describing the previous drafts as a ‘punt’ is simply false (and a silly use of metaphor). They were used-for the most part-to acquire pitching talent that could be traded for veterans, which on the short run is a sound strategy for a competing team. Last year aside, the giants either were competitive, or stood a good chance to be so during the Sabean era as we have it. The drafts weren’t given away for largely defensive, often minimal benefit, which is the sense of punt (wasted would be another related tsense). So the strategy had validity for most of the time of its use.

The last few drafts have been good, with the aim toward long term development, and the willingness to pay IFA’s has shown itself. This is what the giants need to do, and when it became clear that they were no longer competitive, this the is the direction they went, albeit a year later than they should have.

If Roberts plays, it will probably be more Bochy’s fault than Sabean. Still, I expect Roberts to get at least a couple of starts before the deadline. You can’t showcase a guy by not playing him. After August 1, no veteran should be playing who doesn’t fit in the plans for 2009.

im not a huge fan of sabean either but i think it is pretty ridiculous to burn him alive for pretty normal moves like DFAing and listening to offers.

Don’t hate Sabean because you think we are still paying for Matt Morris, because we aren’t. Hate him because he signed Morris in the first place.

Same thing with Kline.

You can’t hate Sabean for listening to offers on Lincecum but the fact that it actually stuck around pisses me off and it makes Sabean look like a mark for guys like Beane.

There areso many more reasons to dislike Sabean if you dig a little deeper. I think there might be worse GMs but tons of them got fired, we need new blood.

Firing Sabien now would be just about the biggest act of organizational incompetence I can think of. For those of you who have been under a rock for the past year, this team is re-organizing.

You could argue that the re-build is late and I would agree with you. In retrospect it is obvious that staying in perpetual buy mode in order to build around Bonds should have ended in ‘05. But that is an organizational choice, not a Sabien choice.

We have restructured the scouting dept, and avoided spending too much in the FA market and now we have money to spend. And as the next few years go buy that margin will increase. We have drafted for position talent for the first time in years and by all accounts it was a good draft. There is no indication that we are going to be any worse off next year draft wise given our general level of suck on the field this year. We have a solid core of young pitching which is taking its lumps this year, learning that it is very bad to try to blow MLB hitting with stuff. And we have a couple of good veterans who like to win (Rowand/Molina).

Basically, there is reason to be optimistic about a quick turn around. That is actually a reason to be happy with Sabien, not un-happy. But you haters will say that he just got lucky with a couple of picks so I guess it is a waste of energy to point that out.

Given our pitching, if by ‘10 we are not a playoff team then we need to look at Sabien. But your ownership chose to keep the seats full with Barry’s homeruns for the past couple of years, Sabien didn’t. Sabien has been told to restructure the club, which is not an overnight task.

This year’s record shouldn’t even be a consideration. I would be happy if we were 30 games under .500 if all the kids were playing. I also take issue with the list of players you think are playing over their heads. Molina and Rowand WERE playing over there heads early, but their numbers are about right now, and Lewis, Bowker, and even Burriss, are kids and I don’t think we quite know what they’re capable of. You can’t even say they’re over their heads based on their minor league numbers because that would assume that kids don’t mature and improve. As for Durham and Aurilia, I don’t care if playing over their heads hasn’t led to wins, as long as it leads to getting something decent for them at the deadline.

And the Giants stubbornly decided not to spend and/or weren’t in a position to spend when it was a buyers market in roughly 2002-2004. Now, they’re throwing money at a seller’s market.

Add to this that the team that ends up signing the FA loses high round draft picks as a result. Given that we have had such a large hunk of our payroll dedicated to one player it would have been preferable to have had a few position players come out of the farm systems to offset that cost. That didn’t work out too well for us.

But I’m pretty damn sure that he’s invested alot of time watching video of the likely first and second round selections, probably seeing them in person if they’re college players. .

The ones he didn’t lose/give away as compensation picks, anyway.

Baseball is a TEAM sport. You cannot win with ONE good player. If nearly a quarter of the payroll is going to one player, who has been basically non-productive since 05, the team will be shit.

2005: 75-87, 10th worst in baseball
2006: 76-85, 10th worst in baseball
2007: 71-91, 5th worst in baseball

To say that Sabien is solely responsible for this is pretty much willfully ignoring common sense.

There have been reasons to be critical of Sabien, like low-balling FA offers to Carlos Lee and Soriano, and the Hilenbrand trade among others, but even if those moves went well this team would still be crap because of the over-commitment to Bonds in his last contract. To say that is Sabien is also willfully ignoring common sense.