The Giants signed Alex Cobb to a 2-year deal last offseason, and it was a great move. He gave the team 150 innings of 3.73 ERA ball, which is already pretty good, but the advanced stats made him look even better, with a 3.15 xERA, a 2.80 FIP, and a 2.89 xFIP. His strikeout rate was just a shade off the best of his career, his wlak rate was also excellent, and if he had enough innings, then his ground ball rate would have been second in the majors. Once the defense stopped letting him down every inning, which admittedly took until around August, he was one of the best pitchers in the majors. Great pitcher. A little injury prone, but zero complaints. Four stars.
Anyway, this newsletter is about how it would be good for the Giants to not have him on the team anymore.
It’s not that I think Cobb is unusually likely to decline. I mean, all pitchers are injury risks, and he is a pitcher, so there’s some reason to worry there, and he hasn’t ever pitched more than 179 innings in a season, and he’s only even gotten to 150 twice…okay, I do think he’s unusually likely to be injured based on his long history of being injured.
But that’s not why I think the Giants should explore his trade market. Cobb was a good pitcher in 2021 who got better in 2022. His fastball picked up 2 MPH — at the age of 35! — and he threw an extra 56 innings with better advanced stats. Those are real, genuine gains he made under the Giants’ player development program, just like Kevin Gausman made real, genuine gains. I think they should trade Cobb because they can do it again.
The Giants are good at finding pitchers and making them better. They are great at it, in fact. But they’re not leveraging that elite player development skill to its greatest effect if they keep Cobb around another year. Because their player development skill when it comes to position players hasn’t been as good — they’ve been able to turn unknowns into decent major leaguers, but not quite get them to that next level (Mike Yastrzemski’s 2020 being the one exception, though who knows what would have happened with another 100 games).
Under Farhan, the Giants have seemed like they’re content to maximize the talent they already have. But they’ve had to do that because they haven’t found ways to go out and acquire better talent. Trading Cobb is a way to do that, to get more talent in the outfield (if Aaron Judge doesn’t sign) or the infield (if none of the star free agent shortstops sign).
And then…you sign another starter and make him better. It probably works, but if it doesn’t, then you have Jacob Junis or Kyle Harrison to step into his spot in the rotation. Yes, it’s a risk, but if you’re going to make an okay baseball team into a good or great baseball team, then there’s going to be some risk involved. There’s also risk in keeping Cobb, because he could get injured or get worse, but it’s the kind of risk that won’t draw much criticism from the press should anything go wrong, so it feels safer to keep him.
A lot of fan trade proposals are “our crap for your stars” — La Stella for Ohtani, Angels, think it over!!!!! — but in this case, the Giants would be giving up a legitimately good pitcher. Alex Cobb should be attractive to the league. He should slot in as a number 2 or 3 starter on almost any team in the majors, and sure, he’s only signed for one more year, but that means he’s not signed for 6 years, which would be its own kind of risk.
I don’t know if the Alex Cobb trade market would be super robust if the Giants looked into it, but I think they should be putting some effort into moving him. It might make them look bad. I think it would have a better chance of improving the team. You make that trade if you’re running a baseball team, I think, as someone who would not be fired if it went badly.
I agree, Doug. Sell high, as they say.
Sounds a bit like subtraction by subtraction, Hombre. One thing los Gigantes need next year is Starting Pitchers - and I ain't sure Jakob Junis (LUV that guy), or Kyle Harrison (hope, hope) is the answer. But Alex Cobb is!