…. loss of the season.
UPDATE: Well, maybe I spoke too soon:
…. Of all the issues, though, Sanchez’s shoulder is the most baffling. He has been unable to play in a week because of a strained shoulder but was not disabled because he and the Giants thought he’d be ready to return no later than this weekend’s series with the Rockies.
Instead, his shoulder has defied all attempts to heal itself, and Sanchez said it hasn’t really improved with the rest. This suggests that the Giants’ plan to have him back fully operational Sept. 2 in Philadelphia is not only a rough estimate, but may be far too optimistic.
Yeah, so, the centerpiece of your midseason trades has played less than half the time he’s been here. That sounds like a pretty big loss, too.
Once again, the Giants acquired a player with a known injury history, (remember Edgardo Alfonzo?), this time for a quality minor league pitcher. Sanchez has been in Sabean’s sights for two years now, and with the Pirates finally completely dismantling, Sabean ignored the fact that Sanchez was already obviously in a state of serious decline from his worthless batting average title season, didn’t add the home runs and walks the team needed like a blood transfusion, and WAS FUCKING INJURED!!!!!!!!!
Fire Brian Sabean, and, for that matter, Bruce Bochy, Carney Lansford, and the rest of these incompetent buffoons.
UPDATE, Part II: Joe Sheehan sees through the fog, and echoes my earlier concerns:
…. My real takeaway is that the gap between the Rockies and the other wild-card contenders has been understated. This is much, much better team than the Giants or Braves or Marlins, and having taken a closer look at them, I’m sold on the fact that it’s the NL West, not the East or Central, that will provide half the league’s playoff teams this season. The Braves simply won’t score enough to back their staff, nor will the Giants. The Rockies have a complete team, their sole weakness being a bullpen that is deep but not terribly effective—as we saw last night—and while not 52-22 good, deserve to be considered the favorites in the wild-card chase.
Over a month ago, I wrote pretty much the same thing:
…. the absolutely cruising Rockies, who have managed to win 27 of their last 36 games.
Looking at what the Rockies are doing, along with the Dodgers maintaining their best record in all of baseball status makes me wonder whether the Giants should bother doing anything. The Rockies are outscoring their opponents by 84 runs over that span of 36 games, which means they are not outperforming their expected wins.
That means they are not going away, and we are nowhere near that kind of performance; which in turn, means that we are not going to be able to hold them off with the addition of one hitter.
What’s happened since then? The Rockies have screamed past us like our feet are encased in concrete, and we’re now three games behind a team that was ten games under .500 when they fired their manager. The reality is that the Rockies were gonna take over the wild card lead unless we acquired the big bat that would completely change our lineup, the hitter that could bat third, pushing Sandoval to the cleanup slot and moving Molina to fifth. Even with our horrible hitters everywhere else, that one change would’ve added a half run to our scoring average, and our stellar pitching would’ve ket us competitive.
Instead, we landed Garko and Sanchez, who have combined to add three home runs and six walks in 25 games or so, or about what Matt Holliday did in his first three games for the Cards.
What gets me constantly is what did Sabean have against Torrealba? A low cost, serviceable catcher. No worse than Matheny, they did not need to dump him. Torrealba could have given the Giants some consistency at Catcher, while Posey comes through the farm system. This fascination with veteran “gamers”, who are past their “sell-by date”, drives every decision Sabean makes.
I guess Vlad is getting to the age now, 35, where he will be a Giant soon. Watch for this signing this off season. Isn’t this Vlad’s free agent year? Perfect Sabean move.
I wrote about that very thing when it happened. There was no explanation given for why Torrealba couldn’t have done the job, he was younger, faster, and projected to be essentially the same hitter. Instead, we gave another $20 million dollars away for a guy who was among the worst everyday players in baseball, all because Sabean believed he could save 100 runs a season. Another provably false statement, by the way.
While it is possible the Giants could pass the Rockies and the Dodgers to cop the division, it is more likely, though not impossible, that they would pass only one and hope to hold off Florida, Atlanta and Chicago for the wild-card. Milwaukee, Houston, NYM, Montreal, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Arizona, and San Diego are all under .500 and are not the immediate concern of standings followers.
I thought to look at some numbers since the All Star Break. This eliminates the vagaries and unevenness of inter-league play, even though it represents a small part of the schedule. But more importantly, this view tends to reflect how a team is playing right now, after 40 games since the ASB, with another 30 left to play — plus or minus a couple of games.
On July 9th we were talking about the odds of the Giants making the playoffs at their current run scoring rate. “Current” meaning the last several years. So just how likely is it?
And so here is your Brian Sabean-assembled offensive juggernaut in 2009; five seasons into the post-Dusty Baker era.
Pre All Star: 368 runs in 88 games– 4.18 runs per game.
Post All Star: 143 runs in 42 games–a hefty 3.64 runs per.
Thats going to be about 640 runs or so for the year. That’s nowhere near the 2005 Padres or Astros, let alone 750 which is the minimum one should expect. Even when you have two guys competing for a Cy Young with Brian Wilson not too far behind for Closer recognition.
Well, maybe they’re just hitting in bad luck you may think? Think again.
OPS you ask? Sure thing.
Pre All Star: .705.
Post All Star .691
The Giants run production has been worse. Not better. Those Garko and Sanchez trades at the end of July look really good now, don’t they Sabean fans? I mean, what the fuck, it only cost a couple of pitching prospects, one of whom was the no. 2 guy in their system, in spite of the spin the Giants PR machine is trying to put on it.
And speaking of pitching, how has the pitching been? I mean Zito pitched his ass off last night, right? He’s actually been a horse since the All Star Break. Pitching to a sub 2.00 ERA and putting up a nice 7+/k per 9 innings, cutting down on his walks and homeruns allowed. But what about the team overall and more importantly, where do they stack up with their competitors?
How about team ERA and Runs per game? That’s a pretty good indicator of how many runs your opponents are scoring, and we know the Giants are scoring a little under 4 per game.
Pre All Star Break: The Giants team ERA: 3.51. Good for 1st in the NL. Total runs allowed during this period was 324 or 3.68 runs per game. Again. Good for 1st in the NL.
Post All Star Break: The Giants team ERA has slipped a little to 3.59. No big deal you think? Well how about it is only good for 5th in the National League; behind Philadelphia, St. Louis, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, with Philadelphia checking in with a mind-boggling 3.10 ERA. Their plus 44 runs at the ASB is now plus 30.
They are simply treading water. Wild Card teams do not tread water and back into the playoffs. Just the opposite as everybody knows. The hot team at the end is the one team that gets in. It is no accident that there are so many frequent appearances by Wild Card teams in the World Series. The team that is playing the best at the end is the team most likely to advance and prevail in October.
So here’s some perspective. At the All-Star Break the Giants were 49-39, had a plus 40 in run differential, were leading the Wild Card and were 6.5 games behind the Dodgers for the Division League.
It is now August 30th. The Giants are 71 and 59, 6 games back of the Dodgers, but more importantly they trail the Rockies in the Wild Card, with the Marlins, Braves and Cubs close behind.
The pitching while still excellent thanks to Zito’s stellar second half performance has kept the Giants at around .500 ball.
Now many have said and the media spin has been, this season has exceeded expectations. And it is a surprise. And that we should all be happy just to have this much. Glad to be here and having gotten this far, but oh boy wait til next fucking year when all our guys go straight from San Jose to Cooperstown!
Because thats the way it looks on paper to the baseball-mogul-strat-o-matic, math club crowd and their yammering sychophants. The problem is that the game is played on the field and one never knows what is going to happen. But smart people prepare for the best as well as the worst. Smart people anticipate that they will go into each season prepared to do what is neccessary to win.
Seven months is too long for successful folks to sit around and wait until next fucking year. For too many dopes, next fucking year never comes. And thats why smart management and heady management and front offices that know the difference between a 3 run homer and a 2nd inning bunt try to prepare themselves with the expectation that they can fucking win. Winners are not satisfied with fucking garlic fries, quiche and cameos of Kung Fu Fucking Panda mascots in the cheap seats!
If I’m a partner and $82 million dollars of partner money is going to player payroll, this team sure as fuck better compete with the expectation of winning. Especially when $62 million of it is being spent on huge Free Agent Signings like Aaron Rowand, Edgar Renteria, Randy Johnson, Barry Zito, Randy Winn, Bengie Molina. And if they don’t win, there sure as hell better be some fucking heads rolling down 3rd street.
What has happened though is that the pitching, which is starting to fray under the stress of having to be almost fucking perfect to have a chance to win, has revealed how intellectually bankrupt Sabean’s thinking is when it comes to offensive acquisitions. The Giants have not had 3 starting pitchers like this ever. And with Zito pitching to a 1.92 post ASB ERA, the Giants are actually further behind since the trading deadline, struggling to play .500 ball since Sanchez’ no-no on July 10 when they got to 48-38.
The pitching has revealed how utterly futile the high priced acquistions of Sabean’s (Rowand, Renteria, Winn, Molina, Roberts and now Garko and Sanchez) free-agent position players have been at contributing anything even remotely resembling anything other than roster-filler performance.
When Bonds was here, Sabean used his presence as an excuse for being hamstrung in his quest for better players. Remember, this is the guy who before the 2004 season, when posed with this question about replacing Jeff Kent’s bat, repsonded thusly:
Sound familiar?
New Sabean, same as the old Sabean
Fucking formatting. Can you fix this on your end John?
Thanks. The site is loading much faster now too!
that quote of sabean kills me
the man shouldve been terminated the day after making that absurd statement
You know what the sick part is Unc? I can see him saying that before every single season since?
Q: Did you ever make an offer for (Impact Position Player)?
Sabean: In a word: No. If we had signed Impact Position Player we would have been without Taschner, Walker, Misch, Howry, Chulk, Matheny, Roberts, Garko, Winn, Rowand and Randy Johnson–obviously not being able to field a competitive team, especially from an experience standpoint, given our level of spending.
Bitch, bitch, bitch.
You know, this is one hell of a fun team to watch. Even if we don’t make it to the playoffs, even if we fall apart (which I tend to doubt), we’ve seen Sandoval emerge as a scary mofo, we’ve seen our first no-hitter since the 70′s, we’ve got the scariest starting rotation in baseball, we’ve exceeded expectations in general, and I’m smelling a tie for the wild card by some time tomorrow afternoon. Go Giants.
Peter,
Fun to watch? Are you kidding somebody?
Watching paint dry is more fun than watching this team hit. Try switching channels when the Giants pitchers get the final out of an inning. If you turn on the Discovery channel, and spend even one minute watching some bear eat a salmon, by the time you switch back, the next commercial set is on, and the Giants are back on the field. That happens ALL THE TIME.
Fun? Not to me. It’s fun watching a team full of players who actually know what to do.
No kidding. Opposing pitchers can get back into the dugout faster than Satchel Paige can shut off a light switch. The Giants offense subscribes to the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt. Hence, appearing for only short and intermittent stretches.
What we were talking about is now what we are talking about. This is what I’m talking about
Also on July 29th I saw this little diddy:
Now granted a knee is not a shoulder, but what the fuck! The guy needed his own MASH unit before he even came over here. This is the same crack medical team that essentially told Noah Lowry to take two Tylenol for his career-ending shoulder injury 2 years ago.
And here’s and update on the Sanchez numbers listed first vs Uribe’s since Sanchez got here:
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
13 56 8 17 1 0 1 5 2 6 0 0 .304 .322 .375 .697
87 268 29 72 19 2 7 30 14 58 3 1 .269 .300 .433 .733
And now you have some twits going around trying to convince themselves and others that Sabean’s true intent was to secure Sanchez for next year, not this year. What the fuck is next? Freddy Sanchez Stethoscope Heritage Night?
On a different note:
Bochilism sent out Renteria, Winn and the surrender squad of minimum wagers to back up Cain and left Bengie, Garko, Rowand, in the dugout where they belong alongside Sandoval. Starting in their places were Velez, Lewis, Ishikawa and Whitesides. Cain, who is pitching his ass off this year, got screwed out of a W again, but got picked up hugely by another minimum wager, Sergio Romo. So it was the young guys who brought it home last night in extra innings. Just a really nice job. Ishikawa’s 3 run jack makes the Garko trade look even more embarrassing when taken in tandem with the Sanchez fiasco.
And Mr. Redenbacher was sitting front and center in a black leather high-school jacket and bow tie (really weird combo even for him) in Magowan’s old seat looking somewhat perplexed like he needed cue cards to tell him when to stand-up and applaud. Very strange looking individual.
I just really enjoyed last night’s lineup for the most part. I am sick to death of watching Renteria, Rowand, Molina, Winn, Aurilia.
Also, they call up a 3b Rohlinger who has struck out 90 times in Fresno over Frandsen to replace Freddy Sanchez. I am no fan of Frandsen, but Sabean is obviously pulling a power trip here just because he can. Frandsen spoke out against the corruption of the roster and the bureaucracy of the lineup process and is getting his career squashed as a result.
It appears that in addition to acting arrogant and raising incompetency to new levels, “The Idiot” is bullying a powerless AAAA scrubini. What a travesty. And Mr. Bow Tie Boy just sits there like a star-struck Waldo.
The first blockquote is excerpted from John’s original post from July 29, 2009. I should have clarified that above.
sabean is treating the entire frandsen affair very personally
when a gm treats his job personally…he has gotta go
taking rohlinger over kfran is pure idiocy
and when kfran and bowker are not on the call up list for sept callups (as baggs has alluded) that should seal the deal for both sabean and bochy to be run out of town on a rail
i know you dont really like kfran…but that kid has worked hard, and players with even less talent have made it to the bigs and stuck
I would like to see Frandsen get a chance with an organization like the A’s who’ve made a living taking younger cast-offs from other teams and giving them a legitimate shot to stick in the show. They’ve done pretty well with Raj Davis.
+mia,
You always nail the issues but on the Frandsen thing, I have to disagree.
IMHO, he is a hard working, sincere, emotional kid without major league
talent. There’s plenty to criticize Sabean for, but not bothering with Frandsen
anymore is not one of them.
LOL. Here let me try this again.
1. I dont think he has mlb talent either.
2. But I also think he never got a decent opportunity to disprove that opinion
3. I think he should get that opportunity with another organization.
4. I think Sabean is being as chickenshit with Frandsen in not letting him go to another organization as Omar Minaya is being with Sheffield.
No matter how wrong-headed a player/employee may be about their desire to leave an organization, keeping him there may satisfy the ego of the boss but its a chickenshit way to do business and the word gets around.
does rohlinger have more talent than kfran?
how does anyone know what kfran really has if he has never been given a full shot?
we all agree that sabean is not good at evaluating talent
he falls in love with some player….doesnt care what he does in the interim….then goes after said player when the price is right
btw….every fucking giants physician needs to be terminated too
how they cleared sanchez is beyond me
this team had to scratch and claw to win 2 of 3 from the snakes
the rox are coming into town this weekend….should put the final nail in the coffin
the very idea that last nights game can be blamed on any of the players is absurd
the game never shouldve gotten to extra frames
for a manager that sticks to the basics, the one basic that bochy refuses to do is the bunt in late innings
top of the ninth, no out, lead off double, i dont give a flying fuck how much you are paying a player…unless that player is the fucking second coming of babe ruth…you have the batter bunt
sure, miller sucked big time…so did merkin…but neither is ever used in the situation they were last nite…and for good reason
and lets look at what really killed the team…the fact that the saviour was too injured to even pick up a fuckin bat…and yet, they waited till today to put him on the dl…costing the giants a bat and/or a real pinch runner (gotta love the bunt dp)
bochy and sabean need to go at seasons end…i dont care what this teams record is
they are both pathetic
if i effed up at work as much as the two of them do, i would be begging for quarters at my local 7/11
I listened to this monstrosity.
It could have been one of the great victories of the season, the way they saved the game repeatedly after errors/walks in extra innings. How Wilson escaped without runs is incredible.
Then to blow the 3 run lead the way they did.
terrible at bats in key situations
undisciplined hitting
Poor fielding
Walking a (literally) lame batter, in severe pain, who could barely walk, let alone run?
Walking the pitcher to force in a run?
By the time the grand slam came, everyone listening/watching knew this was inevitable.
The sad part is Zito held up well and has become a very good pitcher. Great news with Lincecum tiring. But this sack of shit approach to hitting is incredible. And the way the bullpen is being used. WTF?
Is this approach to hitting Carney Lansford’s responsibility? How could an entire TEAM of hitters show zero patience. I can understand newcomers from the minors, with poor instruction causing these bad habits, but how does an entire team become such undisciplined?
CLEAN HOUSE, ownership. NOW.
The players are who the players are. If the best Aaron Rowand can do is what he is doing, than that is all anybody can expect him to do. It is not Randy Winn’s fault that he can’t hit from the right side anymore than it is his fault that he is forced to hit from a power position in the lineup. It is hardly Molina’s fault that he is an old worn out catcher with a sub-300 OBP being penciled in the cleanup spot, even though he hasthe worst OPS of any cleanup hitter in Major League Baseball. Thats what Bochy has to deal with. Sabena gives Bochy his players and tells him to play the old expensive contracts because thats how Sabean rolls, has rolled, and will continue to roll until the owners shove him, his dirty flip-flops and his beer-belly aloha shirt out into the cove on a barge headed to some forlorn tract up on the delta where only salamanders live.
Rearranging lineups is fruitless, senseless and besides the point. The simple fact of the matter is the Giants are constructed this way on purpose. These are exactly the types of players Sabean reaches out for, year in and year out. Low OBP, older, guys with what were once respectable batting averages, a fair eye of Texas hold ‘em and membership in the Joe Shultz “Lets go pound some fucking Buds” club. The problem is that these guys have:
NO POWER
NO ABILITY TO DRAW WALKS
NO CAPACITY TO WORK A PITCHER OVER
Sabean’s Giants are the anti-Orioles of the glory years (1966 to 1983) of Mgr. Earl Weaver when Harry Dalton and Frank Cashen were GMs. Starting pitchers like Palmer, Cuellar, Dobson, et al.
An offensive lineup built upon players with power, and high on base percentage, who could work a pitcher over with high pitch counts early in the game, early in the series and wreak havoc upon an opponents bullpen later in the game and later in the series.
Winning clubs have an attitude of fuck the empty batting averages of guys like Freddy Sanchez, Randy Winn, Aaron Rowand, Edgar Renteria, Edgardo Alfonso, et al. Save that shit for arbitration. You win games doing three simple things.
Walk. Single. Bomb. Repeat.
Here’s what I mean. The Giants outhit the Rockies in 3 of their 4 games at Coors field over the weekend.
The Giants held the Rockies to less than 3.5 runs per game in 3 of the 4 games as well. The Rockies are averaging almost 5.2 runs per game.
In addition, the Giants hit 7 homeruns compared to the Rockies 5.
But these are where the two teams differ completely.
In the 4 games, the Rockies got 38 free fucking passes in 38.1 innings. Almost a free pass (HBP, IBB BB) per inning. The Giants drew 17 in 41 innings including the seven they drew in that pathetic 6-4 loss on Monday night. About one every 3 innings.
And thats exactly the way both the Rockies and the Giants were projected to play. Bochy is a bureacrat who at all times keeps a civil tongue applied to Sabeans floppies, but it is Sabean’s personnel that he has to contend with. Not even an Earl Weaver could do much with this bunch.