In Defense Of Sabean

P.S.S. Armando Benitez was a waste, and I can't defend that, but he did get injured often and didn't throw for a very long time. We'll see how Messenger turns out.

1.  Let's see, Russ Ortiz for Damein Moss and Manuel Mateo(aka Merkin Valdez)....oh that's right, Merkin is going to make this trade look like a steal!  Sidney Ponson.  The aformentioned trade with Minnesota.  Williams and Aardsma for LaTroy Hawkins who turned into Steve Kline.  Accardo for Hilly and Chulk.  Martis for Stanton.  Yep, that is a great, great track record there since 2002.  How long ago was than now?  That's right, 5 years!
2.  Other than Tim Lincecum, who can you point to as evidence that the last 3 drafts have been alll that?  The current draft may pay off down the road, but I, for one, think we could have done better this year.
   

Stack our current line-up vs. any other NL West or NL or MLB team.  Explain to me how it's an acceptable group of MLB players?  Now, stack most of our line-ups over the last ten years w/o Bonds vs. any other NL West or NL or MLB team.  Also, not really acceptable.  As someone mentioned above and as many of us have contended for quite some time now, Bonds has been so good that he's really covered for organizational mistakes AND choices (e.g. "veteran" hitters).

Sabean has developed decent pitching talent, some of which he's undervalued and some of which he's traded with poor foresight.  Sabean has traded for Schmidt and THEN he completely failed to trade Schmidt for two years until he left.  Other than that, over his tenure, he has made decent short term deals, which to be fair, probably even surprised him (e.g. Burks).  I give him (and detract from him) these things.  

However, to say that he's put the Giants or directed the Giants to a position or scouted for the Giants or "found" for the Giants players to solidify the standing of the club is not really true and certainly not recently.  I think that a change was needed (and has been needed) with the Front Office...irrespective of ownership's meddling.  

While it's not easy and it is often a gamble, there is young talent out there that could have been drafted or found--hell, even a Dan Uggla for Florida...why did THEY see in him?  Just looking around MLB right now, one can see example of teams reliant on FAs (Yankees), aging glory (White Sox), youth (D-Backs), stupid FAs and great youth (Dodgers w/ Colletti), stupid ownership (Orioles, Giants) etc...and the fantastic mixes that so impress me as a baseball fan, the Braves, the Red Sox, and the Brewers (and D-Backs) of the world.  And, while these are just generalities, I'd much rather see the Giants run like the Braves than like the White Sox.  

I fear that we're in real trouble for the next X number of years, especially as the youth at Arizona and LA mature and, likely, improve.

Yes, the starting pitching looks good and it is primarily young.  But have you noticed that the Giants are third-worst in the majors in runs scored?  With Barry Bonds?  Without Barry, the Giants could well be LAST in runs scored.

So the Giants rid themselves of Bonds, trade off the other older pieces they have with any value, and suddenly they are going to go from the lowest-scoring team in the majors to a team that is going to get enough runs for a pitching staff whose best starter (Tim Lincecum) presently has a (albeit deceptive) 4.63 ERA?

I believe you are dreaming -- and I'm guessing you thought the Giants had a good chance to be competitive this season.

Allow me to use the 1982, 1985 and 1986 Cardinals as an example of how important it is to score runs even with good pitching.  Both the 1982 and 1985 teams crafted a wonderful 3.37 ERA that the Giants -- even with all their good young pitching -- would LOVE to create.  

The 1982 team scored 685 runs and won 92 games, which was enough to get them into the playoffs, where they were able to win the World Series.  That team would be a MINIMUM requirement for the Giants, since 92 wins may or may not be enough to make the playoffs.  But we all would settle for the final result!

The 1986 team scored 84 fewer runs, though, and actually finished below .500 at 79-82, naturally not making the playoffs.  Get an idea what even half a run per game can mean to an offense?

The 1985 team was easily the best Cardinals team that decade, despite losing the Series to Kansas City in part because of the Don Denkinger missed call.  That Red Birds team won 101 games in the regular season.  How did they do it?

Well, they dropped their ERA down to 3.10, meaning they cut more than a quarter of a run off their 1982 and later their 1986 ERA's.  But perhaps even more importantly, they scored 747 runs -- or nearly a full run per game MORE than they would score in 1986 when they won 22 fewer games.

So my question to you is, let's say the Giants are able to drop their team ERA down to 3.50.  That figure would rank second in baseball right now.  It would mean with unearned runs, the Giants would be yielding about 625 runs in a full season.  Without Barry Bonds, how are they going to be able to score something approaching 725 runs in order to give themselves a decent chance at the post-season?

Personally, I see tough times for the Giants until (and assuming) Angel Villalona becomes an impact hitter at the major league level.  No team has ever won a non-forfeited game without scoring.

Our pitching is also pretty overrated as well - Morris and Lowry don't seem likely to sustain their early performances (Lowry in particular is getting by on a ton of stranded base runners and a tiny home run rate), Zito is merely average or a little better, and Cain seems to have taken a step back this year. Lincecum is awesome, true, but we don't have the best pitching in our division, much less all of baseball.

If we make a couple of free agent signings in this off-season with the intention to contend it's only going to extend the losing period even further and saddle us with more lousy contracts. Not that I disagree with you though - that's exactly what I expect Sabean to do.

Sabean is far from perfect, but I don't think he's worse than about a B- general manager.

There is room for improvement, but there are plenty of GMs in the league that are much worse.

This is unprecedented failure, where it hurts the most.

Our GM shoulda been shipped out for that one statistic alone.