Perhaps The Idiot is a bit harsh. Perhaps I was upset, and having gotten a good night’s sleep, maybe I should reconsider.
After all, I love the Giants, and writing angry can sometimes lead me astray.
I apologize. I let my emotions get the better of me. I was angry and disappointed, and I shouldn’t call people names, nor be so relentlessly harsh.
Sabean did upgrade the team, something we all wanted.
For all we know, the asking price of the home run twins out of Washington was Bumgarner or Posey or some other such absurdity, and they never were really available at all.
I don’t know that it wasn’t, but here’s what I do know, and what I think about it….
After 2005, a season in which the Giants scored 649 runs, and were pretty much the worst offense in baseball, Sabean acquired Shea Hillebrand and Jose Vizcaino. Read that sentence twice. He also traded for Randy Winn mid-season, who ran out an astounding .359/.391/.680 1.013 OPS line, and hit 14 home runs in 58 games, a stretch of power and production not seen before nor since. It bears mentioning that Brian Sabean decided Winn’s new found level of offense was real, ignoring Randy Winn’s career statistics up to that point; and signed him to an albatross contract immediately.
In 2006, the Giants scored 746 runs –still in the bottom five in the NL–but a huge upswing nonetheless, mostly due to a full season of Randy Winn (who managed only 11 home runs in his first full season) another 20 home run season by Pedro Feliz, Moises Alou’s 22 home runs in 98 games, Omar Vizquel’s last productive season, and a huge bounce back year from Ray Durham, (whom Sabean re-signed). When ’06 ended, Sabean began purging some of the old and broken players, primarily Moises Alou and Omar Vizquel.
At this point, it was clear that Sabean had miscalculated, in major ways, the value and potential production of players like Ray Durham, Edgardo Alfonzo, Mark Sweeney, Steve Finley, and, of course, Dave Roberts, who was the centerpiece of Sabean’s off-season. These players represented well over $50 million dollars in contracts, and for the most part, they failed to produce even league-average numbers.
We then “enjoyed” a 2007 season in which Ray Durham fell apart, Omar Vizquel fell apart, Edgardo Alfonzo fell apart, Rich Aurilia fell apart, Lance Neikro fell apart, and Dave Roberts produced almost exactly what I predicted he would, the Giants were, once again, once of the worst offense in baseball.
Let’s stop here, and think about this for a second. Since the start of the 2004 season, Brian Sabean went out and signed or traded for the following players: Randy Winn, Aaron Rowand, Edgardo Alfonzo, Shea Hillebrand, Dave Roberts, Moises Alou, Rich Aurilia, Mark Sweeney, Mike Matheny, Deivi Cruz, Alex Sanchez, Michael Tucker, Neifi Perez, AJ Pierzinski, Dustin Mohr, Ryan Klesko, Bengie Molina, Rajai Davis, Jose Castillo, and now, Ryan Garko and Freddie Sanchez.
That is an incomplete list, to be sure, and it doesn’t count re-signing a completely fluke bounce back Ray Durham, or a hundred year old Omar Vizquel. That group of hitters, with the exception of Alou, who was 39-years old when Sabean landed him, are essentially interchangeable. Not one of those players was a young power hitter with a good on base percentage. Not one of those players was an up and coming player that Sabean scouted and saw some kind of diamond in the rough possibilities. Not one of those players has done more than most teams can get from waiver wire cast-offs. Not one of those players would be considered much more than a bench warmer on a championship team, (with the disgusting exception of Double Play AJ).
This group of players “earned” well over $150 million dollars for the Giants in the last five or six years. All the while we were being told that the team couldn’t afford a real hitter. Couldn’t afford a true, power-hitting outfielder, or first baseman. Or more insultingly, while we were being told that so and so didn’t want to come here, as if no one knows that players go where the money is.
The 2009 Giants have a championship caliber pitching staff, right now. This years’ team needs, and has needed since Barry Bonds was told to go away, home runs and walks. It doesn’t need another good defender. It doesn’t need another good locker room guy. It doesn’t need another first baseman with little power, or another second baseman with no power.
This team needs a hitter whom the opposition must plan for.
Sabean has failed to acquire that player for going on five years now, and all of his moves are judged, must be judged, against that failing. His job is to put together a team. This team is a table with three legs, and he just went out and painted it. And every time Sabean trades away good, young pitching, and brings back another player whose career fits in the above list, another nail is put into the coffin of San Francisco’s championship dreams.
I know the BENJIE-MOLINA-IS-NOT-A-CLEANUP-HITTER argument has been done to death, but I find it fascinating that Bochy keeps putting Molina’s 259/270/416 batting line in the cleanup spot. At this point you have to ask: Is Bochy so ignorant that he honestly thinks Molina belongs in the 4-hole, or does he project that Molina will pout if he is moved, and so chooses not to rock the boat? Either explanation is disturbing, because it means our manager is either a dolt or is afraid to stand up to his players…
Jim; keep in mind that this is a person that keeps a cap-wearing bucket in his office. He really is a nice man. A stand up guy. He is a good human being. Better than most actually. As a player, he struggled throughout his career. As a result, he knows how hard it is to get to the show and even harder to stay in the show. Every year 1500 guys in organized ball are shown the door. For Bochy, those relationships are personal as well as professional.
Bochy is an extremely sentimental guy. In that regard, he is the anti-Alou. Too much so. He really cannot stand to hurt the feelings of those that have been loyal to him or the fellas who are his clubhouse leaders.
Leadership exhibited by a shift supervisor at an all night fast food joint is one thing. Leadership in a competitive multi-billion dollar endeavor like Major League Baseball where every move and non-move is examined in public view like the surrender terms of World War II is something else again.
Finding great field managers are difficult tasks. Managers seldom have the final word. They are charged with enabling stars to perform in an environment that gives the star the best possible exposure, and opportunity for success. Moreover, guys like Bochy and Bob Geren, Bud Black, Eric Wedge, John Russell little say so in who or how those guys are played.
There just are not that many franchises who can find that perfect combination of cooperation and autonomy that Baker and Magowan had for a while. The kind that Scioscia, Torre, Francona, LaRussa, Leyland have with their front office folks. The excellent combination of logistics, strategy and tactics, and the execution thereof.
Unfortunately, the Giants excel at none of the three. Perhaps Robert is correct in his assessment of Bill Neukom. One can only hope at this point. Thus far, new managing general partner, same as the old managing general partner.
This is the thrust of Sabean’s failings as a general manager. It is a significant set of circumstances that can only call into question the Giants veracity when they protest too much that they are serious about pursuing a championship, when presented with evidence to the contrary.
This had been ongoing since 2003. I suspect that Dusty Baker came to a similar conclusion, and finally threw up his hands in frustration inviting a final confrontation with Giants ownership.
Until proven otherwise, the Giants ownership group seems to lack the stomach and/or management personnel to compete against the Tom Werner-John Henry Red Sox, Steinbrenner’s Yankees, Jeffery Loria’s Marlins, Mike Ilitch’s Tigers, Moreno’s Angels, and worst of all, the Dodgers of the MacCourts, and GM Ned Colletti.
Robert, commentator extraordinaire, whose opinions are well articulated seems to be convinced that Orville Redenbacher look alike, Bill Neukom is indeed a man of great gumption, patience, intellect and most importantly, competitiveness. Neukom’s public comments, when compared to results or even approach, are more insipid, vacuous, and empty than his predecessor. At least, Peter Magowan had some passion, albeit it measured, when he spoke of Giants matters.
Though Robert’s arguments are persuasive, I have yet to see this will to win or competitiveness demonstrated. Unless the objective is to lead MLB in attendance or in local popularity polls, or merchandise sales and broadcast media rights, and percentage of asset growth. This worked for Peter Angelos and Camden Yards for awhile, but now the Orioles are a joke along with the Pirates, Royals, Nationals, and Padres. But eventually the riff raff is going to catch on.
While the Giants acquired yet one more in a never-ending string of platoon players and one over the hill 2b d/l candidate for the last 60 games of the season, this is some of what the “serious about competing for a championship” competitors did:
Victor Martinez to Red Sox
1B Casey Kotchman to Red Sox
SP Jake Peavy to White Sox
SP Jarrod Washburn to Tigers
3BScott Rolen to Reds
RP George Sherrill to Dodgers
1B Nick Johnson to Marlins
LF Matt Holliday to Cardinals
2B Mark DeRosa to Cardinals
SS Julio Lugo to Cardinals
SS Jack Wilson to Mariners
And last but not least, Cliff Lee was acquired by the Phillies on Thursday and came within a couple of pubics of no-hitting the useless collection of barely breathing stiffs in vanilla and orange. And this is just in the past couple of weeks that these trades took place. Every single one of those acquisitions is a bold move with risks attached. There is risk commensurate with reward.
The Giants under Sabean, take mediocre risks, and garner mediocre results. There is and was absolutely no risk in the Garko-Sanchez deals. No downside and no upside save for the eventual outcomes of two minor league propects. Sanchez is a 600k buyout after this season. Garko is a low buck rental too. if he doesn’t pan out and the Giants refuse him arbitration, just like they did with ALL-STAR CATCHER AND .300 HITTER AJ Piersynski.
These deals are not an aberration. This is traditional Giants marketing and accounting departments running roughshod over sound baseball considerations. Prospects who the quiche nibblers could care less about traded away for old, useless q-rating knuckleheads, and over the hill baseball cards.
And Sabean and the useful idiots in the broadcast media have the absolute fucking stones to blame the pitching staff for last nights loss to the Phillies, totally ignoring the fact that the garbage that Bochy sent out there is averaging about 2.5 runs per game since the All Star break. That is what you would expect a mediocre AAA team to do.
Neukom came in and took over a sinking ship. Standing around the batting cage in a bow tie, is not skillful leadership while your management folks are only allowed/encouraged/mandated to rearrange offensive deck chairs. And while this continues after five years, the best young starting tandem in a generation, are tempting the burn-out gods as the Giants are about to embark upon sweltering hot summer swings through the midwest and east coast over the next two months.
But again in Neukom’s favor, he has been steadfast in his refusal to extend the contracts of the dual idiocy of Skull and Crossbones. So all is not lost. Yet.
Update.
F. Sanchez unaccounted for.
Garko 1-12.
Taking all bets Garko doesn’t hit .240 or 25 rbi’s. Granted it’s only four games…but, hitting in Pac-Bell is a wake up call.
I know Unc Joe is a Ish fan and most likely hates the Garko deal…and impeding Ish’s development for Garko’s bat offers only downside.
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Susan
http://onlinegamesforgirls.net
ok….we are now 2 games into the sanchez era…and he hasnt suited up for either
so someone needs to show me the last team in a stretch run….who traded for a guy….WHO COULDNT FUCKING PLAY
Unc Joe,
The ChiSox just did aquiring Jake Peavy…who might play sometime in Sept…and that’s a big maybe.
Take the $150M for the horrible “veterans” and the $126M for Zito and that’s EASILY two huge bats in the lineup.
To beat a long dead horse, Vlad could have been in a Giants uni alongside Bonds which almost assuredly have resulted in at least one WS Title.
And I don’t think it’s too far out of the realm of reality to say that they could have even picked up Teixeira without Zito clogging up the books.
Sabean made his reputation on one good trade and the coattails of the greatest hitter in the history of the pastime, and continues to shill his horrible brand of baseball on the backs of some terrific young pitching (how much better would it be if he hadn’t made the useless Double Pl-AJ trade . . . which single-handedly undoes the Kent deal in my opinion).
Last time I posted I said I agreed that no changes should be made . . . I’ve changed my mind since then, twice, since I’d rather nothing have happened than what DID go down.
Sabean needs to be gone. The Giants need someone who will come in and change the culture of this franchise from the top down. It’s been far too long coming.
Southpaw,
Well said and to the point. I too, would rather nothing be done…than picking up Garko/Sanchez.
Looking at “the Idiot” and listening to him…he appears to be a full blown alcoholic….maybe that would explain the mush for a brain…and his mentality.
Keep beating the Horse. It needs to be front and center every day.
John: If your intentions were to quell the quiet rage borne of 51 years of frustration exacerbated by 11 seasons of Sabean’s arrogance, than you my friend are being Sabeanesque in your abject failure to do so. He is, now, was, and forever will be
“THE IDIOT PITCHMAN”.
Billy Mays may be gone, his legacy lives on at 24 Willie Mays Plaza.
Your San Francisco Giants. Brought to you by Oxy Clean with lineups glued together with magic putty.
Brian Sabean, the most trusted name in the NL West.
+mia,
Still not watching…but, following on the MLB mix channel. Sabean must have the goods on something huge to keep his job…because, I refuse to believe everyone in the FO is that incompetent. Hopefully I’m wrong.
Garko is the second coming of Hillenbrand. I’m tired of hearing waht his stats were in Cleveland…The Jake is hitter friendly and it will take him a month if not longer to adjust to the NL. Typical veteran mentality. I would rather Ish’s glove and .270 bat in there any day…not to mention you are further contributing to his development.
Nice to hear that F Sanchez will be available for pinch hitting duties by Sunday. Real nice.
The joke is on us.
Don’t ever stand down and apologize to Sabean, he’s the one who all Giants fans an apology. He’s always been too cute by half. He’s had access to the SF Giants checkbook for years and he’s consistently shown he should not have that authority, he squanders every opportunity presented to him.
Here’s your familiar litany of recently fallen SF players:
Edgar Renteria, Aaron Rowand, Edgardo Alfonzo, Shea Hillebrand, Dave Roberts, Moises Alou, Rich Aurilia, Mark Sweeney, Mike Matheny, Deivi Cruz, Alex Sanchez, Michael Tucker, Neifi Perez, AJ Pierzinski, Dustin Mohr, Ryan Klesko, Bengie Molina, Rajai Davis, Jose Castillo, but wait, there’s more!
These players constitute a hall of mediocrity worthy of the Royals and Sabean should take responsibility for it. He doesn’t and never has. He couldn’t put together a contender if he had the two best pitchers in baseball and two years, which he does and did.
Sabean’s a washed up baseball hack of the first order. He plays the good old boy baseball game to the nines.
Sabermetrics? Please, he wants nothing to do with that. Look above at that roster of washed up players he’s put us through. How many baseball favors has he received and backs has he scratched for this group of dogs? Agents, buddies, old friends and cronies, that’s Sabean Sabermetrics. Ryan Klesko? Give me a fucking break.
The Giants ownership knows this, but we because we pay for the 35,000 home seats every night, they could care less about the team performance. Sabean is useful because he will never rock the boat, never squeal and never deliver a strong (or well run) baseball organization either. That ‘s not the owners’ objective.
Joke is on us. Nothing changes until current ownership decides they want to win a championship and build a SF Giants dynasty. That happens when the stadium is paid off and the current ownership has decided to sell out, not until.
Spot on. Great post.
I think there are many Amen’s in OBM land.
uh, if you want to see how a real gm makes deals….for true impact players…just look what theo did today
Forgive me for saying Aldesron and not Barnes, above!
Nick Johnson has been traded to the Marlins for minor league starter Aaron Thompson.
FYI: It is interesting how similar Garko/Johnson are. Both were traded for a minor league pitcher, though Alderson may have more upside. Johnson has the much better OPS+, primarily by his superior batting eye. But he is two years older.
G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB
Garko
162 Avg. 630 557 71 157 28 1 21 93 0 0 45 102 .281 .354 .448 .801 108 250 13 21 1 6 1
Johnson
162 Avg. 654 537 85 146 35 1 19 80 6 5 99 111 .273 .398 .448 .846 124 241 15 14 2 2 9
What the Giants really need is to trade for 21-24 year old players, IMO. Sabean , if he is under pressure to deliver this year, can’t afford to care about next year. It would be nice if Neukom read moneyball, James and BP type reading in the off season before re-signing Sabean.
So a friend of mine is a big time Giants fan he was pretty upset by the Sanchez deal…, so to make him feel worse or better (I’m still not sure which) we decided to play “what if”. And I know this is probably an unwelcome excercise but it was sort of fun since I’m not that invested in teh team across the Bay. Though I do love OBM.
Anyway we created Billy Sabean and came up with a scenario that Sabean basically mimics what Billy did in the off season, plus made the moves we both thought he should have made in the offseason and at the trading deadline.
Giants trade Jonathan Sanchez/Rafeal Rodriguez/Brian Wilson for Matt Holliday (that’s the closest we could come up to Greg Smith/Carlos Gonzalez/Huston Street – and yes we both realize that’s more than the A’s gave up but we thought it would need to be since it’s an intra-divisional trade)
(Broken record or beating a deal horse) They sign Dunn to $20M/2 ($8/$12) plus a 3rd yr player option for $15/M or $1.5 buyout (to sweeten the pot if that needed to happen)
Sign Orlando Cabrera for what the A’s signed him, $4M/1
Trade Barnes/Alderson to the Angles for Howie Kendrick
Starting line-up right now:
Winn – RF
Ocab – SS
Dunn – lB
Holliday – LF
Panda – 3B
Rowand – CF
Molina – C
Kendrick – 2B
Aflfeldt slides into the closer spot. Sadowski takes over for Sanchez and maybe Espineli starts as the missing bullpen arm.
Financially it’s 7M vs 12M (but minus the approx 5M owed to Freddie Sanchez, Kenrick is basically signed for the minium) and you still lose Alderson/Barnes along with the 3 to the Rox.
But that’s a playoff team and beyond I would think with your starting rotation. And you still have Villanova, Bumgarner and Posey.
Toni,
Sorry dude or dudette…that line-up is not a playoff team….and maybe worse than the current Gigante.
Sadowski is no replacement for Sanchez.
And why mess with the best set-up guy in baseball…make no sense at all.
Too many bong hits my friend.
scott… no that’s fine. You know your team a lot better than I do. Like I said we were just trying to package a deal equivalent to what Beane had to give up to get Holliday because we decided left and first were our number one areas of concern. But then again he’s not a fan of Sanchez so maybe that’s why he thought he was expendable, hoenstly I don’t know enough to defend it. I didn’t realize the drop from Sanchez to Sadowski was that great.
Maybe it’s because I watch the A’s more but relief pitching seems to be the easiest commodity to come by, you have a very strong bullpen this year, remarkably so… so the drop from Wilson to Affledt didn’t seem that devastating. But the original trade for Holliday was more this is who the A’s gave up, if that’s the baseline, what would the Giants have to give?
Unfortunately I can’t blame bong hits…
I guess this is what you get when you have an A’s fan and an irate Giant fan trying to waste time at work.
Toni,
No offense intended. You’re spot on about wasting time with A’s/Gigantes…I try to watch other teams on MLB extra’s during the week. As =mia would say…watching the Gigantes hit is like watching paint dry.
Very few work on Friday’s anymore….so…baseball is a good diversion.
Still cannot stand the Garko deal. Adds nothing to an already inept line-up.
Hope the A’s turn it around…sooner than later.
Baseballbriefs.com tracking back …. On second thought…
Baseballbriefs.com tracking back …. On second thought…
Yeah, I agree completely with what trantor posted – the thing is, with the names mentioned, the Giants got exactly what they signed. I really don’t fault the players as they performed just like anybody should have expected them to.
Which, I agree, is the big problem with over-30 guys – you know what you’re getting, and if you don’t, it probably means you’re getting worse (see: Edgardo). I would think by dumb luck Sabean would have found an all-star, but, uh no. Using a dartboard would have worked better.
I’m glad that Velez is getting playing time, but otherwise, I can’t imagine what the point is really in any of the two recent trades or Renteria. One can argue that Frandsen or Ishikawa are AAAA, but how can you even tell? The difference between what Ishikawa, “grand failure” is hitting vs. what Garko “ticket to the playoffs” would be expected to hit really struck me. And let’s not even bring Uribe into the discussion.
It’s $1.98 each plus upside vs millions for a known quantity in order to add maybe one win. Times X number of seasons. The most pathetic thing about Sabean is he’s wasting the team’s time. Maybe the farm system hasn’t produced any great position players (save Pablo) because they never got to play the position.
That sure is an ugly list, John, but I don’t think you go back far enough. Please correct me if you think I’m wrong, but I believe this team’s decline goes back to when there was “friction” between McGowan and Baker, and I don’t believe in coincidences so I am suspicious about Sabean’s appearance on the scene just around then. Moises Alou, God love him, was not a great choice unless you wanted a manager who would let you walk all over him. Bochy? meh.
Since that time it’s as if Sabean has thrown a handfull of coins in the air and the only one that came down heads was Kent. It defys the law of averages. He is unbelievable.
Remember when Zito was signed it seemed like NOBODY wanted to sign with San Francisco? I was crying mad about how unattractive the Giants baseball brain trust had made the club.
It’s not like they had a crappy stadium or that the bay area is a lousy place to live. The bad atmosphere was provided by the organization and the fucking fish smells from the head, John.
But where do you go from here? My thoughts: get some crusty old S.O.B.’s who’ve been in baseball all of their lives as MLB players then MLB management to run your player aquisition, and your day to day game related business. Not some dick weed college coach turned scout. Get someone like Bob Brenly to be the manager. If you would like to develope non-pitchers in your minor league operations then get a non-pitcher to run your minor league operations. Dick Tidrow kiss my ass!
And as long as you’re knocking heads and taking names, give the boot to anybody who has blown 90% of his decisions and/or cost the organization in excess of $100M by being incompetant. There HAS GOT TO BE somebody out there who can make the right choice more than 10% of the time. Hell, hire a fucking sabermatrics analyst. Any one of them could do better than that.
Now, you see, you’re trying to calm down, but you got me all worked up.
Robert,
Spot on.
I believe Sabean aka “The Idiot” is a plant…put here by Selig to ruin the Gigantes. Just has to be…no other explanation other than a conspiracy theory makes sense. Every GM in baseball sees “The Idiot” coming from miles away…or is that smells him coming.
I was talking about this with someone recently, and he pointed out the failure of the concept of a “replacement level” player. The term ignores age, as part of the replacement level, as it implies no room for improvement. There is a monster difference between a Lewis, Schierholtz, Bowker, Ishikawa, a Neikro, or even a Damon Minor, in that they may post replacement level stats, but they were young, and there is the chance that one of them may develop into a Sandoval.
The idiocy of Sabean is paying millions of dollars for a team FULL of 31-38 year old REPLACEMENT level players, rather than try out or acquire 21-24 year old replacement level payers, any of whom could turn into something better. That is my gripe with the two recent trades, is we are getting borderline improvements with players who have no upside. They may turn out to be reasonable, but there is serious upside potential to these players, and as such the trades are illogical. (Not to mention the salary costs!)
No wonder we can’t “afford” a premium hitter, the payroll is loaded with replacement level payers who consume millions of dollars from the payroll.
Trantor,
Amen brother. Good points.
The Garko deal bothers me…not as much as Alderson/Sanchez. Garko has minimal upside…and I am on the record saying he will not even hit .240 for remainder of the season. I follow the Tribe on a weekly basis…and he is a complete hack at First. His offense will not make up for what we lose having Ish in the field.
His career stats are all AL…and moving over to the NL will take time to adjust to the strike zone and learn new pitchers…so I think it is unreasonable to expect the same numbers from him.
I’ve never liked mid-season trades between leagues for hitters. Too tough a transition.
Ryan Garko is a career .281 .354 .448 hitter and he’s a .277 .357 .450 hitter this year. I think that’s what we’re gonna get. Good numbers for any non-corner position, really. Sadly he’s our firstbasemen, and even more sadly he’s an improvement.
It should also be mentioned that he’s quite a bit better vs lefties than righties AND I’ve heard him decribed as an atrocious defender, making him less useful.
I think John’s first thought may have been correct.
Great post. That’s the point that really gets me – if you look at many of those signings individually, they’re not that bad. I feel the same way about Renteria and Johnson this year. If you’re a contender and adding one of those guys just to fill a position, they’ll probably at least produce something for you. But when you step back and look at them collectively, what a piece of garbage it turns into. Each of them was overpaid, and had a significant downside risk with not even the slightest bit of upside potential – they’re all old with a track record that basically proves they can’t get any better.
Get enough overpaid, medicore veterans like that who can only get worse, and you end up in the situation the Giants are in now. The worst part is Sabean hasn’t learned, he’s still using the same strategy. I think Sabean as a GM is a lot like a lot of these veterans – he can contribute something (he certainly isn’t Bill Bavasi out there), but he’s overpaid with no chance of conbributing at a higher level – what we’ve seen is what we’re going to get with him. Enough is enough, we need to move on. I’m not even going to think about the possibility of Nuekom reupping him.
By the way, how is Bengie still batting cleanup? What is wrong with Bochy? Bengie has the lowest OBP in the majors, he probably should be batting 8th for us, because he is our worst hitter. Our lineup isn’t good, there’s not much for bighead to work with, but batting your worst hitter cleanup just doesn’t make sense in any situation.