Super-duper busy around my place this time of year, so I haven’t even had the desire to sit down and write, let alone the time. However, I have been reading. I’ve noticed that there seems to be a lot of hand-wringing about the fact that Lincecum beat out the two St. Louis players, especially around the voting of two of the newest BBWAA members (Will Carroll and Keith Law). Now, while it seems to me that what happened was obvious, that the two players from the same team split the vote, it appears clear that nothing about what happened was obvious to everyone. I just read Bill James’s terrific analysis of the Cy Young Award voting, and he and I are in complete agreement (very convenient, no?), and he’s much more eloquent and detailed than I will ever be:
…. (Brian) Burwell, writing for a St. Louis audience, is trying to smear sabermetrics by saying, in essence, that we were responsible for taking the award away from St. Louis pitchers. Setting aside the position that it may be better not to personalize the debate, is that even what happened? Isn’t what happened here more like two St. Louis pitchers split the vote and allowed the San Francisco pitcher to win it?
…. exactly like the American League MVP Award in 1954, when two Cleveland Indians split the vote (Larry Doby and Bobby Avila), and allowed a Yankee to win, or 1965, when two Dodgers split the vote and allowed Willie Mays to win, or the Cy Young vote in 1970, when three Baltimore Orioles split twelve first-place votes and allowed a Minnesota Twin to win with six. Et cetera.
Well, yes, exactly.
He then expounds, as he is wont to do, for about 15000 words, and finally comes to this:
…. here’s what I would say. In the National League, the vote was split three ways, it was a very close vote, and it’s been a controversial vote. In the American League Greinke won easily, and this vote has been uncontroversial, and this vote has been celebrated by the analytical community as a victory for reason and logic.
But actually it seems pretty clear to me, under the most careful analysis that I can do, that Lincecum was the best pitcher in the National League and deserved the award—whereas in the American League, under the most careful analysis that I can do, it is unclear to me whether Greinke or Hernandez is more deserving.
I love Bill James.
UPDATE: Rob Neyer gives us even more thoughtful analysis:
…. I’m not going to run through every basic statistic (and yes, K/BB is a basic statistic), nor will I run through every advanced metric. I will say that according to FanGraphs, the most valuable pitcher in the league was Lincecum, the second most valuable was Vazquez, and the third most valuable was Haren.
Which isn’t necessarily how I would have voted. Value-wise — as theoretically measured by dollars — there’s virtually no difference between Haren, Wainwright, Carpenter, or (gulp) Ubaldo Jimenez and Josh Johnson. My point is that among the five candidates who wound up on at least one voter’s ballot, only Lincecum’s fundamental performance truly stands out.
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Giants ruled last season !! they ruled Penny
Penny played his ass off for the Giants last season and after all the hype about him being difficult and a problem in the clubhouse he came out of the season smelling like a rose. The fact that he is supposed to have issues with the Dodgers has absolutely no down side in my opinion. Whether he has played himself to a perceived value that the Giants cannot afford him is the question. That they should at least try to sign him seems to me to be a no-brain-er, but Penny has succeeded where so many fail; he has completely rehabilitated his reputation.
I have to feel happy for Penny. He did right by the Giants and he has made himself a clearly more valuable player. If the Giants are going to expand their payroll he seems to be the best and most obvious player for them to go after. I imagine Penny would be amenable to returning to the Giants. His success in San Francisco, his surprising return to form, did not occur in a vacuum; something about being on the Giants squad allowed him to flourish and he should think twice about moving.
Since the idea of acquiring a real batter seems to be off the table the Giants will need the best pitching they can get. But is Penny going to be too expensive, and will he want too many years? Probably.
If the Giants do not raise their payroll heading into the 2010 season they will have only $25.52 million to divvy up between 19 players – and one of those players is Tim Lincecum.
This is because the Giants have $57.1M committed in contracts to Zito ($18.5M), Rowand ($13.6M), Renteria ($10M), Sanchez ($6M), Cain ($4.5M) and Affeldt ($4.5M). These six players are receiving 69% of the total payroll.
Lincecum is likely to ask compensation on par with Barry Zito’s. Lincecum is, after all, the staff Ace, more effective, more consistent, and he has twice as many Cy Young awards; facts that his agent will no doubt point out during negotiations. There is also the example of the Yankee’s contract with CC Sabathia. Lincecum is going to get a very big raise, no matter how the negotiations shake down.
This will leave somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million dollars to pay the remaining 18 players, possibly less. There is no room to sign even second-tier players.
The Top Six
Barry Zito, earning $18.5M, or 22.4% of the team’s total payroll, plays every five days. He is going to turn 34 early in the 2010 season. His quality of play would make him a fourth or fifth starter on a NL West team. His claim to fame: Worst signing in baseball history. A reoccurring nightmare on the hill, his fastball crosses the plate at about 75MPH. Baseball’s equivalent of toxic waste.
Aaron Rowand, earning $13.6M or 16.5% of the team’s total payroll, plays every day. He is going to turn 33 in the 2010 season. His quality of play is average and declining. His claim to fame: Runs face first into walls, team mates. Bad plate discipline complimented by lack of pop. Rowand led the team in strikeouts and batted a pitiful .261, the worst since his first full season in the majors. At least he isn’t Dave Roberts bad.
Edgar Renteria, earning $10M, or 12.1% of the team’s total payroll, plays when not injured. He is going to turn 35 in the 2010 season. Renteria checked out of the 2009 season early to have surgery on his right elbow. His quality of play was below average in 2009. His claim to fame: Option declined by the Detroit Tigers. Renteria is blocking younger players with no upside. Look up the word “boondoggle”.
Freddy Sanchez, earning $6M, or 7.26% of the team’s total payroll, plays when not injured. Another 33 year old player. Sanchez has undergone knee surgery. His quality of play is average. His claim to fame: Damaged upon receipt. Sanchez has no pop and is blocking younger players with no upside.
Matt Cain, earning $4.5M, or 5.45% of the team’s total payroll, plays every fifth day. He will turn 26 in the 2010 season. His quality of play is solid. His claim to fame: Very good and getting better. Worth every cent. Hell, give him a raise.
Jeremy Affeldt, earning $4.5M, or 5.45% of the team’s total payroll, left handed relief. Affeldt will turn 31 in the 2010 season. His quality of play is solid. His claim to fame: Very good and improving. An important element in the bullpen and worth every penny.
Overall I don’t have anything much against the Freddy Sanchez deal, if he can play healthy next year, and Cain and Affeldt are worth every cent.
The three highest paid players on the roster are pure unadulterated waste. $42 million for those three, fully half the team’s payroll (51%). Spending that kind of money you’d expect to get a top-tier ballplayer or two, instead of a hat full of shit.
It is one thing to be a team full of marginal players. The Giants have lots of those. See San Diego, Oakland, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Washington, Arizona.
It is another thing to have overpriced marginal players. The Giants have lots of these too as you note. Also see Mets, Tigers, Cubs, Brewers, Astros, White Sox, Blue Jays, Orioles.
And it is a worse thing to be a team with half of your payroll tied up in 3 humongous nonperforming manure piles. Each signed in succeeding years.
The piece d’ resistance? Extending the contract of the Nobel Imbecile Prize moron who was responsible for this mess and reward him with a 3 year extension just in time to add a fourth fecal cluster to the circle of shit when Freddy Sanchez was given a two year contract after posting up an awesome 690 OPS and a sub-300 OBP.
Oh. And another under the radar former Giant kicking ass.
Hint: The Giants rushed him to the Majors, he hurt himself trying to overthrow, like Joe Nathan, and was cast over the side for LaTroy Hawkins after being shipped to the minors and badmouthed in hushed voices to the local Bay Area mouthpieces by the front office on his way out the door. Just like Nathan.
All this took place while paying Armando Benitez millions to eat chocolate tacos, pull hamstrings, and shit himself, and paying millions to guys like Matt Morris, Brett Tomko, Jamey Wright ad nauseum.
And yet, in Penny, they have a guy who came in and shoved it for them for no cost, and whom nary a word is mentioned?
This organization is a fucking farce.
Couldn’t agree more with what’s been said by Bill James. It’s like if Hillary stayed in the race for president, well of course McCain would win because the democrats would split that vote. That’s what happened with the two St. Louis pitchers. They were impossible to differentiate from each other. Also, Lincecum was better and is going to be better this year too.
Bernie Madoff’s Idiot Twin
Alan “Bud” Seligula, Temporary Commissioner For Life and creator of the All-Star Home Field Advantage Video Game announced his
retirement at the end of the 2012 season. This is not the first time His Royal Custardness has feigned retirement, in an effort to weasel even more dollars from MLB. After backstabbing Faye Vincent along with the other members of the Great Lakes Gang — Selig, Carl Pohad, (Twins) Stanton Cook (Cubs), Jerry Reinsdorf, (Black Sox) and Peter O’Malley (Trolleydodgers)– feigned humility, surprise, reluctance and great sacrifice in being chosen by the other owners to be their front man.
Selig claims he wants to do other things, like write a book or teach history at the University of Wisconsin where he went to school. That may not be a good idea as Selig is not too popular with at least one School paper writer who thinks Selig has set a horrible example for future leaders of this country:
At least the owners will have Selig to whine in the media for them when the next CBA (collective bargaining agreement) is negotiated after its expiration ending in 2011. Nice of him to stick around just long enough to try to fuck the players again just before he retires.
Skewed Payroll Indeed
In addition, speaking of fucking over the players, the union is pressuring Lincecum to hold out for Arbitration in order to raise the bar on player salaries. Of the three major sports, MLB has the lowest percentage of revenues going to player salaries. While the owner’s stooges in mainstream media evoke class envy by pointing to the big ass contracts of Rowand, Zito, Renteria, and Winn as well as other marquee free-agents, the median salary of the San Francisco Giants was $661,250.00, 23rd place, on an a payroll of $82 Million. Other than 2008 when it was $650, 00.00, that is the lowest it has been since 1997′s $550,000 when the total payroll was $33 Million.
Here is a hint for Timmy’s agent if and when he decides to negotiate with Sabean and avoid arbitration. I use the word negotiate loosely in Sabean’s case as it appears he thinks he is dealing in Mexican peso’s, not dollars judging from the money he shelled out for Zito, Rowand, Roberts, Renteria, and Winn.
Cite Selig’s last reported salary of $18.35 Million in 2007. The year before he was paid $15.5 Million, the year before that $14.5 million. Extrapolate and extend that for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. I think it is a fair assumption to infer that Selig’s salary (in light of record owners’ revenues and money into the Central fund) is likely over $20 Million in 2008 and even higher this year. Roughly speculating, it looks like Selig is in line for approximately $60 to $70 Million over the next 3 years.
Barry Zito is due to be paid that amount as well over the same period. So if we assume that Lincecum is merely the equal of Selig and Zito, that puts our boy at $20 million per just for openers.
Throw in the fact that Timmy promises he will not cancel the World Series. He will not give home field advantage to the team with the best record in intra-squad games. In addition, Lincecum will phone no radio shows and whine. He will also not throw baseballs across gullies and pretend it is a Zen exercise. He will also not twitter, tweet, or otherwise act like a pussy in public. That will be in addition to his 60 percent better ERA and a 75% better chance to win games he starts versus Zito too.
The Prescience of Robert
Then there is this. Nick Carfado of the Boston Globe keeps linking the Giants to Dan Uggla and now Miguel Tejada. I cannot imagine what Sabean would give up for an Uggla, given that he is probably fantasizing about Uggla turning into the next Jeff Kent. Which considering that he gave up Matt Williams for an up to that point unremarkable, but steady “second tier” Kent, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Larry Beinfest snooker Sabean out of Matt Cain.
Tejada is exactly the kind of over the hill baseball card with good Bay Area “Q” rating type of free agent that Sabean loves to sign. Old, beyond prime, gritty, all-star, blah blah blah. This year’s version of Edgar Renteria, Edgardo Alfatso, Moises Alou, Omar Vizquel etc.
I tend to think that the fan base will not be alienated. Baer is too smart a marketing person to allow that much slippage in attendance. That’s why guys like Tejada and Uggla are the kinds of guys the Giants chase. Sabean is really good at out-Royaling and out-Cubbing his competitors for these types of players, which is why he was renewed. It’s a fake left, go right type of transaction. Stay one step in front of the hounds of complete despair. Present the illusion of competing. Continue to offer false hope with the latest and greatest overpaid refuse, and surround them with underpaid club-controlled AAAAers.
Do all of this while refusing to eat the contracts of useless pieces of shit like Zito, Rowand, and Winn etcetera and replace them with actual good players.
You know, like what the Dodgers, Angels do when they make a bad acquisition like Gary Matthews Jr, Bartolo Colon, Juan Pierre, or Milton Bradley.
Pretty sure both sides submit a dollar number independently.
Yes.
Lincecum is likely to ask for $20-$22 million, based on Sabathia. Don’t know what the Giants will counter with, but yes, they are fucked. They have to come in high enough not to trigger a “default” judgment. So they are going to have to put $15-$20 million on the table and hope to “win” with that.
I still think Sabean is going to try to make a three year deal, and I think Lincecum will take it if the price is right. Getting that back injury made all the difference in this calculation. Considering the arbitration is a lock $20 million, it comes down to 2 years insurance against injury and decline in performance against a discount for the guarantee. Both sides have a huge incentive to deal now. Especially Lincecum. His dad, in particular, is going to push him to sign a 3 year insurance deal.
Before the second Cy, $35m was my guess. Maybe $38-$40m with Cy 2 for a three year deal.
Penny is going to want $8m, also.
Forget about a real hitter, Sabean is going to sign a 35 year old declining “veteran” for 2 years, $15 million. Watch.
If you were Lincecum, what would you ask in arbitration? If you were Sabean, what would you ask? I think the player puts the number down first, right?
What makes you think arbitration is a $20M lock? And what makes you think they can base the arbitration number on Sabathia? When Howard set the arb record, he just won the MVP (implying he’s one of the best players in the league, unless you think that logic is mistaken?), and he didn’t even get half of what ARod was making. Why would Lincecum get what CC is making, or even half of what CC is making? No pitcher at Lincecum’s service time has even gotten $5M before…
As for addressing John’s post, it looks to me like the writers got lucky the vote got split so the deserving player won. The real evidence to me, that the writers still don’t have a clue, though, is the NL MVP vote. Chase Utley didn’t make the Top 10 for 14 of the 32 voters, and only receieved Top 5 consideration from 5 of the 32 voters. What does the best defensive 2B in baseball have to do to get noticed? He hit .282/.397/.508 with 31 HR’s! He’s a better hitter than Ryan Howard, a better baserunner (he even set the record for most steals without being caught this year with 23!), and he’s a gold glove 2B! He’s one of the 4 best players in all of baseball (the other 3 being Pujols, Hanley, Mauer), and has been that good for 5 years now. When someone as good as Utley is only deemed the 8th most valuable player in the national league, it really makes you wonder who decided to give the vote to a group of people who so obviously has no clue…
Re: the Cy Young voting, I never understood the talk of two guys on the same team “splitting” their votes. The MVP ballot has ten slots, and the Cy has three. If you couldn’t decide on Wainwright or Carpenter for the number one, what would keep you from putting the other guy number two, if you really felt like they were the best two pitchers in the league? The rational way to interpret the results is to say that pretty much every voter was impressed by Lincecum’s performance, whereas there was less agreement about the two Cardinal pitchers. I just don’t get how this vote splitting thing is supposed to have come into play (and that goes for the MVP contests that Bill James mentioned as well).
Like the way you think. I don’t disagree with you at all. The “split” thing comes from the tools who vote on such awards. They identify one player per team, either/or so to speak. One guy gets the first place vote, the other gets the 2nd or 3rd or no place. They want the guy from the “cards” or “the giants” or the “braves” or the “dbacks” to get it. Most of the assheads who have a vote on these things know not much more than the rest of their colleagues in msm, so they tend to see 2 guys from one team as an either or as opposed to your scenario of carpenter or lincecum, or vasquez, or haren or afeldt for that matter. The argument of splitting is that if wainwright had not been on the ballot, carpenter would have won; wainwright, having siphoned off votes from carpenter and not from any of the others.
In any event, the whole stupid pick 3 and pick 10 just exacerbates an already ludicrous process of institutionalized media masturbation as it is. Is it an award or a fucking keeno ticket?
Stupid is as stupid does.
I was curious about this as well. The implication in the claim is that two players who had better seasons siphoned votes for one another, and those votes went to a third player who won, even though he should have lost to either player head-to-head. I’m not sure that this makes sense given the way MVP and Cy Young voting is carried out. If player A and B had similar performance and either was better than player C, then you’d expect the voting to finish either A, B, C or B, A, C. I would expect Player C to win only if he managed sufficient 1st and 2nd place votes and the other players received unexpectedly weak support from voters.
Otherwise, that may imply that writers who selected one or the other felt that it was “only fair” to drop the other to 3rd place and slip Lincecum into 2nd, regardless of how they felt he compared to either pitcher. That doesn’t make sense to me.
In my view, the split vote derived from the fact that the three pitchers had seasons that were extremely close in value, which resulted in all three earning almost the same exact number of voting points.
How come you can write in one sentence what takes me thirty four paragraphs, 13 posts, and 2 weeks to write?
Fucker
For several years the Giants ball club has been so unattractive from a ballplayer’s point of view that the team has been obliged to overcompensate players to entice them to sign with San Francisco.
What makes the Giants ball club unattractive to ballplayers?
Skewed Payroll
Money is important to professional athletes. They have a limited number of years to gain wealth and a host of advisers, agents, and a union reminding them of this fact. A ball club with deep pockets is an attractive ball club. A large payroll is important, but so is how the ball club divides the total salary “pie”. A club with a badly skewed payroll that rewards only a very few players, as is the case with the Giants, does not provide an opportunity for other players to succeed financially. A skewed payroll is as unattractive as a small payroll.
Losing
While money is important, money isn’t everything. Athletes are competitive by nature and most want to excel at their profession. Quite aside from the financial gains, there is the satisfaction of ego. A team with a losing reputation will have difficulty signing players that want to win. Great competitors and great players will not want to sign with a losing organization without being greatly overcompensated, and some will refuse larger offers on this basis alone.
The San Francisco Giants have put themselves into a downward spiral by signing long term contracts with borderline players. These overpaid mediocrities further skew the payroll while simultaneously ensuring losing records, thus necessitating overpaying and giving long term contracts to any future prospective free agents. There is a dynamic feedback between past mistakes and future options/costs. What +mia refers to as “blow-back results” – the high cost of re-signing Lincecum – is only one facet of the long term trouble the Giants have made for themselves.
Extricating themselves from this downward spiral in the quickly would necessitate the Giants spending a lot of money. They would have to break the bank and get some real top-tier players into the organization through (what is now unavoidable) overspending on free agency. Signing one great free agent would not likely be enough either. They would have to buy two, or preferably three top-tier contracts to put the payroll back in balance and show a commitment to winning. This would necessitate raising payroll to the same level as that of the Red Sox. This is not an unreasonable expectation, from the fan’s point of view, given the size of the Giants market and their facility, but the Giants are not going to make this move. They have made it clear that they are not even talking to top-tier player’s agents.
The long term option, that of developing players in their farm system, is an opium pipe dream at this point in time; there are not a lot of bright stars on the Giants minor league teams. This deficiency is not going to be relieved any time soon if the Giants continue to have modest success/modest failure in the standings. They will not benefit from early round draft choices handed to the really terrible teams. The long term option also necessitates the continued hiring of mediocre players at inflated prices just to keep attendance from falling off sharply, which continues the spiral. The team following this plan is to have some unforeseen prodigy pop up in their minor league system, which is not a plan, but a type of wishful thinking.
The Giants would be better off if they had a dynamic and insightful Manager to get the most out of the players he’s given, along with a savvy GM who could spot and sign the rare second-tier talent. Unfortunately the organization has seen fit to sign two men of less than average ability to fill the Manager and GM spots for at least another two years, underscoring the ownership group’s lack of baseball acumen.
With an ownership group unwilling to commit the resources to solve their team’s problems, the Giants are in for a very long spell of mediocrity. There is little chance that the Giants will decline into the sort of team the Pirates have become, but the team will be bad. The Giants will continue to have difficulty retaining what home grown talent they produce, and they will continue to have to overcompensate for mediocre talent. They are also taking the risk of alienating the fan base, which would be the kiss of death.
Theoretically Speaking
I think “theory” is the operative idea here with Mr. Nyer, who never met a person he felt obligated to not patronize:
I mean. Really. Just make a blanket statement based upon somebody else’s statistical analysis and collect a pay-check. And in the process admit that its only “theoretical”. Well in theory, at one time or another, the moon was made of green cheese, the earth was flat, and Al Gore created the internet. Do guys like Neyer understand what they see when they watch guys pitch in person? I am not agreeing or disagreeing necessarily with Neyer’s opinions. Its just that like most of the guys who opine from his point of view, he seems to have a scope of the game that comes more from interpreting the observations of others, and certainly not from any sort of empirical standpoint. I guess that is where a lot of the disconnect between msm and ballplayers comes from. Pretty hard to understand and report and opine intelligently when you don’t understand the participants. Which is what used to make Krukow and Kuiper such valued commodities when informing Giants followers during the course of their work. At least until the Giants-Comcast cartel clamped down on their on-air opinionating.
I guess I’m one of those with no need to go into great depth analyzing an award for individual performance. Baseball has always been about winning championships, regardless of the level. Things like Cy Young, HOF, MVP, most homeruns, most-this, least-that, highest-amount, fewest-allowed, and so forth, by individuals seem to be only important once a guy hits the show. Up until that point, baseball is about individual games and their outcomes. Recognition is generally reserved for the players who are most recognizable in the process of winning individual games; the more important the game, the more important the recognition.
But, like baseball cards, and other memorabilia, Major League Baseball has something for almost everybody. I guess the opinions of who was statistically better than who doesn’t mean much to somebody like me on an idividual basis. I care only for stats in terms of confirming or refuting what what one sees or experiences empirically. As for stats, they are worthless, except unto themselves and for arguing about, unless they are part of a projection process. Yesterday’s games are over. It is this game and the game after that can only be affected. And to the extent that stats can help one project future performance, they are extremely valuable when used in context with other observations.
But like John wrote a few days ago, the Cy Young award went to Tim Lincecum for one reason. Carpenter and Wainwright split the vote. It did not alter by a single inning who won the division, pennant or world series. So for someone like me, I don’t really care who wins a plaque and who does not. Except in Tim Lincecum’s case.
Because in Tim Lincecum’s case, the amount of money the Giants are going to have to part with, when Lincecum’s agent invokes this particular provision of article of the basic CBA, is going to rest substantially on his two Cy Young Awards:
One of the blow-back results of Sabean signing waste-matter like Zito, Rowand, Renteria, Roberts, Winn, Benitez, to big, fat, juicy, exorbitant, extravagant, multi-year contracts is that the arbitration panel will be able to “deem appropriate” the contracts of Zito, Rowand, Renteria, Roberts, Winn, Benitez et al and the performances thereof, in arriving at a salary number for Tim Lincecum.
Brain Sabean-Queeg, by his own admission, will be guiding the USS Caine into uncharted waters with this one. Ryan Howard was awarded $10 Million/annum off of one MVP. Lincecum’s agent has been steadfast in his desire for only a one year contract–they are not interested in a multi-year deal. The CBA expires after the 2011 season. Lincecum is under the Giants control until after the 2013 season. The slimy Selig is already crying poor mouth in the media in advance of negotiations. The MLPA wants to force a large number out of the Giants in arbitration. Lincecum’s agent concurs.
What are 2 Cy Youngs worth?
On a team that gave one-time winner Barry Zito a $126 million dollar contract. Just for grins:
Three years from 2007-2009, when both Lincecum and Zito joined the Giants
Games Zito 98
Lincecum 89
Zito: 31W 43L 4.57 ERA 405 Ks 266 BB in 568 Innings while opponents had an OPS of .735 and OBP of .330
Linc: 40W 17L 2.90 ERA 676 Ks 217 BB in 598 Innings while opponents had an OPS of .605 and OBP of .288
Lets see: 33% more wins in 10% fewer starts. 36% fewer earned runs. 18% more innings per start. 67% more strikeouts and 20% fewer walks. And a betterment of 130 points of OPS.
By my calculations then, Lincecum should be worth at least $35 Million. Theoretically speaking that is.
And thats just for 2010. The Giants will be faced with more of the same in 2011, 2012 and 2013 seasons. Does anybody really think Neukom is going to stomach 4 years of this shit? Or do you think next year will see Lincecum traded to New York for a collection of old useless vets, a couple of ham n egg prospects from Boston or some other old ass baseball card with grit and savvy and 2 time all-star credentials from some other club seriously competing for championships.
Dickface lucked out when he traded down for Kent and Vizcaino when Kent blossomed to everybody’s surprise along with Superman Bonds. Don’t be surprised if Sabean tries to pull this trick out of his ass again next year with Lincecum.
Does anybody really think Neukom is going to stomach 4 years of this shit?