Alex Cobb

Giants Activate Alex Cobb From 10-Day Injured List

By Mark Polishuk | May 1, 2022 at 2:05pm CDT

May 1: The Giants announced Cobb’s activation to reporters, including Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle, with Kervin Castro being optioned in a corresponding move.

Apr. 30: The Giants will activate right-hander Alex Cobb from the 10-day injured list prior to Sunday’s game against the Nationals, San Francisco manager Gabe Kapler told reporters (including MLB.com’s Maria I. Guardado). Cobb is scheduled to make his third start of the season.

Returning Sunday will put Cobb’s IL stint slightly beyond the 10-day minimum, as his placement came in between games of the Giants’ doubleheader with the Mets on April 19. Cobb started the first game and lasted 4 1/3 innings before being removed after a mound visit from the team trainer.

The Giants have had to deal with several absences in the early going, due to both injuries and a minor COVID-19 outbreak on the roster. The position player side has been hardest hit, though both Cobb and Anthony DeSclafani (right ankle inflammation) have missed time, and DeSclafani isn’t expected to return for at least a few more weeks. Fortunately for San Francisco, the rest of the rotation has picked up the slack, with Logan Webb, Carlos Rodon, and Alex Wood all ranging from good to great thus far in 2022. The Giants have also gotten good results from the opener/bulk pitcher combo of Sam Long and Jakob Junis.

Cobb is in his first season in San Francisco, signing a two-year, $20MM free agent deal with the Giants just prior to the lockout. Injuries have hampered Cobb over the last three seasons, though he pitched well when healthy last year with the Angels, delivering a 3.76 ERA and some solid secondary numbers over 93 1/3 innings.

Giants Place Alex Cobb On Injured List

By Darragh McDonald | April 20, 2022 at 12:04pm CDT

Between the two games of last night’s doubleheader, the Giants made a roster move, announcing that right-hander Alex Cobb had been placed on the 10-day IL with a right adductor strain. Fellow righty Yunior Marte was recalled to take his place on the roster.

Cobb had started the opening match of the doubleheader, but was pulled after throwing 60 pitches over 4 1/3 innings, escorted by the club’s trainer. Cobb himself didn’t seem especially worried about the injury, as relayed by Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic and Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. That suggests that Cobb could stay on the IL for the 10-day minimum or something close to it. Signed to a two-year, $20MM deal (plus a club option) just before the lockout, the 34-year-old has made two starts on the season thus far, logging 9 1/3 innings with a 4.82 ERA, 35% strikeout rate and 5% walk rate.

Even if he isn’t out for long, the timing of the injury is a bit awkward for the club. They are in the middle of a stretch where they play 14 games in 13 days, thanks to yesterday’s twin bill. They don’t have an off day until next Thursday, April 28th. Logan Webb started the second game yesterday and is lined up to throw on regular rest on the 24th. The next three days will see Carlos Rodon, Anthony DeSclafani and Alex Wood take the hill, with a starter needed to pitch on the 23rd and likely one more start beyond that.

As for Marte, the 27-year-old made his MLB debut earlier this year and now has two scoreless innings on his big league résumé.

Giants Sign Alex Cobb

By Anthony Franco | December 1, 2021 at 7:09am CDT

The Giants have continued to build their rotation by signing right-hander Alex Cobb. The Beverly Hills Sports Council client signed a two-year contract worth $20MM in guaranteed money, and Cobb is set to earn $9MM in each of the 2022 and 2023 seasons. San Francisco also holds a $10MM club option on Cobb for 2024, with a $2MM buyout.

Cobb spent the 2021 campaign in Orange County, after the Angels acquired him from the Orioles last winter. It was an eyebrow-raising move at the time, since Cobb had struggled with both injuries and underperformance over his three seasons in Baltimore. The ten-year big league veteran rewarded the organization’s faith, though, tossing 93 1/3 innings of 3.76 ERA/3.83 SIERA ball across 18 starts.

Along the way, Cobb generated more whiffs than he ever had before. His 11.2% swinging strike rate and 24.9% strikeout percentage were both career-best marks, each checking in a touch above the respective league averages for starting pitchers. Cobb paired that uptick in whiffs with his typically robust ground-ball tendencies (53.3%) and solid control (8.4% walk rate) en route to a nice season.

Cobb’s run prevention numbers were partially propped up by one of the league’s lowest home run rates (0.48 per nine innings). It’s unlikely he’ll continue to be quite that successful keeping the ball in the yard moving forward. But Cobb’s blend of average or better whiffs, control and grounders should allow him to be a solid back-of-the-rotation option even if his homer rate regresses. The bigger concern might lie in his health, as he had separate injured list stints this past season due to blisters and right wrist inflammation. Cobb didn’t seem any worse for wear after returning from his time on the IL, though, with the velocity on all of his offerings remaining intact during his final few outings of the year.

The Giants entered the offseason known to be targeting rotation help. Only Logan Webb remained under club control from the team’s primary five this past season. They’ve already re-signed Anthony DeSclafani and reportedly were nearing agreement to bring Alex Wood back. Kevin Gausman’s departure to the Blue Jays leaves one prominent vacancy, though, and teams often have to rely on seven or eight starters to navigate the injury attrition of a full season.

There’s still room for further additions to the rotation, and there should be plenty of spending capacity with which to do so. Cobb’s two-year, $20MM guarantee narrowly tops MLBTR’s two-year, $16MM forecast entering the winter.

The Giants now have a little more than $113MM in estimated 2022 commitments, according to Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. For a franchise that has logged player payrolls in the $200MM range in the past, a fairly modest Cobb signing shouldn’t be especially prohibitive to the club’s future goals.

Jon Heyman of the MLB Network (Twitter link) first reported that the deal was being finalized, and Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reported the club was making a strong run at the right-hander last week. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (via Twitter) reported the $20MM figure, NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic (Twitter link) reported the existence of the option year, and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweeted the salary breakdown.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Giants In Discussions With Alex Cobb

By Steve Adams | November 22, 2021 at 12:07pm CDT

The Giants are in talks with free-agent righty Alex Cobb and appear to be making a “strong push” to sign the veteran righty, tweets Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (Twitter link). Cobb is represented by the Beverly Hills Sports Council.

If a deal is indeed finalized, Cobb would fill one of four rotation vacancies for a San Francisco club that saw each of Kevin Gausman, Alex Wood, Anthony DeSclafani and Johnny Cueto reach free agency at season’s end.

The 34-year-old Cobb had something of a resurgence with the Angels last season after being acquired in an offseason deal that sent minor league infielder Jahmai Jones to Baltimore. Injuries still hampered Cobb — as has oft been the case in his career — with a wrist issue and blisters combining to limit him to 93 1/3 frames. However, when healthy, Cobb was the best he’s been in years, pitching to a 3.76 ERA with a 24.9% strikeout rate, an 8.4% walk rate and a huge 53.3% ground-ball rate.

In fact, in some regards, the 2021 season was Cobb’s best as a big leaguer. While the workload wasn’t as large as he or the Angels would’ve liked, Cobb posted career-best marks in strikeout percentage, swinging-strike rate (11.2%) and opponents’ chase rate (34.6%).

That 2021 output marked a stark turnaround for Cobb, who pitched just 217 total innings during three years with the Orioles after signing a four-year, $57MM contract in advance of the 2018 campaign — the final major acquisition from Baltimore before the eventual housecleaning and rebuild process got underway that summer. Given that Cobb’s last run through free agency lingered until Spring Training was well underway, it makes sense that he’d push for an earlier deal a second time around. Both Cobb and the Angels had publicly expressed interest in a reunion, but that looks decidedly unlikely now.

As alluded to above, Cobb would be just one of many pieces needed to complete a wide-open starting pitching puzzle at Oracle Park. In addition to the quartet of open spots behind homegrown star Logan Webb, Cobb has reached 100 innings in just two of the past seven seasons. While any team signing Cobb would surely hope for better health, it’s not something that can be banked upon given a laundry list of physical ailments that have piled up in recent years.

From a payroll vantage point, the Giants ought to have little issue adding Cobb into the fold. Roster Resource’s Jason Martinez projects a $97MM payroll at present, and Cobb should command a good bit less than the $14.25MM annual salary he received on that last contract with the Orioles. MLBTR ranked Cobb 39th on our Top 50 Free Agent list, pegging for a two-year, $16MM contract.

Cardinals Want To Bring Back Luis Garcia, Add Rotation Arm

By TC Zencka | November 13, 2021 at 8:09am CDT

The Cardinals are working to re-sign late-inning reliever Luis Garcia after the hard-throwing righty’s breakout season in St. Louis, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Even if the Cardinals do bring back Garcia, they will still target at least one additional potential high leverage reliever. Alex Reyes handled much of the high leverage workload last year, but they’d like to give Reyes an opportunity to claim a rotation spot.

As for Garcia, he has long struggled with his command, but he held it together for a career-low 5.9 percent walk rate in his 34 appearances with the Cardinals last season. That kind of control with a sinking fastball averaging more than 98 mph is a killer combination that helped Garcia notch a 25.2 percent strikeout rate and 3.24 ERA/2.72 FIP in 33 1/3 innings. His innings weren’t cheap ones either, as Garcia managed to save a pair of games and preserve leads enough to earn 12 holds.

Along with Garcia and another late inning arm, Goold also mentions sinkerballing starters like Steven Matz or Alex Cobb as a potential target for the Cardinals. Both are coming off relatively strong seasons and would likely benefit from pitching in front of the Gold Glove laden infield in St. Louis. The Cardinals have starting options with Dakota Hudson coming back from Tommy John and Reyes potentially moving into the rotation, but with deadline acquisitions Jon Lester and J.A. Happ now free agents, there are a fair number of innings to go around.

No Extension Talks Yet Between Angels, Alex Cobb

By Anthony Franco | September 30, 2021 at 8:25pm CDT

Alex Cobb made his final start of the season this afternoon, allowing five runs over as many innings in a loss to the Rangers. It’s possible that was his last outing in a Los Angeles uniform, as Cobb is slated to hit free agency this winter. After the outing, the right-hander expressed a desire to stick around in Anaheim beyond this year though.

Cobb told reporters (including Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times) that while there’s not yet been any talk between the club and his representatives at Beverley Hills Sports Council, he believes both sides are amenable to extending their relationship. “We both have the understanding that there’s mutual respect there and mutual desire to reunite next year,” Cobb said. “We haven’t had those talks yet, but it’s obviously something I’d be really happy to do.”

Mutual interest in a reunion doesn’t guarantee anything will get done, of course, but it’s nonetheless the first step in any potential extension. It’s not particularly surprising the Angels would like to keep Cobb in the fold, as he posted a quietly strong first season in Anaheim (today’s start notwithstanding).

The Angels drew some criticism last offseason when they traded one-time top prospect Jahmai Jones to land Cobb from the Orioles. General manager Perry Minasian and his staff were rewarded for their faith in the veteran hurler, as he worked to a 3.76 ERA across 93 1/3 innings this season. A pair of injured list stints (one because of a blister, the other due to wrist inflammation) limited Cobb to nineteen starts, but he posted generally strong results when healthy.

Cobb backed up his sub-4.00 ERA with quality peripherals. He punched out a career-best 24.9% of opponents while handing out free passes at only an 8.4% rate. Always one of the game’s better pitchers at keeping the ball on the ground, he racked up grounders at a 53.8% clip that’s more than ten percentage points above the league average. Cobb’s 3.78 SIERA (prior to today’s start) lands right in line with his actual run prevention figure.

Soon to turn 34 years old, Cobb looks to have a real case to land a multi-year deal this winter. That didn’t seem particularly likely just a few months ago, as the first three years of his free agent contract with the Orioles didn’t go well. Between 2018-20, he tossed 217 innings of 5.10 ERA/5.22 FIP ball in Baltimore. Cobb candidly acknowledged when speaking with reporters today he’d once feared those struggles could soon limit his chances to continue playing, but he’s flipped that script with a strong showing in Anaheim.

Potential suitors — the Angels included — will have to determine precisely how much to buy into Cobb’s renewed success. His repertoire wasn’t much different than it had been in recent seasons. Cobb continued to lean on his sinker (40%), split (37%) and curveball (16%) while occasionally mixing in a four-seam fastball, as he had in Baltimore. His pitch velocity, spin and movement haven’t changed much. But Cobb has excelled at avoiding the heart of the plate and getting opposing hitters to chase pitches outside the strike zone, leading to a personal-best 11.6% swinging strike rate.

Cobb certainly benefitted from a bit of good fortune in the home run department. Even after coughing up two long balls against Texas today, his season-long HR/9 mark winds up at just 0.48. Teams wouldn’t be able to count on Cobb being quite that successful at keeping the ball in the yard moving forward, but he did execute pitches consistently enough on the whole to put together a quality bounceback season.

As is typically the case, the Angels look likely to target rotation help over the offseason. Shohei Ohtani will continue to star in his two-way role, and Patrick Sandoval earned a spot in next season’s group before suffering a season-ending back injury. José Suarez will likely hold down a spot as well, but Cobb’s departure would still leave at least two spots in the rotation to be addressed. Griffin Canning remains on hand, and top prospect Reid Detmers should get another chance at some point in the year. But injuries and/or underperformance often force teams to lean on seven or eight starters over the course of a season. Adding some veteran certainty to that group, whether Cobb or external upgrades, figures to a top priority for Minasian and his staff yet again.

Angels Designate Jake Petricka For Assignment

By Anthony Franco | September 16, 2021 at 12:43pm CDT

The Angels announced they’ve designated reliever Jake Petricka for assignment. The move creates active roster space for Alex Cobb, who has been reinstated from the 10-day injured list to start this afternoon’s game against the White Sox. As Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register notes, the move opens a spot on the 40-man roster for reliever José Marte, who is expected to be activated from the COVID-19 injured list tomorrow.

Los Angeles selected Petricka in late August, setting the right-hander up for his first MLB action in two years. Petricka earned that promotion by tossing 31 2/3 frames of 3.69 ERA ball with quality peripherals in Triple-A. He’s been bombed in his seven big league appearances, though, allowing ten runs on six hits and seven walks in six innings. The Angels will place Petricka on waivers in the coming days, and the veteran would have the right to elect free agency if he passes through unclaimed.

Cobb has missed nearly six weeks with wrist inflammation. That was his second IL stint of the year, as the 33-year-old also missed a little more than the minimum ten days in May because of a blister. Acquired from the Orioles over the winter, Cobb has been limited to fifteen starts and 77 2/3 innings.

To his credit, Cobb has been effective when healthy enough to take the ball. After struggling through a few below-average seasons in Baltimore, he’s turned things around to post a 3.82 ERA with Los Angeles. Cobb has significantly improved his strikeout and swinging strike rates in the process, vaulting from one of the league’s lowest whiff rates to above-average marks.

Cobb hasn’t seen a huge change in his raw stuff, with his pitch velocities and movements right in line with prior seasons. Instead, he’s been more adept this season at locating pitches just off the edges and avoiding the heart of the strike zone. He’s also been more willing than he was last year to lean on his splitter after falling behind batters, preventing opponents from zeroing in and teeing off on his sinker in hitters’ counts.

The Angels have long since fallen out of contention, but the next few starts will be meaningful for Cobb personally. He’s in the final season of the four-year deal he signed with the O’s over the 2017-18 offseason and will hit free agency this winter. Coming off a six-week absence due to an arm injury, demonstrating that he’s back at his early-season form could be crucial in setting his market value for potential suitors.

AL West Notes: Chapman, Fiers, Greinke, Cobb, Rodriguez

By Mark Polishuk | September 11, 2021 at 6:29pm CDT

X-rays were negative on Matt Chapman’s left foot/shin area after the Athletics third baseman fouled a ball off himself during today’s 8-6 loss to the Rangers. Chapman’s last plate appearance took place in the third inning, though he returned to the field in the next inning before being removed from the game prior to the top of the fifth. A’s manager Bob Melvin told The San Francisco Chronicle’s Matt Kawahara and other reporters that Chapman likely won’t play on Sunday out of precaution.

Since the A’s don’t play on Monday, Chapman would get a full two days of recovery time, with an eye towards returning when the Athletics begin a road series with the Royals on Tuesday. It has been an inconsistent season overall for Chapman, though he has been one of Oakland’s hotter players in the second half, batting .223/.338/.538 with 13 home runs in his 154 plate appearances entering today’s game.

Angels Promote Reid Detmers

By Darragh McDonald | August 1, 2021 at 12:53pm CDT

TODAY: The Angels officially announced that Detmers’ contract has been selected. Infielder Kean Wong was also recalled from Triple-A, while James Hoyt and Luis Rengifo were optioned to Triple-A yesterday to open up roster space.

JULY 30, 8:10PM: Cobb is indeed going on the IL, according to the team. But it’s because of “right wrist inflammation” and not a blister.

7:19 PM: The Angels are going to promote top pitching prospect Reid Detmers to make his major league debut, according to Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. Although Bollinger originally said the debut would be Saturday, the club later announced a change of plans, with Detmers starting on Sunday. Detmers is not on the 40-man roster but a corresponding move may not be necessary since the Angels subtracted from their roster with the earlier trades of Andrew Heaney and Tony Watson. Detmers, a 22-year-old lefty, is the Angels #2 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, behind only Brandon Marsh, who was himself recently promoted.

This marks a fast jaunt through the minors for Detmers, having been drafted just over a year ago. He was the 10th overall selection in the 2020 draft and is widely-considered one of the top prospects in the game. He is currently ranked #24 at Baseball America, #57 at MLB Pipeline and #39 at FanGraphs. The Angels started Detmers in Double-A earlier this year and saw him flourish immediately. In 54 innings, he had a 3.50 ERA with an amazing strikeout rate of 43.1% and a stingy walk rate of just 3%. After being promoted to Triple-A, Detmers made one start, throwing six shutout innings with nine strikeouts and no walks. The Angels obviously felt they had seen enough to fast-track him to the majors.

Detmers will step into a six-man rotation that has struggled thus far this season. Despite some excellent contributions from Shohei Ohtani, Patrick Sandoval and Alex Cobb, the rotation ERA currently sits at 4.82 on the year, which puts them 21st in the league. That’s thanks to some woeful performances from Griffin Canning, Jose Quintana and Dylan Bundy.

Quintana and Bundy have also been making appearances out of the bullpen lately. But it’s unclear how the rotation will proceed in the short-term. Ohtani might have his start pushed back after recently getting hit on the thumb of his throwing hand by a foul ball, notes Bollinger. Additionally, Alex Cobb’s blister issue has persisted enough that he may hit the IL, according to Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times.

Angels Notes: Deadline Trades, Minasian, Cobb, Ward

By Mark Polishuk | July 31, 2021 at 5:46pm CDT

The Angels acted as sellers rather than buyers at yesterday’s trade deadline, moving Andrew Heaney to the Yankees and Tony Watson to the Giants in a pair of deals. However, these were the only moves made, as “we were not focused on tearing down this team by any stretch,” GM Perry Minasian told The Los Angeles Times’ Jack Harris and other reporters. The club also explored adding players (including “higher-salary players,” as Minasian put it) to the big league roster, but couldn’t work out any such trade prior to the deadline.

“I think this group has earned the opportunity to continue to compete. To me, we did not go into this trade deadline with the mindset of, ‘Let’s do a total rebuild’ or anything like that.”

With a 51-52 record, the Angels are only on the outskirts of the playoff race, sitting seven games out of a wild card slot and 12.5 games behind the Astros in the AL West. Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon are still on the injured list, so it isn’t entirely out of the question that Anaheim could mount a late charge once those two stars eventually return, and even this slim chance of contention was enough to hold the front office off on unloading all of its rental players. Rumors circulated around closer Raisel Iglesias in particular, though Iglesias remains in an Angels uniform.

Alex Cobb is another of the rental players who wasn’t dealt, and it could be that the veteran righty’s health situation factored into that situation. Cobb was placed on the 10-day injured list last night (after the deadline) due to inflammation in his right wrist, though the injury is thought to be relatively minor.

Acquired in a trade from the Orioles last February, Cobb’s first Angels season has been very solid, as he has delivered a 3.84 ERA/3.62 SIERA over 77 2/3 innings despite dealing with blister issues and now his current wrist problem. Re-signing Cobb would certainly seem like a solid option for a Halos team that still needs pitching, and Cobb told MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger that he has let Minasian know that he would like to stay in Los Angeles, though the two sides haven’t yet had any official extension talks.

“I knew this was somewhere I wanted to be months ago….I’ve told a lot of people, you can kind of see which team is on the verge of being a championship-caliber team, and I don’t know that ’on the verge’ is right, because we have so many talented guys,” Cobb said.

In less-positive news for the Angels, the team announced that Taylor Ward suffered a non-displaced left rib fracture during a Triple-A game yesterday, and Ward has been placed on the minor league injured list. There isn’t any current word on how long Ward could be out of action.

It’s a tough break on multiple levels for Ward, who won’t accumulate any MLB service time while on the minors IL. He was only optioned to Triple-A last week after spending much of the season on the Angels’ roster, hitting a respectable .240/.322/.426 over 232 plate appearances and playing at all three outfield positions.

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