Kevin Gausman’s season ended the same way his run with the Cubs began to feel: with some real value, but not enough to change the bigger picture. After the San Diego Padres handled Chicago in the Wild Card round and Gausman took the loss in Wednesday night’s deciding game, the former SF Giants right-hander is headed for free agency. And for San Francisco, a reunion suddenly looks like one of the cleanest fits on the board.
The Cubs got Gausman from Toronto at the deadline, but his time in Chicago was more steady than special. He went 4-2 with a 4.83 ERA across nine starts, while striking out 57 and walking only 11 in 50 innings. That strike-throwing stood out, especially for a Giants staff that had major trouble in that area in 2026.
There was a window where this could have been a different story. If the Giants had been in position to chase in 2026, Gausman would have made plenty of sense as a rotation upgrade for a team trying to push into October. Instead, San Francisco was clearly selling, so the reunion never had much of a chance.
Still, the fit hasn’t gone away.
Gausman spent time with the Giants, liked it enough to want back after the 2021 season, and then watched San Francisco let him leave in free agency without much of a battle. He landed in Toronto on a five-year, $110 million deal, and that contract worked out well.
From 2022 to 2025, he posted a 3.48 ERA with the Blue Jays. Even in 2026, when his ERA climbed to 4.51, he remained a dependable starter over the life of that deal.
Now he’s back on the market, though the timing is murky. It’s unclear whether he’ll sign before a likely lockout that is expected to begin on December 1 if MLB and the MLBPA do not reach a new collective bargaining agreement by then.
If and when he does sign, the Giants look like a natural destination. They need multiple rotation spots filled, and Gausman is the kind of arm that could land on a two- or three-year contract.
At 35 and coming off a down year, he shouldn’t cost top-of-the-market money, but he won’t be cheap either. A deal in the neighborhood of $15-20 million per year sounds realistic, with a two-year, $35 million agreement framed as a sensible outcome.
That would put him behind Logan Webb in the rotation, and it would reunite him with a pitcher he’s good friends with. The timing would be late, maybe five years late, but with the Giants’ rotation needing help, Gausman and San Francisco still line up almost too neatly.
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For Giants fans, the name alone may bring back an old chapter, since this is hardly the first time Mattingly has been part of a conversation that mixed pedigree, pressure and questions about how much leash a manager really gets. Philadelphia had considered other paths, with Alex Cora declining the job for 2024, but the organization ultimately settled on continuity and experience, leaving Mattingly to try to quiet the doubts that followed him through the end of last season. [Read more 🡒]