The Giants have placed right-hander Alex Cobb on the 15-day injured list, formally ending his season. Cobb has been dealing with a left hip impingement that will now end his regular season. Fellow righty Keaton Winn has also been placed on the injured list, and manager Gabe Kapler confirmed to reporters that Winn has Covid-19 (via Maria Guardado of MLB.com). Left-hander Kyle Harrison and righty Sean Hjelle are up from Triple-A Sacramento in their place.
The 35-year-old Cobb — 36 next month — has started 28 games and pitched to a 3.87 ERA in 151 1/3 innings for the Giants in 2023. He’s playing out the second season of a two-year, $20MM contract that has proven to be a bargain thus far. The Giants hold a $10MM option for the 2024 season, which comes with a $2MM buyout. Given that it’s a net $8MM decision, that ought to be a veritable lock to be exercised, provided there’s no concern about a long-term injury at play.
The Giants haven’t formally been eliminated from the postseason yet, and Kapler wouldn’t rule out the possibility of Cobb returning if the Giants can defy their slim playoff odds and overcome the three-game deficit they face in the NL’s Wild Card race (via Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle).
Cobb started 28 games in both guaranteed years of the contract and will finish that portion of the deal with a 3.80 ERA, 22.1% strikeout rate, 6.3% walk rate and 59.4% ground-ball rate in 301 innings. Though these have been the 11th and 12th seasons of Cobb’s big league career, he’s throwing harder than ever before in his mid-30s, averaging 95.2 mph on his heater after previously averaging 91.7 mph in his career between the Rays, Orioles and Angels.
Winn, 25, made his big league debut this year and appeared in eight games — four of them starts — pitching a total of 37 innings with a 3.89 ERA, 20% strikeout rate, 5.3% walk rate and 56.9% ground-ball rate. The 2018 fifth-rounder averaged 96 mph on his fastball and draws high praise for his splitter as well. He’s likely put himself into the mix for a rotation spot next year, depending on the outcome of Cobb’s option and the extent to which the Giants address the starting staff over the winter.
Until the S.F Giants draft and develop better, constantly adding mid tier free agents on 1 and 2 year deals is a recipe for yearly .500 finishes.
Alex probably injured himself bobbing on Cobb. Go Dodgers!
Sad they don’t really seem to be putting up much fight for any kind of playoff odds. Leaving pitchers in that are hurt like Cobb, bringing in guys like wood to give up more runs. Not sure but the management seems to be checked out on winning for the last few weeks now. Frustrating situation as a fan! Hopefully Harrison is doing ok I saw his last start and he had diminished velocity and was demoted instantly without much talk after.
As jon miller would say: GOODBYE !ADIOS! PELOTA!
Should have traded Cobb at the deadline when it was obvious this team didn’t have what it took. Been a hell of a run for FZ but this last offseason and trade deadline he really crapped the bed.
Zaidi getting out of the Correa deal last winter is reason enough for him to keep his job for years. Yes, he whiffed on Haniger and Conforto, and should have traded Manaea and/or Wood at the deadline, but nobody’s perfect. Thankfully, the contracts of Crawford, Pederson, Cobb, Slater, & Wood all come off the books this off-season.
Zaidi makes a huge mistake offering Correa way too much money but then last minute leaves him at the alter when he realizes how stupid he was and that move alone deserves 2-3 more years in your eyes? He then proceeds to spend around $130 million on 5 players that have similar or worse years than their career norms but since they are one to two year deals its all good? The trade deadline he claims their was too much demand yet he doesn’t flip Cobb during his best season ever? This has been a dumpster fire and Zaidi should get burned but he won’t because even though nobody shows up to the games to watch this mess he still make the owners money and will have his job for as long as he does!
If you’ve ever done business with a Farhan you’d know they offer you .20 cents on the dollar for anything. They always make insulting offers. On a $500 iPhone they always offer $150 or something silly. Maybe that’s why farhan always misses out on free agents. He never offers anything close to fair market value like the dodgers do ^_^
Gabe Krapler
Why family echoes this statement.
Well gutted out, Alex. Thanks. Respect.
Hope you take the 10m and return healthy.
I’m hoping Farhan pulls a Bloom and declines the option so the Sox can sign him. We need help
His last hip impingement ended up costing him 1.5 seasons in Orange – in Baltimore. Watch out Giants, his hips are his achilles heel.
And mercifully it was over.
Corn is about out of season here.
NO CORN ON THE COBB FOR ME!
The Tampa NFL team sells Corn on the Cobb for a BUCK-AN-EAR…
It seems Padres may pass up the Giants in the standings the way SF is just not playing like they have a desire to reach playoffs
Man, I cancelled my cable a few weeks thinking the G’s might not even finish above .500
They still might make the playoffs. And I’ll watch if they do. I just don’t think this is there year. Injuries. And I don’t really like the lineup anymore.
At first it was fun, Watching no names hit tons of homers. Now with no home runs, bad defense, same guys injured over and over, zero lineup consistency, openers, middle relievers going three innings etc, it’s not fun. Of course if they win it’s fun. But doing nothing at the trade deadline to improve says a lot. And yes one more year with Kap & Farhan. Again 2024 was always my earmarked year of contention. Next year is big for them. Cannot have another year like this. Or they both will be fired.
both of them should be gone at season end but no another year of this crap
If this is their last year, FZ better make some damn moves this off season..have a sense of urgency and ensure they sign Ohtani..
I agree. Big off-season.
I’m guessing Zaidi will be judged on what the wave of this years, and next years rookies do. Pretty obvious that developing a continuous pipeline that they can build around was a priority. They built him industry best infrastructure, allowed him to hire an abundance of developers, and they got him some well regarded FO development help from the Astros. What more could an owner do ? The first results of his work in that particular area are here so I’m thinking the 1 year is to really see how he has done.
Hoped it was just a callus on his toe, so it could be Corn on the Cobb.