Guardians previous Alex Cobb trade tree just gained another branch after Nationals-Giants swap 

In 2024, the Guardians made a trade deadline miscalculation when they traded prospects Nate Furman and Jacob Bresnahan to the Giants in exchange for Alex Cobb. While the deal made sense at the time considering Cleveland’s rotation was hanging on by a thread, he only ended up throwing 23 innings for the Guardians due to the hip injury that was plaguing him at the time of the trade. 

Cobb’s lack of production has all but guaranteed the trade is going to go down as a loss for the Guardians, but the degree of that loss took an interesting twist on Sunday when the Giants traded Furman to the Nationals for minor leaguer Tony Neubeck. 

Furman may not have done much with the Giants last season, but now he has a great chance to work his way into the Nationals’ middle-infield picture (so long as he doesn’t end up on the wrong side of a roster crunch again). 

Former Guardians prospect Nate Furman is now a national

Furman ended up making it into 22 games with the Giants last season, where he recorded a .125/.243/.125 slashline with three RBI. In a perfect world San Francisco likely would have kept him in the minors for the entire season so he could get some extra work, but they were essentially forced to call him up at the end of the season as they navigated their bevy of injuries. 

While that worked for them in the regular season, the bill is coming due now thanks to today’s 40-man roster cutdown deadline. The Giants had 50 players on their 40-man roster thanks to all their players on the 60-day injured list shifting back over to the active roster, so they elected to trade Furman to the Nationals instead of losing him for nothing. 

But that doesn’t mean Furman’s done sweating a roster crunch, as he’s now part of a Nationals team that has 45 players on their 40-man roster. They freed up one spot by designating Richard Lovelady to make room for Furman, but they’re still going to make some more moves to cut down their roster. 

Although Furman’s big league results last season left a lot to be desired, the Nationals were likely enticed by his strong minor league track record. He has a career .292/.400/.404 slashline in 1,287 plate appearances in the minors, and is coming off a season where he had a .791 OPS with seven home runs and 19 steals. He'd be a solid utility option off the bench behind All-Star CJ Abrams (so long as they don't trade him).

The Giants are in prime position to win this trade thanks to Bresnahan’s rise through their system, but now the Nationals could benefit from Cleveland’s mistake.

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