To the surprise of no one, left-handed pitcher Madison Bumgarner of the San Francisco Giants won the Silver Slugger award this past Thursday for the second consecutive year. There is little to no debate that Bumgarner is the best hitting pitcher in the game. It is a generally accepted fact about baseball, kind of like how St. Louis Cardinals are always good or how the Oakland Athletics will never actually move to San Jose.
The question then becomes not whether or not Bumgarner is the best hitting pitcher, but rather how good he really is from a normal hitter’s perspective?