The Giants FO: Reaping what they've sowed
by hairball on Aug 31, 2011 10:00 AM PDT
Email
PrintCain. Bumgarner. Lincecum. Ranked 5th, 7th and 8th respectively in NL FIP.
Lincecum. Cain. Bumgarner. Ranked lowest, 3rd lowest, and 4th lowest respectively in NL Run Support.
This troubles me to no end, but it doesn't surprise me. It is the unprecendented culmination of years upon years of a front office focusing on understanding and developing one part of the game, to the nearly complete detriment of the other. The Giants make a compelling case for having the best starting pitching in the National League (yes, I know about the Phillies). The stats don't lie. And they make a clear-cut case for having the worst run support in the league. Again, the stats don't lie. The lack of hitting development and a clear, well-researched philosophy to that effect had to result in something, right?
While we watch the season unravel, it's worth noting that this level of contrast is historic, and if you can be objective, pretty awesome to behold. On the one hand, the fact that the Giants organization was rewarded with a World Series victory last year speaks to them doing something right (developing awesome pitching), but it distracted people from the colossal failure in building offenses, with its blip-like, yes, fluke of a decent year in runs scored. The Giants researched and developed Cain, Lincecum and Bumgarner. They cannot claim the same for the unexpected brilliance they received from Huff, Torres, and Ross in 2010. And now, we get to see just how stunning a failure their single-mindedness was, while somehow simultaneously being able to revel in the success that it brought about last year. Confused fans are we. Even from half inning to half inning, it's been brilliance, followed by 1-2-3 out crap. We are the Philstros, or perhaps more appropriate, the Asslies.
I suppose I can't totally blame them for thinking "the strategy is working." It's a colossal misunderstanding that seems to suggest they don't put enough focus on luck and small sample sizes, but they DID win it all. And they doubled down, both in terms of who was on the roster, and who got played. Give up one of a few potentially talented hitters in the system for a shortstop that can't offer ANYTHING to the team, because he's "been there". Refuse to let go of the worst offenders (I'm looking at you, Rowand) for similar reasons. There was never any creativity this season. Bochy says he tried everything, including "yelling". No, Bochy, you didn't try many things, like consistently putting Belt in a lineup spot accentuating his OBP potential, or keeping Nate in right, as was done with Randy Winn, to great effect. Nah, put the veteran Beltran in right where he's comfortable, despite a lack of range and a hilariously ironic lack of "fire in the belly". Bat the veteran Cabrera where he asks to be batted, AT THE FUCKING TOP OF THE LINEUP, to the detriment of the team.
And now, the offense is what it is. What an amazing way to undo years of unqualified success at such a critical aspect of the game as pitching development. That success will undoubtedly suffer as a result- you could see that the moment Lincecum broke down against the Cubs the other day. You can see it in the way that Vogelsong's magic year is being forgotten in favor of fan hatred of Bochy and Sabean, and boos at the ballpark. The Giants FO made pitching great, and now it is spitting on that pitching by staying committed to the most backward hitting "strategy" I've ever seen.
I'm assuming that those of you who have suggested Bochy/Sabean job security under the cover of "injury" are correct. With that in mind, two things need to happen between now and next season, if the team is to improve: the Giants need to shift strategy away from acquiring old downside-of-career starting position players (JUST DON'T DO IT, EVER), getting rid of some in the process. And they need to hope, and pray, for all our sakes that the pitchers have a short memory.
This FanPost is reader-generated, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of McCovey Chronicles. If the author uses filler to achieve the minimum word requirement, a moderator may edit the FanPost for his or her own amusement.
35 comments
|
1 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
"Acquring Old Downside-of-Career Starting Position Players" ...
… is a patented process and trademark registered to Brian Sabean. (Used to be trademarked as “Ellis Burks in 2000! The Plan That Will ALWAYS Work, Bitches!”) If Sabean were a pony, that would be his sole trick. It’s like all the guys who were in power in 1989 when the Soviet Union dissolved and the Cold War was over— their brains literally were not able to encompass any other way of seeing the world than that. Sabean is like Kissinger without the ever-bangable Jill St. John.
Sure, sometimes you catch lightning in a bottle, about twice a decade. But the rest of the time, you just get your junk electrified. And not in the Jill St. John way.
DAMN Kissinger.
Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit... Maybe.
Downside of career veterans is actually the new moneyball
They can be had (mostly) for cheap. There is value there. Teams DO undervalue the veterans and overvalue prospects at current time.
The issue here is when you are buying bottles and hoping to find one with lightning in it, you THROW AWAY THE ONES THAT DONT. You acquire miguel Tejada. He sucked. DFA THAT MOTHERFUCKER and try something else.
Problem with having the Bochy / Sabean tandem is they’ll buy 4-5 bottles, find no lightning, and keep the bottles anyway so there is no room to get additional bottles in. You’re just left with empty bottles.
So you buy on Huff. There was no more lightning left. Guess what? Move it out of there. Bench him. Open the Belt bottle. Maybe there is lightning there. But no. You get Huff.
Obviously any links in the above post are probably NSFW
The baseball gods do not always punish the wicked but they will not just allow people to spit in their faces -- Joe Posnanski
Kudos, You are a sick, sick man, but you are very good at it -- wcw
by jctGamer on Aug 31, 2011 3:45 PM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
This
Koji Uehara.
Seth Rosin can hit the side of a barn with a baseball. From space.
Giants baseball: We're stupid enough to WIN that (TM)
Veterans as the undervalued resource
I’ll bet a detailed look at names will show that this strategy worked a lot better before the PED crackdown.
"Your curses do not compare to those of Houston fans or Detroit fans, and especially not to those of fans from the northside of Chicago. You are not Hamlet. You are Valerie Bertinelli. Your victim act is schlocky, and totally unconvincing. You fancy yourself tormented. You are merely insecure."
-- Scott Burton to Red Sox fans, 6/12/02
http://espn.go.com/magazine/burton_20020612.html
by achiappanza on Sep 2, 2011 6:47 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Probably so
But I think the main point is treat your scrubs that same when it comes to playing time.
The Giants are 2010 World Series Champs. … And in other news the forecast calls for a rain of toads, heavy at times, with moderate to strong swarms of locust and a high likelihood of a world quake. Details at 11.
It’s also a much better strategy when those undervalue veterans are on one-year contracts and aren’t being depended on for major contributions. Once you start handing out multi-year deals and expecting non-superstars in their mid-30’s to hit in the middle of the order, you’re asking for trouble.
VAE PVTO DEVS FIO
by Bhaakon on Sep 2, 2011 7:53 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Just so you know, “the guys who were in power in 1989 when the Soviet Union dissolved” are rich-as-fuck billionaires because they WERE able to comprehend that state (public) properties (natural resources and infrastructure) were worth something in the global capitalist paradigm.
How exactly that translates to Sabean’s MO, I have no idea (but something tells me he would be on board with that analogy).
"...more often than not, it’s factually based."
by KrazyKrabMeat on Sep 1, 2011 1:34 AM PDT up reply actions
I wasn't referring to the Soviets; I was referring to western Cold Warriors
And the point is: there is no way that Sabean could get Dyan Cannon or Jill St. John.
Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit... Maybe.
by Mayor of 311 on Sep 1, 2011 12:45 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
sewn?
2010 World Series Champions!
Adopted 'nephew' to the ever avuncular and always awesome Jon Miller
by Johnny Disaster on Aug 31, 2011 1:08 PM PDT reply actions
Sown?
COMIN' ATCHA, FROM ANCHORAGE, ALASKA!
Fathaigh go mbuaimid!
Proud adoptive Father of Joe Panik. Stolen 6/11/11.
Job 1:14-15
Knitted?
2010 World Series Champions!
Adopted 'nephew' to the ever avuncular and always awesome Jon Miller
by Johnny Disaster on Aug 31, 2011 6:12 PM PDT up reply actions
WE DO NOT SOW
"Campeones." - Andres Torres
Please follow my Twitter
by Murray, Present on Sep 1, 2011 9:49 AM PDT up reply actions
I don't know
I think we are pretty well set up for the future with Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Posey, Belt and Pablo. We won last year and are contending this year despite a pretty brutal combo of injuries and players underperforming even low end expectations.
They blew it on SS. That will be a problem position next year too unless they find a solution.
This makes sense
In reading a Minor Lines thread a few days ago, it was stated that the reason our low minor and AZL teams do so well is that we tend to draft college pitchers over any other position, which means we always have pitching that can beat other low-minor teams’ batters. That’s all well and good, but when those teams reach the majors you end up with the 2009 and 2011 Giants.
Hopefully Posey will continue his mashing ways and Gary Brown will be better than a young Scott Podsednik and Joe Panik will bring us all peace and societal order, but I’m sure we only got Panik because all the college arms we coveted were taken right before our spot so it’s not like our strategy is adjusting to reality or anything. Brandon Belt was an anomaly, I watched him in college and he wasn’t anything special, the frame of Derrek Lee with the bat of Chris Denorfia, he’s a freaking miracle.
These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others. -Groucho Marx
It bears mentioning that, going back to Matt Cain, the Giants have drafted high school pitchers with their first-round or compensation pick five times (out of 17 total picks). Two have turned into stars (Cain and Madbum), two were traded for above-average big league contributors (Tim Alderson for Freddy Sanchez and Wheeler for Beltran, with hindsight 20-20 on the latter) and the fifth, Kyle Crick, was taken this year. On top of that, they’ve had great success with developing college pitchers like Lincecum (give Sabes credit for having the stones to take him where others passed) as well as Wilson, JSanchez, Romo, Surkamp, etc. The Giants front office has its faults, but selecting and developing arms be they prep or college isn’t one of them.
I am not suggesting the pitchers they take aren't any good
I’m saying if you don’t draft and develop high-profile hitters, you will not have any good young hitters. That’s a good strategy for single-A and a bad one for the major leagues.
If they can develop arms so well, and I believe their track record shows that they can, they ought to be able to get away with drafting less of them and focusing on power hitters. Oropesa and Kentrell Hill are a start but Buster Posey is that last guy we drafted high with any real power at all.
These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others. -Groucho Marx
Good lord, Posey just got drafted 3 years ago. How many people should we have drafted high since then. Really, the Wheeler pick is the only one you can point to, because there weren’t a lot of certain power hitters on the boards where we selected Brown or Panik. I kind of wanted Castellanos where they took Brown, but I knew a lot of scouts liked Brown alot and it’s turned out well. The likeliest hitters at Panik’s spot were Mahtook or Levi and neither of them were power hitters either. We have drafted guys with big power in the top three rounds lately, but like Oropesa they’ve come with major offensive flaws (Kieschnick and Dominguez). Parker, who was a second round choice was also thought to have some power potential (and still might if he can get some control of his contact rate).
Bottom line is it’s not that easy to find true power hitters. If Belt hits, that 5th round pick will be a huge tribute to our scouting and player personnel folks.
MY DAD WAS WRONG!
MY BOY NEEDS TO THROW HARDER!
and before posey we took pitchers and crappy hitters early like 5 years running
Posey was an aberration.
These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others. -Groucho Marx
Well, obviously there’s been some issues with their drafting over the years, but just a couple obvious things about that:
1) would you prefer they hadn’t drafted Tim Lincecum and Madison Bumgarner? Take those two guys out of their organization and replace them with really any of the best profiled hitters on the board at the time of those picks and this team is really hopeless and rudderless last year, this year, and next year.
The next 5 hitters drafted after Lincecum were Tyler Colvin, Travis Snider, Chris Marrero, Matt Antonelli and Chris Parmalee. In fact, the best hitters I see in the draft (who weren’t already taken at the Lincecum pick) are guys like Chris Coughlan, John Jay, Brennan Boesch. Take your pick.
The next 5 hitters selected after Bumgarner were Matt Dominguez, Beau Mills, Jason Heyward, Devin Mesoraco, Kevin Ahrens, Pete Kozma. Better group with one legitimate star (although health issues really seem to becoming a real gnawing issue) and a couple interesting prospects. Still, the Giants clearly got huge value with that pick so it’s hard to complain about it.
2) Those “crappy hitters” you mention, were in fact, efforts at doing exactly what you complain about: drafting high profile hitters. Wendell Fairley was a consensus High School All American when he was drafted. Definitely a high profile toolsy hitter. Eddy Martinez-Esteve (their 2nd rounder, but first pick in 2004) was probably the consensus best college bat on the board when they made that pick. Nick Noonan had scouts enraptured by his swing. The fact is, lots and lots of high profile hitters turn into crappy hitters poste haste.
I don’t want to defend their drafting too far, and I’ve made the same argument as you (they’re good at finding pitchers so maybe they should take hitters first), but I do think you have to admit that their drafting in the last 10 years is the reason they won last year’s World Series, and the reason why there’s still reason for optimism going forward next year. Heck, even their idiosyncratic hitter picks the last couple years are looking quite good. I’d love them to have more power, but they’re really running on a pretty historic run of 1st round success right now, so complaining about it strikes me as some kind of bad form, or bird in the hand violation, or careful what you wish for or some kind of ironic evil moralizing.
MY DAD WAS WRONG!
MY BOY NEEDS TO THROW HARDER!
No, I definitely like the Lincecum and MadBum pick
My problems stem more from the fact that there seems to be an organizational philosophy to take pitchers above all else, and we have a great example of this in that this year’s draft was almost exclusively pitchers and shortstops who probably won’t stay at shortstop. The only non-pitcher position wherein we have great depth in the minors is catcher, and those kids are all blocked by our best offensive player so that depth is fairly meaningless now.
We did take high-profile hitters, but since they suck now we can surmise that either our scouting of them was flawed, or we can’t develop them properly. Most teams have TINSTAAPP issues, but we have TINSTAAHP issues. I know lots of hitters don’t live up to potential, but in the last ten years or so we have drafted exactly….. three hitters that are good (Belt, Posey, Pablo), plus a defensive whiz in Nate Schierholtz? Unacceptable.
This may all become silly when Gary Brown rakes all over the field and Joe Panik is the white Jimmy Rollins, but for now it looks bleak.
These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others. -Groucho Marx
The Giants WERE especially bad at developing hitters
Not so much these days. The last few seasons have seen the beginnings of a turnaround (Panda, Posey, Belt). The organizational philosophy changed after Magowan got bought out by Neukom, but you don’t just replenish an entire farm system like that. It will take time.
This argument was valid 3 years ago, but not anymore. The Giants are (relatively) down this year because none of the veteran gambles panned out, and everyone got hurt. The future is still reasonably bright.
i think they should just keep taking pitchers with their early round draft picks and then develop and trade them when they’ve got about 2 years exp or so in MLB….no guarantee they could have the same results of the last 7-8 years but its worth a try compared to their ineptitude with position players…
by repeat_in_2011 on Sep 1, 2011 9:02 PM PDT up reply actions
I can’t imagine that ever happening. The Giants seem to take a perverse pride in never trading away major useful leaguers.
VAE PVTO DEVS FIO
Use them to acquire veteran Useful Leaguers.
2010 World Series Champions!
Adopted 'nephew' to the ever avuncular and always awesome Jon Miller
by Johnny Disaster on Sep 2, 2011 7:39 AM PDT up reply actions
Forgot Tommy Joseph, as well. 2nd rounder with exceptional power. So he’s another possibility. Chuckie Jones has a lot of power potential, although he seems to have some serious issues placing bat on ball, so that’s a problem.
In generaly, it would be nice to see more power in the system, but at least the John Barr drafts appear to be trying to acquire it.
MY DAD WAS WRONG!
MY BOY NEEDS TO THROW HARDER!
Buster
Since Buster is very early in his draft class to be in the big league that is not saying a lot. You might mean that he is the first in a long time.
This didn’t start with Sabean, I remember frustration with mngmt when Dan Gladden was only hitting .390 in July adn the quotes were “Its early, small sample size, where would we play him, we have players now hitting .260”, and more.
Predicting development is tough, Look at how many #1 draft pics are busts.
Go Giants
i hope this isn’t the start of a lot of whiny fanposts complaining about the front office just 10 months after a WS victory….
People always talk about reaping what you sow as a bad thing. I mean, you sowed the crop — it needs to be reaped. If you don’t do it, it will either just wither and die or I suppose, you could get your own group of slaves and force them to do it for you. Neither is a very good option, imho. Just get out there and reap your damn crop. When Mrs. Roger and I go out back and pull fresh veggies out of our garden to put in our morning omelet, we always celebrate it: WOO HOO, WE’RE REAPING WHAT WE SEWED! AND IT TASTES YUMMY!
And you know, just because one of our sweet peppers turned out to be a hot pepper plant instead, we didn’t castigate ourselves or feel like big failures. We just made a nice spicey salsa, and then froze the rest for later.
MY DAD WAS WRONG!
MY BOY NEEDS TO THROW HARDER!
Not sure..
..what you’re getting at here. If you’re saying that we should give our own prospects a real chance in the majors as they arrive, I’m totally in agreement. That, to me, is the huge failing of the organization – and that predates the Sabean Administration, although it certainly includes him and his.
On the other hand, if you’re advocating that we play Belt and Crawford, and freeze Parker and Kieschnick for later, I’m not sure how I feel about the prospects for cryogenics.
2011 SF Giants: We are disappoint.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
In Association With
Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports
- Get a grip: Reds’ Todd Frazier loses bat, still connects for home run (Video)
- Eric Hosmer redefines the Baltimore chop with infield double (Video)
- College player makes impossible over the fence catch to save tournament game (Video)
- Security!: Camden Yards guard collides with Royals’ Mike Moustakas
- The Juice: Nelson Cruz matches career high eight RBIs, Pujols stays hot in Seattle
