SF Giants exercise Alex Cobb's team option for 2024

The SF Giants have retained All-Star starting pitcher Alex Cobb through the 2024 season via a club option.

Steven Rissotto | Nov 5, 2023

SF Giants exercise Alex Cobb's team option for 2024 /

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San Francisco Giants

The SF Giants finally made official something everyone expected this offseason. San Francisco has exercised a $10 million club option for veteran All-Star starting pitcher Alex Cobb covering the 2024 season, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Cobb is now heading into the final year in a contract that will pay him $28 million over three years.

SF Giants starting pitcher Alex Cobb throws to first base during the fifth inning against the Oakland Athletics at Oracle Park on June 25, 2023. — SF Giants SP Alex Cobb throws to first base against the A's at Oracle Park. (2023) / Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports

It’s rather unsurprising the Giants are sticking with Cobb –– the right-hander enjoyed a career season and was one of their key contributors in a spotty rotation that oftentimes lacked depth toward the middle and backend. For much of the season, Cobb and righty Logan Webb were the only two arms receiving regular starts on the mound.

If there’s any concern regarding the decision to pick up Cobb’s option, it would be in relation to his ability to stay healthy. He battled through left hip issues that required cortisone shots and eventually prematurely concluded his season in late September.

In an effort to fix the underlying issue, Cobb underwent left hip surgery on Oct. 31 to repair a labrum and ongoing impingement problems. He'll be out approximately six months, and will likely miss Opening Day, but has been too productive to move on from.

Cobb, 36, has been one of San Francisco’s most productive free agent acquisitions over the past five seasons after inking a two-year, $20 million deal following the 2021 season. He’s completely resurrected his career, ranking high on numerous pitching leaderboards across the league.

Among National League leaders with at least 300 innings pitched over the last two seasons, Cobb is second in ground ball percentage (59.4%) and fourth in xFIP (3.20) while thriving in underlying measures like BB%, barrel rate, and chase rate. In 2023, he recorded a 3.87 ERA with 131 strikeouts and 37 strikeouts in 151 ⅓ innings of work.

Cobb was selected to his first MLB All-Star Game in 2023, joining Camilo Doval as the two representatives from the Giants. He twirled a complete-game, one-hit shutout against the Cincinnati Reds on Aug. 29. He fired 131 pitches in the effort.

If healthy, there’s little reason to doubt Alex Cobb's reliability in a big league rotation –– maybe not in the context of how the SF Giants used him this past season as a bonafide two starter, but as a contributor involved in the middle of the pack.

Published Nov 5, 2023

STEVEN RISSOTTO

Steven Rissotto (he/him) is an award-winning journalist who currently covers the San Francisco Giants for SFBay.ca and Giants Baseball Insider. At 19-years-old in 2021, he joined SF Bay Media as the Giants beat writer, covering games a few times a week during the Giants’ record-setting 107-win season. Along with his game story coverage he is also the host of RizzoCast, a baseball podcast he founded in 2020 that features interviews with professional and amateur baseball players, coaches, media, fans, and everyone else around the game. Past guests have included Tyler Glasnow, Bob Kendrick, Shawn Estes, Bill Laskey, Renel Brooks Moon, Dave Dravecky, Ned Colletti, Denard Span, Ron Wotus, Joe Maddon, J.T. Snow and more. He is also a co-host with Tylor Hall on the Shutdown Inning Podcast, a show focused on all the latest happenings around the baseball world. Both podcasts are available on YouTube and everywhere podcasts are found. Currently, he is a student at San Francisco State University where he is majoring in Journalism with an emphasis in print/online and minoring in education. At SF State, he is the managing editor for Golden Gate Xpress, the student-run newspaper. He was formerly a member of the newspaper at Skyline College, where he served as editor-in-chief and news editor while also writing sports and features. He was formerly a student-journalist at Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco, where he pitched for the baseball team and covered some of the biggest stories in campus history. This includes a new multi-sports facility on campus, the breaking news coverage of Riordan’s coed announcement and the COVID-19 pandemic. Steven is well-respected by his peers and has been honored numerous times by Student Newspapers Online, JEA, ACP, and the California Publishing Association. In 2021, he finished second in the country for Reporter of the Year for ACP among the two-year college schools.