I see two things about our park that should affect the way the GM constructs the team:

1. Taking the current roster out of the discussion entirely, it seems to me that if (and it’s a big if) AT&T is a pitcher’s park, then the GM should concern himself primarily with acquiring hitters than can do well in that environment. That’s not to say you ignore the pitching, of course, but that you recognize that the difficulty lies in getting adequate offense in that environment. And that you take steps to solve this problem. Other than the monstrous RF gap, I’m not entirely certain AT&T is a pitcher’s park, but if you believe it is…..

2. Whatever offense is allowed at AT&T, it seems to clearly favor right-handed power hitters over left-handed power hitters. Bonds was simply the exception that proved the rule. With that in mind, the GM should not only be looking for hitters over pitchers, he should be looking for RH power hitters over LH power hitters. This, Sabean has not done. And, as a corollary, he should favor RH pitchers over LH pitchers (to turn around opposing team’s switch-hitters, and to minimize the power of opposing RH power hitters). This doesn’t seem to be in Sabean’s thinking at all, based on June’s draft.

Yeah, that’s basically my answer. When you don’t have a good team, chances are your team won’t be very good at home. The Giants played well at home back when they were a winning team. Coincidence?

As for the rest, it all kind of wraps around the same answer. Is Brian Sabean stupid enough to… speed and defense…? Well, we don’t really have speed or defense, so he’s either smarter than that or he’s too stupid for it, but if I modify the question: Is Brian Sabean stupid enough to… bad team…? Well then, we do have a bad team. So, yes.

Ah, I’ve always held that belief. This last offseason I had a number of fairly heated rants against people who said anything resembling “team built for AT&T.” Do they want to know what a team built for AT&T loks like? It looks like a good team, not some weird mix of triples hitters and rangy catchers.

There are plenty of examples of good teams in the league to use for reference. None of them are built to play at their park. They’re all simply built to play.

I agree with what you’re saying about offense, but would not necessarily join the notion that Sabean doesn’t understand or agree with it. For a series of reasons that we all understand (well, and some reasons we will probably never understand), we have the set of horses we have, and they ain’t exactly Triple Crown threats, to cross-contaminate a metaphor.

But to your point about offense, I agree. It’s been galling to hear all this nonsense this year denigrating this ballpark, that somehow it is hard to generate offense here. NONSENSE. One team wins in our ballpark every single day; there have been no ties. We have produced MVPs in this ballpark, as well as home run records. Our bases are 90 feet apart, just like everywhere else. Some of our outfield walls are as close as other parks, some closer, some farther; our oddities are not outside the range of oddities (e.g., a damn hill and a flagpole IN fair territory in centerfield, you Houston Asshats). So this park offers all the opportunities that are built into baseball, as many gaps between players as any other park, still limiting the other teams to nine players in the field at a time, that sort of thing.

I just don’t think Sabean is unaware of this.

Stuttering John from Hollywood?

I was going to say that this thread has way too much discussion of the former and not enough of the latter.

Or a rose by any other name is still a rose. eh? I like the cut of your jib there.

I think in most cases you are correct. But three are always outliers. Coors Field recently. The Astrodome. How the heck Glenn Davis had 3 30+ hr seasons playing half his game there is a freaken miracle. And theese are exceptions the prove the rule your stateing IHMO.

I think the whole “Mays field is a pitchers park ” thing is largely a result of east coast media basis. Look at most of the new yards in Cincy, Philly, South side of Chicago. All more lively then the yards they replace. Same could be probably argued for in Huston & Mil as well. Off hand the only ball yard east of the Rocky Mountains I can think of that if might be argued might be less of an offensive place then the one it replaced is in Atl. It would be real easy for fans that live in those city and rely on ESPN would perceive "band boxes" to be the norm as a result.

it only take winning one game less then a competitor for that difference to be enough though.
To steal from Lombardi -it all about execution.