Madison Bumgarner’s no-trade list released

Earlier today, a no-trade list came out for Giants’ ace Madison Bumgarner. Bumgarner, who has a partial no-trade clause, can block trades to eight teams, and he opted to block trades with eight contending teams, per Ken Rosenthal. Those teams are the Braves, Red Sox, Cubs, Astros, Brewers, Yankees, Phillies and Cardinals.

Bumgarner is clearly taking the rumors that he will be traded this season seriously, and making plans accordingly. As Rosenthal notes, he chose teams that would be most likely to want to trade for him so that he can control a number of factors if a trade ends up happening.

It’s a lot easier to narrow down the potential trade landing spots when so much of the league is either tanking or rebuilding, so this is a pretty standard move. And as Alex Pavlovic points out, he’s not the first Giant to form their list accordingly.

Just because he has blocked these teams doesn’t mean he won’t accept a trade to one of them, but it does give him the power to approve a trade to any of them. So he can choose his destination, if there are multiple offers. He could also expect some form of compensation to waive his no-trade protection.

Additionally, with Bumgarner in the last year of his contract, should the Giants part ways with him mid-season he would enter free agency without a qualifying offer and without costing another team a draft pick, something that has held up quite a number of players on the free agent market over the last couple of years.

Most notably, the still-unsigned Dallas Keuchel, as Casey pointed out yesterday, who will likely be signed as soon as the draft pick for his qualifying offer expires on June 2nd. Should Bumgarner opt to test the free agency market next year, a trade mid-season would actually be in his best interest, as sad as it would be for many Giants fans to see him go.