How does Madison Bumgarner’s injury impact his trade value?

What is the aftermath of San Francisco Giants starter Madison Bumgarner leaving his most recent outing with an injury?

The immediate concern after Madison Bumgarner took a line drive off his arm in the San Francisco Giants win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday was his health.

The X-rays came back negative, but he was still was diagnosed with an elbow contusion on his throwing arm.

Now the concern shifts to how the injury will potentially impact his trade value.

Given that there is nothing broken, it’s unlikely the injury will change the fact that there will be a number of teams interested in trading for him in the coming weeks, and contending teams should still be salivating at the opportunity to land one of the most dominant World Series pitchers of all time.

The question is whether teams will try to leverage the injury in an effort to lower the Giants’ asking price.

If the Giants are smart, they will not waver or back down from whatever the asking price is that they’ve placed on their beloved homegrown ace.

How he looks in his next start or two in a San Francisco Giants uniform will go a long way in determining his trade value. It is unlikely that they will deal him over the All-Star break, and if he looks sharp in his first few starts coming out of the break, then the injury should have no bearing on his value.

The bigger question might be on the team’s plans as a whole after team president Farhan Zaidi recent told reporters (via Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle): “I still think there could be opportunities for us to trade away younger players for guys who can help us now. I wouldn’t rule that out.”

In all likelihood, that’s just a ploy to throw teams off the scent of what the San Francisco Giants front office is planning to do over the next month. A team that is considering buying has far more leverage in trade talks than a clear-cut seller.

Overall, as long as Bumgarner looks fine in his next outing or two and shows no ill effects of the injury, then his trade value will not depreciate at all.

However, if anything looks even slightly off next time he takes the mound, the Giants could find themselves in an awkward position where the return they would get for him makes it so that it’s not worth trading him away.

Madison Bumgarner will take the mound next for the San Francisco Giants on Saturday against the Milwaukee Brewers. That could prove to be one of the biggest games of the year as he looks to put the injury behind him.