Did the SF Giants blunder by getting rid of veteran All-Star pitcher?

The SF Giants traded veteran starting pitcher Alex Cobb to the Cleveland Guardians a few weeks ago. Now, with rookie Hayden Birdsong struggling, should the Giants have some regrets about trading away the ultra-competitive veteran?

The SF Giants are now stuck with Hayden Birdsong after Alex Cobb trade

Full disclosure: I advocated for the Giants to trade Alex Cobb ahead of the trade deadline. I wanted them to make that move so Birdsong would remain in the rotation because he had looked so solid up to that point. When that trade came to fruition, I was excited that we would most likely get to see the exciting Birdsong for the rest of the year.

While Birdsong looked like a veteran in his first 6 starts with the Giants, his last two have been extremely rough and have made him look like a rookie. After shutting out the Rockies in 5 innings on July 27th, he got rocked for 7 earned runs against the Nationals and then on Sunday gave up 5 earned runs against the Tigers. The 22-year-old kept leaving his breaking balls up in the zone against the Tigers which is not a recipe for success.

Now, it is important not to overreact. Every pitcher is going to have rough spells. It is how they respond to the rough starts that matters. Birdsong still has that electric fastball and wicked breaking ball when he is on. The Giants coaching staff will do everything they can to ensure Birdsong gets back on track because the Giants are going to need him down the stretch.

The easy knee-jerk reaction is to regret trading Cobb. Even though he has that extensive injury history and had not pitched in the big leagues all year, he is still a veteran pitcher who competes really hard and has over 10 years of MLB experience that Birdsong simply does not possess yet.

Cobb recently made his debut with the Guardians and gave up 4 earned runs in 4 and 2/3 innings. That is certainly not much better than Birdsong's recent outings, but it stands to reason that if Cobb stays healthy he will improve upon that for the rest of the year.

While Cobb is injury-prone, Birdsong is putting more stress on his arm than he ever has in his career. Naturally, in today's game there will be concern that he could sustain an injury or wear himself out. There are no obvious signs of fatigue thus far, but that is something to watch for the rest of the year.

At this point, it is too early to say that the Giants erred in trading Cobb. However, with the Giants being in postseason contention and every game meaning so much, if Birdsong continues to struggle and the Giants miss the postseason while Cobb finds his footing and helps the Guardians make a postseason run, it would be impossible not to regret that move on some level.

For now, we should pump the brakes and not rush to judgment. But Birdsong needs to turn things around the rest of the year so the Giants do not feel like they made a mistake putting so much trust in him.