The boys at Baseball Prospectus, (and some girls, too) reminded me why I am so pessimistic about Brian Sabean's efforts:
…. the Giants owed a lot of last year's surprising 72-win season to their record in one-run games, a NL-best 31-21, of which seven were won at the expense of the woeful Padres. That's an awful lot of luck in terms of run distribution within a season, and while things should also improve in the lineup by replacing last season's initial sad-sack set with the better players who helped produce their 28-27 stretch kick, they're still counting on scoring runs with a disjointed blend of expensive, generally mediocre free agents, and a smattering of youngish, mostly ready, and mostly mediocre prospects. Given that third-base aspirant and former catcher Pablo Sandoval might be the only position player likely to be around to help the next genuinely good Giants team, renting the Big Unit made sense as part of a tepid win-now bid, but barring a major move with a Manny to be named later, this is still a team that will have to scratch and claw to ge
t to .500, let alone contend.
This isn't news to most of my loyal readers, but some of the Giants fans who stop by here keep insisting that this team is a player or two away from contending. This is not true. As Christina Karl says so eloquently, “they're still counting on scoring runs with a disjointed blend of expensive, generally mediocre free agents, and a smattering of youngish, mostly ready, and mostly mediocre prospects.”
I couldn't have said it better, although I've tried and tried.
Again, I'm not saying that I don't want to see Sandoval become a real banger. I'm not saying that I want to see Lincecum regress.
I'm saying that the moves we made this off-season were wasteful, thoughtless, and will add essentially no wins –NONE– to last seasons' 72.
Sabean's best days are behind him, way behind him. And now, so our the Giants.
Tim Lincecum saved us from a 100-loss season. He was SO DOMINANT that the team actually won about 10 more games than they “should” have.
Oh, I think two players away is not unrealistic – if their names are Babe and Lou.
I think the team will be a bit better, but by a bit I think 80 wins would be a shock. As I just read somewhere else: “seven simple words – Bengie Molina is still the cleanup hitter”. Nothing against Bengie, you understand.
Just hope Sabean doesn’t trade the farm on July 31 for the head of Ted Williams.
But Ted’s Head plays the game the “right way”. LOL
LOL…. that was pretty good. Don’t forget that Ted’s Head is a scrappy gamer too…
And then the Giants could boast not only of “Three Cy Young Award Winners”… they would have the head of a Hall of Famer in their everyday lineup. Hell thats better than Lou Seal or even the Krazy Krab.
We could enter him in the sausage races when the Giants play in Milwaukee, and challenge the Phanatic to a spell-casting duel when traveling to Philly.
Definitely a worthy addition to the Amusement Park by the Bay.
ya…affeldt looked really good today too
only 4 earned runs over one ip….genius pickup
it doesnt help when 24/7 we hear the drum beat for manny from flagship station knbr
getting manny would be the worst thing this franchise could do
You do know don’t you that BP’s PECOTA Projection System sees the Giants winning 78 games in 2009 while scoring 702 runs and allowing 720 runs.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/index.php?tm=SFN
Last year the Giants scored just 640 runs while allowing 759 runs so this is a big improvement on both the runs scored side (62 more runs) and the runs allowed side (39 fewer runs). Edgar Renteria instead of Omar Vizquel at SS and Pablo Sandoval instead of Jose Costillo at 3B are the primary reasons for the 62 run offensive improvement. Randy Johnson instead of Kevin Correia in the rotation plus Jeremy Affeldt and Bobby Howry istead of Tyler Walker and Brad Hennessey in the bullpen are the primary reasons for the defensive improvement.
I don’t see it. I know the metrics and stats they use are well thought out, but in my mind, they were lucky to win 72 games last season. I think that they were probably more like a 65 win team last year, and there’s no way they’re gonna beat that by 15 games this season.
Not to be only pessimistic, but we have no offense. NONE. I can’t understand why so many Giants fans can’t see past that.
A team with such a horrible offense cannot contend for anything, unless the top five Cy Young vote getters are all on that team.
Here is how some more Projection Systems see the Giants doing in 2009:
Cairo sees 83 wins with 744 runs scored and 721 runs allowed.
http://www.replacementlevel.com/index.php/RLYW/direct/still_too_early_2009_projections_cairo_edition
Marcel sees 84 wins with 771 runs scored and 747 runs allowed.
http://www.replacementlevel.com/index.php/RLYW/direct/extremely_early_2009_projections_marcel_edition
Hardball Times sees 83 wins with 702 runs scored and 673 runs allowed.
http://www.replacementlevel.com/index.php/RLYW/direct/extremely_early_projected_standings
Even Chone porjects the 2009 Giants to win 77 games.
http://www.baseballprojection.com/2009standings.htm
Is there more work to do? Damm Straight! But the plan is not to try and do it all now with expensive free agent veterans. The plan to to build towands being truely competative every year by getting to around .500 this year and continuing to improve each year thereafter. This is exact how the Giants should be trying to get back to where they were from 1997 thru 2004.
I agree with GRM. Unfortunately, there’s so much uncertainty with pretty much every player Sabean acquired or decided to give a chance to that I understand the pessimism that abounds right now. I personally cannot even bring myself to realistically expect anything higher than 80 wins, and I expect even fewer than that.
Rainman,
Why can’t you see what I am saying?
They did sign expensive free agents the last couple of years. The only problem is that they signed the shitty ones. And as for the projections…..
Forget about the fucking projections. I mean, Marcel says the Giants are going to score 131 more runs this season? Huh? That’s almost a run per game!!! THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!!!!!
Even the Hardball Times projection is questionable, at just a 62 run increase, but even if the team scored 750 runs, an almost incomprehensible improvement for a team that basically did nothing to improve the offense from last season, the team is still a long shot to reach .500.
And as for the “plan” you’re talking about, all I can say is, what plan? We just added a 45-year old pitcher –for something like $6.5 million– who is only about 5 years past being good, a 34-year old shortstop –for $9 million per– who is predicted to hit 10 home runs and post a .330 OBP, and a couple of waiver wire castoffs that other teams wouldn’t even go to arbitration with.
I mean, what the hell are you talking about?
There is little to no chance that this team will be anywhere near competitive, except for the days that Lincecum pitches; and not for nothing, but if you need a Cy Young caliber performance every day to win, YOUR TEAM IS HORSESHIT!!!!!
I’m sorry to be such an asshole, but I can’t see what you are seeing. Sabean and the team ownership and management have been putting absolute crap on the field for going on five years. When we can see even major league average talent at most of the positions on the diamond, you can talk to me about contending. Until then, good luck seeing your Giants on Sportscenter the days Lincecum is watching in the dugout.
This team is three to four years away, and has been since Sabean lost his touch –and his mind– in 2004.
Note: We only wish Rentalfonso was 34. If he is a day under 38 I’ll eat my socks.
All you need to know. “Now batting cleanup… Bengie Molina”.
Keep in mind, that in the 51 years the Giants have been in San Francisco, they have never had 5 losing seasons in a row. Never. Not under Stoneham. Not under Lurie…neither of which enjoyed the friendly confines of PacBell and the lucrative Comcast Cable deals. They have only had 4 losing seasons in a row once before that in 1974,5,6 and 1977. Ironically commencing not long after they got rid of Mays and a year later trading Bobby Bonds for Aaron Row….er uhm Bobby Murcer.
They are less than 50/50 to break even this year. And even if they do, it will be because the Rockies and Padres will be even more pathetic, and even less interesting. All signs point to a continuation of the worst era dollar for dollar in San Francisco Giants baseball history. They are the NL version of the Baltimore Orioles who have sucked for so long, they don’t even know what its like to exhale anymore.
But worst of all, there is nothing more maddening than watching your team come to bat, game after game, month after month, season after season, and being pathetic, powerless and nondescript, as well as hopeless and unwatchable.
You need to start looking at things in terms or the end of the MaGowan era and the beginninging of the Neukom era.
The following are leftover mistakes from the end of the Magowan era:
1) Barry Zito (7 years @ $126M with 5 years @ $101M to go)
2) Aaron Rowand (5 years @ $60M with 4 years @ $48M to go)
2) Dave Roberts (3 years @ $18M with 1 year @ $6.5M to go)
In my judgement these mistakes were primarily made by Peter MaGowan with an assist from Brian Sabean (but, which one of us ever really has the guts to tell the boss his stratagy is wrong?). The signing of Barry Zito was all about a desire to find a new “face of the franchise” (about as dumb a priority as one can have) to replace Barry Bonds “the image” coupled with the frustration of being turned down by both Alfonzo Soriano and Carlos Lee. The signing of Aaron Rowand was all about getting a “real team player” a “gamer” (almost as dumb a priority as “face of the franchise”) to replace Barry Bonds “the player”. I will give you that Dave Roberts is most likely on Brian Sabean with an assist from Bruce Bochy. The idea was to replace Moises Alou’s bat with Dave Roberts’ glove and legs and it was a bad idea.
You are wrong to think that the following are more of the same:
1) Edgar Renteria (2 years @ $18.5M)
2) Randy Johnson (1 year @ $8M)
3) Jeremy Affeldt (2 years @ $8M)
4) Bobby Howry (1 year @ 2.75M)
You are wrong most of all because none of these deals are long term unlike the leftover bad deals from the end of the MaGowan era. But you are also wrong bucuase each of these players actually improves the Giants. How can you not project Edgar Renteria to way outperform what we got from Omar Vizquel last year? How can you not project Randy Johnson to way outperform what we got from Kevin Correia last year? How can you not project Jeremy Affeldt and Bobby Howry to outperform what we got from Tyler Walker, Brad Hennessey, and Vinnie Chulk last year?
You also need to open your eyes and see the plan that is already unfolding. The Giants have been rebuilding the pitching staff for awhile now and are just about done. They should be done and have an all homegrown quality pitching staff when the contracts of Johnson, Affeldt, and Howry expire. In addition, the Giants have also started the rebuild of the positon players and have already found one real MLB starter in Fred Lewis with a very strong likelihood that Pablo Sandoval is even better. In my judgement there is a better then 50% chance that they will also find two more real MLB starters from Travis Ishikawa, Kevin Frandsen, Manny Burriss, Nate Schierholtz, John Bowker, and Eugenio Velez. The position players in the farm system are greatly improved with a good chance that another even better crop will be ready to harvest by 2011. Finally, I believe there is a good chance the Giants will be right and quality young position players that happen to have contacts their current teams start finding hard to pay for will become available at this year’s trade deadline and in the next offseason.
Bottom line, I see the Giants future as bright and I see them as very much being on the right track with a real plan that is starting to pay off.
Agreed. Remember, despite the fact that Sabean ignored the farm system for so long (which makes no real sense, but it’s in the past now), he got the opportunity to be a GM by heading up a Yankees scouting department that produced the likes of Jeter, Rivera, Williams, Posada, Petite. Sabean has made huge improvements in our farm system, and finally has the Giants heading in the right direction. The signings this offseason were all short-term stopgaps because our farm system doesn’t have MLB ready players to fill those spots yet. We’ve found some MLB talent like Lewis and hopefully Sandoval so far, hopefully Ishikawa/Frandsen/Burris/Velez/Schierholtz produces another actual MLB starter or two. At least we’re going to find out if any of them can hack it.
That said, I also agree with John and mia – Sabean is responsible for the Giants lack of success recently, and it is entirely fair to blame him. I just see lots of evidence that we’re moving in the right direction now. GM’s can learn from their mistakes just like everyone else.
I think we will win more games than last year. We have improved the offense a little and the bullpen a little and the starters a little as well. And the Padres are just as woeful, and I expect we will thump on them just like last year. .500 would be a spectacular improvement, and not impossible.
Sabean did not screw up last year or this off-season. That is the most charitable thing we can say about him these days. I would have loved to see a GM change when Magowan stepped down (and Bonds was sent packing), but it didn’t happen. Neukom’s recent endorsement of both Sabean and Bochy was discouraging. That being said, I’m excited about the youngsters, and can’t wait to see more of them. I’d rather lose with marginal young ‘uns than with over-the-hill FAs.