Rusty's Player Projections: Madison Bumgarner

Madison Bumgarner has had an excelled career.

Drafted out of high school, Bumgarner was picked 10th overall by the Giants back in 2007. He was 18 years old.

He pitched well in the minors in 2008 and 2009. Last year he was called up to the Giants Starting rotation once they saw how bad Todd Wellenmeyer was, making his debut on September 8th, 2010.

From then on, he never looked back. He kept his starting spot for the remainder of the season and even out dueled Barry Zito for the 4th starting spot in the playoffs.

In 18 regular season starts, he posted a 7-6 record with a 3.00 ERA and a 2.2 WAR. To put that into perspective, Tim Lincecum made his debut at age 23 with a 7-5, a 4.00 ERA and a 2.0 WAR. Madison Bumgarner's numbers look promising when you compare them to a two-time Cy Young winner and All-Star.

What's more impressing is that Bumgarner was absolutely lights out in the playoffs. He posted a 2-0 record with a 2.18 ERA including eight shutout innings against the Rangers in Game 4 of the World Series.

He made guys like Vlad Guerrero, Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz look like slow swinging high school players while he was at the prime age of 21.

So here is my prediction for Mr. Bumgarner:

14-7 Record
194 Innings Pitched
2.96 ERA
165 Strikeouts

Make you're own predictions in the comments below: