Changing the Giants' Organizational Philosophy

Let me begin with an observation about the town I went to college in. Nestled in the Rocky Mountains, this town was usually about 1 1/2 years behind California with respect to pop culture, music and fashion. As a native Californian, it was obvious to me that folks were way behind the curve. It’s like they captured a glimpse of pop culture from a window in the past, and clung to that as the current state of things. Nothing you could say would change their world view. You couldn’t tell them “Hey, look – people are simply NOT pegging their jeans any more. We wear them the way God intended, and not pinned around our ankles.” It wouldn’t make a difference. They were convinced that pegged jeans were current style.

Why is this relevant? Because this reminds me of how the Giants evaluate free agent talent. They look at a guy’s production from 2007, and say “Hey, this guy hit .299 – let’s pay him as if he were a .300 hitter and lock him up for 3 years at $9 mil per year.” You could tell the front office “Yeah, maybe he had a good year in 2007, but for the last two years he’s hit closer to .260, with a .289 OBA.” “Nope,” says the front office, “You can’t make me look at the current production. I’m only going to look at 2007 performance and base all my decisions on that. It’s current to me.”

So your scenario can never work. Even if Sabean and Bochy decided to find patient hitters, they’d probably only look for hitters that were patient and/or productive in 2007 — guys that are obviously in decline now, but had that good year that one time.

Maybe this makes sense only in my head. But what it boils down to is this – even if, by some miracle, management were to actually determine what kinds of players were needed to improve this team’s offense, their ability to evaluate which players to sign sucks, because they seem to place a premium on a player’s performance from 2 or more seasons ago, not what current observations may show.

I’d still like for them all to learn how to drop a bunt down. Mostly, just Aaron Rowand.

Wow! I had no idea Jim Davenport and Joey Amalfitano were still on the payroll.

Sorry. The Managing Partner is happy with the status quote as evidenced by the two plus one contracts proffered to Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumber.

And just when you thought they were relegated to the dustbin of former failures, these guys are still in place.

Special Assistant to the General Manager Felipe Alou
Senior Consultant, Player Personnel Jack Hiatt
Senior Consultant, Player Personnel Ron Perranoski
Special Assistant, Player Development Joe Amalfitano
Special Assistant, Player Development Jim Davenport
Senior Advisor, Player Personnel Joe Lefebvre

But to answer your question…yes the Giants have a guy who does stats.

Coordinator of Baseball Operations/Quantitative Analysis Yeshayah Goldfarb

He had a rather undistinguished career pitching occasionally for UCSD in the late 90s. I believe that was before they made the jump from Div III to Div II. Frankly I think he got hired because the Giants thought he was related to John Goldfarb

Don’t sweat it, Neukom has things well in hand. The new manual on the “Giants Way” lays it all out for everybody. A masterpiece. Lurie should have sold the Giants to Microsoft and spared us all those years of Bonds scandals and Dusty Baker play off appearances.

Anyway, the math is simple. 72 Wins in 2008 to 88 Wins in 2009. The Giants will win 103 games next year because:

They fixed the hole at hitting coach.
Edgar Renteria will have surgery and hit more Rbis and homeruns
Freddie Sanchez will be a “Four Time All Star” by this time next season
Sabeanmetrics indicate that Pablo Sandoval after OPSing 847 in 08 and 943 in 09 is penciled in for 1.039 for 2010
Sabean, fresh off his new contract deals Rowand back to the Phils straight up for Pedro Feliz And Shane Victorino.
He agrees to throw in Tim Lincecum and Brian Wilson rather than go to arbitration, saving countless millions.

Fuck man. I can’t wait for spring training.

Well, it is for us… But, For them: Butts in seats. I have a feeling their goal is to fill the stadium as cheaply as possible.

Could our “Coordinator of Baseball Operations/Quantitative Analysis” have a more jewish name?

If Sabean had changed he would have traded for Nick Johnson.

Why is it so hard to realize that “situational hitting” actually requires people to be on base?

1) I can now hang with the sabermaticians: I am not going to develop any new analysis tool, nor am I going to spend hours mulling over Pitch/Fx data. I get the big picture. And I understand this stuff well enough now to follow conversations and comment on said conversations. My knowledge in advanced baseball statistics is far greater than it was this time a year ago. (Thanks Fangraphs!)

2) Following point #1: I understand why the Giants have a terrible offense. I can use numerous free websites to evaluate their “talent”. I understand where the Giants need to go from here.

3) Using my freely acquired knowledge, I have made the determination that the Giants do not have the correct leadership. Their decision-makers are administering a baseball team as if it were 1975 or 1985 (which era had the most suck?) They lack any curiosity, refuse to admit that they have faults and rectify those faults – thus they refuse to grow as professionals (This is one of the key moments in Moneyball. People always say it is a baseball book, but it’s a management book. It is a book about stepping outside of your dogma and trying to find the true value in something using analysis, not hearsay. A key moment is when Billy Bean begins to understand that playing baseball for X number of years did not teach him what really won baseball games. He admitted his deficiency, learned, and shifted the paradigm forever, except for Brian Sabean.)

4) Even if the Giants had quality management, they don’t have the money, nor the depth of talent on the free-agent market, nor the depth of talent on their own roster (major and minor) to make trades that would significantly increase the ability of the offense to score runs without hampering one of the positive elements of the team (pitching, defense).

5) The Giants financial situation (see point #4) is the result of the Giants not being able to evaluate talent properly (see point #3). This will remain to some degree for a few years while Rowand and Jermain Dye (see point #3 – you know it’s going to happen) suck up the payroll, and Zito provides average pitching for superstar money. All the while, we waste a once in a generation pitching staff.

6) The Giants offense is terrible and it really can’t get any better.

7) I understand 1-7. Brian Sabean does not.

One conclusion to be drawn from this: I am now too educated about baseball and can’t do anything about it. Normally in the workplace for example, I could show my stuff and explain why the old, tired ways are no good anymore. But alas, all I can do is complain on this Pie blog. If I thought the Giants just needed to improve their situational hitting to make a better offense, I could feel better knowing (falsely) that things really could get better.

So, this offseason and coming season are going to be real tough. I have matured as a fan, but my team hasn’t followed my progression. I don’t know what to do about it except holler, scream, and catharticly write crap like this with no hope of things changing in the near future.

Well, as much as it sucks, I’m glad you are all here with me. The sun is shinning here on the deck of the Titanic.

VROOM!!!

Once he signed Bengie he realized he couldn’t compete in the OBP so he just decided to punt (give up on) that stat. Actually, this explanation is one of the more likely I’ve heard given the very bizarre situation that is the Giants offense.

/sigh

Sabean’s bad deals in the past notwithstanding, this team just doesn’t spend enough money.

There is no way we will be a competitive team next year at our current payroll. We won’t be able to win the west or the wildcard with 80 million, much less survive against the 100-200million teams that we’ll run up against in the playoffs.

I really wish Neukom would just come out and say that this team is too good and has too much potential to waste because you didn’t want to bump payroll up to 100 million to make us competitive.

i know jermaine dye is the sexy expectation for the giants to overpay, but if the issue is on base percentage as well as the concept of taking a pitching (obp goes up with a hitters count), i would think Abreu would be the guy Sabean has his eye on.

1. he plays in the postseason (see renteria’s ‘gamerness’ quality)

2. he hit pretty well in 2007

3. he’s a vet to take playing time away from nate

3. he led the league in pitches seen/taken.

maybe the last trait could rub off on some of the younger guys?

/points at the 88 win season

We’ll be doing things my way nerds.

/Brian Sabean

I’m posting this from my DSi. Because I can. It would be crazy trying to follow a GDT on this thing.

How can people who control the fate of a multi-million business not have someone research if the Giants were really worse at situational hitting? How? How? How? I just did it on my lunch hour with the assistance of a free website.

Thanks, Grant. You’ve found a way to express the problem that makes me even more frustrated and pissy than I was before. HOORAY!

Neukom and Sabean both made mention that they have had an analyst in baseball operations for 15 years now, and I believe it was Jeremy Shelley who was noted to be that person somewhere.

According to his bio, the Senior Director of Baseball Operations/Pro Scouting “assists in the areas of player research, statistical analysis, major league contracts, arbitration preparation, as well as professional, international and amateur scouting. In addition, he also oversees the information systems within the scouting department.”

/sigh

The Giants, according to Forbes magazine, are the only large market MLB team to post nine straight years of positive operating income. Who cares about winning when even if you’re losing, you’re still making money, AMIRITE?

I think that people get too worked up about what Sabean (or people in similar postions) say and infer things that aren’t necessarily true.

Just because Sabean and Bochy talk about the need to improve situational hitting doesn’t mean that they think it’s the most important thing we need to improve. Just because they fired the hitting coach doesn’t mean that they think that he’s the main problem with the offense.

There are a number of reasons why they emphasize some things in public but not other things. They aren’t going to come out and say the biggest problem with our offense is that our position players all suck and we need a load of new ones. Both because that doesn’t help things with the existing players and also it doesn’t help with negotiations over new players. Also, they can’t bring in news players yet and so only changes in coaching staffs are made at this time.

With regards to Molina there’s no reason to close off any options at the moment especially when there’s arbitration decisions to be made. So I wouldn’t take anything from comments about him, we can save the criticism for if he’s re-signed.

I’m not saying that there isn’t too much emphasis on some things (such as situational hitting) or that there shouldn’t be criticism of Sabean / Bochy (and i’m happy to criticise as well) but it’s a pet hate of mine when i see people have the misguided expectation that GM’s or managers should speak like fans when their jobs dictate otherwise.

Just want to say…HOLY FUCKING SHIT…went last night and the last time I had this much fun at a game was 200…well you know when. And the only thing better than a Giants win is a Dodgers loss, and in the bottom of the ninth with 2 outs. From a guy who has been slumping all year.

Suck it, J Martin (WTF, J?)
Suck it, greatest manager evar!
Suck it, not Mariano Rivera!
Suck it, DODGERS!

I also have make a confession. I have a Howard shirt I wear to all the playoff and non-Giant Phillies games. Does that make me a bad person?

How can they preach contact as a strategy for success on BOTH sides of the ball? On one side they tell the pitchers to trust the defense, pitch to contact and get deeper in the game, and on the offensive side they teach, make contact to move runners over. How retarded can they possibly be.

Confounding.

What do you guys think?

He the best OBP guy available and his health question marks make him attainable on a budget that is going to stay the same according to Sabean.

OT:

It is a beautiful day in Philly. With an off day scheduled between two games in Philly why couldn’t the commissioner slide one of the last two games(FREAKING COLD) to today?

Pop quiz hot Shot. You got around 20 to 25 million dollars to improve your team. You’ve identified that OBP is the main problem. What do you do WHAT DO YOU DO?

Sabeans answer: Thats easy resign Sanchez and Uribe, and hope Molina accepts a short team deal, and by short tear I mean 2 years with an option.
This should help our OBP, I mean didn’t you see how hot Uribe was in September. There’s no way he falls back to his career norms.

OT: Truly, there is no better season than Fall, with all the good holidays and the falling of the leaves and the changing of warm to cold, there is nothing better, especially with football, and postseason baseball, Sharks playing, and the warriors about to start playing

“Hey, I really want that Vladimir Guerrero guy. He is a proven winner with 8 All-Star selections, and I need someone to replace Randy Winn with in the outfield. The Giants want me to get a big bat, and Vlad has been batting .322 throughout his career. I know he has all those knee injuries so he only bat .295 in 2009, but that’s better than everyone else on this team but Pablo and he should return to form next year. The Angels were paying him about $14 million a year for the last 5 years, so I’m going to have to overpay them for their superstar. How does a $45 million contract over 3 years sound, Vlad? He also won the Home Run Derby in AT&T Park in 2007, so he’ll be able to hit home runs out of the park for lots of RBI’s. Hey, I might even put him behind Bengie so that when Bengie hits a double, Vlad can send him home! This plan is infallible!”

I’ll check in with the relay. Using Rollins game winner last night (lolodgers). The ball is over there, the runners over here, all sorts of maneuvering in between, now the ball is in the air with the runners trying to beat it to the plate—Awesome!

Sabean starts to value OBP.
Downside: he thinks .300 is good.