Baltimore Orioles: Possible NL Landing Spots For Dylan Bundy.

After looking at a few possible American League teams who may be interested in acquiring Baltimore Orioles starter Dylan Bundy, we look at some National League teams who also fit the bill.

Earlier this morning, we discussed three possible American League landing spots for Baltimore Orioles starting pitcher Dylan Bundy, seeing as a deal involving the 27-year-old righty is in the works, according to MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. You can check out our thoughts as to which teams we think are good fits here.

Now, we take a look at three possible National League landing spots for Bundy. A few of these organizations may be able to get a little more out of the former top prospect, should they believe Bundy can continue to improve in 2020 and beyond.

First on our list was going to be the San Diego Padres, but their recent additions of Zach Davies (former Baltimore Orioles farmhand) and Drew Pomeranz make it seem more unlikely San Diego looks to add Bundy.

Despite Petco Park being a fantastic destination for the Orioles pitcher, does he make a rotation of Dinelson Lamet, Chris Paddack, Joey Lucchesi, Garrett Richards, Davies, Cal Quantrill, etc, any better? I would love for the Orioles to comb through the Padres minor leagues, but I’m not sure if Bundy is much of a fit anymore.

What bout these other three organizations? Would Dylan Bundy be a fit?

Cincinnati Reds

The hiring of Driveline Baseball’s Kyle Boddy was just one of the impressive moves made by the Cincinnati organization this offseason as they look to jump into the forefront of player development and become a contending team in the National League Central division.

I’m not comparing Sonny Grey to Dylan Bundy, but Grey was coming off a 1.5 fWAR season in New York York before putting up a 4.4 fWAR year in Cincinnati. He slashed his ERA from 4.90 to 2.87, increased his strikeout rate from 8.49/9 IP to 10.52/9 IP, and saw both his walk and home run rates drop slightly in what turned out to be the best year of his seven-year MLB career. All this before the addition of Boddy and more key coaching hires.

Could the Reds unlock a bit more success out of Bundy? Great American Ballpark isn’t the most pitcher-friendly but the Reds are an organization on the rise and would just need Bundy to slot into the back-end of their rotation to complement Trevor Bauer, Luis Castillo, Grey, and likely a bigger-name free agent signing, if the Reds open up the checkbook this winter.

Many of the advanced defensive metrics didn’t like the Reds last season, but they ranked among the league leaders in Defensive Runs Saved with 58 (6th most, Orioles were last with -105, for reference). How much better can Bundy become with a good defense up the middle and another year of lowering his home run rate? Will the Reds want to find out?

St. Lous Cardinals

The Cardinals seem like a team that could very quietly go about adding Bundy in a deal. The starting rotation put together one of the lowest ERAs in baseball at 3.78 but had the 8th-fewest strikeouts (8.07 per game) and was worth just 10.9 fWAR which was right in the middle of the pack at 15.

With a rotation of Jack Flaherty, Miles Mikolas, and the return of Adam Wainwright, St. Louis is a contending team that needs a workhorse in the back of the rotation, like Bundy, to shore things up, log a bunch of innings, and rack up the strikeouts. Not to mention, Busch Stadium and their highly favorable home run park factors for pitchers.

Our friends over at RedBird Rants, the FanSided St. Louis Cardinals blog, recently penned a piece asking if the Cardinals should go after Bundy. They seem to like him, many of the Cardinals fans who commented on the piece seemed fine with a deal for Bundy, so why not?

An NL West Squad

I already mentioned that I think San Diego is out of the picture, but if AJ Preller believes Bundy can make his team better, I think Bundy excels at Petco Park. With Manny Machado, Wayne Kirby, Bobby Dickerson, Ryan Flaherty and Zach Davies already calling San Diego home, why not add one more former Oriole to the bunch?

The Dodgers are going to spend money to round out their starting rotation and I don’t see them as wanting a project like Bundy right now.

You would think Colorado would stay far away from Bundy with his home run issues, but they have expressed interest in Bundy in the past and a number of fans seem to be on board with the idea. But I think one of the other two teams in the division makes the most sense.

Oracle Park is home to the most favorable park factors for pitchers, according to ESPN’s 2019 numbers and the Giants seem to love former Orioles (Joey Rickard and Mike Yastrzemski). Yaz turned things around and had a tremendous season for San Francisco, maybe they can do the same for Bundy?

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Madison Bumgarner is out of the picture in San Francisco and the rotation as it is now in SF features younger pitchers like Dereck Rodriguez who are coming off down years, unproven arms, and the likes of Johnny Cueto who will look to have a strong 2020 after missing most of 2019 recovering from surgery.

The Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks likely won’t be looking to compete in 2020, meaning Bundy’s two years of control are attractive and gives each franchise a full season to tinker around with him and attempt to find a plan that gets the most out of the righty.

At the end of the day, it’s become clear that the Orioles aren’t done cleaning house and we likely won’t see Bundy or Mychal Givens around next year. If Feinsand is right, we will find out in the coming days exactly where Bundy will call home for 2020.

After looking at a few possible American League teams who may be interested in acquiring Baltimore Orioles starter Dylan Bundy, we look at some National League teams who also fit the bill.

Cincinnati Reds

St. Lous Cardinals

An NL West Squad

More from Birds Watcher

Schedule