SAN FRANCISCO -- It's a question that will hang over Farhan Zaidi's first offseason in charge of the Giants, and he'll surely get it dozens of times next week at the annual Winter Meetings.
"What are you going to do with Madison Bumgarner?"
During an appearance on KNBR on Wednesday, Zaidi said much of the speculation is misguided.
"I can tell you this, and it speaks a little bit to the accuracy of some of those reports, one of the teams that was mentioned in that (MLB.com) article shot me a text the morning it came out and said, 'Hey, I hear we're talking to you guys about Madison Bumgarner. Should we be?'" Zaidi said. "That gives you a little sense of the accuracy of some of the stuff that's out there."
[RELATED: MLB rumors: Giants' Madison Bumgarner not 'going anywhere' in trade]
The Braves, Brewers and Phillies are teams recently connected to any Bumgarner talks, although many of the whispers have been based on the beliefs of rival executives and most of what remains out there is speculation. Zaidi said in his introductory press conference that he has to be open to anything given the state of the franchise, which would obviously include trading Bumgarner, but it seems likely that he could get a better package before the July 31 trade deadline. Bumgarner has one year remaining on a team-friendly deal.
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Zaidi said he already has made contact with all 29 other front offices in an effort to find trade matches.
"It's still early in the offseason and teams are trying to figure out what they're going to do, what they're going to try to fill by trade versus free agency," he said. "We've talked about a bunch of our different players in different contexts. We're really focused on, not just the long-term health of the organization, but also trying to make this team as good as possible for 2019.
"I think those conversations are really going to pick up in the next week or 10 days, but again, we have really good players on this team that I would expect a lot of teams to have interest in."
The Winter Meetings start Monday at the Mandalay Bay casino in Las Vegas.
