Martin (sorry, I knew that), over at Obsessive Compulsive, thinks I missed a couple of points in my recent rants. He thinks the Giants weren’t thinking about contending prior to the season, that the failure of the team to draft good offensive players isn’t Sabean’s fault, that the team over-achieved and Sabean deserves some credit for that, that the team is rebuilding and I’m being too harsh. I disagree on most of his points. Here’s what I wrote in response:
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 that the Giants would contend, and that no one else thought that they could; 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 wouldn’t be able to make the postseason. It was my long-term view that was the correct one, not yours, Martin. You’ve 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 his own failure. He’s not rebuilding a team that he just came to run. He’s cleaning up his mess. 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 do 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 up 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.
UPDATE: Yeah, and in case you were wondering about the ownership and accountability of the team’s management; Carney Lansford was fired today. So, even though, Brian Sabean got all the props for the team winning 88 games with no offense, Lansford was fired because he failed to make Randy Winn hit home runs. So much for winning 88 games being the important factor in the team’s success and failure. I guess that only counts for the GM and the coach.
As much as I appreciate the Giants’ analysis, that’s getting a little much. Any chance we could hear some commentary on the playoffs? John? +mia? As Giant fans, we’re also baseball fans, and it’s that time of the year.
ok
the 4 teams with the largest payrolls in the mlb are in the playoffs
the weather in the east is not fit for man, beast nor baseball
what else would you like commented on?
I have not posted here in quite a long time, though I continue to enjoy reading both John’s commentaries and the comments of others. Even when I may disagree. There was a time when I thought John and others were too hard on Sabean (partly because there are not a lot of great genius replacements out there, so might as well stay with a half-good GM). But I eventually became convinced that Sabean had to go. John is exactly right. We had a legit chance not only to get into the playoffs, but to advance all the way with our pitching. Not that it would happen, but we had the chance. But Sabean made awful, terrible trades for players who helped not at all. I don’t know how we’ll get close again under this regime. I come up with my family to see a couple of games every summer (from the central coast) and I was really excited that the Giants stayed in contention, but that is simply not enough to keep me satisfied. I need my team to win a World Series every 15 years or so (which is not THAT much to ask, is it?). And this franchise, despite the many wonderful players it has had, has failed to win even one series in its entire SF existence.
PS: +mia continues to be a profane joy. A couple/three of years ago we got into a little scrap here and I was ready to find him and slap the shit out of him (metaphorically speaking, I think). He actually emailed me and made peace and I respected that. I understood afterward that he’s being colorful because it’s more fun for him (and others too). Anyway, I’ll miss the commentaries focused on the Giants but I understand the soul-incinerating exasperation.
Of course the Giants fired Lansford. He insisted upon accountability and performance and results. Those three things are not real big in the “Giants Way” of doing things. The three things the Giants were really big about as defined by Savvy, Grit, and Chemistry, Things like:
Brain dead hacking at slop nightly,
Trying to hit 8 run homers with nobody on base,
Pretending to be switch hitters,
Stepping backwards before running to first base.
Stupid baserunning,
Napping in the outfield,
Wonderbread bats instead of Wonderboy
Being robotic company yes men
Whining about not being respected
Avoiding walks at all cost
Refusing to work counts
Making thee outs on 7 pitches.
Making Cy Young Candidates out of spot starters and mop up relievers.
Yup. How dare Lansford demand accountabilty for doing things the “Giants Way”. Just no chemistry at all. Damn Lansford had no concept of Aaron Rowand’s grit and Randy Winn’s savvy, and Bengie Molina’s pitch recognition. None whatsoever.
Whew. Now that he’s gone, I for sure see a pennant in the Giants future. Replacing Carney Lansford was the last piece in the puzzle. I bet right now that SBGGlobal has the Giants as the winter favorites to win the NL right fucking now. Got to hand it to the Giants Front Office, they sure know how to make a positive statement. Phone the one guy who actually knew what he was doing just as he is preparing to take his wife to her father’s funeral and tell him:
“Thanks for coming, we won’t be back in touch”.
Pure corporate class and style.
So for all you fucking pussies who like being the destination sphincter of choice for Neukom, Baer, and Sabean’s fantasies, enjoy the reaming, because it just doesn’t get any better than this.
I dunno if you read the Extra Baggs entry about Lansford, but it speaks volumes to the Giants organization. Just read some of these quotes:
“Well, he didn’t return my call last night, but there was a very good reason. He was burying his father-in-law.
“I’d gotten the call from Boch two hours before the service,” Lansford said. “Heck of a day.””
““There’s two things I learned,” he said. “Never take a job for sentimental reasons and never take a hitting coach job with an offensively challenged team.””
““Well, obviously it’s not a shock, not a surprise. The reason we didn’t win is we weren’t good enough offensively. You certainly can’t blame the pitching. I wish I had more offense to work with, but I had what I had. I don’t know what I would’ve done differently. I did not work out. I wish the Giants nothing but the best. All I wanted to do is help them win a world championship.”
“That said, we were able to stay in the wild card hunt until the final week of the season. I’m really proud of that. We kept the fans interested and excited for six months.”
““They were looking for a miracle worker. It didn’t happen. I wish with all my heart we had gotten to the postseason. I went to three World Series with the A’s and I tried to teach those guys everything we did to get there.”
““My only comment on the situational hitting is the first thing I was told when I took the job is it was atrocious. Did we work on that? More than you’ll ever know. They just didn’t get it done. We had meetings, we talked about the thought process, we talked about what pitch to look for. I don’t know if anyone had to move more runners than I did, as much as I had to move Rickey (Henderson) all those years. But going out early and doing it against batting practice? Anybody can do that. It comes down to games, when guys are throwing 95 mph fastballs and curveballs when you don’t know they’re coming. You can emphasize the heck out of it, but at some point you just have to find a way to get it done.”
““At some point, guys have to take responsibility for not doing that. That’s one thing I stressed to the guys – Step up and be responsible for yourself. Guys at the big league level, by the time they get there, should know how to do that stuff – move runners, get a guy home from third with less than two outs. If guys are learning that at the big league level, it’s too late. A major league player should not be as poor at it as we were in my two years. Do I take it personally? Of course I do. I know it cost us games. I’m a human being. I’m not a machine. But I’ll sleep good at night knowing I took my best shot.””
I don’t think this needs any interpretation. It just shows what a joke the Giants are. Shawon Dunston is back, mind you, the guy who tells all our hitters they aren’t aggressive enough at the plate gets to come back; the guy with the career line of .269/.296/.416 (yes, you read that right, .296 career OBP, worse than Bengie Molina) in his major league career is brought back to influence our hitters, but Carney Lansford (.290/.343/.411 career hiter) is the scapegoat and gets fired because he didn’t teach out hitters how to execute situational hitting well enough. Because that was the problem with the offense.
dont think martin read carney’s comments before he wrote his blog piece
at least carney was under the impression that the team was looking to get into the playoffs…not rebuilding
a rebuilding team doesnt fire its hitting coach
Well, that departure sure didn’t last long. I do however owe you an apology as I over reacted to what i saw as your over reaction in your last post in which to threatened to stop talking about the Giants. While we strongly disagree more often then not I still do enjoy reading your passionate opinions. I appolgise for letting my passions get the better of me at a personal level towards you. I really don’t want to become another +mia but just from the opposite point of view.
Not to worry dickbreath, you will never be like me. Unlike management peterpumpers such as yourself, I and the regulars around here can actually count to one without using our fingers.
Yawn.
His name is Martin.
ObsessiveCompulsive often has interesting points and reasoned analysis. I like going there for a different view from what I believe; I tend to go here, BP, LeftyMalo, and, when I had more time, I used to participate at McCoveyChronicles. That being said, I disagree with Martin’s points fundamentally in this case. Sabean constructed the team long ago, so long ago that “rebuilding” or an admission of rebuilding is absurd on its face. Human decisions, largely directly by that moron (Sabean) niggled throughout Bonds’ tenure (some worked great, many didn’t) and then continued to take the franchise over the cliff with shouts of “oh wait, we’re rebuilding now.” Okay, Brian Sabean, claim that if you will…and then go away. When I followed the Giants, I didn’t follow them so that they could complete for a period, collapse, claim to be rebuilding, enter mediocrity, and then compete again. Rebuilding? (Jim Mora tone). Nah, no excuse for rebuilding. What’s more, anyone with a brain can very easily look at who was signed (and for what) the last couple of years and compare their results to their peers across the league and know that Brian Sabean HAS NOT done a good job and HAS CERTAINLY NOT done a job to reward him with two more years.
Bochy? I have nothing to say about him, except he should pronounce loud and often how great this country is. A mediocre former baseball player continues to feed at the watering hole of baseball nepotism, manages to get a job running a couple of MLB teams (and poorly) and then gets rewarded for it by the Giants. Simply absurd.
And Grant is an entirely difference Giants blogger who runs McCovey Chronicles.
Just to throw some possible facts behind your point that Brian Sabean doesn’t measure up to his peers – I had a conversation with someone over at McCoveyChronicles and he went through Brian Sabean’s free agent signings to see how much value they gave us relative to how much money we gave them. Using Fangraph’s methodology, we know FA’s should get about $4.5-5M per win of value they provide. Supposedly, without even counting Barry Zito, Brian Sabean has collectively paid an average of over $7M per win on the free agent market. That’s failure, plain and simple. It’s not surprising since Sabean still acquires guys like Rowand/Sanchez who’s offensive value is substantially less than the BS adjectives like “Gamer”, “2 time All-Star”, and “run producer” make it sound. The truth is when it comes to assembling a Major Leaguer Roster, Brian Sabean is a failure.
I understand giving someone a chance – small sample sizes can and will often distort how good or bad of a job someone is doing if you only give them a couple years. Brian Sabean is the longest tenured GM in baseball. He’s proved over and over that he is incompetent. I was more hopeful than others here at the beginning of the season that Sabean had learned from past mistakes and improved as a GM. To put it flatly – I was wrong then. It’s abundantly clear he has not. He continues to make the same mistakes we’ve seen before, and will continue to do so in the future. The fact that we extended Sabean is a joke. This franchise doesn’t care about winning the World Series, if it did, Brian Sabean would be gone. This franchise cares about filling the stadium, and in that regard, Sabean is fairly successful. That’s not a franchise I want to root for, though.