I hope they have. Sabean's irritation with his working environment became apparent after his post-Mando-trade tirade. If he's willing to talk extension now, one hopes it's because he and Magowan have hashed out their differences.

Time will tell. I'm happy to see Sabean stay. I do think that his bosses are at least somewhat to blame for the last three seasons. Can they leave Sabean alone and let him do his job? That's the key.

I think Sabean was irritated with fans and the media more than his working environment. Look at how Schulman said his reputation was tarnished by the Pierzynski trade. If you are around long enough, you are going to make mistakes along the way, nobody is perfect. Look at his overall record, what he has done overall.

I would be happy with Sabean staying another year or two. I like the rebuild of the pitching staff that's been done over the past few years while still trying to win. I want to give him the chance to rebuild the starting lineup now that the pitching changes are relatively done.

Unfortunately position players have not been performing to the level that their prior abilities indicated. Yeah, he has sucked there, but really, except for the superstar players like Vlad, Tejada, Beltran, etc, most of the free agents available for the positions he needed were pretty crappy. For example, his choices at 3B were Feliz, Huff, and Hillenbrand. Talk about being in purgatory!

You can blame him for not "planning" for that via the draft, but no team plans to replace every position on their team, they take their battles one on one, because some prospects fizzle when they should sizzle, and others fall into their lap.

I like the focus on pitching. The pitching is done and almost internally done. People can point to position players all they want, but show me a team of position players created solely from the draft that is good. Brewers are approaching that but after around 20 years of poor play - and top 7 overall picks during the 2000's for the most part - they should be nearly all homegrown.

Maybe he fails. Then can his ass.

But I believe that he has earned the chance to finish up this rebuild, rebuilds are not easy and they are rarely clean and they are almost never done in a few years without some losing. I think he has earned another year or two to finish things up.

Sabean has already earned his firing. Now Giants ownership is meddling once again and thinking about extending his contract. I just don't get it.

Ignoring all the other instances of meddling in past years, let's just focus on the last year or so. We get a letter from Magowan after last year's debacle of a season promising season ticketholders that the Giants are committed to getting "younger & helathier." Yeah, right! We go out and sign the oldest guys we can find and they predcitably stink up the joint (with the exception of Bengie whos has done well) and/or spend time on the DL.

At the beginning of Spring Training, Magowan announces that Sabean's tenure will be decided at the end of the season, implying that his fate will rest on how the Giants fare this season. The Giants turn out to be one of he worst teams in baseball in the first half and Magowan now says that he is considering extending Sabean's contract.

If any of that seems contradictory and doesn't appear to make a lot of sense......well, it's not you. It's obvious that Magown & Co. have no idea what they're doing. If there was only some way we could replace the owner & his henchmen, then we'd really have something going.

It's really hard to assess Sabean's tenure without knowing how much he's being overruled from above. For example, did he really think Zito was worth $126 M, or did the guys upstairs say, we really want to sign Zito, make it happen and don't worry about the price? Did he object? Did he say, well, OK, but please don't let the Zito money take away from future payroll flexibility in case we want to make another big free agent splash?

Let's not revise history here. Bonds is the Giants' most productive player - if it was management's call to keep him and Sabean didn't want to then he's a bigger moron than we thought.

Hang around long enough and you'll make one bad trade? Sabean has screwed up a lot more than that. How about this entirely Sabean lineup:

C Pierzynski
1B Hillenbrand
2B Alfonzo
SS Neifi
3B Feliz
LF Sanchez
CF Grissom
RF Hammonds

Can his arrogant douchebag ass now...

Longtime reader, first time commenter. Nice blog, ELM. Here's my stream of consciousness:

If Sabean is irritated with the fans and the media, it's because we (the fans) and they (the media) have a single criteria for success -- winning -- and he isn't building teams that can get that done. He's been able to coast for ten years on one or two good transactions. Ferchrissakes, Kent was a throw-in for Matt Williams! That's a far cry from "nobody's perfect". More like "better lucky than good".

Indeed, the G's have been okay at developing pitching talent. I'm pretty excited about Lincecum and Cain, but woulda liked to see them with Nathan and Liriano. But they haven't developed a top- or mid-level position player since Matt Williams. Fleas? Please. Some may call that focus. I call it doing your job halfway.

"Finish up this rebuild"? One does not "rebuild" with 35 and 40 year old retreads.

What Boof said: Whoever GM's the G's will never get to truly run the team. It's clear Magowan, Baer et al believe:
1) they know more about baseball than baseball people. Heck, they're rich! They must be smart, right? Wait: you inherited your money, Peter?
2) The fans don't care about winning. We want chardonnay, free wi-fi, Lou Seal, a playground for the kids, and anything else to distract us from whatever those guys are doing on that big grass field.
3) Winning does not put asses in seats. Seeing "big names" like Finley, Roberts, Durham, Kline, Benitez, and other veterans of the 1997 All Star game is more important to us. We're too dumb to understand that young players need to suck for a while before they can get good.
Maybe Magowan, Baer et al are right, but I don't think so. That's why I don't give them any of my money.

Nice handle, m_s. I hope you'll become a longtime reader and commenter.

I often lay into the brass for being marketing-driven, but I also acknowledge that P-Mags grew up a rabid Giants fan. I'll bet he's not happy with the losing either. So I don't think it's a cynical Carl Pohlad/PT Barnum-type management style.

If there were a gun to my head, I'd come down slightly more on ogc's side. Let's see what Sabes does in the next three weeks. If he moves in teh right direction, give him another year or two to build the farm system and get back to his wily trading ways.

A blast from the past (I was cleaning up my old email) to get your blood boiling: http://media.putfile.com/larry-krueger-rant

Hacking batters, age-first strategy, poor value for $200 million revenue...that was in 2005 and what has changed? At least ol' Cream of Wheat is gone.

It's time for a change, and it will be good for Sabean too. If McGowan et al are meddling, then maybe a new GM can negotiate more independence.

I say wait for the end of the season, so Sabean can put a stealth rebuild on his resume.

"CF Grissom"

Hey, Grissom was one of Sabean's successful dumpster dives. He chipped in 42 jacks and 169 rbi over two seasons in 02 and 03.

He completely ran out of gas in '05, but Grissom was goddamned Joe Dimaggio in center compared to the Japanese wonder known as Shinjo.

As to the question of 'Should He Stay Or Should He Go?'...

Go, and go far, preferably leaving yesterday. If only for the fact that the Giants have been without a closer since Game Six and this idiot has traded away TWO of them.

Time for a fresh start.

Of course, I meant 03 and 04 when speaking of Grissom's relatively effective years.

If Sabean's excuse is that he's been a toady for his bosses, then who needs him, anyway?

And that's probably the best that can be said for him. Whatever skills he has that might have made him a good GM compared to his peers in the past, his refusal to admit that modern statistical analysis has changed the game will only lead to more Pedro Feliz-type signings. His track record is abysmal when it comes to hitters ... sometimes it seemed Sabean signed every low-OBP player who was ever available. That can't all be laid at the feet of ownership.

Show me one team that rebuild totally from young player and became a winner. For example, Florida had to get I-Rod to do that, plus had a number of vets. Before that, Moises Alou and Devon White, plus they picked up Bobby Bonilla.

And Kent was clearly a good player even when we got him, he was just held by his previous teams. If you want to call that luck, then you have to call the Marlins getting Miguel Cabrera as luck, there are plenty of these young players signed for big money who don't pan out, let alone be as good as he is.

You can even throw Dontrelle Willis into that equation too, he was an 8th round draft pick by the Cubs, the odds of picking a good player had dropped by the 100th overall pick to 2% so by the 8th round, it should be under 1% by a clear margin.

Finding good prospects is very hard. 43% of the top 5 picks overall are good - thus finding a good player is worse than a coin flip, even for the first 5 picks. For picks 6-10, it is 23%. By the 21-30 picks, only 11% are good. From 31-90 overall, about 4%. 91-100, 2%.

So you need to think in the context of when Sabean has been picking. He has rarely been in the top 10. The vast majority of his picks have been in the 21-30 range. That's poor odds, and yet he has picked up Cain and Lowry using those picks, plus Hennessey.

Compare what he has done in the draft with what the other good teams who also pick in that range and you will find that he is doing as well or better than those teams. It is extremely difficult to win and to rebuild at the same time.

And the Giants did chase after much younger players in the off-season, then signed the older players they did. Otherwise, they would have had Linden starting in RF, Aurilia playing 3B, Niekro playing 1B, Frandsen playing 2B, and Alfonzo catching. That team would be losing now and you all would still be complaining about the team not having position prospects. At least they tried to get players to win with, rather than conceding.

About Magowan's decision making based on the season, clearly the rebuild of the pitching staff has been a huge success. Don't forget, we have 4 positions opening up next season because of free agents, plus a ton of money freed because of that. We gave it our best shot this year, we get to reload for bear next season.

And if Zito was decided above his head, that goes more towards re-hiring him, Zito has cost us about 3-5 games in the standing, that would put us near .500 and closer to the Padres.

Nice list of Sabean's failures, gdog. I'll bet if I went through any successful GM you chose who has been around for 10 years or more, and I can compile a similar list. Give me a name.

Metzgers Saw (most here probably don't know that Roger cut off his fingers with a saw making a dollhouse for his daughter; what, no Mike Ivie Knife? he was a better player), very few teams rebuild without losing, look it up, I have. Give me teams you admire for rebuilding and I'll go through what they had to go through to get there.

Halfway jobs are the norm when you consider that most successful teams don't source their teams solely from farm products AND without losing a lot of seasons, some very horribly. Atlanta had to go through 6 excruciatingly bad seasons with Bobby Cox as GM, then he took over as manager and has had a very successful run since then, but even then he went outside, got Greg Maddux and was handed Fred McGriff for nothing.

And no one rebuilds in one year. He has rebuilt the pitching staff and as other pitching prospects start percolating upward, he will be freer to trade off pitching he has for position players he needs. And, as noted, he tried hard to get Carlos Lee and others who were younger but they had factors other than money governing their decision.

First move that Magowan and Baer did was sign Barry Bonds to a dotted line, even before they got the club officially. He's also the one who kept the team in SF rather than Tampa Bay. That buys a lot of loyalty from me. If you would rather follow the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, be my guest.

If they believed that fans didn't want winning, they wouldn't be trying to field a competitive team each season. They would sign Johnny LeMaster to play SS, Jack Clark to play RF and Will Clark to play 1B. Heck, put both Willie's back out there. And have Jose Uribe reburied in CF with a monument.

Feliz, as bad as he was, was the best alternative out there, one year is not a killing contract. Durham has been a very productive 2B - when healthy - and was very productive last year and the contract signed is not outrageous, but his decline was a killer in the 5 spot, but now he is 3rd so it's better. They should have just DLed him with that abdominal problem, that's probably hurting him. Roberts, has been a total disappointment, he's hitting worse than expected, but he was injured, then he was recovering, then he came back early because of Lewis's injury, he's only recently started hitting like he's capable of, in July. Aurilia had debilitating neck problems but appears to be back now. And Klesko and Molina have been finds.

Sure, young players can suck, but I think you have to admit that the Giants have been assessing their young position prospects correctly, none have been worth starting, and they did start Niekro and gave Ellison a shot too, both blew it big time, Niekro twice as we could have used him this year while Aurilia was having the neck problems. And I assume you would rather see Bonds start than Linden in LF to start this season. And assume you wanted a leadoff hitter, which Sabean went out and got in Roberts; Lewis at that time didn't do anything much in AAA last season, nor anything much in AA the season before. Or are you advocating just throwing anyone out there and see what happens?

I would have to assume if the two sides are talking, they will come to agreement. They both want the same thing: Sabean back. If Sabean had a problem with management, I think he has his ways of getting that out there.

And the news about Zito not being his decision, I assume now that had to have been an ownership leak to ease criticism on Sabean publicly so that they can start negotiating. Perhaps an olive branch to Sabean?

And Sabean will not stand for a one year extension, so it will be at least 2 years.

People always seem to think the grass is greener but change is not always good. You need to take Sabean's situation in perspective, realize how hard it is to rebuild via the draft while winning, realize how hard it is to rebuild almost the whole pitching staff as he has.

Next up, the pitching will improve as better pitchers come up and replace and/or be traded to get the position players we need. To have a sub-4 team ERA is pretty good, and no one is having a year that couldn't have been forecasted, even Morris, who pitched this well in early 2005. Whereas other teams with sub-4 ERAs are having pitchers who have low 2 ERAs, unsustainably low, except for Peavey.

The key is whether he will be able to convert the pitchers that come up into position players we need. He hasn't done it lately but he has been working against other teams standard operating procedue: when in doubt, ask for their top prospects. That's easy when Grilli and Vogelsong are those top players, not so easy when Ainsworth, Williams, Foppert, Lowry, Cain, and Lincecum are among your top prospects. Now that the pitching staff is pretty much complete (still need a closer), he will be freed of that restraint.

One, two years is not going to kill things irreparably.

Durham, Alfonzo, Klesko, Roberts, and Winn are players who had above average OBP when Sabean acquired him.

Beggars cannot be choosey, if all the free agent choices available in your budget range are low OBP, you have to sign low OBP types.

And there are no absolutes, the A's are still keeping Crosby and Scutaro, two very low OBP hitters, and they signed a classic Sabean signee, Loaiza, luckily he beat us out to him.

I have always defended Sabean I liked the Hillenbrand trade alot at the time, I thought Hillenbrand should have been signed instead of Feliz. But its time for Sabean to go, people are saying he deserves a chance to build a team without bonds. Since when does having the best player in baseball make it harder to build a team?

Another terrible Sabean trade no one mentions is Ortiz, after the 02 season we were in need of a bat not a left handed pitcher that walks everyother friggin hitter.

OGC, you keep pointing to this rebuilt pitching staff as evidence that Sabean is doing good work. The fact is that, yes, we have a few good young pitchers (and, no, Hennessey & Correia are not included in that group)but these guys only pitch once every 5 games and when they do pitch, the GIANTS HAVE NO FRIGGIN' OFFENSE TO SCORE ANY RUNS.

Sabean has for years eschewed using his high draft choices on position players. Hell, he even tossed one away to sign a useless Michael Tucker. The result of that strategy is that we have no starting offensive player under the age of 30 and more than half of them over the age of 35 and no replacements ready to go to replace these aged players. It is mismanmagement on the grandest scale.

When the Giants were an old club in 2001 & 2002, they should've been stockpiling prospects in their minor league system to replace these players. That was not done and now we face many years of being a horrible club beofer they have any chance of getting better. If this isn't grounds for firing, I don't know what is. It certainly isn't grounds for giving him a 2 year extension.

Just out of curiosity, what did you see in Hillenbrand's game that I didn't that warranted trading a 24 year old right handed closer-in-waiting who threw 97 mph?

I only ask you because I've always wanted to ask Brian Sabean and I'll probably never get the chance.

GMs with three straight losing seasons usually get fired, particularly when those three seasons come later in their tenure.

Defend Sabean all you want. He is simply not in a class with Cashman, Epstein, Beane, Jocketty and Schuerholz - who build winners every year, and rebuild the team without losing. Sabean is also weaker than the next tier of GMs - Stoneman, Ryan, Williams, Dombrowski.

Among teams that actually have a chance to win, who might actually be worse than Sabean today? I think you could probably argue at most that Hendry, Ricciardi, Minaya, Gillick and Bavasi are worse than Sabean. But none of them had Bonds either.

Sabes is a third- or fourth-tier GM at this point. To pretend otherwise is lunacy. So stop making excuses for this sorry team.

Wow, I guess Rich Draper has come out of hiding and is posting on ELM's blog under OGC. Who knew?

I could go on and on about how much I disagree with your post. But I'll keep it short. Sabean was handed the single most dominant talent in baseball history and has managed to field a team around him that only made it to the world series once. Was it because of salary constraints that he couldn't get it done? No. It was because of poor choices made with the finite amount of money he had to spend.

I don't need to go back into the late 90s and early 00s to list all of the players he overpaid, and players he could have/should have gotten instead (and not in hindsight, either. For instance, I don't know any fans who were happy with Alfonzo over Kent, for very similar money). This past offseason is really all I need to cite. It's not the Zito signing, either, as ultimately, with the rotation locked up through 2009 the total amount spent on those guys won't exceed 35M, which is great, regardless of how the money is distributed.

Instead, it's sacrificing long-term payroll flexibility by backloading contracts in order to squeeze in players who are really not going to make that much of a difference. Case in point: Dave Roberts. Even if the guy reproduced his past few years, chances are you could roll the dice on a prospect and get similar production. More importantly, you wouldn't have 6M tying up the payroll in both 08 and 09, when you need that money to rebuild. Winn is another example (albeit in the prior offseason)-- totally jumped the boat and paid the guy a year to soon based on the best 2 months of anyone's life. Won't be fun when he's occupying 8M of the payroll for each of the next two years. Aurilia will be on the hook for 4M next year.

It all seems minor, until you look at the payroll for 08, and even with Feliz, Bonds, and Vizquel coming off the team still already has committed $83M (!) in salary.

But don't worry, that 12M will be more than enough to fill gaping holes in LF, 3B, SS, 1B, closer, as well as acquire a real set-up man, especially given the team's stellar farm system.

OGC notes the hitters who have been injured this year ... that's what happens when you fill your roster with old guys.

OGC claims that people like Pedro Feliz are the best out there. No. Pedro Feliz was the worst-hitting regular 3B in the major-leagues last year, and he's already in his 30s and thus likely in decline. Anything is a better alternative than spending $5 million on the worst hitter at a position.

Neifi Perez was one of the worst hitters in the entire history of baseball. The Royals, as dumb as any franchise in MLB, were fooled by Neifi's Colorado numbers and traded Jermaine Dye to get him. Even the Royals figured out that Neifi couldn't hit to save his life, and they waived him. At which point, Brian Sabean gave Neifi a two-year contract.

Todd Greene's career OBP is under .300. Sabean signed him to be the backup catcher. Jose Vizcaino? Sabean signed him twice, the second time when he was 38 years old and coming off a .299 OBP season. Mike Matheny? OBP under .300, coming off a .292 OBP season, just turning 34 ... Sabean gives him a multi-year deal.

Deivi Cruz had posted consecutive OBP of .291 .294 .269, and was 31 years old. Sabean signed him up. Tom Goodwin had, in a year and a half with the Dodgers after leaving Colorado, posted OBP of .310 and .286, and was 33 years old. Sabean signed him. Tsuyoshi Shinjo posted a .320 OBP, practically Hall of Fame numbers in this crowd but not very good anywhere else. He was 30 years old. Sabean signed him up. Marquis Grissom, three years with OBP of .288 .250 .321, 36 years old ... Sabean signed him up.

Benito Santiago, career OBP barely over .300 ... Sabes signed him when he was 36 years old. Shawon Dunston's career OBP was under .300 ... Sabean acquired the guy three different times, the last time when he was 38 years old. Joe Carter of the career .306 OBP? Traded for him when he was 38 years old. How about Rey Sanchez?

Some of these guys worked out better than others, but the pattern is clear: low OBP, in their 30s. One of these guys, you say what the heck. Two of them, you say hey, we all make mistakes. But when you see it year after year, it becomes an identifiable trait.

Cyrus - I think OGC has some good points about Sabean. In the last 3 years it isn't like there have been a ton of great sluggers chomping at the bit to play with Barry Bonds. We had the benefit of Filipe bringing in his son, but that could never work in those injury plagued years. And look at the friggin ASB, barely anyone was man enough to hit in our park.

Sabean has done a good job building our pitching staff, I think we should give him a couple years to build a lineup that can consistently put up 4-5 runs. Remember just a couple years ago when our starting pitching was Schmidt, Tomko, Hennessey, Correia, Lowry, Fassero and even the end of Reuter (plus the dominating emergence of Cain). We've come a long way since then.

The number is 2...2 years for Sabean to turn this ship around. And the major stipulation is that management needs to stay the fuck out of his way.

Cyrus, your numbers are wrong about salary. We have $38M coming off the books after this season, almost $16M coming off in '08, and if Morris is still a Giant in '09 then another $30M coming off the books. In '08 we have $63M committed and in '09 we have $55M committed. Considering we are around $90M/year, we could sign A-Rod for $25M/year and still have $12-13M to add one more bigger free agent with plenty of leftover money to resign the Frandsen-type guys @ 500k each. You could even delay the payments to A-Rod in the first few years until some more of this money clears up so that you can spend a little more in this year's free agency.

If I were to play GM, the approach I would take would be to play the vets for the rest of July, unload any contracts that I could this year and bring back some young talent. Give young talent the rest of the season to try and prove themselves and then enter free agency accordingly. We need to make some splashes in the free agent market, and hopefully it won't be to strictly AARP members.

Assuming we resign no one when their contract is up this is the way it breaks down:

'08

C - Molina
1B - ?
2B - Durham
SS - ?
3B - ?
LF - ?
CF - Roberts
RF - Winn

Bench - Aurilia, Frandsen, Lewis, Schierholtz,

Sign A-Rod, Millar, and Byrnes and make a trade for a third baseman. I personally like the idea Lefty had for getting Glaus to waive his no-trade and get him here for Morris + change. I know I will get crucified for the idea of signing Byrnes, but he wants to play for us so he will play with passion, and will likely cost less - relatively speaking. Sign A-Rod for 5-6 years, Millar for 1-2 years, and Byrnes for 2-3 years.

A-Rod is the superstar anchor for the next half decade. Millar is a quick fix at 1B until this Villalona kid steps up. You could even resign Klesko cheap and have him platoon with Millar. Byrnes gets a shot to play for his dream team, if he plays like this year then he can stay when Roberts and Winn go.

Byrnes would be a typical Sabean signing. Career OBP of .328. Coming off his best season and thus costing more than he's worth. Turns 32 next season. Sabean would sign a player like that for three years and $20 million, and get a guy who will struggle to be league-average for his position. "If he plays like this year" is the Brian Sabean motto ... it's what's led in the past to contract extensions for the likes of Randy Winn and Marvin Benard. You simply won't succeed in the long run giving money to hitters in their 30s in the hopes that they will reproduce the best seasons of their past.

Millar is a good hitter, but he'll be 36 years old next year. Villalona will be 17 years old next year. You need more than a quick fix while waiting for a teenager, even one who looks to be as good as Villalona. Orlando Cepeda himself didn't make the majors until he was 20 ... if Millar is a "quick fix" until Villalona arrives, he'll be manning 1B for the Giants until he's 40. Which, come to think of it, makes him another typical Sabean signing. I think BawLa is onto something here!

Meanwhile, if you keep Bengie/Durham/Roberts/Winn, that's four more starters getting older and getting worse ... there is no reason, given their age and current level of production, to assume that they'll be anything other than average AT BEST next season and beyond. Add A-Rod, Millar and Byrnes to that and you'd have seven players in the lineup aged 30+ ... so much for getting younger ... outside of A-Rod, none of them are likely exactly kick ass with the bat ... you'd still have to trade for a 3B or SS, although with Sabean still around we'll probably be looking at another year of Pedro Feliz (hey, he's gonna have his fourth-straight 20+ HR season, and he can catch in an emergency, let's throw another $5 million his way!).

The proposed lineup would be a disaster for a team trying to rebuild behind a good young pitching staff. Well, it would be a disaster for any team, but it would certainly be counterproductive for the Giants' needs in particular.

Again, even if you agreed with the concept that Sabean should get 2 more years to rebuild the offense, exactly how is he going to do that when there are zero prospects in our minor league system that will be ready for the majors in the next 2 years? That is a big part of why Sabean should be fired. He should've been stockpiling offensive talent beginning in 2001 & 2002 when the Giants were already an old team at that point.

Don't believe me about the prospects, take a look for yourself in this article posted this morning on Rotoworld on the top 150 prospects in baseball. There are 30 teams in baseball, so out of 150 propspects, in order to be average, the Giants should have 5, right? Well, they have a grand total of 2, one of whom is a pitcher, Sosa at #58, and the other is a 3B who is eating his way out of that position quickly and is not projected to hit the ML until 2012, Villalona at #82. That is why a rebuild is not going to happen in 2 years and is solely due to pure mismanagement.

Here is the link:

http://www.rotoworld.com/content/features/column.aspx?sport=MLB&filter_teams=N&columnid=2&article=28523

According to my calculations, the Giants are committed to roughly $80 M next year. That includes buyouts and deferred money (much of which is owed to Bonds). That figure does not include a few players who may be arbitration-eligible.

Steven - Byrnes may have a low career OBP, relative to all-stars, but he would be a significant upgrade over a Pedro Feliz. My logic with Brynes has everything to do with A-Rod as much as it has to do with Brynes himself. A-Rod would be the new superstar, instead of Barry. Byrnes would be a step up from Feliz.

Byrnes showed improvement when he was in his last years in Oakland. Then he hit a huge bump in the road when he got tossed around by 3 teams in 2005. That delayed his progress AND lowered his overall stats. Last year he finally got re-established with one team, and is now showing improvement this year. Byrnes is torching NL pitching relative to AL pitching, and the icing on the cake is twofold: he wants to play for his dream Giants, and he could be had for $5-6M/year. The fact that he wants to play for us means that he will be giving 100% everyday. Personally, I want ballplayers like that.

You can't look at Byrnes as a guy that is going to fill Barry's shoes or make up for Roberts' deficiencies. Look at him as an individual. Right handed pop with speed and passion for the Giants.

Byrnes is a type of signing that you have to take a chance on because there is much greater potential for return in value.

---

Millar is old, I will give you that, but we are likely stuck with Durham and Aurilia for one more year, and we are stuck with Roberts and Winn for 2 more years. And considering that there is a good chance that Bonds, Sweeney and Vizquel won't be here next year, it makes a 35 year old Millar not look so bad.

The simple overruling fact is that the free agent market is bone dry for 1st basemen. Millar has a 2008 option and the only thing I know about it is that if he has 475 plate apperances this year, then his 2008 salary of $2.75M is guaranteed. But it is likely he won't reach 475 and I don't know what other restraints may be in place. But if we could get him he would be a cheap, productive option for a position that is hard to fill.

Millar is extremely experienced, right handed, and has a great OBP with some pop. He has similar stats to Klesko, so I guess you could go one way or the other, but if you slid A-Rod to SS, Millar to 3B you could have Klesko at 1B.

Again, the point about Millar is the same about Byrnes, they are both relatively cheap, decently productive, and most of all, they are realistic.

Good to see sanity win out over Sabean-worship here. Keeping him on would show that the Giants just don't have a "commitment to excellence", as they like to say over in Raider Nation...

Bawla-- YOU are the one with the wrong calculations. I have a spreadsheet I'd be happy to send you, because that's how anal I am when it comes to this stuff. Don't look at money "coming off of the books". Look at the nearly 11M still owed to a not on the team Barry Bonds, 1.5 M raise to Roberts, 2M raise for Molina, 4.5M raise to Zito, 1M raise to Aurilia, 1.1M raise to Lowry, 4M raise to Winn, 2M still owed to Matheny....

As you can see, 36M may be "coming off the books" per se but 27 of that is spoken for. So, no, the money management has been horrible.

And by the way, the PRECISE reason is the horrible reasoning you use when advocating the Millar signing. "Well, Millar at 35 isn't that bad of an option when you consider we're still committed to Roberts, Winn, Durham, and Aurilia for 1-2 more years." That's exactly why you DON'T sign a guy like Millar. The aforementioned players are taking away a TON of developmental ABs from prospects who just may have a future in the majors. Guys like Ortmeier, Lewis, Schierholtz, and Frandsen. If the team doesn't keep yo-yoing Schierholtz, I will all but guarantee his success.

Committing to more aging players for 2 years just puts off the inevitable. Millar is meaningless to this team with or without a pillar like Bonds in the middle. And those 2 years, while not too long when you look at it from the standpoint of a 35 y/o at the end of his career, is everything to a 23 y/o prospect. Why wait until he's 25 to find out you have nothing? Throw him in and make him adjust.

The Giants under Sabean, or under this ownership-- whoever you want to put the blame on, have not yet shown they're capable of this kind of thinking. And this kind of thinking is really the only way to get out of the current predicament. So unless Sabean can show that

a)he can move salary no one else wants (Roberts, Winn)

b) he'll stop overpaying players and compounding that mistake by backloading deals, and

c) Fill in whatever positions possible with prospects (not just ours but hopefully some he acquires at the deadline for Morris, maybe Durham, Klesko and Kline) and SMART FA signings

then he's not the guy I want conducting this rebuild.

All that being said, so you don't think I'm being a total asshole and trashing your post, I don't care what the numbers say- I love Byrnes as a ballplayer and I'd love nothing more than an OF of Byrnes-Lewis/Ortmeier-Schierholtz in 08.

I doubt very seriously that the Yankes will let A-Rod get away. They have the means, money & motivation to keep him in NY.

I also don't see the reason for signing another 35 year old 1B? Why? We have a couple of those already.

What we really need to do is get active in the trade market sooner rather than later and move anyone we can for something that will give us hope for the future. Outside of the obvious guys to trade, I think we should be trying to move Lowry for a package of prospects. He's singed to a long term contract and has pitched decently this year. That ought to be attractive to a number of teams.

Your logic re: Eric Byrnes is likely v.similar to the logic Brian Sabean might employ. It goes against the odds, though, and is more likely to be a bad move than a good one.

1) In 90 games this year, Byrnes is at career highs in BA/OBP/SLG/OPS+. The general rule of thumb is that production out of line with past production will likely fall back towards the previous norm. This is true whether the exceptional production is much better or much worse than the previous norm, and this is true not just in baseball but in much of life itself. Among other things, it accounts for the so-called "Sports Illustrated Jinx" ... to be on the cover of SI, you likely have done something out of the ordinary to get noticed. If it was out of the ordinary, you'll likely fall back towards your norm ... about the time the issue of SI hits the stands, making it seem like there's a jinx when it's just basic statistical theory.

2) However, if you show improvement as a hitter when you are, say, 25, there is a good chance that improvement is "real" because most hitters are improving until they reach 26 or 27. If you've got a 24-year-old catcher who makes the All-Star team while improving significantly on his stats of the previous year, like Russell Martin of the Dodgers, you can have reasonable confidence he's just reaching his peak.

3) The converse of this is that, since most hitters are in decline by the time they reach their 30s, if they have a half-season where their production is noticably higher than it was before, this is more likely to be a fluke than a real and repeatible improvement. Byrnes is posting BA/OBP/SLG numbers 30+ points higher than his career norms through his first 90 games. At his age, when predicting his future production, the last 90 games are not as important as the 650 games he played prior to that. I'd say he'll return to normal the rest of the year, finish at something like .280 25-80, convince Sabean to sign him for three years and $20 million dollars, and his production will be average at best in 2008, below average in 2009-2010. But Sabean will be fooled by the good start in 2007 and won't take the time to dig any deeper.

You say guys like Byrnes are the ones to take a chance on, but they are precisely the guys you DON'T take a chance on, because the odds are against them. Their age suggests they will decline ... their good 2007 suggests they'll draw a reasonably high salary in 2008 and beyond ... the spike in their performance for half a season at age 31 is not likely to be repeated.

If you want to take a chance on someone, find a hitter who just turned 26 and had an off-year after doing well for a couple of years. He'll just be entering his prime, and as he moves towards his normal production, he'll be moving up, not down like the older overachiever is doing. You want, say, Adrian Gonzalez of San Diego ... he's fallen off this year about as much as Byrnes has done better, but he's only 25, his "off" year is about as good as Byrnes' "good" year, and he's much more likely to be better for the next few years.