I remember the "whipping boy" phrase being tossed around on the old sfgiants.com board in reference to Marvin Benard. Perhaps Brian is going through mlb.com messageboard archives or something.

In any case, I agree with you on Cain. His velocity was down and he had trouble with his control. If he is nursing an arm problem, he needs to sit.

The difference this year is that Bochy is tougher for Sabean to kick around than some previous managers might have been...

The Giants are indeed at a crossroads; stumbled to the end of the Bonds/Sabean era. The game plan was not a bad one for an upper middle market team. Sign the best hitter of your generation. Draft pitchers almost exclusively, hope that the best turn into front line starters and trade the rest for complements to your great hitter. The strategy hinges on assessments of the potential complements, though, and that's where Sabean stumbled. After Kent, he wasn't able to identify the sleepers or budding stars that he needed to develop into solid position players. He also proved inadequate in his assessment of closer candidates after post-Nen, which has contributed more than anything else except injuries to Bonds to the Giants struggles from '05 -'07.

Sabean's job clearly hinges on the G's performance this season. The million dollar question is whether or not Sabean could preside over a rebuilding effort. I go back to Beane's quote about Sabean in Moneyball, as a "shark with his fin barely below the water." Sabes got a reputation as a guy who was dangerous to do deals with, much as Beane did. Beane however, proved adaptable as a guy who could keep reloading a team from scratch, while Sabes inability to fleece the other GMs exposed him as a one-trick pony. If I were Magowan, I would start aggressively courting John Shuerholz. The Braves game him a lowball one-year extension for '07, and he has to be getting tired of corporate ownership. His kids are probably grown as well. Make an aggressive run at Shuerholz to rebuild the organization around the young starters, and do it now.

J-Bass: that's some out of the box thinking, my friend. I wonder if the Braves would sign Schuerholz long-term if they knew another team was sniffing around.

As much as I would praise Shuerholz's performance as GM, I wonder how much of that is Bobby Cox's doing as well.

Cox was the GM who presided over the Braves 6 years of hell and last place, getting the high draft picks that helped him get the talent to rebuild, at which point he took over as manager and put Shuerholz in as GM.

So it was Cox who set up the Braves to succeed, but I don't know how much Shuerholz was a part of that 6 years of rebuilding, was he the player development guy and got promoted, much like Sabean? Then he would be a good guy to be interested in if Sabean is no longer the guy.

If there was a GM I could get, no matter what the situation, I would get Dombrowski of the Tigers. He built up the talent in the Expos, allowing them to win for a while before money woes (and owner woes) sunk their chances. Then he took over the Marlins and did something similar but now the owner shelled out money finally and he won there. Now he's with Tigers and they followed the blueprint for the rebuilding strategy that I've named the "Phoenix Strategy"

Basically, you tear the team down to the bones, trading off all the vets; you limp along with whoever you got left, getting great draft picks, meaning top 5 overall, and saving money from payroll; develop a bunch of them (picks and what you got in trade) and when they are ready, you go into free agency and supplement as necessary, getting good players. Connie Mack did that continually with the A's (except for free agency, which is probably why his strategy finally didn't work) and that tradition continued with Charlie Finley, and the era starting with Haas and all the good smart people he brought in. That's how the Braves did it, the Yankees did that before their late 90's World Series string, Twins do that as well.

Doesn't work for everyone: Pirates, Royals, Tampa Bay.

I think Shuerholz was signed to a one year contract because of the ownership change, often the new owner might want to hire their own guy, so the new owner might balk if you tell him that he's stuck paying millions per year for a number of years for a GM he doesn't want.

And Sabean is not a one-trick pony, unless you haven't seen (or appreciated) the rotation he build.

"So it was Cox who set up the Braves to succeed, but I don't know how much Shuerholz was a part of that 6 years of rebuilding, was he the player development guy and got promoted, much like Sabean? Then he would be a good guy to be interested in if Sabean is no longer the guy."

Shuerholz was the GM of the KC Royals during the 80's (back when they were still a real baseball team) before he took the Braves job. They started winning his first year in Atlanta. He had nothing to do with player development in Atlanta prior to that.

True, Cox surely factored heavily into the Braves success, especially the rebuild prior to 1990. But Shuerholz took over a situation with a great rotation and a weak starting lineup and kept the pieces in place to continue winning, including some pretty creative bullpens. Cox is not a great situational manager, and Mazzone covered a lot of his weaknesses for managing a staff. I believe Boch is better at managing staffs, but that remains to be seen.

As for Sabes as a one-trick pony--if you draft pitchers almost exclusively and pay $126 million for a #2, you can build a solid rotation without necessarily having a knack for it.

>As for Sabes as a one-trick pony--if you draft pitchers almost exclusively and pay $126 million for a #2, you can build a solid rotation without necessarily having a knack for it.

It's not just the Giants' rotation, though. If you look around the league, a lot of former Giants are doing solid jobs as starters AND relievers. Yeah, they may draft a lot of pitchers, but it says something about the way the organization brings up pitchers after drafting them.

He's had some bad trades out of desperation of late, and some bad luck as well. No one knew AJ would stir up a storm AND stink up the joint after he arrived. No one knew if Liriano would ever become a consistent MLB pitcher, and still no one does. Nathan was the true loss of that deal, but even then no one really knew what he could do.

Nathan and Foppert follow similar paths. They each, however, went different ways after their injuries. Sure, shoulder surgery may not be the same as TJ, but it's a similar situation nevertheless.

>Nathan and Foppert follow similar paths.

Yes and no. Nathan had an excellent year in relief under his belt when he was traded. Foppert was still recovering from injury when he was traded.

But you bring up an excellent point -- ex-Giant pitchers doing well for other teams is in a way a good thing. If everyone Sabean traded was a dud, no one would trade with him. It's the talent he's getting in return that's the problem.

Yeah, the Giants being on the hook for the signing bonus seems pretty logical to me, sadly. It's money he "earned" before the 2005 season, so it's not the Marlins' problem.

So, counting Armando's salary, the Giants have ten players (Molina, Aurilia, Durham, Winn, Roberts, Zito, Cain, Morris, Lowry, Kline) under contract for 2008, and $79.6M already accounted for. (This includes $17.4M in deferrals to Bonds, Benitez, Vizquel, Alou and Matheny. You can take $2M off the table if you assume we don't have to buy out Matheny's option year, which we shouldn't, but you never know.) Adding 15 league minimum contracts (with small arbitration bumps for Correia and Hennessey likely, and for Chulk and Messenger if the Giants even think they're worth the bother) and you're at over $86M without having a single impact hitter or reliever on the roster.

I fear that next winter is going to be much more depressing than this winter.

Lowry is gone, dead man walking. The question now is when and to what effect.
Trading him for a young, impact hitter is the only real solution to keeping us in the race this year and the next (see the posting from pantalones).

The Giants simply can't afford to have five excellent starting pitchers when we're loosing games 4-2 and 2-0. Lowry is the only pitcher who a) would bring a young, cheap impact position player in return and b) we are willing to trade (i.e., he's not Lincecum or Cain).

Sabes protestations to the contrary, I would not be surprised if there's already a trade in the works. In fact, I'd bet on it.

And nice work on the lineup, Lefty. Sweeney is 1 for his last 21 and hasn't started in about two weeks, and you brazenly stuck him in the #3 slot! And Bochy agreed!

Pantaloons, that's some scary payroll, and it's why I'm willing to bet the Giants try to trade Morris. After this year, the Giants owe him a *minimum* of $12.5 M. ('08 salary + $2 M signing bonus + $1 M buyout of '09 option).

Though I wonder if All-Star-related revenues will bump up payroll. According to Cot's, they started this year at $90 M. Perhaps they'll go up to $100 M for '08.

Lefty, you wrote: "Hope for progress from the young position players..."

Do you mean Lewis, Ortmeier and Frandsen? Lewis is 27 and has a PECOTA projection of 272/350/421 with average defense. Ortmeier is 256/316/400, though only 26. Frandsen's another year younger, and projects at 283/327/401. We're not talking about Jose Reyes here - those are guys you build a 70-win team around.

Or were you thinking about somebody else?

Schierholtz might be the only guy left above A-ball with any value. Martinez-Esteve and Ishikawa look like they're finished.