We should adjust our expectations for Hayden Birdsong

No, this is not just about one bad start

When the Giants traded Alex Cobb to Cleveland, a big part of the rationale was that they didn’t have room for him in the rotation. Obviously, Logan Webb and Kyle Harrison weren’t going anywhere, and the team didn’t think they should trade Blake Snell or Robbie Ray, so there was just one spot left. And if that spot went to Cobb, then that would be shortchanging Hayden Birdsong.

At the deadline, Birdsong was coming off of his second straight dominant start against Colorado. In the first, he went into Coors Field and struck out 12 over 6 innings, giving up just 2 runs in 6 innings. In the second, he shut the Rockies down for 5 innings in San Francisco, not allowing a single run while he struck out 8 and walked 3. For a hyped prospect with great stuff, it was the sign the team had been waiting for. It wouldn’t have been right to send this guy down just to give his starts to Alex Cobb. He had earned his spot, and it would be silly to take that away from him.

Then he went out and got lit up by the Nationals. Whoops!

Obviously, not everyone who gives up 7 runs in 2 innings, like Birdsong did, deserves a fat NOT READY stamp in the middle of his forehead. And maybe he doesn’t either! But I think an idea took hold among Giants writers and fans that he was clearly ready, obviously done with his minor league development, and those two starts against the Rockies proved that the team should slot him into the rotation for the rest of the season, full stop.

But is that true? The 2024 Rockies are a godawful offensive team, the second worst in the majors, ahead of only the White Sox, who are on pace to have the worst record in major league history. They have scored an average number of runs, but since they play half of their games in Coors Field, you would expect them to have scored a significantly above average number of runs. The fact that they haven’t is a significant demerit.

All of that is just to say that it’s not that striking out 20 in 11 innings against the Rockies means nothing, but it doesn’t mean as much as the rest of what Birdsong has done in the majors. And the rest isn’t very impressive. In his first 4 starts for the Giants this year, Birdsong pitched 19.1 innings, struck out 18, walked 10, and gave up 3 homers. He only had a 3.72 ERA, but through those starts, his FIP was 5.19, suggesting that there might be a correction coming that wouldn’t be very fun.

After shutting down the Rockies, that correction reared its head in Washington. Staked to a 4-0 lead that the Giants seized in the top of the first, Birdsong had a nice first inning, then walked two and gave up a homer in a 5-run second inning, then went out in the third for some reason and allowed a homer and a walk before being pulled. It was a true disaster start, the kind that every pitcher in the majors has experienced, and we probably shouldn’t make too much of it, just like we shouldn’t make too much of his two prior starts.

But I think that that start brought Birdsong’s numbers up to about what we should expect for the rest of the season. He walks too many hitters too consistently to be a truly dominant pitcher (unless he has a Snellesque K/9 of, like, 12), and he gives up a lot of fly balls, which means he’ll also give up homers. Birdsong hasn’t turned 23 yet, so I am by no means saying that this is who he’ll be for the rest of his career, but for the season, yeah, this is about what I’d expect. He’s a young pitcher, with a lot of hard lessons to learn. We saw some on Tuesday, and we’ll see more over the rest of the season.

All of this brings up the question, should the Giants have traded Cobb? The Giants have pretty much run out of rotation depth at this point, so if anything goes wrong with any of their starters — whether it be related to injury or performance — they don’t have a ton of viable options waiting in Sacramento. Keeping Alex Cobb in the organization would mean having a backup plan in case things go wrong, but it would also mean Birdsong doesn’t develop as quickly.

This is the needle the Giants are trying to thread this year. They are trying to both compete for the playoffs and develop for the future, so they end up doing both halfway. They’re not necessarily wrong to act like that: they weren’t bad enough to sell everything at the trade deadline, and they weren’t good enough to not keep an eye on 2025 and beyond. But it does come with a cost, which is that they’re a little less likely to make the playoffs this year. Is that better than the cost of the alternative, which is that 2025 Hayden Birdsong will be a little less effective? Probably! But it is still a cost.

Over the rest of this season, Birdsong will have more good starts and more bad ones. That’s just part of being a major league pitcher, especially a young one. We shouldn’t expect them to all be 12-strikeout gems. But the Giants are going to need them to also not be 2-inning disasters if they want to win a Wild Card spot.