SF Giants miss chance to pull off another Thairo Estrada heist after Yankees DFA versatile infielder

The SF Giants have scooped up a couple of infielders off waivers in recent weeks simply to try to get through the rest of this injury-plagued 2027 season. They let one fall through the cracks though as the Cincinnati Reds claimed infielder Oswaldo Cabrera off waivers from the New York Yankees. 

This was a missed chance for the Giants to do exactly what they did years ago when they picked up Thairo Estrada from the Yankees. Estrada was acquired by the Giants back in 2021 after the Yankees DFA’d him. He wound up being a solid player for the Giants, even winning the Willie Mac Award in 2023.

In Estrada’s four years with San Francisco he hit a collective .254/.303/.398 with 44 home runs, 180 runs batted in, and 47 stolen bases. He was never an All-Star or anything, but he was a solid player who served as a slightly above average second baseman for San Francisco for a few years.

Cabrera seems like he could fit into that same mold. In his career with the Yankees he’s hit .232/.292/.343 with 20 home runs, 95 runs batted in, and 15 stolen bases. Those aren’t incredible numbers, but if given more opportunities he seems like a guy who could turn into a productive player just like Estrada.

Giants should be more active on the waiver wire

The Giants may be pretty set in the infield going into next season, but it’s never a bad idea to get a little bit of depth even if the looming roster crunch in the offseason means there are going to be a lot of 40-man roster casualties. Cabrera wouldn’t have been a bad guy to take a chance on. They could get him some at-bats at the end of this season and worst-case scenario if he didn’t show much promise they could just DFA him in the offseason.

We know that president of baseball operations Buster Posey doesn’t like to play the waiver wire game the way that his predecessor Farhan Zaidi did. Zaidi could find diamonds in the rough every now and then but Posey has prized roster continuity more even though all the injuries this season have forced San Francisco to cycle through a ton of players.

But with how this season has gone, maybe we will see Posey try to improve at the margins more. With all of these injuries, depth is only going to be more important going forward so even though they weren’t able to get Cabrera, look for them to make more waiver claims going forward. 

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