places — and I also enjoy being on an underdog type team, more so than the team that’s supposed to win,” he said.

Bumgarner added that he always believes his team should win. But when others have doubt, it works to his team’s advantage.

“At least, it always has for me,” he said. “I’ve never needed people’s approval to think I was good or think I could be successful or win a game. I like it better when you’re not expected to and then you do.”

The Dodgers are widely expected to win their eighth straight N.L. West title, especially after adding Mookie Betts, the American League’s most valuable player in 2018, to their roster. But the Diamondbacks went 85-77 last season for their third consecutive winning record, and have since added the former Gold Glove outfielders Starling Marte and Kole Calhoun as well as Bumgarner, Vogt and relievers Junior Guerra and Hector Rondon.

That was another part of the team’s message to Gallen last season. Yes, they had traded Greinke, but they promised they would not be retreating in the standings. Signing his role model was emphatic confirmation.

“As a player, there’s no better feeling than them telling you something and then following through with it,” Gallen said. “Communication can be tough in this game sometimes, but for them to say, ‘This is our plan, this is what we want to do,’ and then go out and get the pieces to help us do that is incredible.”