Re-Energized Jake Peavy Proving to Be Biggest Steal of Trade Season

It is happening all over again. 

For a second consecutive year, Jake Peavy has gone from totally expendable to a rejuvenated piece of a team’s World Series dreams.

This time, the San Francisco Giants are benefiting from the veteran pitcher’s resurgence late in the season, and with a wave of dark clouds currently hovering above this club, Peavy has been a beaming ray as the playoffs creep closer.

The Giants went into Peavy’s Monday start against the Los Angeles Dodgers, both clubs’ most meaningful series of the season, having lost six of their previous eight games and missing another critical piece of their roster, Angel Pagan. And all Peavy did was carry a no-hitter into the fifth inning, hold the suddenly heavy-hitting Dodger lineup to two runs over seven innings and help end a three-game losing streak as the Giants won in 13 innings. 

For the Giants, the outing was what they have come to expect from their trade-deadline acquisition, just as the Boston Red Sox had at this time a year ago after they traded for Peavy in another deadline deal. After a couple of unimpressive outings (eight earned runs in 12 innings) to start his Red Sox run, Peavy’s next seven turns were strong—3.09 ERA and 0.99 WHIP. It has been the same for the Giants after two mediocre starts (eight runs in 13 innings).

Since then, Peavy has a 1.63 ERA and 1.04 WHIP in nine starts with eight quality starts, six of at least seven innings, and the team has won five times with Peavy on the mound after losses in that time. Not only has he been good, he’s been a stopper acquired for no more than two castoff minor league pitchers.

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The difference between Jake Peavy’s ERA in Boston and in San Francisco is bigger than his ERA in San Francisco.

— Matthew Kory (@mattymatty2000) September 23, 2014"

“He’s been a godsend to us,” Giants general manager Brian Sabean told The Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo. “Very timely.”

The Giants were in need of a booster shot to the rotation since Matt Cain was lost for the season once he hit the disabled list with an elbow injury, with surgery to follow last month. Tim Lincecum was ineffective for most of the season and has since been banished to the bullpen. Tim Hudson has struggled since Aug. 27, giving the Giants a 9.92 ERA in his last four starts, and Ryan Vogelsong hasn’t come close to duplicating his feel-good 2011 campaign in his last two seasons. 

It’s been a while since this was the case, but the Giants’ dead spot was their pitching, and it needed an upgrade if the team was going to compete for a division title with the pitching-rich Dodgers and/or a postseason berth.

Peavy was that upgrade, and as it is turning out, he might become the most valuable deadline acquisition of 2014 by helping save San Francisco’s season. Jon Lester has been just about the same pitcher as Peavy since he was dealt from the Red Sox to the Oakland A’s, but because not even his performance has been able to stop Oakland’s tailspin, you have to give the nod to Peavy for now.

At the time of Peavy’s last two trades over the last two years, he didn’t seem like the kind of front-line starter who could transform a rotation. In 2013, he was an average pitcher with the Chicago White Sox, with a 4.28 ERA and a 99 ERA-plus. This season with the Red Sox, Peavy was 1-9 with a 4.72 ERA, 1.43 WHIP and an 82 ERA-plus.

But the Giants needed something to prop up their falling rotation, and the thought was Peavy had the recent history of going from bad to good and was familiar with the NL West from his seven-plus seasons with the San Diego Padres. On top of that, putting Peavy back into a division that has three super pitcher’s parks— AT&T Park, Dodger Stadium and Petco Park are among the stingiest places in the majors—had to help his production coming from the American League East, home to some small yards and deep lineups. That thinking has been accurate to this point.

Ralph Freso/Getty Images

Another thing the Giants got in Peavy was a vocal leader, which the team lacked this season. It also lacked on-field emotion at times, and he is long on that with poignant displays after both good and bad plays.

“He’s a vocal guy,” catcher Buster Posey told Cafardo. “We don’t have a ton of vocal guys on the team. When he gets to saying things, people listen.”

Peavy will become a free agent after this season because he won’t meet one of the requirements for his player option to kick in. He needed at least 400 innings pitched over the last two seasons, but he is currently at 342 1/3. Although he is 33 years old, he will draw heavy interest if he leads the Giants rotation with quality outings in October.

Assuming Peavy can keep up this kind of production in the playoffs, the Giants will be forced to explore keeping him next season. Their rotation will be filled with continuing uncertainty, so re-signing Peavy as a free agent is a legitimate possibility, particularly when he brings more to the clubhouse than just his right arm.

Retaining Peavy also keeps him away from the Dodgers, a team needing back-end rotation help and San Francisco’s chief competition in the division, adding to the reasons the Giants might want to keep him on their payroll for 2015.

Anthony Witrado covers Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. He spent the previous three seasons as the national baseball columnist at Sporting News, and four years before that as the Brewers beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.