To some degree I can see why it’s fair to explain away his moves as luck, though. What matters is the process – over the long term, a good process is going to produce good results while a bad process produces bad results (even if that doesn’t necessarily hold true in the short term). It’s a fair point that nothing about Jeff Kent suggested it was a good move – we lucked out, but 95% of the time (totally made that number up) if you make a move like that you end up on the losing side of the trade. So that’s fair. By that way of looking at things you’ll also find some good moves – Ray Durham, for instance. Overall though, regardless of what way you look at things, the bad far outweighs the good for Sabean.

When you discuss Jason Schmidt, don’t forget the huge FAIL on Sabean’s part to move him in the final year of his contract. They could’ve gotten a real talent (Mets were talking Milledge or Martinez), but Sabean hung on to his veteran player and got nothing. This is less than mediocrity…….it’s complete FAIL.

I think it’s fair to discuss luck when it comes to the Jeff Kent trade simply because (as I’ve said before) that trade was successful for precisely the opposite reason it was made. Sabean’s stated purpose in making the trade was to turn a superstar into a lot of usable parts that could fill the team’s many holes. From that standpoint I think it was a failure (Vizcaino might not have been an upgrade from Aurilia who was already here, Tavarez was a disappointment, Roa a nonentity). The success of that trade came because we fortunately managed to exchange a fading superstar for a rising one.

Of course all good trades demand some nature of luck, as Hobbes says, but I think the reason it’s important to look at the luck involved in the Kent trade is that Sabean failed to learn the lesson of that trade (it really is better to have a star than a bunch of mediocre pieces). His famous Vladdie comment betrays the exact same logic behind his defense of the Williams trade — it’s better to have a lot of serviceable pieces than one impact guy — unfortunately none of those pieces we picked up in the winter of ’04 went on a Kent-like tear, making the threadbare nature of his logic apparent for all to see.

Of course, I’ve been saying all this for years so there’s no reason to go on ad nauseum, I suppose.

FWIW, Nen threw 89 innings in 1998, faded down the stretch, had a tough 1999 season, and Dusty kept him in 1 inning situations forevermore.

Also keep in mind Sabean overpays players significantly relative to what they’re worth because he doesn’t understand what makes a player valuable. Over the long term, that’s a problem.

The 2001 season should have been a bigger warning sign than it was. And not putting him through a physical before signing the papers was a major mistake. I believe Alfonzo was also a prime example of Sabean’s tendency to put too much emphasis on what happens in playoff games.

I’m not sure how you figure that Mayor. From a position player standpoint trading Williams was just a 2 for 1 switch, and one of those two was Jose Vizcaino playing over Rich Aurilia, which may well have been wash (although granted Aurilia had been pretty terrible the year before). And we were still throwing Rick Wilkins out there at catcher (who was certainly nothing like a legitimate major league player at that point). The other major upgrades that season had nothing to do with the trade (Hamilton on the FA market and Snow in a separate trade).

What the Williams trade got us was Williams for Kent, really, pure and simple. Had we not made the deal we probably would have slotted Mueller in at 2B rather than 3B, and had Aurilia at SS, and our lineup probably wouldn’t have been that much affected (since Kent and Williams had nearly identical seasons in 1997). Indeed, the Giants offensive production in ‘97 wasn’t that much different than it had been in ’96 (scoring about 30 runs more).

The real difference that that trade made was that going forward Kent got better and Williams got injured and worse.

You’re quite right about Schmidt, and some of that applies to Jeff Kent too. Kent had been a highly regarded prospect. As a rookie, he was traded for one of the best pitchers in baseball. And when Sabean acquired him, he had four straight seasons of pretty good hitting.

Trading for 28-year-olds who have been solid but never quite lived up to their hype may not be ideal, but it’s still a pretty good way to build a team.

What about Livan Hernandez? We traded for a young pitcher who was an 220 IP eater per season for literally nothing.

The Matt Williams trade worked out ok for the giants. Kent had shown some signs of being a potential good hitter in the past, and I thought he might be ok, but Matt Williams was one of my favorite giants, and I hated to see him go. Too bad he did not get to complete the strike shortened season. I thought Joe Nathan was getting better and better after returning from injury. I hated the trade at the time, and turned out even worse than I expected. It seemed all because he did not want to re-sign BENITO SANTIAGO, and Sabes’ ego made that move. Similar to the move in letting Kent go, and signing Alphonso. EGO, driven trade. He needed to make peace with Kent, and re-sign him period. Kent was very productive, and yet not a fan favorite because of his attitude. But still, on the field he was a good giant. One of my problems with Sabean is that he seems to make these ego driven trades, and thos are the worst ones. His trade for Jason Schmidt was a good one, and many baseball people saw Schmidt as a potential true ACE. That was a good move. Had we kept Nathan, it would have allowed a cascade of moves that would have allowed the giants to be better. Now some of his draft picks like Aardsma have come around, that is why a talented pitcher should not be prematurely written off, ie Sanchez.

We don’t have much to complain about compared to most teams.

And we shouldn’t. We’re in one of the biggest markets in the country, we should be able to sustain success. I’m not talking about playoffs every year, but playoffs fairly often without many sub-.500 seasons mixed in. 293-290 is also a lot better than we’ve done the last 4 season….

I think the biggest point is even when you don’t count the Zito deal, Sabean still pays something like $8M per win on the FA market, when other teams are paying $4-5M. That’s pretty damning evidence that he doesn’t understand his job.