Hayden Birdsong's surgery means he may never throw another pitch for SF Giants

The SF Giants got some tough news recently as it was announced that young pitcher Hayden Birdsong will undergo Tommy John surgery and will miss the 2026 season. There is a chance that he will never pitch for the Giants again.

Most early estimates predict that Birdsong will be back and ready midseason 2027 at the earliest. Plenty of pitchers come back and look good in their return from Tommy John surgery, but the Giants are going to have to figure things out before then.

SF Giants may not have room for Birdsong when he returns

The rotation may look completely different for San Francisco by then. Robbie Ray and Tyler Mahle are both going to be free agents after this season so they may very well sign with other teams. Even if one assumes that Logan Webb, Adrian Houser, and Landen Roupp are all part of the 2027 rotation, that still leaves two big holes to fill.

Perhaps the Giants are hoping that at least one of their younger starters can stake a claim for one of those spots. Carson Seymour, Trevor McDonald, Carson Whisenhunt, and Blade Tidwell all have one less guy to compete with now for the next year and a half.

The Giants probably will not sign a starting pitcher to a huge deal in the offseason because that goes against their modus operandi. But it would not be a surprise if they signed another cheap arm like Mahle to fill a spot in the rotation.

Certainly, if Birdsong comes back and looks like the guy we saw the first few months of the 2025 season, then he is going to have an opportunity to insert himself into the conversation once again.

But, if one of the younger arms establishes themself during his absence that is only going to make it harder for Birdsong to find a way to contribute.

While he looked phenomenal at the start of 2025 and seemed like he was on his way to being a rotation fixture, he lost his command and was demoted to Triple-A where things did not get any better.

Then in spring training he struggled some more although the elbow issues provide some needed context for his rough Cactus League showings.

Obviously, the first step for him is getting healthy. Step two is figuring out how to dial in his command and be more consistent on the mound. The only problem is that by the time he does that, it may already be too late if the Giants have figured things out with the rotation.