…. to me, Giants fans. I’m not gonna waste my time, my energy, and my love for baseball on this collection of fools. It’s not bad enough that Brian Sabean, fresh off of three years in a row of worst in baseball offense, still thinks he knows better than every other team in the game:
….At a time when younger, number-crunching GMs are in vogue, Neukom is placing his faith in a 53-year-old executive who has begun to embrace sabermetrics but still has a stronger scouting background. Indeed, when asked about the need for hitters with better on-base percentages, Sabean said almost dismissively, “I think we learned this year, as attested by winning 88 games, the most important thing is the final score, winning the game.”
Yeah, just like batting average is the best indicator of a hitters effectiveness, just like wins and losses are the best way to evaluate a pitcher. Is this guy for real? Talk about being stuck in 1985. What a jackass. And what a fool Neukom is for basing his decision to bring back the Idiot on something as worthless as a 16 game improvement over the year before, as opposed to the complete and utter failure of Sabean to maximize the team’s unforeseen opportunity to make the postseason for the first time in a five years, or the waste of two of the top four young pitching prospects in the system for a couple of absolutely worthless nobodies who contributed NOT ONE FUCKING THING AT ALL!!!!!!
Or maybe he could’ve seen what was predictably obvious to everyone in baseball; that the Giants coming into 2009 had to upgrade their offense significantly to be serious about contending; and Sabean –serious about contending the whole time– came up with the great idea of signing Randy Johnson and Edgar Renteria as the answer to that issue.
No, Neukom decided that winning a couple more games than everyone thought we would must be due to the great work of his GM and coach, as opposed to what was obvious to all of baseball; that it was his young pitchers carrying the team, and, in fact, his GM completely failed in his efforts to upgrade the team’s offense, which meant that the Giants would be watching the playoffs on television –again– despite the historic performances of the members of their pitching staff.
No, it’s not bad enough that this is what we can expect from our our fool of an owner, or our dinosaur of a GM. No, we even get the added treat of the local media making sure that we know it’s not his fault we’ve never landed one single significant free agent hitter in his entire tenure:
…. the new season begins in 172 days, and the Giants will be handed new and grander expectations because, as we know, every time a team gains 16 wins, it must by definition pick up another 16 the next year, give or take a few. And that burden will land squarely on Sabean’s leonine head. Except that teams don’t typically make two such leaps in successive years; in fact, most teams that actually leap forward one year tend to fall back the next.
…. this expectation thing is Sabean’s problem to correct, and the math says no. Again.
Yeah, go Giants!! Let’s all get ready to lose more games than we did this year! Don’t have any high expectations or anything. Don’t plan on being better, or improving, or anything like that, because, remember, teams that do well one year tend to do poorly the next. And, remember, it’s never ever ever the GM’s fault when they do.
Yup, just what we needed, a nice long dissertation from Ray Ratto, who, by the way, knows nothing about baseball whatsoever. But, hey, why should that stop him from explaining to us uninformed dolts that Bill Neukom controls the budget, and that Buster Posey isn’t ready, and that the Giants can’t afford Matt Holliday or whoever else might actually help. In other words, get ready for more excuses when we do nothing to address our horrible, worst in baseball offense. Yup, write some long-winded bullshit about how the Giants will once again be hamstrung by difficult decisions, because of difficult times, or difficult ideas, or difficult concepts. Yup, just keep selling the idea that it’s all somebody else’s fault, and write about that.
As opposed to writing about facts. Facts. Like the fact that it’s Brian–fucking–Sabean who decides what player the team should pursue and sign, and the fact that he has pursued and signed the wrong guys time and time again. Or the fact that it’s been Sabean who has made the decision to throw tens of millions of dollars on the fucking ground for this laughable collection of worthless hitters –not to mention the useless dregs we’re still paying to work at 7-11– thereby rendering the team unable to pursue a real hitter once again. Or the fact that this is the same exact excuse we were hearing from Sabean eight fucking years ago when the Giants could’ve landed Vladimir Gurerrero. In point of fact, this sameexact excuse has been made by the Giants, made by Brian Sabean, year after year; and once again, the local media are knocking Grandma out of the way as they run to the rescue and make sure that we mere mortals, who cannot possibly fathom any of the important and complicated details of the inner workings of a major league team, must remember that it’s NEVER EVER EVER EVER THE FUCKING GENERAL MANAGERS FAULT!!!!
IT IS!!!!!!! IT IS, IT IS, IT IS, IT IS!!!!!! It is Brian Sabean’s fault this team cannot afford a real hitter. It is Brian Sbean’s fault the Giants did not make the playoffs this year. It is Brian Sabean’s fault the Giants pay $10 million dollars a year to four–not one, not two, or even three, but, no, four– FOUR of the worst everyday baseball players alive. And this isn’t a new phenomenon. Let me remind you of some of the most important failures in the past. Let’s go back, all the way back to 2001:
…. 2001 is still fresh enough to look at. The events and decisions that shaped (that) season are easy to recall, painful, but easy. There were two key moments in the San Francisco Giants 2001 season, from a managers standpoint. The one that strikes me as the most important was the handling of the Andres Gallarraga/JT Snow issue in July and August; and the second most important was the Marvin Benard fiasco. I view the Gallarraga/Snow dilemma as more important, because it came up late in the season, when the post-season was still up for grabs.
Andres Gallarraga was acquired on July 24th. In the 20 games after he arrived, the Giants went 17-3, surging from 6.5 games behind the D’backs to just a half game out of first place. Their run production spiked upward, from an average of 4.93 to 6.75 runs per game. During that stretch, Gallarraga was a dominant force, providing a whole new look to the Giants lineup. Not only offering greater protection for Kent, but at times he even batted cleanup. Not surprisingly, Bonds, Kent, and, in fact, virtually everyone in the lineup was able to significantly boost their production. The difference between having the Big Cat instead of JT at the plate was obvious to even the most casual observer, (my wife); the team simply looked unbeatable. After the surge, the Giants were a season high 17 games over .500 at 69-52, and seemed a lock to make the playoffs.
By that time, however, JT Snow was healthy, and Dusty (and Brian Sabean) were faced with a decision. Should they bench the Big Cat? Should they platoon the right-handed Gallarraga and the left-handed Snow? Many articles and columns were written around this time, and there seemed to be a lot of references to someone not losing their job because of injury, (a bogus bit of nonsensical “common sense” that is constantly spouted in sports). Dusty made some reference to JT producing in the past, and how they really couldn’t expect to win without his bat (really, you could look it up), and then he benched Andres and started Snow. And how did that work?
Almost exactly as you might expect. When they made the switch from Andres, with a slugging percentage around .600, to Snow, with a slugging percentage around .350; they completely derailed the offense. Over the next twenty games, the Giants offense slumped to only 4.05 runs per game, and the team produced a record of 9-11. By then Dusty realized that JT wasn’t going to get it done; he started platooning them for real, but the damage was done, Andres and the team never got back on track. That twenty game stretch, in which Dusty Baker (and Brian Sabean’s) loyalty to one player apparently superseded (their) loyalty to a team, to an organization and to its fans; cost the Giants the playoffs. From that 69-52 record, the Giants went 21-20 the rest of the way, losing the division by two games to the eventual world champion Diamondbacks.
I was at the next seasons’ GM meets the fans session, and Sabean defended that decision –to me, directly, under specific questioning– like I was speaking French. There was never a question as to what should happen, and there was never a question as to his involvement in the decision. The league-worst first basemen got his job back from the superstar slugger who was carrying the team as if water was dry and rocks were soft. That was eight years ago. What’s changed since then?
Nothing. The Giants are a laughingstock. And it’s all on one person. Brian Sabean.
It is all Brian Sabean’s fault. IT. IS. BRIAN. SABEAN’S. FAULT.
I’m not gonna stop watching and writing about baseball. I’m just gonna stop watching and writing about the SF Giants. Sorry, all.
******
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I have written a few letters in my head. I will put it to paper in the next week.
On the comentary side, Obsessive, I strongly disagree with one major point you make. This is not the fault of rebuilding, or one bad signging.
VIRTUALLY EVERY PLAYER SABAEN HAS PURSUED IN THE PAST 5-10 YEARS HAS NO .OPS. Think about it.
His new Prize, Sanchez? Horrific. Rowand? Terrible. Winn is a semi-exception, but he has never ranked high in OPS. Renteria? haha. Look at who he traded Nathan, Bonser and Liriano for – the joke Pierzinski, who is the only player in the majors that would be a contest for Molina in a race. The entire league knew Sabean was taken to the cleaners on the day of that trade, it wasn’t close to being reasonable.
Which of these Sabean signees would you build a team around? Marquis Grissom? Elgardo Alfonzo? Marvin Bernard? Michael Tucker? Neifi Perez? Ricky Ledee? Mike Matheny? Omar (yes, I can agree with acquiring Omar, because of his glove, but his .OPS??) resigning Ray Durham? Shae Hillenbrand? Steve Finley? Dave Roberts? Ryan Klesko? Mark Sweeney? Benjie Molino? Renteria? Did I forget any members of this forgettable club?
There must be $200 million invested in this group, maybe more. And it ignores our $150 million man, who is not a hitter. Doesn’t Neukom look at the numbers on the paychecks?
The problem is not that the Giants have no offense, it is that Sabean and his talent evaluation process have a fundamental flaw in evaluating hitting. Somehow, they are spectacularly good on drafting pitchers. (Free agent pitcher signings might be another matter) But hitting? They haven’t a clue.
Sabean needs to take the winter and read Bill James body of work, and have his staff study Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Primer. Maybe then a light bulb will go off.
But I doubt it.
M.C.,
Thanks for your thoughts. Have enjoyed your blog for some time.
What if many fans could collectively put together a two or three-paragraph letter? We could continue mailing multiple copies of this letter to the front office each week (or have someone drop about 10,000 paper copies around the city of San Francisco!).
Again, some may laugh at this idea, but at this point, what’s to lose? It’s time for people to react to an organization that is too stubborn to investigate the importance of on-base skill independent of batting average…an organization that won’t deny endorsing a “pitch to [your] defense” philosophy…an organization that believes human character intangibles can make up for age-related player attrition.
This is not a roster that is going to be impossible to upgrade. It can be done.
John
One further note, it is all about choices. Contrary to popular opinion, you cannot choose to build up a great offense and pitching staff. You cannot do that because the draft is (and therefore the scouting) is not that great at discerning who will be good beyond the top 4-8 prospects. There are too many factors involved (and lack of developed talent), resulting in even picks in the first round having about a 10% chance of ever becoming the good player that we all expect when we are selecting a first round prospects.
So Sabean is doing the correct thing: you focus on one asset and put all your eggs into one basket. And he chose the right asset, pitching, which you can populate relatively quickly with all your successful picks without needing to risk trading. If you have three great pitchers, they go into the rotation. If you have three great first basemen, you end up trading two of the three, and thus risk coming out on the short end of the trade (Teixiera, A-Gon, Hafner).
With the draft odds so low that even having a Top 5 pick does not mean that you are even going to draft a good player in that draft, you have to make choices, you have to accept that the team is not going to be good all around, you have to make do with what you got. I think Sabean has made the right choice.
I agree with you that the draft is a crapshoot, but I think that makes Sabean’s (and in fairness, many GMs) poor moves last winter that much worse. With Lincecum, Cain, Sandoval, and Posey, he has gotten some very good value out of his draft picks, but there’s no guarantee that it will continue. When you come up with a good draft class, you are under time pressure to build around them with good signings and/or trades. Because you’ve got six years before those players can become free agents, and that window is usually smaller since they all don’t get to the big league team at the same time.
Passing up players like Dunn and Abreu while signing players like Renteria and trading for players like Sanchez is an example of missing a great opportunity to complement those young players with veterans who have a track record (and whose performance can be more reliably estimated). Sabean has another chance to rectify that this winter, but his past performance and his statements should make Giants fans worry.
The window of opportunity starts to close almost as soon as it appears. Sabean has lost one year already, and you’ll never know what he would’ve accomplished by making a couple of sensible signings this past winter (while avoiding some insensible signings and trades).
You are beyond a kool aid drinker. You’re a fucking delusional sycophant who doesn’t know shit about baseball or any other fucking thing except what you spoon feed yourself from Giants press releases and other fan blogs.
Just because you cant fucking bring yourself to acknowledge that your fanboyitis has been misplaced with this bunch of corporated dicksucking pricks who have brought the Bay Area some of the worst fucking offensive baseball this side of the Seattle Pilots, for 5 years running doesn’t mean I’m interested in reading your spooge.
You remind me of the little fucking shitballs in high school running around campaigning for detention room monitor. But mainly, your shit is unfresh, stale, propaganda that you and the other idiot savant, rainman keep regurgitating through blogs year in and year out. We know where to find your shit if we want to read it. John was kind enough to provide a link to it a couple of years ago. That doesn’t mean I or anybody else is interested in it.
Actually it is your volgorness that is “unfresh, stale, propaganda”. Yawn! What a bore you are.
Nice post, as usual John.
Here are some corrections:
* The Giants were not serious about contending coming into the season. They said so, Neukom said so, this was a rebuilding year where the goal was for the team to be competitive. 2010 was the year we were suppose to be contending.
* The team won about 10 games more than most people thought, not a couple. Most people, particularly around here and MCC and ELM thought that the Giants were going to under .500 again, .500 at best. I was about the only person who thought the team was not only capable of being over .500 but also contending with a high 80′s win total.
* The reason the offense sucks is because the team is rebuilding. Rebuilding don’t happen all at once, nor does it happen evenly for all the parts of the club. Rebuilding takes years, and impatience with the process only hastens the need to rebuild again or doom you to years of mediocrity as you blow off good talent in trades.
This is because the draft is, as I wrote long ago, a crapshoot, and not only that, takes many years for it to pay off, typically. You can only rebuild so much through the draft, if you want to build a team totally off the draft, you have to be willing to go through a decade of horrible play, like the Rays did, and even then, they had to dip into the free agent market still.
* And I mention good talent because while Alderson and Barnes were two of our “top four” pitching prospects, does not mean that they are going to be any good. In fact, if you go to ProspectProject.com, they did a study of BA’s top ranked hitters and found that BA missed out on nearly half the top producing hitters of 2009 with their Top 50 ranking over the years. I would have to assume that to be true also for pitchers.
And just look at their stats in the minors this year. People look at it and say that they are good, but only if they can reduplicate it in the majors. The vast majority are not able to, and odds are, neither can Alderson and Barnes. They had the value you all think they have now at the beginning of the season, but this season showed that they are not that good, really.
* Lastly, I’m sorry you won’t be following the Giants. I think a new era is blooming and that the team has the foundation to go on to greater heights over the next decade or so. I agree that mistakes have been made, but I think the overall status of the team is pretty good. We have a great rotation, looking to get even better if Zito and Sanchez can do it over a whole season. We have a great bullpen. We have two great hitters in Sandoval and Posey, and all we need are some average hitters in the rest of the lineup to get us to the playoffs and hopefully to the World Series Championship we all desire for the Giants.
I’m glad Sabean got a two year extension. He deserves it for putting together this team he rebuilt. Doesn’t anyone realize that we came within 4 games of making the playoffs with the worse offense around? That the pitching looks to be on an upward trend, and thus we can expect more historical performances?
All we need are some average hitters and we can win a lot of games with this pitching. I would love to have a lineup of Albert Pujols but between a lineup of Pujols or a rotation of Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Zito, I would rather have the pitching, because good pitching can shut down good hitting a heck of a lot more often than good hitting can hurt good pitching (heck, we have seen mediocre pitching stop our top offensive Giants teams). There is no guarantee, you have to play the numbers, but pitching beats hitting when you have good pitching, more times than not. PQS shows this and I’ve been writing about that for years too now.
That said, I expect further positive steps in these next two years, just like last time, when he got his last two year extension and I was happy about that and nobody else was. If there is not overall improvement, then I would be happy to let go of Sabean then. But he has done a great job rebuilding the Giants pitching staff, and now he has to work on getting the hitting into shape.
Well, I disagree on a lot of your points. Brian Sabean made minor changes to a team that he thought was good enough. He added a fifth starter, a relief specialist, and a (worthless) shortstop to a team that scored 640 runs the previous year, because he thought he was fine-tuning a competitive club. He absolutely said so several times before the season started, and then he acted accordingly. You don’t make those kinds of cosmetic, expensive additions to a rebuilding team, you just don’t. You play Burriss, you save your money, and you go out and get younger. Sabean was going for it, and his idea of going for it was absurd.
And as for your prediction tha the Giants would contend, I predicted way back in the beginning of the season, that if every single thing went right, a superstar season by Sandoval, and Zito bouncing back, and Lincecum not having a sophmore slump, and Cain having his best year ever, and every other possible break going their way, the Giants still weren’t able to make the postseason. It was my long-term view that was the correct one, not yours, Grant. You missed the point of this season, just like Brian Sabean did. The 88 wins were a mirage, a combination of good luck, timing, and the completely unseen event of our entire pitching staff shaving a full run off our ERA from the year before.
And what is this rebuilding thing you keep referring to? Winn, Rowand, Molina, Ishikawa, Lewis, Renteria, these are all players that Sabean went out and got. He paid handsomely for their services. Rebuilding? What is that? He BUILT this team.
Alderson and Barnes had value, and Sabean transformed that value into more useless, league average players, who fit in exactly with the same league-average players he has been bringing here for going on seven years in a row. If the Giants are rebuilding, it’s because of Sabean’s failure. Let’s not forget his decision to forgo draft choices several years back; just one more of the ridiculous ways he has hamstrung his own team.
As for the draft being a crapshoot, well, sure it is, but what’s that got to with anything? Forget about the draft. Sabean doesn’t know what makes an offense go. He doesn’t know how to build an offense. If you value the wrong traits in a player, then it doesn’t matter what you do, because you will fail. Brian Sabean values steady, veteran, experienced, high batting average gamers. These players have a place in the game, you just can’t have an entire offense made of these types of players. You cannot field an entire team of replacement-level players, which what the Giants have been doing for the last five or six years.
Don’t talk to me about rebuilding, we’re rebuilding because the players Sabean went out and got are terrible, laughably overpaid 2 home run a year players who deserve to make about a third of what they earn.
You talk about rebuilding like a team that hasn’t won a title in the history of the city the play in can afford to shit away a once in a lifetime chance to win a championship, WHICH THE GIANTS HAD THIS SEASON, and they shit it away like so much aggravating extra work they just didn’t want to do.
It was a disgraceful performance by Sabean and Neukom. There should have been no ends to which they wouldn’t have gone once it became clear that we had a championship-caliber pitching staff, in the midst of an historic performance the likes of which we may never see again, and all the team needed to do was spend money and send a couple of valuable, tradable commodities you seem to think were so expendable, so unpredictably worthless, and get a hitter or two who could’ve made a difference.
Instead, we traded away those valuable prospects and got Ryan Garko (as in, WHO THE FUCK IS RYAN GARKO?!?) and a completely broken-down, empty batting average 32-year old Freddie Sanchez, who contributed one home run and two walks.
THAT IS FAILURE OF THE ABSOLUTE HIGHEST ORDER.
A playoff berth was there for the taking, and our GM failed in every way imaginable, wasting resources and coming so empty that he actually had to replace Garko with the player that Garko had been brought in to replace. Are you kidding somebody? If it hadn’t been for Juan Uribe and Eugenio Velez coming completely out of nowhere, the season would’ve been lost months ago, our GM failed so spectacularly.
How you can fail to see that is remarkable to me. I know you’re smart. But, in this instance, you are blind. The Giants, out of nowhere, had a legitimate chance to make some noise in the postseason. All it would’ve taken is smart moves by our GM. Instead, he made stupid, wasteful moves, moves that accomplished nothing. And, for that, he was rewarded with a new two year contract, and millions of dollars.
People:
There has got to be a way to get 30 minutes of Neukom’s time. We can easily explain what this organization has done wrong and how it remains in danger of continuing to err. I’m telling you – Neukom can pick up a great deal of information from a crash course on performance evaluation and projection. Can’t we somehow make this happen?
I have long thought about how to address ownership and Sabean, if ever given the chance. Sabean would probably shut down and become defensive, but there might be ways to offer genuine input in a respectful fashion. Better yet would be a meeting with Neukom alone.
Make fun of me, call me naive, whatever…but there has got to be a way.
JPT
In the minds of folks who care primarily, if not exclusively, about winning, the Giants have done, do, and will continue doing things wrong.
But if you’re primary concern is providing ” Larry Baer’s best major league baseball park experience ever” in order to generate revenue, then they are wildly correct and successful.
He’s a lawyer with fucking bowtie. He is a plodder. He is an egghead. He is a status seeker. He has no stomach for a death match cage fight with the Dodgers, Angels, Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies.
In his world, the Giants are doing everything right. They fucking won 88 games. Can’t you see that? They have all-star Freddy Sanchez. They have fence-face Aaron Rowand. They have fat albert sandoval. And the kid with the Michael Jackson Hairdo on the pimple every 5th day. They got Krukow and Amy G, garlic fries, $10 dollar beer, $60 dollar pizza, thirty-dollar parking, and more fucking ethnic nights than there are members in the United Nations.
The dood will look at us like we’re from another planet.
Ay, there’s the rub.
If Mr. Neukom defines success as “steady revenue stream” then we are whipped already. If he believes somewhere deep down in his corporate soul that “winning the World Series” is the benchmark of MLB success then we have a flicker of a chance.
What if we start with some thoughtful, well-written letters to The Big Guy and see what happens? I’m certainly willing to give it a shot. It may be quixotic, but, like my pal Zo says above, the blind pig might just find the acorn.
I will put something together and put a stamp on it. It may take a bit to get it right. I’ll post it on my blog when I send it off, and drop a note here as well.
I sent a letter to The Numero Uno. It’s here. If he writes back, I’ll post it.
Sorry to see you go – and more so because of the Giants front office rather than a positive reason. I especially enjoyed your exhaustive look at steriods – one of the few places to get a rational analysis of this topic. Should be required reading for anyone who spouts off about PEDs on tv or in print. I’m hopeful for the Giants, maybe in the blind-pig-finds-an-acorn way, but just because they COULD be a great team. Best of Luck.
+m,
Gonna pick up the blog baton?
I’m with El.
So the Giants win 88 games and all of you are acting like we’re the Pittsburgh Pirates. I realize Sabean is very unpopular in this joint, but lighten the fuck up! There’s a lot to be optimistic about.
Really?
Would you care to enlighten us?
As long as Sabean stays focused elsewhere, besides a post season “push”, maybe hope is permissible. But he will not. We will continue to trade farm hands and younger team controlled talent for 2-3 months of Hillenbrand or Fred Sanchez. Toss in another Vinnie Chulk if we are lucky. We will continue to see a management team that preaches the need to be “more aggressive” at the plate despite the team swinging at more pitches than it lets go by yet only among the league leaders in rate it produces outs.
I have lurked here a long time and I will come back to read John’s takes on baseball in general. But speaking as a Giants’ fan who remembers the 2 Willies on the field and the pit that was 1970’s Giants baseball I can’t blame John one bit if he wants to reduce the pain.
Did we make the playoffs? No. We were lucky to win 88 games – we should have been closer to a .500 team. What is this team going to do to become a playoff team? Under Sabean, the answer is unfortunately, that’s not the goal. Competing for the wild card, staying “in this thing” all season long – that’s the goal. I’m sorry, but that’s not how you win a WS. I can see why a fan would jump off the sinking ship at this point…
Well, at least John knows how to quit this organization. Have fun watching the Yanks or whichever legit team you blog about next season. You’ll be enjoying yourself a lot more than the rest of us.
At least wait until the FA season starts and we make no efforts to sign offense before quitting on these guys. You have to know we have the staff to get it done, and our O doesn’t have to be world beaters…just not league worst…
On another note, I’m an east coast reader and this was the first blog on the Giants I found to get a steady flow of non mainstream(i.e. BS) news on the G’nts. So if you don’t want to write about them that’s your choice, but please write about the whole league, not just the yankees. I hear enough pro yankees bs on all fronts every day of my life, this blog has been a goo escape for me for the last, damn 5-6 years now?
Hey maybe sabe’s has a stroke or something, stranger things have happened
Stop!
You’re giving aneurysms a bad name.
Too bad John. I enjoy your blog and it’s refreshing to listen to someone who isn’t drinking the Larry Baer Kool-Aid.
It’s too bad to hear you’re turning your interests away from the Giants, but I can’t say that I blame you. The Giants deserve far less from their fans than they’ve gotten already, and turning on them would be the rational thing to do at this point. Of course, as a fan, I can’t say I’m the least bit rational about it, so I’ll probably keep supporting them (even if I don’t shell out any more money going to home games or buying merchandise until Sabean is gone).
Glad to hear you’re gonna keep writing – even if it isn’t about the Giants, it’s enough to keep me coming back.
While I understand you anger with the Sabean’s retention, I can’t stop following my team. I just can’t.
My love of the Giants will outlast Sabean’s tenure. There will be good times again. I hope you and all the other great writers on this blog stick around to see (and write about) them.
-bc
Sabean: “I think we learned this year, as attested by winning 88 games, the most important thing is the final score, winning the game.”
That makes no sense, and epitomizes the problem with the Giant’s GM. Yes, winning the game is the most important thing. And your job is to assemble a team that can do the best possible job of winning the game. And the stat that has the greatest bearing on run-scoring, which your team lacked this year, is… OBP.
I can’t blame John for turning his back on a team that is being crippled by such idiotic thinking from the people who are responsible for putting the product on the field. It’s painful to watch, and I’m not even a Giants fan.
John, I hope you change your mind, only because I enjoy your smart, well-written stuff. Your site, along with McChronic and Lefty, inspired me to start my own blog, so thanks for that. I understand your anger and frustration at the Giants, all perfectly justified. I’m a lifer, and I know that, so I’ll be back for my dose of suffering next year. It’s like being a Catholic (12 years of Catholic school here), you can walk away all you want but the tattoo still lingers!
Cheers.
hey guys
they fired carney
all the problems with the offense are gone
ws here we come
hahahahahahahahahahahahahah
I am sorry to see John stop commenting on the Giants because he’s been unfailingly informative and entertaining.
[...] John Perricone will stop blogging at Only Baseball Matters. That’s too bad, as he’s been blogging almost as long as me, and I always enjoyed his work, even when I didn’t agree with it. You’ll be missed, John. [...]
john never said he would cease blogging
just that he wont comment on the giants
for he sees no point
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Your rants have grown very tiresome and I for one will not miss them.
Oh, and don’t bother jumping back on the band wagon when we make the playoffs next year without first issuing a full appology for the misguidedness of your rants.
you are a fucktard
instead of sounding like a republican talking about healthcare, why dont you explain exactly how the giants will make it to the playoffs, knwoing sabean and bochy’s track records
I’ll have to comment again, because I don’t want this to be my last insignificant post on this fantastic site. But, I have to say that Giantsrainman acting as if he were the authority on anything is beyond ridiculous. Scorned and brushed aside at McCoveyChronicles and you keep commenting. Here? Same thing. And bandwagon? What? This franchise is using you my friend and you take it all in, just what Giants ownership and management want.
And…I just saw the same thing below…John didn’t write that he was done with the blog, but done with the Giants. Either way, I greatly respect his writings and opinions and appreciate that he takes views (that I see as largely correct) even if they are unpopular.
GRM is a running joke on most blog sites. It’s getting real hard to take anything he says seriously. The only place where he has half a chance getting an agreement is on OGC’s site. Lots of Sabean love there.
Amen. Too much bile. It’s boring. Not to mention insane. Sabean is right about one thing at least: you are the lunatic fringe.
Its a goddamn shame that on top of these resignings, the Giants struggles and the less than rosy outlook over the next few seasons, that we will also be losing such a valuable commentator such as yourself. You give eloquent and passionate voice to the many fans who share your sensibilities and concerns. I hope you reconsider.
On another note, why do you think more bay area sports writers are not writing about the validity and intelligence of the business logic Neukom is using to evaluate Sabeans performance. In no business should it just be about results when talking about a small sample. Sound evaluation of talent and performance should be based on looking at both the methods and approach that constitute the decision making ‘inputs’ as well as then looking at the ‘output.’ In doing such an evaluation Neukom should be considering the opportunity cost of what Sabean did to make this team better when compared to what he reasonably could have done with the same resources and assets.
I think Neukom should be expected to judge the members of organization that way and held accountable by the media if he does not. Is this a case of writers not understanding baseball, management principles, being lazy or all three?