I think the "Sabes was forced to sign Zito and [all these other bad deals] by Magowan!" conspiracy theories, are just that, conspiracy theories.

There has never been any evidence that Sabean was forced above to make certain moves.

I think the fact that Magowan a) Sounded personally remorseful over the decision to sign Zito and b) Is on his way out, could be considered evidence. Rock solid? Hardly. But evidence nonetheless.

What I object to is the notion that if the Zito deal was forced upon Sabean, then he failed and should be fired. Here’s how life works: If your boss tells you to follow a strategy you don’t agree with, you can protest and raise concerns, but your boss is still the boss. If your boss remains steadfast, you’re left with the options of complying or quitting. Assuming the objection is to strategic direction and not an ethical or legal violation, most people will comply.

Assuming the deal was pushed by Magowan, it’s nice to imagine Sabean quitting in protest. But that would be walking away from a lot of money and into a job market with very few openings. Besides, they would have hired someone who’d do the deal anyway, so the team would be screwed anyway.

There are several scenarios of how Magowan & Co could have asked/ordered Sabean to get Zito.

A) Magowan & Co said “Hey, go sign Zito and spend as much as possible.” – this is VERY unlikely.

B) Magowan & Co said “Hey, go sign Zito for whatever it costs.” – For marketing reasons, moving on from Bonds, etc, this is a lot more believable. However, I still find it unlikely because price is ALWAYS an object.

C) Magowan & co said “We would like to sign Barry Zito. We understand that it will cost a lot and we’re willing to spend more than he’s worth on the field, but just don’t break the bank and mortgage our future.” – This scenario is rather believable because it just seems to be the most prudent way to go about targeting any player in free agency. However, that isn’t what happened either because the contract did break the bank and mortgages some of the future for a player not worth a warm bucket of spit.

There’s probably some scenario I can’t think of, but the fact is that Sabean, as the #1 “baseball man” in the organization, has to advise ownership that Zito, a player clearly showing signs of decline, would not be worth what he is asking for…by a lot. And even if he was “ordered against his will” or just folded to “pressure” to sign Zito, he still did a very bad job of negotiating with Zito as he outbid other suitors by considerably more money and years. That’s just being incompetent.

On the other hand, any monkey could have signed Zito with an unlimited budget. Either way, Sabean doesn’t look good.

What make me sick about this the most, is that in 5 years from now, we’re still going to be having this same fucking discussion.

well…I think you pushing a straw man version of the so-called ‘conspiracy theory’ argument, instead of a more robust version of it.

The key here is how ‘force’ is understood: it is unlikely that magowan applied direct force upon Sabean, effectively saying ‘to hell with it, i’m making you sign zito’. That would be the straw man version. A more likely version is that Magowan was pressing to win now while they had bonds, and made the money available then to acquire the free agents to do so, and gave Sabean the general directive of competing in that time frame. This is certainly force of a sort, though not as direct; nevertheless, it is force of a sort: do your tell your boss a straight up ‘no’ when he or she moves in a very unwise, yet not completely crazy direction? Of course, much depends on the particulars of the situation, but as it might have been foolish for Sabean, career wise, to produce a straight up no and die on that sword. Zito was one of the better pitchers (based on previous seasons) available, and Magowan did push for him. Mumurs out of the organization have always been that Sabean was cool on the proposed deal, though the official comments have always said otherwise. But it should also be considered that these sort of signings, once a player is being pursued, and contract negotiations are ongoing, it is a committee making the decision, of which Sabean is only a part, and may not have really held the trigger. No doubt his voice was a part of it…but he might not have been adamant against it given the general direction (money was going to be spend then that wasn’t really his call to make; the where more so). He might have recommended against it and there is some anecdotal and relatively obscure evidence that he might of, but of course we don’t have a smoking gun either way.

Also your analogy to the Cashman/Steinbrenner/Santana situation isn’t very helpful here, as two situation situations differ in important details:

1. Cashman has career security that Sabean doesn’t: everyone knows he’s put up with nutbar George Steinbrenner, and the even crazier Hank. Magowan has no such reputation. And both George and Hank use the press as a clearing house, and the Giants certainly don’t, thus many people are aware of the designs of the yankees, while that is not the case with the giants. So Sabean would have had a lot more explaining to do had he given a straight up no to his boss.

2. Hank has a lot more bark than bite. Not only does he have to to have Hal on board with such a move (and they are known to differ with each other, sometimes markedly), he would, realistically, have to run a deal like that by george, and from what I recall, George seemed lukewarm at best to the idea. Hank is exactly the sort of boss you can give a straight up no to and get away with it, position intact, provided that no is delivered well.

  Thus the zito and scrappy vet signings. This

He’d probably only cost Sanchez and a PTBNL.

Of we could just go after the guy who hired both men…