Joe Sheehan takes all of my frustration and angst, and puts words to it that make me feel, quite frankly, inadequate:
…. The problem isn’t that this is a bad team. It’s that it’s a bad and boring team, with veterans who weren’t good enough to win when they had Bonds as a teammate, and now form a lineup that calls to mind the waning days of the Rachel Phelps Era. In a legitimate rebuilding, the Giants would eat the contracts of Roberts, Aurilia, Winn, and Durham. (Molina is miscast as a cleanup hitter, but he’s not a bad player, and he’s not blocking anyone of note.) They would play Fred Lewis, Nate Schierholtz, Rajai Davis, and Eugenio Velez. It’s not like those players are anything special, either, but there’s at least some chance of upside, and you can sell inexperienced players under the guise of a youth movement. (Although of that group only Velez is actually young.) The Giants don’t have the stomach for this, however, so they have this desiccated group of role players starting. In a related story, they lost 5-0 yesterday.
This isn’t an effort at rebuilding. Frankly, I have no idea what it is, and I suspect the Giants front office doesn’t, either. The 2008 roster, the 2008 season, seems to be more about pretending that the 1993-2007 seasons didn’t happen than anything else, which is a ridiculous way to put together a baseball team.
…. I’m not going to tell you that that’s a better lineup than the one Bruce Bochy started yesterday. Quite frankly, I’m astounded that a professional baseball organization could be so ill-prepared for injuries that upon losing one shortstop and one third baseman, it was left with waiver bait and a guy who was overmatched in A-ball as its best options.
Here’s the fun fact that Joe left out; that this is a $90 million dollar team. Not for nothing, but dollar for dollar, this could well be the worst team in baseball history.
I’m equally astounded, astounded that Peter Magowan could sit in a room with Brian Sabean right now and not strangle the life out of him. Caught unaware that your ancient team has injuries? Absolutely no talent whatsoever in the system? Over-priced “veterans” with no skill left? No closer, no real reliever, to speak of, no cleanup hitter, no real defense…. I mean, you’ve got to be kidding somebody.
To suggest that this team is the way it is because Barry Bonds was here is absurd, and a flat-out lie. This team is the way that it is because Brian Sabean has lost the ability to evaluate talent effectively, (if he ever really had it), and has never had any ability whatsoever to put a correct price tag on what value he does seek. Consequently, we have guys making $5 million or more per season who produce at a rate that most teams pay less than $1 million for; which, of course, hamstrings the team in it’s efforts to get real superstar talent.
We have too many outfielders, but that doesn’t stop Sabean, who went out and overpaid for perhaps the sixth best centerfielder in the NL, while doing nothing to address the fact that we had no first or third basemen.
I mean, seriously, I could go on and on. Our GM has failed so spectacularly, it beggars description.
Wow.
Hat tip to El
13 Backtalkers
nothing against sheehan, but he might be a bit confused in regards to nates age
nate turned 24 this past feb….makes him young in my book
he is right about everything else….not that it matters
here is the peter the pink interview on knbr….listen and be amazed
http://media.knbr.com/knbr/0401magowan1.mp3
http://media.knbr.com/knbr/0401magowan2.mp3
one other thing….that kid who was overmatched in a ball, has taken 3 bbs in two games
he could teach these vets a thing or two
NO WAY! Are you crazy? We don’t want players clogging up those bases!
Here’s something to look forward to: The Giants will have to now overpay any decent FA position player (not that they haven’t done so in the past) because AT&T is not a hitter’s park, they don’t have a manager guys will play for at a discount, and they’re a losing team.
Something to actually look forward to: this year’s draft. Fortunately, the Giants were so bad last season that they didn’t have to give up their 1st (#5 overall). It’s not the fairest of rules, but hey, it helps us out.
Does anyone know what DePo is up to? I was upset when he signed on with the Dodgers, and equally happy when they let him go. I just read a revisiting of his LoDuca-Penny trade ( http://www.sportshubla.com/2008/04/01/073104-revisited/ ) via Baseball Musings, and it reminded me that I’d like to see someone like that running the Giants. I can only imagine what some forward thinking would have done during the Bonds Era.
Speaking of which, I heard Peter Magowan on KNBR yesterday and he admitted that if he had it to do over again that he’d sign Vlad . . . no shit. He mentioned Vlad’s back as a concern (which is was, to some), but what really surprised me was when he said that many people were WRONG in assuming that he’d take over for Bonds, because they had him under contract for 3 more years, and he ended up staying for 5. Forgetting the fact that Vlad’s still playing, wouldn’t it have been just as good to (if not BETTER) to pair them up then to simply replace one with the other? What kind of ass-backwards logic is that?
Oh, and of course, he conceded that if they had signed Vlad that they wouldn’t have made the DoublePl-AJ trade, which would have kept Nathan, Bonser, & Liriano in Orange & Black. Weaksauce, indeed.
i dont want depo
wanna know why he came out ahead on the penny/lopuca trade??? cuz he and the entire bums org knew that lopuca was roided up
something they left out of the details
and where does peter the pink state that on second thought he wouldve gone after vlad?
he reiterated the injury issue (total bullshit, as they went after el fatso and omar) and talked about bonds
peter the pink has no clue and thats why he is sticking with a clueless gm
and im sick of razor and mr t….they ask questions that peter is not going to answer…..
why not hit him with real questions like….ok, so the philosophy was to draft pitchers in order to get position players….where are those position players?
after 12 years of drafting mainly pitchers, why spend so much money on the fa market going after a starter and a closer….both who suck?
why the fuck are you talking about 2017….do you think that giant fans are gonna support a team that cant get its financial act together until the stadium is payed off?
and why are you so afraid of rebuilding?
I’m not trying to say that DePo is the best case scenario by any means, but you’re telling me you wouldn’t want him over Sabes? I name dropped DePo because I had just read the article I mentioned, and I wondered if he was available. I even stated that I’d like to see someone LIKE that running the Giants, and expounded with the idea that it be someone who was forward-thinking (as opposed to backward-thinking like Sabes, “He’s been in the league HOW LONG? Sign him up!”).
Even if the ONLY reason DePo made out so well on the Penny-LoDuca trade was because he knew something about LoDuca that other teams didn’t, it STILL puts him miles ahead of our current management on internal talent evaluation alone.
Not trading Schmidt when his contract was up (when he had actual VALUE still), significantly overpaying to retain marginal players (Bernard, Perez, etc? SERIOUSLY?), giving up draft picks on guys nobody else even wants (how many picks have the Giants lost in the last 10 years? How does that help an organization?), trading a ton of talent for a player who doesn’t even fill a major need position (DoublePl-AJ), and countless other gaffes are proof enough that it’s time to move on.
I’m not saying anything new here, as John’s said it all before, and could rattle off a list infinitely longer than this.
As to your question about where Magowan makes the Vlad comment, it was during the series of questions that he wouldn’t answer that you referenced (he wouldn’t even admit that he overpayed Zito, stating that “you can’t evaluate a 7-year deal after 1 year” – not an exact quote). Ralph even made a comment like, “We got him to answer one!” or “admit to one” or something along those lines.
I just listened to the interview again, and have a more specific answer to your inquiry about Vlad the Impaler.
The Vlad commentary starts at about the 6-minute mark on the second mp3 listed at the top. The 7:21 is where you can here the question specifically…
Ralph: “How ’bout this; if you had THAT one to do over again, would you have done that one?”
Magowan: “Yes”
…
Ralph: “Finally after all these years I got a yes.”
John -
I didn’t really want to post this here, but no longer see a separate e-mail link for you on the site. I’m not sending it to stand up for the Giants, but it seems only fair to take this into account re the ostensible purging of Bonds from the ballpark. If nothing else, it should remind us to take the words of Bruce Jenkins et al with a grain of salt. You and most of the commenters here are good about that when the sportswriters are being stupid about Bonds & steroids, but it seems we’re less so when they strike a chord with resentment toward the front office. For what it’s worth, here’s the front office’s letter to the Chronicle, which no on seems to have read before jumping all over them:
LETTER FROM THE GIANTS
Bonds is remembered at AT&T
Staci Slaughter
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Editor – We were extremely disappointed to read the recent assertions by two Chronicle columnists that the Giants are somehow attempting to erase the memory of Barry Bonds from our ballpark. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The only things that were removed from the ballpark were the items that were relevant to Barry as an active Giants player.
All of the plaques and markers that recognize his historic achievements and contributions remain on permanent display in and around the ballpark. This includes seven of the 14 plaques in the Giants History Walk and his seven MVP awards, along with the other Giants who won the honor (Jeff Kent, Kevin Mitchell, Willie McCovey and Willie Mays). On Opening Day, we will unveil a plaque on the right-centerfield brick wall marking his record-breaking home run. Additionally, Barry Bonds is prominently featured in our 50th Anniversary displays around the ballpark and on the cover of our media guide – which highlights some of the Giants greats over the past 50 years.
The contributions of Barry Bonds to our club and our community can never be erased in the minds of the millions of fans who witnessed all that he achieved in a Giants uniform over 15 seasons.
- Staci Slaughter, Senior Vice President of Communications, San Francisco Giants
This article appeared on page D – 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle
This is a somewhat fair point — given that Bonds is no longer on the team, it does make sense to take down things like the home run counter, etc. I think perhaps some of these moves were seen differently under the light of subsequently blaming Bonds for our current team of players, which is naturally beyond absurd.
John -
I have to agree with everything you said, but want to note that the Giants reduced their payroll to about $77 million this year (17th overall) so at least we’re not spending top 10 money to suck this bad…
On another note, I’m sick of having this “gamer” crap shoved down my throat. A real “gamer” doesn’t overthrow the cutoff and give runners free bases (Rowand opening day). A real “gamer” can make defensive plays (Durham giving up the first hit by diving too far on a ground ball yesterday). And “gamers” don’t lose games like we did yesterday, letting a runner on second score on an infield single? Really Durham? The audacity of the Giants executives to sell us this bullshit in this fashion pisses me off, if our veterans played fundamental baseball it would be one thing but they’re making the same mistakes the kids would for $5 million a year more, without the potential improvement the kids might make.
What’s so idiotic about the team this season is that they could have the same shitty record while playing younger players, but the difference would be the support of the dedicated fan (albeit frustrated support) as opposed to utter indifference. I’ll say this much, at least Isiah Thomas is TRYING to make progress with the Knicks…