SAN FRANCISCO — Shortly before the clock on MLB’s trade deadline struck midnight (3 p.m. PT on Tuesday), Alex Cobb walked out of Oracle Park for the final time, with Logan Webb, his close confidant and rotation mate, by his side.
When 3 o’clock came and passed, the Giants’ president of baseball operations, Farhan Zaidi, outlined a direction that doubles down on the contributions his club has received from its young players and a starting rotation finally at full strength, which didn’t have space for the 36-year-old veteran.
Despite long odds from the projection systems, Zaidi said he believes it is a path that leads to the playoffs.
“We expect to be there,” he said.
Cobb was traded for a young pitching prospect to Cleveland, where he reunites with first-year manager Stephen Vogt and bench coach Craig Albernaz, his first two catchers in professional baseball with the Tampa Bay Rays. The Giants also moved on from struggling designated hitter Jorge Soler and reliever Luke Jackson late Monday night and, in the final moments before the deadline, acquired outfielder Mark Canha, a longtime favorite of manager Bob Melvin.
Moving forward with a rotation of Logan Webb, Blake Snell, Robbie Ray, Kyle Harrison and Hayden Birdsong, Zaidi said, “We feel we have the best rotation in baseball.”
“It’s been a long road to get our rotation to the place that it’s in now,” Zaidi said. “When you have starting pitching like that, it can get you on a roll. For us, to keep that group together, seeing how we played this past weekend, was a really high priority. Obviously we have to be open to things that might come up, but that was really our central philosophy going into the deadline. We have a rotation that can carry this team down the stretch and get us on a roll.”
It will take a roll unlike the team has produced to date to overcome their position in the National League wild card standings with 54 games to play entering their series against the A’s Tuesday night. Sweeping the Rockies in four games, the Giants matched their season-long winning streak and pulled within two games of .500 but still trailed the Padres and three other teams by four games for the final playoff spot.
FanGraphs gave them a 17.9% chance of claiming one of seven playoff spots, but Melvin quipped, “I’m not one for FanGraphs and looking at percentages.
“You can win five or six games in a row and it completely turns around. … Things can change in a hurry if you can sustain a run.”
When Ray made his debut last week, it marked one long-awaited reinforcement for a rotation that was at times down to two regular starters, requiring the bullpen to take on the largest workload in the majors. The team determined it didn’t need another boost in Cobb after seeing Birdsong’s first six major-league starts, which have produced a 2.97 ERA and 38 strikeouts in 30⅓ innings, including 20 punchouts in his past two starts.
“A lot of the Alex Cobb deal was about creating a spot for him,” Zaidi said.
Moving on from Cobb, who was a leader in the clubhouse and nearing the end of a longer-than-anticipated rehab from offseason hip surgery, Zaidi said, “was tough.” Cobb was set to make his season debut this week before a blister popped in his final rehab start and on Sunday made his case to remain in San Francisco, even if a trade to the first-place Guardians increases his chance of pitching in the postseason for only the second time in his 13-year career.
The Giants are also rolling the dice that Snell’s second-half resurgence continues apace, Webb’s past three starts are nothing but an aberration, the 32-year-old Ray suffers no complications in his return from major elbow surgery and their pair of rookies don’t run into issues as they surpass career-high workloads.
“The job Hayden’s done, for us to really believe in the roll this group of five starters can get on,” Zaidi said, “you’ve gotta sort of take a little bit of a chance and a leap of faith that they’re going to pitch and they’re going to be healthy and if something happens, we’ll have to figure out another plan.”
While the Giants shed about $36 million in salary between Soler, Cobb and Jackson, the moves were not enough to bring them under the luxury tax threshold, meaning they will operate this offseason under harsher restrictions.
Trading Soler less than a year into the three-year, $42 million deal he signed at the start of spring training allowed the Giants to open regular at-bats at designated hitter for Marco Luciano, who has six homers and a .970 OPS since the start of July at Triple-A Sacramento.
Luciano was called up, along with utilityman Blake Sabol, to fill the two open roster spots before Tuesday’s game.
“The (Soler) deal last night was a lot about creating at-bats for Luciano, who’s really come a long way offensively,” Zaidi said, adding that outfielder Luis Matos would be up eventually, too. “I think we have seen his trajectory over the last few years and you talk about how he can be put under such a microscope because he’s been such a highly thought of prospect from the time he signed at 16. Sometimes you lose the zoom out big picture of how much progress he’s made. We’ve really seen that over the last month.”
While Melvin said they could use the vacant DH spot to get Matt Chapman or other position players off their feet and Luciano could still move around the infield —”I don’t think we’re putting in ink that he’s a career DH now,” Zaidi said — he will serve as the club’s primary DH.
Calling Canha, 35, a “perfect fit” and eyeing Melvin in the back of the room as he said, “Bob got ahold of the car keys and brought in another one of his guys,” Zaidi outlined a part-time role the longtime Oakland staple heavy on left-handed pitching and clubhouse leadership.
“His versatility, ability to play the corners, play first base, start, come off the bench. We’re very left-handed in the corners, so he fits that perfectly,” Zaidi said. “I think the relationships he has in the clubhouse … and really this city and region, he’s a really great fit for us and I know people are excited about it.”
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More than Canha, though, the Giants’ fate will be determined by their rotation’s ability to stay healthy and live up to Zaidi’s billing; how much of a load it can take off their taxed bullpen; and whether Heliot Ramos and Tyler Fitzgerald can keep up seasons that have put them in the same sentence as Willie Mays and Barry Bonds.
If so, maybe they can get on a run.
“We have this rotation that we think can carry us, and we’re making an organizational decision — a baseball decision — that we believe some of these young guys can help us get to where we’re trying to get to,” Zaidi said. “I probably look at the playoff odds a little too much because it’s hard to really interpret what they mean beyond the number. At some point, it’s not really about the probably. It’s a discreet question of, ‘Do you have a 10-2, a 14-2, a 13-3 run in you?’ to get to where you need to be. …
“I think what our playoff odds are telling us is, ‘We’ve gotta have a big run in us.’ If we do, we’ll be there. And if we don’t, we won’t.”
