Alex Cobb’s memorable tenure in SF ends as Giants trade veteran to Guardians

The Giants will move forward with their current five-man rotation, and Cobb has a chance to pitch in the postseason for only the second time in his career.

When Robbie Ray debuted last week, it marked the arrival of one of the San Francisco Giants’ two midseason rotation reinforcements. But they will chart forward without his rehab partner, Alex Cobb, who was traded hours before Tuesday’s 3 p.m. deadline.

Despite Cobb’s recent plea to remain in San Francisco, the Giants accepted a package from the Guardians of a 19-year-old pitching prospect and a player to be named later that sends the 36-year-old right-hander to Cleveland and increases his odds of pitching in the postseason for only the second time in his 13-year career.

The club also traded recently acquired reliever Mike Baumann to the Angels for cash considerations, the second reliever they shipped out in the past 24 hours after dealing Luke Jackson and designated hitter Jorge Soler to Atlanta late Monday night.

Without any additional moves, the Giants will navigate the second half with a rotation consisting of Logan Webb, Blake Snell, Ray, Kyle Harrison and Hayden Birdsong, a strong five-man group but lacking contingency in the case of injury. A lot still rides on Snell repeating his historic second-half success, Webb’s past three starts being an aberration rather than a sign of things to come, a 33-year-old coming back from major elbow surgery and two rookies whose workloads will have to be monitored.

Cobb’s time in San Francisco will be remembered in a positive light, even if offseason hip surgery and complications with his shoulder prevented him from pitching this season. He was set to make his season debut this week but had it pushed back again when a blister popped in his final rehab start.

Between 2022 and 2023, Cobb made 56 starts, going 14-15 with a 3.80 ERA, and earned the first All-Star bid of his career last season. He only revealed as the season came to a close that since about a month prior to the festivities in Seattle, he had been pitching with pain in his left knee that resulted in the offseason surgery.

The discomfort didn’t hinder him from throwing 131 pitches in a complete game last Aug. 29 while coming one out shy of a no-hitter. But Cobb would throw only 10 more innings the rest of the season in what amounted to his final pitches in a Giants uniform.

Always engaging, interesting, thoughtful and available to reporters, the San Francisco chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America presented Cobb its annual “Good Guy” award following the 2023 season.

As recently as Sunday, Cobb made an impassioned case to remain with the organization he spent the past two-and-a-half seasons, even if it meant a lesser chance at pitching in October in what could be his final season. The three-year, $36 million contract he signed before 2022 expires after this season.

“I don’t know what my career is going to look like next year. I’ve loved every minute of being a Giant. I’ve loved everything about this organization, the city, pitching here, the teammates,” Cobb said. “Obviously I want to win. But I also want to win with a team that (I’ve) lost with.

“I think going through the last two and a half years of not living up to expectations and not being where we wanted to be would make once we do eventually win – which I envision us doing here – so much more special than just jumping on a team that’s put all the work in and just jumped on the tail end of it with two months left in the season and not really feeling a part of it. I think there’s something more special about going through losses with a team and being on the other end when they win.”

In Cleveland, Cobb joins a team with a six-game lead on the American League Central and will get a chance to play for first-year manager Stephen Vogt, an early teammate of his on the Tampa Bay Rays.

In exchange, the Giants received Jacob Bresnahan, a left-handed pitcher who has a 2.70 ERA in 12 starts between Rookie and A-ball in his first full professional season after the Guardians drafted him out of Sumner High School, south of Seattle, in the 13th round of last summer’s amateur draft.