Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Hot Stove Update: Giants Extend Contracts for Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy

Pretty much every Giants oriented website has a comment on this item. It seems to be a much more controversial issue than it should be. I almost let is pass here as a formality, but since there isn't really anything else to write about, I decided to go ahead and put in my 2 cents. You've heard most of this from me in the past, and many times over, but it apparently bears repeating.

Brian Sabean is, by far, the most successful GM the Giants have had since the immortal John McGraw. Some of you may be too young to remember, but the Giants had losing seasons 5 of the 6 years before Sabes became the GM, 3 of those losing seasons came after Barry Bonds joined the team. Since he became GM, the Giants have had 11 winning seasons out of 15. They have made 5 postseason appearances and been eliminated on the last day of the season 2 more times. They have won 2 NL Pennants and the only World Series Championship since they moved to San Francisco. Brian Sabean's winning percentage as GM is in the top 10 of all GM's in MLB since 1950.

As for the current state of the team, the Giants have one of the better young homegrown cores in the game with more young players in the pipeline. They have a strong scouting and drafting team. Combined with a strong fanbase, a solid ownership group and the best stadium in baseball, they are as well situated for the future as any team in baseball.

Brian Sabean is not a perfect GM. He has made mistakes. Those of you who may be hankering after someone else to take the reins of the team need to consider the potential alternatives. It is much more likely that the next Giants GM will be less successful than Brian Sabean than more. Extending his contract was the right thing to do!

Bruce Bochy has a big head and sounds a lot like Eeyore when he talks. He also has a tendency to prefer veterans to rookies, but this trait is grossly overemphasized by his critics. Like all managers, he has made blunders in game management that tend to stick in people's minds. Between the big head, the Eeyore voice and the memorable blunders, a lot of people think he is not a smart baseball manager.

Bochy's biggest strength might be in maintaining a positive clubhouse, something that should never be underestimated. One has to look no farther than this year's Boston Red Sox debacle to see what a bad clubhouse can do to a team. He has also consistently built strong pitching staffs, particularly bullpens. That may be mostly due to the personnel he has to work with, but I would point to his immediate predecessor as a prime example of how a manager can destroy a bullpen if he doesn't manage it properly.

Bochy's in-game management is underrated, IMO. His work down the stretch and in the 2010 postseason was nothing short of remarkable. Yeah, some of that might have been luck, but he made a lot of very good, even inspired decisions in that run. Ironically, I think his work in 2011 might have been even better considering the cards he was dealt. I read somewhere recently that the Giants Pythagorean record in 2011 was 80-82. If true, you could make a case that Bochy won 6 games for them with his managing. As OGC has pointed out, his record in 1 run games is nothing short of remarkable.

Some critics point to Bochy's lack of aggressiveness with "small ball" and "situational hitting". In reality, his tendency to eschew strategies like sacrifice bunting, steals, pitch outs and and hit and runs is sabermetrically sound. Also in reality, the Giants have been at least average in advancing runners over the last few seasons. It's getting runners on base in the first place that's the problem. Some of the lack of OBP may be Bochy's fault, but is more likely due to the players he has to work with.

Bochy's heaviest criticism seems to come from those who abhor his tendency to play veterans at the expense of rookies. There have certainly been instances where this was the case. On the other hand, the Giants have a great young core of homegrown talent that broke in under Bochy's management, so I'm not convinced that he's as bad as the CW says he is in this regard. Tony LaRussa is a manager who will almost certainly be in the Hall of Fame. Bruce Bochy absolutely loves young players when compared with Tony LaRussa's attitude toward them!

Like Brian Sabean, Bruce Bochy's record of taking teams to the postseason is underrated. His record with the Padres was the best that team has had. Now he's won the only World Series the San Francisco Giants have ever won. He may be 1 more World Series win away from serious Hall of Fame consideration.

Bruce Bochy is a very good, if not great manager. Extending his contract was the right thing for the Giants to do.

37 comments:

  1. Bruce Bochy was brilliant in the 2010 postseason, and no one can deny that. So it seems that, when pressed by time constraints, he is able to make excellent decisions. But given an entire season to manage, I fault him for (1) his fickle treatment of rookies and (2) his apparent disdain for hitters with a patient approach.

    Your allusion to Felipe Alou is very appropriate. We could, and did, have a much worse manager. I think if Bochy were teamed with a GM who encouraged him to overcome his reluctance to use rookies and allow patient hitters to "do their thing," I'd be happy to keep Bochy for several more years.

    Having a GM who will do that means that his name will not be "Sabean." Brian was good when he started out in SF, but he's become calcified. He gives every appearance of being out of touch with his peers; and while I don't want a GM who is so chummy with other GM's that they walk all over him, there is a certain collegiality that is necessary if a team ever wants to pursue a trade.

    Could we do worse than having Sabean as GM? Certainly. But I believe it's time for a change. That change doesn't have to be radical - I'd be fine promoting John Barr and keeping Dick Tidrow as the chief assistant/advisor. I do hope that, behind the scenes, younger poeple are being groomed to assume these duties in the not-too-distant future. Just as I want a crop of younger players developing in the minors, I also hope we're grooming front office people as well.

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  2. Lyle,

    How can you say that Bochy is reluctant to use rookies? The current Giants have Matt Cain, Pablo Sandoval, Buster Posey, Brian Wilson, TIm Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner, Sergio Romo and Nate Schierholtz who all broke in under Bochy. In addition, if there is a strong possibility that Brandon Belt and Brandon Crawford will be permanently added to the mix next year. Most of those guys were "rushed" into the majors. The assertion that Bochy somehow hates young players and is not willing to play them is demonstrably false.

    What hitters with a "patient" approach has Bochy shown disdain for? When he's had patient hitters to play, he's played them.

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  3. Well put DrB. The reason I gravitate towards your site and OGC is I can't stand the constant hand wringing over a few mistakes and I need to share the optimism I have over the Giants. As somebody who grew up watching the early 80s teams flounder around the Sabean era is just fine with me.

    The big market team GMs have a lot more money to smooth out their mistakes. At some point Giants fans are going to have to let Vlad/Tucker, AJ/Nathan, Zito and Rowand go. As fans its always fun to revisit the past, but its a much more nuanced and interesting past then is given credit. And the future is set up to be sweet. It isn't our right to have playoff baseball, that has to be earned between the lines. I can't think of another teams' homegrown core that I would trade out to go to battle though.

    And I wouldn't trade out Sabean. He's much better than the oft-compared Trader Billy. I like him more than Cashman, Epstein and Amaro. I definitely will take him over the whiz kids Hoyer and all those guys under Sandy Alderson.

    Bochy? He has a big head just like me, and he's proved to be a much better manager than Dusty or Felipe.

    I've enjoyed the hell out of the Sabean era, bad moves and great quotes all, and I'm looking forward to a couple more years at least.

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  4. Shankbone,

    Thanks for being a faithful reader and commenter.

    I just wish we could get to a point where we can acknowledge that Sabean and Bochy aren't perfect and have made some mistakes while also acknowledging the bigger picture and the successes they have had. Unfortunately, a lot of very vocal people out there have taken those mistakes, added in a whole lot of other perceived mistakes and created a conventional wisdom about them that is just not accurate.

    The notion that Sabean and Bochy don't like young players and refuse to give them opportunities is just one such conventional wisdom that is absolutely contradicted by the facts.

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  5. Amen, DrB and Shankbone!

    I think Lyle is referring to the twin peaks of Giants complaints, Fred Lewis and John Bowker, two patient hitters who, as I recall, has done nothing since leaving the Giants to suggest that these fans knew these players' potentials better than the Giants. But there is a contingent of Giants fans who think that the Giants "ruined" them by not being more patient with them and won't let facts like poor subsequent performances keep them from attacking Sabean whenever they get the opportunity to do so.

    These Naysayers keep a tight grip on their bones of contention, something Shankbone's been noting plus Lefty had a post the other day on it too.

    The way I see it, they are AAAA players who did just enough in AAA and initially in the majors, but never adjusted back once the league figured them out. But the shiny gloss of their early successes is what remains in these people's minds and they feel that they know these players more than the Giants did, despite their unfortunate habit of striking out too often and their lack of knowledge about how that affects a hitter's performance (it makes it wildly up and down, dependent on the whims of the BABIP gods, but mostly down).

    What a lot of them don't realize is that it appears that Bochy put Lewis in a good position to look good in his early years, probably avoiding certain matchups (like a lot less LHP, he should have had another 40 AB against them in 2008, that would have dropped his OPS), but you can see in his batting records that his BABIP was abnormally high, which propped up his early career stats, but people were in love with the fact that he could take a walk, ignoring the fact that he took too many strikeouts to maintain the good batting average he had in his first couple of seasons.

    I blame sabermetrics and Moneyball for this group of people I call saber-wannabes. These people clamp onto the "OBP" wagon and think that is the end all and be all of hitter evaluation.

    They also didn't notice that Lewis's great OBP the year he lost his job was due to his hot first two weeks, but then he was cold in the lineup for the next two months. However, he was so hot his first two weeks that his OBP was still looking good overall in June, even though he had horrible OBP for the prior 8 weeks. I don't care how good a players OBP looks like after nearly 3 months, if he's hot 2 weeks and cold the rest of the way, that just kills the offense. Consistency is much more important, particularly if the guy is your leadoff guy.

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  6. Allfrank

    I, too, enjoy your blog, Dr. B, along w/ OGC and Lefty's. I like your stability and your insight into players down in the system but on the way up.
    I basically agree with you on Sabean and Bochy, and don't really have much in the way of criticism of the way they have done things.
    The following comments are as much related to my lack of knowledge/opinion on what the right way is to treat rookies as anything else. Are there, for example, teams that just plug in a rookie, let him play, battle through the down times and then have great success rates in developing stars and useful players with this strategy?
    It does seem to me that it took Bochy a long time to really give Posey much playing time. I wonder, without concluding that it should have been done differently, if Belt would have been improved if he had played regularly, even if platooned and used against RH pitching, if he had just been stuck in the lineup for 3 months.
    It seems to me the Gs have been developing a "plan" for rookies, which is to give them a taste, in controlled (or limitede) situations and when the league adjusts, sit them for a while or send them to to work on adjustments. Given the necessity of trying to win games, this seems prudent. So, I guess I would say I do see a propensity to take a young player out of the lineup once he begins to struggle. How and when to put him back in seems to be a problem for them - and for us amateurs as well.

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  7. Cubs signed David DeJesus today. How long before the talks begin about dumping Soriano's contract. I highly doubt they would take on Zito's contract in trade if they didn't do it for Zambrano. Wouldn't it be nice if we could dump Zito's contract on a team such as the Yankees. Even if we did not get any relief, the roster spot would be worth it. The problem is that because of Zito, the Giants are probably relunctant to extend Cain or Lincecum past 4-5 years. That is probably a good thing though. Even if they received 4 year extensions we would have another 4 years to groom a replacement such as Mejia, Crick, or Blackburn.

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  8. Doc, Al Rosen was a pretty damn good GM.

    Hey, I like Sabean. For me, he's got the 5-year pass going after 2010. But, hey, he does have weaknesses. He has made mistakes. Those that want to focus on the mistakes and want to crucify him from hindsight, so be it.

    But, I'd say, don't get painted into a reactionary corner of defending the guy because so many fans want to crucify him.

    As I've said before, he seemed have an overall plan of drafting pitching and signing FA hitters. He stuck to that philosophy even when became pretty clear that the game changed. (More teams were hanging onto and extending young hitters before they went FA and those top-tier hitters he did go FA did NOT want to play at AT&T.) Even over-offers to players like Carlos Lee were left on the table.

    So the Giants went to acquiring 2nd-Tier FAs like Dave Roberts, Klesko, Edgardo Alfonso, Tucker, Aurilia Pt. 2, etc. The lesser lights to surround Bonds. And that really didn't work.

    And picking up Rowand (admittedly in a crazy FA year where Gary Matthews Jr. gets 5 years, wow!) after his very obvious career year (for 5 years!) is just insane. Renteria. Etc. Etc. I'm not even mentioning Zito, which Sabean keeps getting a pass, as it looks like a McGowan move.

    Anyone with any sabermetric knowledge could see that these signings were sketchy.

    Now, there weren't alternatives in our Farm, as has been pointed out. But, there were no alternatives in our Farm BECAUSE of Sabean's strategy. (Draft pitching, win now & lost 1st round picks because of 2nd-Tier FA signings.)

    Again, I have no problem with Sabean. But while the Giants are not the Yankees, we do have more money to spend than most. And a lot of that money has been misspent in Sabeans tenure.

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  9. Thanks for reading and commenting, everybody. Lots of points here. I'll just address a few key ones:

    Allfrank,

    I don't think there is any one right way to transition prospects to the majors. They are all unique and need to be treated as individuals. Organizational needs play a role too. Contending teams are going to tend to not be as patient with a struggling rook than a team that is rebuilding and has no expectation of winning anyway. Sometimes prospects can work through their struggles at the MLB level and sometimes specific deficits are identified that are best worked on out of the spotlight.

    Roger,

    Yes it would be great to dump Zito's contract. I think that is probably every serious Giants fan's fantasy right now. I seriously doubt it will happen. He's either going to contribute as a 5'th starter or he'll be released and the Giants will just eat the remainder of the contract.

    Kelly,

    Yes, Rosen was a good GM who made some shrewd trades. I don't remember if he had the good sense to draft Will Clark or if he had the good fortune to inherit Will Clark. They arrived around the same time. He did draft Matt Williams, but also drafted Royce Clayton and Alan Cockrell in the first round. He also hired Roger Craig as manager. His tenure was shorter than Sabean's but I would rate their levels of success about the same. I would have to review when Rosen's tenure ended. It seems to me both he and Craig's magic kind of waned after a few years.

    You've done a very good job of listing all of Sabean's bad or questionable moves, but conveniently leave out the good ones.

    Once more, Brian Sabean has been the most successful GM in the history of the franchise since John McGraw. He took the team to their only Championship since moving to San Francisco. He has given the team a solid core of young homegrown players that are as good as any in baseball. The Giants are as well positioned for the future as any team in baseball.

    Go ahead and keep on listing all the mistakes you think he has made. It doesn't change the big picture!

    What is that expression? Don't sweat the small stuff!!

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  10. Hey, I listed the very good move of building a World Series winner.

    I LIKE Sabean. He (I'll give him credit for having Barr and Evans under him) has done a spectacular job in the draft when he's had the premium (top 10) picks. And, seems to have done a pretty damn good job with the last two end-of-1st Round picks. (Time will tell, of course.)

    All I'm saying is I think it's OK to note mistakes. Call 'em perceived mistakes.

    I'm repeatedly defending the Sanchez/Cabrera trade. I'm not defending it on numbers, though. I'm defending on Sanchez's mental makeup. On numbers, people are beating me up. (And then they're asking why the hell we felt we needed to throw in Verdugo.) And I try to look at the move a little more deeply. I think Sabean wisely avoided the Yankees to trade Sanchez away to. I don't think he wanted to give Sanchez an opportunity to win with another team. He traded Sanchez to a team that has very little chance to win next year. I think that's a pretty wise tactic.

    Anyway, understand that I support Sabean. But, it's fair (and sometimes fun) to question some of his moves.

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  11. Dr B - any opinion on the Iannetta trade?

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  12. I have no problem with listing Brian Sabean's mistakes. I have said many times he has made mistakes. Believe me, I have seen them listed so many times I can recite them in my sleep. What I have a huge problem with is listing his mistakes, only his mistakes, and concluding that he's a bum and should be thrown out when if you look at his entire body of work, he's made a lot of really good decisons too.

    Another huge problem I have is with people who make false generalizations and perpetuate them as fact, such as Bochy won't play "the kids" when there is a long list of players on the current team who came up through the farm system and broke in under Bruce Bochy.

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  13. Iannetta? Well, he's a darling of the sabermetric crowd and has always hit well against the Giants. It will be good to get THAT guy out of their division!

    Seems like a lateral move by the Rockies replacing Iannetta with Hernandez. I don't think Chatwood will do squat in Colorado. Always have to be suspicious of players who move out of Coors field and Iannetta's H/R splits suggest he may not do to well in a neutral-slightly pitcher friendly environment in Anaheim.

    It may end up as a wash for all parties involved with the Giants emerging as the big winners!

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  14. Allfrank, that might have been your impression, but that was not reality. (and thanks for the compliment)

    Posey, when he came up, started in 25 out of 30 games before the Molina trade and got into an additional 2 more games as a PH. So Bochy did not wait to give him playing time, he was starting from the get-go and got a lot of playing time.

    Perhaps you are referring to Posey not starting at catcher much during that period (only twice) before the Molina trade. It would have been hard to sit Molina down and to start Posey regularly, especially as we learned later, the Giants were trying to trade him: can't really get as much for Molina if he's sitting.

    So I had no problem with how the Giants handled Posey.

    Where other people had problems with the handling of Posey was that they felt that he should have been brought up sooner. These people just don't understand that the good numbers delivered in AAA by Posey in April translated to a pretty lame and lousy low 700 OPS (per the old minor league stats website). They can talk all they want about how they "knew" he was ready, but sabermetrically, Posey was cold hitting until May when he warmed up in early May, then cooled, before getting hot again in late May, at which point the Giants brought him up and he didn't hit that well at all after initially hitting well. His OPS was under .700 OPS when Molina was traded.

    At this point, the Naysayers conveniently forgot that despite Posey not hitting well, the Giants still traded Molina away and installed Posey as the starting catcher. So the Giants were willing to wait out Posey initial problems hitting and felt that he was ready at that point to take over, once they could trade Molina away. And they chose the young player over the older player.

    But facts like these interfere with their worldview that Sabean hates and mishandles young players.

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  15. Kelly, I think its great advice to not get reactionary with the defense of Sabean. Also, I enjoy the occasional dig too much, I can't give up making fun of Sabey Sabes.

    Roger, no way we can trade Zito's contract, and as long as he does the good soldier act, they'll keep him around here or there. (An 83-84 MPH fastball is a 20 on the scouting scale, aka poor - didn't know that specific fact until tonight)

    I am glad David DeJesus took his noodle arm to Chicago. 2 more Oakland A's guys to dodge now. Personally I think its a completely mediocre signing, but its being greeted with accolades due to his overall WAR. Looks like empty OBP WAR to me, not good for a corner OF.

    Speaking of mediocre signings, one more thing about the tier 2 guys Sabean has signed. Take a look at all the players you would love to have on the Giants. I'll throw up some of my favorites: Longoria, Braun, Cano, Kemp, Tulo, McClutchen, Stanton, Freese. Is there any chance of ever getting one of those players? Teams identify their core early and lock them up, now more than ever before. Free Agents are almost always by definition scraps or insanely expensive guys with flaws attached. I don't have numbers but I know the FA success ratio with big time FAs is not good. You have to build from within.

    But hey, if the Rainy Day folks want to throw down with the Janks in a bidding war next year for Robbie Cano, I wouldn't stand in their way...

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  16. I agree Al Rosen was a good GM. Will Clark was drafted in 1985 before Rosen joined the Giants 1986. He was a shrewd trader acquiring Kevin Mitchell, Craig Lefferts, and Dave Dravecky from the Padres helping them to the pennent and a few years later trading Mitchell to Seattle for pitchers Bill Swift, Mike Jackson, and Dave Burba who were keys to the pitching staff on the 1993 team who were edged out by the Braves.

    Drb I agree with your points that the Giants are well situated for the future which is why Sabean deserved the extension.. farm system - They have good homegrown players on the current roster with more on the way.. talent evaluation - they haven't had major problems with making bad trades or bad decisions on which minor leaguers to keep.. Maybe keeping Alex Hinshaw over Joe Patterson is an example of a bad decision, but hey we're only talking about a lefthanded specialist out of the pen.. Although it will be interesting if Zack Wheeler comes back to bite them. A plan for the future - Its great that they want to go with more and more homegrown players on the major league roster then fill holes with free agents. The org is heading in the right direction which is the most important thing.. I remember too many losing Giants teams of the past that had no direction..

    As for Bochy, he is the right manager for this team because he's had the reputation of being good at handling pitching staffs, and this team is certainly built around pitching.. I don't understand why fans are critical of his treatment of rookies, I thought he was patient with Nate Scherholtz and he is finally being rewarded..

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  17. Good points all. Don't really have anything to add here. Keep 'em coming, and once again, thanks for reading!

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  18. OGC had some good points on his last comment on the Q&A post. The Giants don't need superstars, they just need solid players. Its interesting to view the different theories of what will make the offense click, and the various levels of expectation. Offense, and the lack of it, is a lot more apparent than pitching and especially defense. HRs lead on sportscenter (if you still watch it), highlights of pitching will always focus on strikeouts, so in a way the Giants are built very low key, and I'm sure that bothers some fans. I happen to love pitching and good defense, as well as close games, so I'm pretty happy right now.

    But what is it the Giants are missing? A kick ass leadoff guy who steals bases? A shortstop who would provide most of that in Jose Reyes? A power hitting 1B? (Since Stretch that hasn't really happened, even Will the Thrill was more of a 20HR gap guy). A real top 10 OF instead of the 3rd/4th OF guys they seem to collect?

    I would say they need 2 things: 1st, a guy to play multiple positions, like the Rays have in Ben Zobrist. They may already have that player in Buster Posey and if one of these catching guys is the real deal, there you go. The other thing they need is the straw to stir the drink. I'm not talking a Reggie Jackson talent, but I think they need one more dynamic piece to light the joint up. This is assuming you have Brown/Panik as table setters, Panda/Posey/Belt as your core hitters, that leaves a defensive SS, and your corner OF spots. If Posey were shifted to 2B Panik moves to short, but maybe that is just a mix/match situation.

    A short term solution is Beltran. Sure they can get by without and be pretty competitive. I really don't think they are far off from having a very good offense. They just need to strike gold in the draft, or sucker McCutchen away from Pittsburgh. But I don't see Reyes or Fielder as being particularly good long term solutions to the Giants, even without Sabean and the RDF drawing the brakes on those guys.

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  19. My bitches with Sabes are long term, consider:

    1. Sabes ignored advanced stat based decision making until the last four years or so. Frankly, Sabes has been late to the game here. Incorporating advanced Saber-metrics would have helped maybe stave off (or at least offer a logical counterweight argument) to current debacles such as the Zito or Rowand contracts. Debacles the fans clearly did foresee with advanced stats in hand. OCab in 2011 aside, it seems recently Sabes has incorporated Saber-metrics into his decision making - good for him and us.

    2. Inability to plan to act as counterweight to the Managing Partner's or ownership group's follies. This has played out with offering knee-jerk over paid contracts to easily identified downside players such as Zito, Rowand, Renteria, Tejada, and almost Carlos Lee and Gary Matthews. Sabes has not done his team or Giants fans (and ultimately the ownership group) any favors here. I believe (not that I know) he did not build his case or foresee the political need to prepare his team strategy to withstand McGowan's impulsive decision making and mega contract pushes. He knew, but did not counter with a long-term team strategy. "Keeping the boss happy" is not the same as doing everything the boss suggests.

    3. Inability to identify early on and move aggressively toward building a Willie Mays Plaza ballpark-aligned team and player strategy. Look, the Giants have known since 2000 their gem of a new field was a pitcher friendly park where high OBP gap hitters with doubles and triples speed and a defensive premium would play. FA impact hitters, post Bonds, weren't coming here. Because of this the Giants have to be built mainly from within - with hitters drafted to fit the home field advantage. Since 2000 Sabes knew this, fans like us knew this, hell OGC knew this. I think it is only since the Giants hit bottom in 2005/6/7/8 did Sabes start to really buy into a strategy of drafting for the park. Now we finally have some young, under control, hitters who start to fit the park - Posey, Belt, Panda (one of a kind), Brown, Panik, Peguero. Maybe we can reach that "average offense" with young, speedy, OBP hitters. Again, long term Sabes was slow to adjust and draft hitters to the park. Pitchers yes, hitters, no.

    So yes, I do have to hand out some long-term crit to Sabes. To his credit, and ours, he has learned and adjusted and with the up and coming core today is a strong reflection of his positive effect on building the Giants. So yeah, I look forward to listening to my Giants, as built by Sabes, for the next 3 years and beyond!

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  20. I would add that Sabes biggest current challenge is to present a long-term team building strategy that allows the Giants ownership group (GOG) to tap into their "rainy day" fund now.

    Think of it as bridge financing for hitting. Simply put, what earns the GOG the most money (hint it's how the 1% make their $$$)? Yes, it's asset growth of their investments. How much more are the Giants worth today than in 2009? How much more will they be worth as a premiere franchise if they win one or two more WS titles in the next ten years? I dare say a lot more than any PR fabricated savings from a self-imposed $130 million budget cap.

    Sabes needs to convince the GOG that bridge finance for hitting now for offense in 2012 and 2013 will build the team's asset value. He already has the young and up and coming hitters he can point to. He has the gold standard pitching he can point to.

    Let's see if Sabes can really be an architect of the ownerships group's asset value as well as the team's.

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  21. Sabey Sabes has been dragged kicking into marketing meetings and onto the executive finance committee. He is much more comfortable spitting seeds with the baseball side. I'm not sure if that's what the RDF bunch want him worrying about anyway and I definitely think he'd rather be looking at the back of Yuniesky Betancourt's baseball card.

    Sabean has been in on the defensive value side for longer than the past 4 years, and they have 2 full time sabermaticians on staff, one a Berkeley lad. It might have taken some time to realize the strengths of the park, and the statistics change every year. I think we should have more right handed mashers personally, its not the extreme pitchers park people make it out to be. Sabean has said many times in recent years he wants to get younger and faster, its a hard task to accomplish.

    There's a lot of gamesmanship that goes on in baseball. Similar to Southern Gentlemen who play the hayseed until you're deep into negotiating with them, I think there's a fair amount of sandbagging going on with the Giants grey beards. Career baseball guys have hard to break habits, mentioning RBI and runs scored for example as a great measure of a player, but I think also they get off on tweaking the stats guys a bit. I can't imagine they haven't had long discussions of the lessons of advanced stats and discussed that damn book a bunch.

    The efforts of the guys they put on the field product those stats. The Giants definitely are a more scouting oriented organization than most. Ken Rosenthal, in my opinion the best of the national breaking news bozos, has an interesting review of moneyball up. He starts the article with a quote from a Giant senior advisor right after the WS win, Tony Siegle: "We've shown moneyball is a bunch of garbage". I think that was more a quick dig at the A's myself, but its a fun game to play Joe Morgan at times. Everybody tries to find an edge, and the Giants do it in hard to measure ways, namely pitching and defense.

    Still, its legit to criticize the connection between the money spent and the product on the field. The ownership group has decided to be public with a fixed budget as a means of controlling fans expectations. Its reasonable for fans to criticize that. Sabean to me seems comfortable working with whatever he's told to work with, and is also comfortable with making cases to expand that parameter.

    My biggest beef of the past few years is the position of shortstop and the bad decisions trotted out. Renteria was a disaster until it turned into the BEST CONTRACT EVER! Tejada was completely rushed and short sighted. Cabrera was a mess that made no sense from the start. And now... Betancourt looms. Just kidding OGC, that baseball card thing was a joke. Sabey Sabes doesn't look at the back of baseball cards anymore, he's got a word processor with a... I'll stop now.

    Oh, and speaking of Rosenthal, the trade Affeldt and Ramirez rumor is being banded around by some smart alecs including Keith Law but also other Giant bloggers as Sabean just realizing he doesn't have enough budget and he has to trim costs. This is laughable, and very typical of the silly critiques of Sabean. And that goes back to sandbagging - Sabean has a big piece of a underutilized and important part of a team. Just because smart asses don't realize that doesn't mean the Bosox and Yanks shouldn't jump on the chance to improve their godawful bullpens.

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  22. Shankbone.

    Most of the Giants problems would be solved if Brandon Belt is ready to play LF and hit what he's projeceted to hit by various projection systems and if Brandon Crawford can hit about .235 as the everyday SS. I'm not sure what the relative likelihoods of Belt hitting his projections vs Beltran staying healthy, but I think it's a closer call than most people think.

    Monterey Shark,

    1. There is a ton of evidence that Brian Sabean has been ahead of the curve in sabermetric evaluation of defense by many years.

    2. If the point of Moneyball was to find undervalued assets, then if everybody values certain stats such as OBP or wOBA or whatever, then those players are going to become overvalued due to simple supply and demand principles. Personally I think Sabean has been pursuing older players as an undervalued commodity for a long time. Sometimes it's worked out, sometimes it doesn't.

    3. We have no idea what advice Brian Sabean gave Peter Magowan. For all we know, it might have been Sabes who went to the other owners and convinced them that he could never build a winner as long as Magowan was meddling.

    4. Just out of curiosity, what currently available player or players do you think "rainy day" money needs to be spent on? Every member of the "big 3", Pujols, Fielder and Reyes will require 7 year contracts. That requires spending rainy day money for a long time! Right about the time Zito's contract is up, the Giants will be needing to shell out big longterm bucks for Sandoval, Posey and Bumgarner. Do you really want to be painted into a corner when that time comes?

    Shankbone,

    I"m sure Sabean wants better shorstops too. It's the single most difficult position to fill. Teams that have good ones don't generally trade them. Good ones in free agency are rare and expensive. Renteria was the best option available the year he was signed. Last year, Bartlett would have cost a couple of relievers. JJ Hardy had been plagued by back issues for several years. Tejada and OCab were desperation signings due to lack of options. If you want to blame Sabean for the lack of options, OK. I guess you make your own breaks in life, but that's being pretty harsh.

    I agree that if the Giants want to trade Affeldt they will have no problem finding a taker who is willing to take the whole salary plus give a decent prospect or two back in return. That's a whole lot better than just not picking up the option and letting him become a FA.

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  23. DrB, I've been saying shortstop is a wasteland for a while, both in the majors and the minors. I actually would have preferred they just keep running Omar out there. While I sympathize with Sabean for the lack of options I also consider it one of the 3 most important positions on the field and expect a better master plan than has been put forth. Hopefully Crawford will secure at least one side of the equation with his defense next year. I might be being harsh but the Tejada signing with multiple free agents and multiple trade angles does stick in my craw. Hey, we all have our little hangups.

    I am holding out hope for the master stroke trade: Affeldt and Ramirez to the Sox for Scutaro and my boy Andrew Miller. Win win for both teams. Sabean has to make sure that he loses out on the WAR score (yeah, I've seen your attempts to educate over at GN), so a throw in will be involved.

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  24. DrB,

    Good points...

    1. Can't dispute the Giants have valued run prevention as a stat focus and strategy and their investment in pitching and how Rags/Bochy handles that pitching has proven of remarkable and under-recognized value. However, in 2011 the Tejada/OCab over Stamos and Beltran in RF over Nate instead of Beltran in LF in 2011, were substantial mistakes for a run prevention team with so little margin for error. I think the fact remains that many decisions the Giants have made over the past 10 years on the offensive side could have been improved with the addition of more consistent stat based analysis given park play factors. Again big hamstringing contracts to Zito and Rowand could have been easily avoided given this rigor.

    2. Undervalued old vets as a strategy. Must disagree here with Sabes strategy, which seems left over from the Bonds + anybody era. The old vet strategy does not fit the park's play factor - OBP, speed, defense, gap power, pitching. Plus I just can't stomach watching old vets when they go bad and fumble away great Giants pitching - Tejada and OCab come to mind.

    3. Correct I have NO IDEA what Sabes did with GOG and stated that above. I just know he didn't stop the contracts that are currently hamstringing the Giants Zito and Rowand. So I must consider them when evaluating his long-term management performance.

    4. Bridge financing for hitters in 2012/13/14. I see this as 2-3 year bridge until cheap and under control talent Brown, Panik, Peguero, Stamos, Belt and maybe others(?) really step forward. And as the Zito, Rowand, Huff contracts come off the books. Top of the list Beltran for 2+1 option year (don't expect this will happen). Cuddyer would be next up for me and again 2+1 option year. Again the Giants need a RH hitter, position flexible and not a defensive liability. Oh, and some speed would be nice, maybe off the bench at least for late inning tight ballgames.

    Finally I think when Zito and Rowand dollars, plus a 2-3 year bridge hitter comes off the books in 2014 the Giants will have money freed up to lock up Posey, MadBum, Sandoval. Do the budget and arb years and the dropping of $30MM+ contracts off the books does very nicely jibe with locking in the young talent we have. If, we also are seeing cheap under control hitters enter in 2013/14 and beyond then it works. Also assume maybe one top 3-5 stater comes up Crick/Rosin/Surkamp/etc. and plus turn over the bullpen with younger cheap arms Hembree/Runzler/little Bochy/etc. The math can work to keep the Giants competitive for a very long time.

    For the above reasons I see the Fielder/Reyes/Pujols/Rollins older vet, 7+/year, $100MM contract as out of the question. Build from within and bridge hitting where necessary. Just don't give us this fabricated PR BS about the $130MM cap. Building the asset value of the franchise should keep the Ownership Group 1% happy.

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  25. MS,

    1. I don't think ANY sabermetric analyst would have advocated for "Stamos" to stay out there when he was struggling offensively the way he was. Yeah, the options weren't great, but they had to try something else. As for Beltran/Nate, Nate was already playing on a broken foot by the time Beltran arrived on the scene, so this is a straw man discussion.

    2. Like I said, the undervalued vets strategy had mixed results. I'm sure you would point to all the failures, but there were successes too. I'm just pointing out that there are more ways to "Moneyball" than just looking at OBP's and OPS's.

    3. Have you ever wondered why, when Neukom took over, there was no hesitation in re-upping Sabes and Bochy? I mean, it would have been a perfect opportunity for a new Managing Partner to put his own stamp on the front office. Obviously the partners blamed SOMEBODY for Zito/Rowand and it WASN'T Sabes! Do you think maybe they knew something about who made those decisions? Andy Baggerly has pretty much confirmed that's how it went down. Do you really think it would have been better for Sabes to resign in protest? I think engineering a palace coup was a lot smarter.

    4. If you think the Giants are going to get Cuddyer for 2 years, you're dreaming. They have a better chance of getting Beltran, but he will probably find an AL team willing to go for 4.

    5. The ownership partners just got through sacking the managing partner because they thought he was playing fast and loose with the money. Do you really think they are going to budge from the $130 M just because Sabean says he wants to spend more on players? No, they are going to tell him, "Sabes, you've been talking up building from the farm system. Now, play the damn kids and you better hope they play good!"

    So, if Sabes can find a way to get Beltran or Cuddyer signed and not go over $130 M, we'll both be happy. If not, expect to see Belt and Crawford in the starting lineup next April.

    BTW, I can't for the life of me figure out why people are so tied in knots over Zito and Rowand. I mean, the Giants won a World Series with both of those clowns under contract and sitting on the bench! Heck, Zito wasn't on the roster! Zito and Rowand did not prevent the Giants from winning the World Series again last year either. Injuries did! Obviously, it is not necessary to replace Zito and Rowand with Jose Reyes or Prince Fielder to win the World Series! Come on people! Just get over it and move on!

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  26. doc

    as far as im concerned, the only thing baggs confirmed was that sabean was not the onus behind the zito signing....to say he had nothing to do with rowand is absurd...rowand was the kind of player sabean covets....

    now maybe the contract wasnt conceived by sabes...but he wanted rowand

    and while i give kudos to he and bochy for praising craw's glove, work ethic and bat work at the afl, im a bit disturbed that they have been going after agonz, who is craw...but 10 years older....gotta stop this habit of going after aging vets to plug holes....doesnt work...and most times, backfires

    and doc....cant expect lighting to strike twice...no matter what sabes says...the zito and rowand contracts handcuff this team

    im hoping that with his new love, zito will see there is more to life than baseball...enroll in a chef school...get on celebrity master chef (or whatever that cooking reality show is) and retire

    and let us all say...amen

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  27. Bacci,

    Zito CAN'T retire now.

    (Ah, yes, I too have had unrealistic fantasies about Zito honorably falling on his knife, and retiring.)

    Zito now has to save up for the inevitable divorce.

    Yep, I'm a hell of a romantic.

    And Doc, I'm with Bacci on this. You can't cite 2010 as evidence that the Giants won't be hamstrung in the future with Zito and Rowand on the books.

    Because now we're talking about 2012 & 13.

    Everybody is a two rungs up on the ladder towards arbitration and free agency. It's much more expensive for the Giants now in 2012 vs. 2010. And the Zito and Rowand contracts hurt.

    Both Timmy and Cain may stay. But, we're going to have to pay them. The Giants aren't going to get much, if any, hometown discount. And, stating the obvious, it's going to be tough to pay them with Zito-type dead money on the books.

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  28. Well, this debate has been going on for years now and it's unlikely we're going to agree here. I'll go back to my original thesis: Brian Sabean is the most successful GM the franchise has had since John McGraw and the Giants are as well positioned for the future as any team in baseball. Everything else is small stuff and I'm not sweating the small stuff!

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  29. For what it's worth, Keith Law put out a Top 50 players under age 25 and the Giants placed 4 in the top 25: Posey, Sandoval, MadBum and Belt. That doesn't even count the homegrown Timmy and Cainer.

    I'll say it again, the Giants are as well positioned for the future as any team in baseball!

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  30. With the deadweight of Zito/Rowand, Sabean built the world series team on a 70MM budget. That could be called playing moneyball. The old vets are his rail drink of choice, and I agree DrB you have to throw down the good ones as well. My favorites are Grissom and Uribe. The best thing about his moves since the 2007 contracts is he refuses to go long term. If they flame out, it doesn't cost too much, the years always get you more than the $.

    Kelly's advice is sound. You don't want to start defending every Sabean move. On a big picture the Giants have a lot of great things going, and Gints fans freak out way too much. But Sabean does do some bonehead moves. It'd just be nice if the interewebz would let him actually get the transaction done before lowering the boom.

    Bacci - I have a slightly different take on Sea Bass. If he can still defend, and is willing to play a little 2B as well, on a 1 year 3MM he could be an OK signing. His peripheral stats are a wreck, but he has sneaky 15HR power (the kind that Tehaha was supposed to have), and has a little vet savvy clutch in him. I've always sweated his ABs against the Gints, so at a specific price to caddy Crawford I think he's OK. He does scowl a lot though, and I'm still scarred by that damn 2003 Marlins team, so I'm not extremely enthused by any means. If his D isn't there though its a miserable idea.

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  31. I've always said Sabes has made mistakes. Some of his mistakes are real and deserve criticism, others are more perceived mistakes on the part of his critics, but yeah, he's made his mistakes.

    This discussion was headed deeper into the forest examining the bark on the trees when we really need to stay focused on the panorama of the forest and appreciate what this team has accomplished and what it has the potential to accomplish in the future.

    Alex Gone's stats remind me a lot of Uribe's when he was with the White Sox. One of Sabean's characteristics, both good and bad, is that he tends to keep going back to things that work until they don't. We'll see.

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  32. listened to valentine's presser and while i may bitch and moan about bochy....no way would i want valentine over pumpkin head

    over/under on his troops fragging him....100 games

    an re agone....still would rather get hairston...team needs a real utility guy...and hairston loves hitting at the belle...a 2 year for hairston makes sense...

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  33. The top 50 under 25 list is fun. (As a big proponent of Belt, I have to say I'm surprised he made the top 25???) Wow, people do like him.

    Anyway, point taken Dr. B on the overall state of the Giants. If the Giants make no major moves this winter, they definitely are a team I can really enjoy rooting for. The home-grown kids. Solid arms. Real chance to win for the next couple of years.

    Yeah, yeah. I'm never going to like Alex Gonzalez rumors. But, Shank is right. To go into a reactionary tizzy every time Sabean might sign a downside vet is just nuts.

    And, you gotta love the kids coming up through the system. (Thanks to Dr. B and everyone here, I actually have some idea of who they are.) I'm only bummed that our solid prospects are probably too low in the system to make an impact in 2012. Oh well.

    If Sabean really has learned his Zito/Rowand lesson, then Beltran seems unlikely. But (and this is great) either way, it's a win for us. I'm going to look at the "no major signings" scenario as a vote of confidence for the kids and not a financial reality. I don't have a Bowker/Linden feel about Belt. Or, really, Crawford. And I'm holding out hope for Nate to breakout with bat.

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  34. new question. what is it with giants and blondes? the majority of wives/gf's are blonde...wacky

    both nate and zito are getting hitched this weekend (quick engagement for the zit man)

    giants are gonna have to make more seats available for the wives section

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  35. I would prefer Hairston Jr. to Alex Gonzalez too, but either way it's small stuff.

    I think there are some prospects who could make a contribution in 2012 depending on how things go at the MLB level.

    There is, of course, Belt and Crawford who have technically graduated but are really still prospects.

    There is Danny Otero, who has been added to the 40 man roster, who could help in the bullpen at some point.

    Don't sleep on Roger Kieschnick who has spent 2 years in the Richmond boot camp. If he's healthy, I could really see him exploding in Fresno and being called up mid-season if circumstances are right.

    Charlie Culberson is a guy who could break out again at Fresno and we know Freddy Sanchez is made of glass.

    Francisco Peguero should be moving up to Fresno and really didn't miss a beat at Richmond despite a hand injury.

    What about Chris Dominguez? He's probably a longshot for 2012, but he should be moving up to Fresno too and watch out for that!

    Bacci,

    Not sure what the fascination with Giants wives and GF's are. I'd guess that being blonde is kind of like having a high OBP in the Trophy Wife rankings, and let's be honest, that's what some of this is about. Guessing that some of them didn't come by it through genetics.

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  36. Add Hector Correa to the list of prospects who could see action in SF this season.

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  37. You start with hot wives discussion its a slippery slope down to what you ate for dinner, politics and then you might as well step over to MCC... But while we're on the subject getting Mark DeRosa back on a minor league invite ups the talent quotient quite a bit.

    Scott Hairston is the real Giant killer - 12 HRs against us 1/6 of his career total, but he doesn't play SS. I would prefer Jerry Hairston to Sea Bass as well, it just feels weird to be discussing acquiring any Hairston. I'm sure Gonzalez is insisting on starting and 2 years/10MM or something like that right now, several teams are in our exact boat (that ss wasteland thing again). The Brewers are apparently putting the press on Hairston so it might require one of those impatient overpays to get him.

    That Fresno team is going to be very interesting next year.

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