When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

09.30.2008
Bochy Bochy Blonde Hair-Do

I’m back from vacation with a ton of stuff to report and comment on, but I’m blazing away at work. To start, I’ll comment on one small part of the state-of-the-Giants conference the brass held yesterday: the decision to retain Bruce Bochy and his field crew for 2009.  

In their favor, the field leadership did several things correctly. Bochy had a reputation for extreme veteran-o-philia, so everytime we saw Rich Aurilia in the starting lineup, it reinforced our preconceived notions.

But Bochy played the young guys enough to make decent evaluations, which is the goal in a rebuilding year. We saw enough of Manny Burriss, Pablo Sandoval, and (thanks at first to Dave Roberts’ injury) Fred Lewis to feel hopeful about them making significant contributions next year. Bowker and Velez got extended looks, and hell, even Ivan Ochoa got 120 at-bats.

Did Bochy go young only under threat from above? Perhaps, but let’s leave it to the philosophers to ponder how much free will governs any one man’s soul. Or oversized head, if you prefer. I’m cautiously optimistic the youth mo’ will carry over with a minimum of hindrance from Bochy.

On to the pitching. Do Boch and Righetti deserve to return after the Tim Lincecum Cy Young Death March? (I’m being tongue in cheek. Kind of.) My head will explode if I delve into that argument today. Discuss in the comments if you wish.

Despite his miserable year, it seems Barry Zito made helpful changes in mid-stream. He still struggled with control, but his stuff improved in the second half and things clicked in September save for one start in San Diego. Righetti deserves some credit, it seems, though helping Zito to one decent month out of six doesn’t exactly vault Rags into Dave Duncan or Leo Mazzone pitching-coach godhead territory.

Another part of Bochy’s rep is crafting strong bullpens from guys like Scott Linebrink and Cla Meredith. (Having Trevor Hoffman in S.D. every year didn’t hurt, either.) But the Giants’ pen was a big weakness this season. Brian Wilson was Bochy’s Hoffman, more unpredictable but rarely blowing a save. But beyond Wilson and Tyler Walker’s great first month, it was patchwork. Were Walker and Taschner’s meltdowns avoidable? Did Bochy misplay the matchups or overuse them? To his credit, when Bochy found gems — Sergio Romo being the most sparkly — he used them well. Merkin Valdez was working his way into a top job before his injury, too.

Perhaps Bill Neukom will override Sabean’s decision this winter and put the rebuilding effort under new field leadership. I probably wouldn’t complain if Neukom woke up one morning and made a clean sweep, but the team’s 28–27 record in the final two months, when the team basically went all-in with the kids, makes me wonder what the current crew can do in 2009.

If nothing else, bring back Tim Flannery so we can watch him windmill his way down the third-base line.  
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[September 30, 2008 6:25 PM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

It's like I've been saying, all season long, the Giants are not that far away from .500 as people think.

People look at a season as a whole, but the more nuanced way is the way you did it, looking at their last two months when most of the core of who will be up here in 2009 were playing.

Or looking at the Giants after taking out the effect of having a totally non-effective hitter leading off for you early in the season, it was irresponsible for Roberts to play when he was hurting the way he was, we were in the hole, 0-6 with him leading off, to start the season, coloring everything else done afterward. For example, without that bad start on his part, the Giants were actually 13-10 at the end of April. Or 36-41 at the end of June.

I think you have to give Bochy credit for going with youth this season. Yes, Lewis he was forced to go with, but he could have stuck with Aurilia at 1B, but gave Bowker plenty of ABs to play himself out of that position. Velez too and Bocock too, before Burriss showed enough to get named the incumbent, though not starting SS as some have been saying, he still needs to keep the job in spring training.

And really, the bullpen was humming along until Valdez had his physical problems (plus Chulk played himself out of favor too, after a nice 2007), forcing Bochy to rely on who he had at hand, Walker and Taschner. Is that Bochy's fault? And he allowed both to face opposite handed hitters, they just failed at getting them out. Again, isn't that what he is suppose to do to see whether they are capable or not, isn't that part of a transitional season?

What do you mean by Neukom coming in and "override Sabean's decision"? Do you mean take over a la Steinbrenner? Neukom doesn't seem that type, for one, and if he had clout and gravitas enough to get named managing partner after Magowan, I would think that if he didn't like what Sabean is doing, Sabean wouldn't have gotten a two year extension last year.

To me, the thing I've been saying since the Tucker off-season is that the Giants needed more money to spend on the players they needed, and I was pushing for Ellison (Larry, not Jason) back then to join ownership and put up major bucks to fund a run with Bonds. We've been penny-pinching as far as I was concerned because Magowan had to please the other owners by not making calls for more money from the group, according to rumors I had read.

One of the major statements that Neukom has made, which stood out the more because he purposefully didn't want to make any major statements until he was officially managing owner, was that the philosophy of the Giants under him will be win first, figure out the money later. All during the past 5 seasons, the philosophy was "this is all the money we have, see what is the best we can do to win with it", leading to the the Tucker incident, which for many is one of the defining moments of that penny-pinching era after the World Series.

Which can be hard for fans to swallow when we're spending $80-90M, but people forgot that first Nen sucked out $9M a season for no return on our part, then Alfonzo followed by Benitez sucked out significant coinage out of the budget, making it more like a $60-70M spending club. And Zito is carrying on that "lineage" as long as he is pitching the way he has been overall (though I see hope for 2009 and beyond).

So my vervent hope is that Neukom will allow Sabean to spend whatever he feels need to be spent in order to win (with Neukom input and approval, of course), and not be forced into situations like signing Hammonds and Tucker to platoon in RF or praying that Dustin Hermanson and Matt Herges could close effectively for us.

Signs of that purse loosening is all the money we spent signing draftees this season, plus picking up another $2M+ 16-year-old in Rafael Rodriguez. Another could be the talk about kicking the tires with CC Sabathia, before they would not have considered that at all, not with then Zito and CC getting big bucks, meaning that they would not have enough to sign Cain or Lincecum long term when the time comes if there's not additional money coming in somewhere, somehow.

The thing is, Neukom doesn't look like he has a lot more money to put into the pot, however (big donation to his school, barely a centi-millionaire with his Microsoft stock before that), so the only way he can execute on this philosophy/strategy is if he already has names of people he knows would invest in the Giants when he needs it. Or that he can bring in almost immediately when he takes over and build a war chest for the next 5 seasons.

[September 30, 2008 6:35 PM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive replied to obsessivegiantscompulsive

And to further clarify, I mean allow Sabean to sign people he thinks are worth signing, like last off-season when he only got Rowand (who I still like as an acquisition, his OPS+ was 107, we got basically what we paid for, a slight above average player for slightly above average money) but did not sign a bunch of other guys to man 1B or 3B or SP or RP.

So Sabean would theoretically sign only those players he felt were worth signing, not because the Giants had a hole and needed to fill it with whoever was the best available to fill it, like the previous seasons with Bonds around. And if that required additional money, say if there is a Carlos Beltran or Vlad Guerrero available, then Neukom would go out and bring money in to afford them.

That's my hope, at least.

[September 30, 2008 7:39 PM]  |  link  |  reply
bigO said

and the G-men are coming back to Seattle next year. YahOOOOOOOOO

[October 1, 2008 10:04 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Mark C. O'Connor said

I'll give Sabean credit for some good draft work these last few years. Other than that, his signing of Rowand reveals his lack of creativity and his amazing penchant for over-valuing certain skill sets. I think he has to go. He operates at "replacement level." I'm giving him a VORP (VORGM?) of zero.

Same for Bochy. Fred Lewis got a chance only because Roberts got hurt. The "youth movement" was happenstance, not planning. I think Ron Wotus could do as well in the big chair as Bochy. (Wotus managed championship teams at all levels in the Giants system before becoming a bench coach.)

We were a 100-loss team rescued by Tim Lincecum. He made a TEN GAME difference. That's ONE GUY. And our management did not have the good sense to handle him with care. That alone should get them shipped out.

2009 looks equally bleak to me. Maybe we'll get to see Buster Posey at the September call-up. Or even Madison Bumgarner. I hope Lewis comes back healthy, I like Romo and Hinshaw. We'll see if Sandoval can really hit for a whole season. Molina did better than I expected, but he's not part of the future. Maybe Zito will be the new Kirk Rueter. Maybe.

I don't see much else except for Lincecum and Cain.

[October 1, 2008 11:48 AM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

>>What do you mean by Neukom coming in and "override Sabean's decision"?

I mean it seems Sabean made the call on Bochy & Co. That's the GM's job. But ownership could override the GM. I doubt it, as I made clear above, but you never know.

[October 3, 2008 4:42 PM]  |  link  |  reply
50andstillfly said

Bochy did an OK job: low kep in the clubhouse, patient wit hthe media, and regardless of who instigated it, he did play the kids early (Bocock), late (Sandoval) and often (Lewis, Bowker). No reason to make a change there.

Sabean has to go. He overspends on the FA market (Zito) and overvalues his own veterans (Durham). How about giving Tidrow a shot?