Clarification

"I quit."

If I had my way, it wouldn't be Brian Sabean explaining why he couldn't assemble a team.  He'd be sucking on the left tit of Ned Coletti down in LA, hoping for table scraps while managing to find a way to run the evil ones into the ground as well.

I've grown tired of his double speak and megalomaniac kind of attitude.  When a team is this bad sure it's reflective of the players and their performance, but the GM must step ahead and be accountable as well.  Something tells me that Brian would rather field a team with the worst record in the majors, than admit to some of his faults and try to go about correcting them.  

His whining about the bullpen is REALLY starting to grate on me. We've got young guys with a lot of talent still developing there, and he's playing this whole ego-crushes-morale card. Would you want to play for him if you were any of the guys in the SF bullpen, the way he rags on them on KNBR? I hate that crap.

And don't get me started on his inability to see young hitting.

I'm way beyond over Sabean.

I like your uses of "at the end of the day," but I prefer my Sabeanspeak with a bit more "kick the tires"-ness. A few "counfoundings" would have been appropriate as well.  

When we complete our Coup of the Giants organization, I nominate Grant as the new GM.

Personally, I'd like to hear him tell Ralph to fuck off.

I won't go the serious route because if he told us something serious, I'd immediately think he was lying, because he never tells us what he's thinking, he'll usually just tell us what he was thinking (and sometimes not even that.

So I'm up to, what? 2 or 3 hypothetical shots?

ahem . . . First off I would like to start this interview by saying that my huge man-crush affair with Ray Durham is over.  I'll always be hot and bothered for the sugarman, but he has been ordered as far away from this team as possible.  Second, I have taken comprimising photographs of Alex Rodriguez with his pet goat and a naked man who is not Mrs. A-rod.  He has summarily agreed to a contract in principle at 8 years for two million dollars per.  Gasp my spidey sense is tingling . . . I sense an unusal presence of scrappiness in the area.  OH NO, It's David Eckstein and his group of scrappy space monkeys.  He wants a 90-bazillion dollar contract for 10 years to start at shortstop, WE MUST FEND HIM OFF.  Baer, grab the uzi; Magowan, man the .50 cal!  (At this point, Sabean activates his chainsaw for an arm a la Evil Dead 2).  THIS IS SAN FRANCISCO.  After twenty minutes of a laser/chainsaw fight, Eckstein is defeated and the day has been saved.  Unfortunately, not all made it through!  NOOOO, Baer and Magowan have fallen.  Well, that sucks.  We might as well bury Tidrow and Lefebvre while we're at it.  Sabean lifts his hands above his head.  Unfortunately, Cain and Lincecum approach from behind and slit his throat.  They whisper, "who's failing at the little things now, motherfucker?".  Then, Sean Connery comes through the ceiling  

And the day is mine!  

If we sign Jones/Hunter I'm going to get sick.

I would have like to heard Sabean say:

"I will not overspend on free agents this offseason. We'll use Bonds' ABs on one of our younger guys like Fred Lewis."

I'd like to hear him say something like, "The ironic thing is, Barry can still play baseball."

Oh, wait -- Sabean actually did say that. Brian, you've been listening to too much Alanis Morrisette. The ironic thing is not that Barry can still play; the ironic thing is that the Giants could still use him in 2008 to score runs every once in a while, and have chosen not to. If Magowan is to be believed (never a sure thing), money never came up in the discussion about whether to bring Bonds back next year. So it wasn't a financial decision, or a baseball decision (unless one decides they want to field a team that can't score runs), it was a punative decision.

But okay, Bonds is not coming back. So how does Sabean rebuild this team? By admitting publicly that the 2007-08 FA class is weak, and signing a player in their early 30s to a large, long-term contract (hello, Torii Hunter and Andruw Jones) is not the solution. By trading young pitching not named Cain or Lincecum for young prospects that might bear fruit in 2009 or 2010. By offering Bochy a bonus for limiting Durham, Aurilia and Roberts' to under 200 plate appearances each next season, provided Sabean can't unload them beforehand. And by personally offering to pay 50% of Barrry Zito's contract for the remainder of the duration.

Last but not least, by apologizing to the bullpen for scapegoating them and implying they're the reason we have yet to win our 70th game. Just shameful.

I'd like him to say:

"Let's face it.  I'm a terrible evaluator of offensive talent.  I made about 2 good trades for offense in my time with the team, and those were to get Kent and Snow.  After that, bad signing after bad signing after bad trade.  I've never really bothered to learn what stats are out there, OPS, VORP, heck even OBP are basically just a bunch of letters to me.  Show me a good batting average and some power and I'll pretty much just assume the guy is good.  

"I can't draft offense for shit.  I mean look at these guys, when was the last time we brought up a position player that turned out to be more than a utility guy at best? Never.  So let's take stock: We have some pitching.  Great.  We have nothing to be excited about in the farm system, at least nothing that's less than 3-4 years away.  We have a bunch of guys who we can give playing time to next year, and we'll probably be about as bad as we were next year.  Heck, maybe we'll find one or two that can actually play, and the only way to find out is to let them have all the at bats.  

"That means no more mediocre veteran players.  Without Bonds we don't have the pressure to win right now.  We can let the young guys develop and see what we actually have.  Maybe I'll swing a trade where we give up a pitcher for some young offense.  It might not work out but at least we'd be trading from our strength to improve our weakness.  Wouldn't that be nice?

"So I'm sorry.  I'm sorry I've failed to draft and develop position players.  I went with a philosophy that worked for a while and I didn't adapt to changes in the game fast enough.  The strategy stopped working and I stuck with it too long.  So now I'm going to try to become better.  I'm going to make some changes in how I draft.  I'm going to look at our coaching throughout the minor league system and maybe fire some people.  Maybe I'll even fire Joe Lefebvre.  Maybe I need to hire a new assistant GM with a track record of developing position players.  I'm working on it.  And it wasn't the bullpen's fault.  

"Also, fuck the Dodgers."

But I doubt that's what he'll say.

Sabean's Secretary: Brian, Sunset's lawyer is calling... Something about an injunction from mentioning his client...

"I have decided to ditch the 1997 all-star program as my scouting report.  I have now upgraded to the 2007 version."

Two words: ". . .My bad."

Or it'd be nice to hear him say something along the lines of "I've decided that while we need speed and pitching, it won't hurt to find a few young players that can drive in some runs on a consistent basis.  We have the money to go out and sign a big attractive name, but given our recent record of track success and the length of the contract they're looking for, we figure it's best to not pursue them just for the sake of it."

"Vlad really was worth all those players I mentioned before.  I goofed that up, sorry."

I'd like him to quote any of the Star Wars dialogues, modified for baseball.

Maybe some "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me out I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

And so on in that manner. At least two positive things would come of it. 1) We'd know he actually has lost his mind. 2) Geek-squee.

"OOPS!"

"I'm going to trade Ray Durham for A.J. Pierzynski just so I can kick that big-mouthed double play-making motherfucker right in the groin."

Just for the record, I would have started a slow clap if I had heard that speech.

I'd like to hear something with some inflection; even if it meant a slight upswing in his voice upon using the word "veteran", or a sad lilt when referencing "youth". Emote, Brian, emote!

I had a nice long post but then my system seized up and I lost it.

Mainly, I wanted to hear about 2008 being a rebuilding year towards returning to competitiveness in 2009, but didn't.

I didn't want to hear that we are going to spend $90-95M even if we are not targeting a major acquisition.

About the bullpen, here's how I see it.  There's nothing wrong with supporting the bullpen and saying that the bullpen is a major cause of our down year.  I like our bullpen, but they are young and developing, and so they are to "blame" in that their poor performance contributed greatly to us having a very poor season.

Their success rate in preventing inherited runners from scoring is only around 60%.  And only Kline is good at it, with his success rate in the 80's.  Red Sox and Cubs had a 76% success rate, Indians 72%.  Justin Speier, who we almost signed, had a success rate of 86%.

Moving our success rate from 60% to 75% would result in 37 more runners kept from scoring, which translate into approximately 4 more wins.  The Giants would then be 73-83 right now, instead of 69-87.  Remember, each win takes away a loss, so the bullpen accounted for approximately half of the games we were under .500.

If you add in that if they were that much more effective in keeping inherited runners from scoring, they would also be more effective in keeping runs from scoring period, that's additional wins that would swing the Giants way.  Just two more wins would push the Giants to 75-81.

Hari Kari Motherfucker