If this is true, I can only say -- come on, sing it with me -- vaya con Dios, my darling. One last time: BRIAN FUCKING SABEAN IS THE REASON SMALL CHILDREN IN AFRICA DIE OF DYSENTERY!!!!!!! We'll miss you, John.
It's fucking absurd that someone can be directly responsible for the offensive ineptitude we saw this year - that someone could be responsible for several years of losing baseball teams - and that person could be given a job extension. It's kind of absurd to keep one guy around for this long at all, let alone a guy who has been responsible for teams this bad. It's like we don't realize there are other general managers out there. It's the same fallacy that we employ in player selection. We stick with veterans because they've been doing good things for us. Yes, they have - but other players could do BETTER things. We stick with Sabean because he's pulled off some good deals, and he's put together some good teams, and the last couple drafts have been good - it's not like some new GM is just going to sit on his fucking hands all day long.
Thank God the Giants are not run by majority view of the blogispere. Most of you need to start asking the question, if the guys in charge don't see what I am seeing could it perhaps be me that is missing something?
Cute, but clearly out of context. I ask this question all the time which is the only reason I still read and respond to any of you. It is you and the rest of your blogishere click that seems to be unwilling to even consider the possibility that you might be wrong.
Oh, I see the patterns of failure, but I also see the patterns of sucess which you very much seem to ignore.
Take another look, consider the possibility that the Giants ownership and management might know things you do not, be aware of changes that have happened that you have closed your eyes to, and be aware of changes that are to come that you could not know about. Open your eyes and notice the positive changes that have already happened. If you do this you might start to see that there really is reason for hope.
I have seen some positive changes, however the overwhelming body of poor management, poor decisions, and lack of organizational direction tells me that the few positive things that have happened are just not enough.
I don't think I could have said it any better. Sabean is an idiot but slightly smarter then management that decided he was worthy of getting an extension. Those that continue to defend Sabes and the decision to keep him are the reason why this team doesn't win. If you truly want the giants to win a championship before you die then you should be smart enough to realize that our window of opportunity is shrinking and if you put yourself in the shoes of our young pitchers, what makes you think they want to stick around on a team that doesnt score them any runs. Without the young pitching this team is as bad as the pirates. 2 more years of Sabean means 2 more years of excuses and 2 years less that we have a chance to win with Timmy and Matty before they take off for greener pastures.
Well... I know. OBM is a place I've started to avoid because of the overall shrillness. Too much whining, not enough baseball. John can be masterful, as he has been in discussing Bonds, but "things suck, things suck" is getting a little tedious.
That said, I don't like the re-signings either. Most definitely not Bochy, Sabean I can certainly agree has done some great things, but the trades and FA signings seem like... bad judgment in the best light.
I pretty much agree with Doug above... there has to be better choices out there, and while I don't believe predictive metrics are the end-all and be-all, on the offensive side we seem to have gotten exactly what 417 stats analysts have said we would. Rowand et al are only disappointments if you weren't paying attention. They don't suck by any means, they're just being who you should expect them to be.
I would think one would try and strive towards improvement, not stasis. That Bochy and Sabean are average at their jobs seems well-proven. The team should try for better than average.
The worst recent Giants decision was signing Aaron Rowand. What were they thinking?
Can't they just admit they made a mistake and get rid of this inept fraud like the D'backs did with Russ Ortiz? (And Russ is a much better player than Rowand.)
Thanks for providing more evidence to support my point. There is just no way in hell Russ Ortiz came anywhere near as close to earning his DBacks salary as Aaron Rowand has to earning his Giants salary.
The DBacks signed Russ to a 4 Year $33M contract that covered the 2005-8 seasons. The DBacks paid Russ all of this money exect for the major league minimum portions of 2006 with the Orioles and 2007 with the Giants saving the DBacks less then $1M of the $33M. For this according to Fangraphs Russ provided a total value in these four seasons of negative $3.6M. On the otherhand Aaron Rowand accoording to Fangraphs has thus far provided the Giants positive $14.6M in value compared to his thus far cost of $24M.
You have to be blinded by your blogishere group think point of view to make such an ignorant statement.
Well, it's not like his main point was wrong. The Rowand signing was and still is a horrible signing, and will only get worse, because the contract is not even halfway to its conclusion.
Your still wrong. Yes the Giants shouldn't have signed Aaron Rowand but at this point his contract is sunk cost at what would actually be flat out stupid would be for the Giants to "get rid of this inept spectacle". Why is so hard to understand that getting the additional $15-20M positive value Rowand is likely to provide is way better then just throwing him away and getting no value?
Rowand is a sunk cost, that's true. That certainly does not mean that he has to be played displyeing his great pile of suck or even on the roster taking up space that someone useful could be occupying. A sunk cost is just that.......money that you will never get back. Admit your mistake...move on...and begin the process of fixing the problem.
The Giants do not have a better inhouse option to play in CF then Rowand. If they did I would be all for playing that option. I am not for trying to buy such an option thru either free agency or trade. Rowand is still around a league average player (2 wins above replacement level) and thus replacing him is not where the Giants should focus their resources.
The Giants should focus their resources on getting an outfielder to replace Randy Winn and a cleanup hitter to replace Bengie Molina that provide more value then the two being replaced have any hope of providing in 2010 and beyond.
For you (or anyone else) to continue to argue otherwise frankly just shows that you can't even for a moment make any effort to honestly consider the arguement that you are getting from any other point of view other then your own. This is just no logical arguement that can be made for the Giants dumping Aaron Rowand.
Lots of things Rowand did bothered me and the two that bothered me the most were the following:
His stupid throws when he airmailed the cutoff man thinking he had a great arm and was going to gun down the lead runner but in fact had no chance to do so (because his great arm is only a figment of his imagination) and thus instead he allowed the trailing runner to advance another base.
His frequent and almost dependable chasing of sliders in the dirt sometimes for not just strike three but he did it for 1 and two too.
All that said, the evidence still says that he played at 1.9 Wins above replacement level last year in his 546 PAs and 1127 defensive innings in CF. This is an average player (not a replacement level player) and thus one only a fool just throws away.
I can't believe you actully think what I just read. There is clearly no point in continuing this discussion with you as you are just too far out of touch with reality.
To clarify, my reference to WARP was not a response to your particular comment, but just a note given the tenor of your discussion with DProfessor.
FLew can give 2.0 WARP in CF. The Gigantes don't recognize this of course, but if they did, they would be looking to flip Rowand to dump costs and replace him with a similar overall talent in Lewis.
The best thing about blogs is the variety and the fresh perspectives. John at OBM is often dark and cynical, true, but "lifer" fans like me get dark and cynical quite a bit. Grant at McChronic is the funniest goddamn thing I read regularly, and I need those full-on giggling fits. Lefty, here on this site, is a prose-master of the highest order. Sometimes I forget what point he made because I'm too busy being in awe of his word-smithing. Chris at BCB makes me think, Martin at OGC challenges my biases, and Big D at Giants Win makes me jump up and say "hurrah!" I need 'em all, dammit. Otherwise I'd be stuck reading the fookin' Chronicle and their pile of useless columnists. So I'll be sad if any of these fellows pull the plug.
Ancillary to this thread's main point as it may be, your reference to the Chron's crack sports columnists is right on (I'm looking at you, Ratto!) I once worked at a hotel and became friendly with the lady from Manila who ran the kitchen. The manager was a loudmouth clown and would come in to the kitchen, go on ten minute rants and she would just smile and nod. After he had left she would turn to me, still smiling, and say, "Talk lot, say nothing." Ratto is the hotel manager of columnists. Worst is that I'm sure he knows, in his heart of hearts, that he is terrible at his job but he's just like Sabes...he'll never admit that he's terrible.
Wow, I can't believe I'm agreeing with GRM. Rowand is overpaid, and was a poor signing, but he's not worthless. That said, you guys are right that it was predictable that he would not live up to his contract. Zito (to beat a dead horse) and Dave Roberts (at the time of his signing ) are in the same boat.
John at OBM bemoans the fact that his readership is down without realizing that new readers are made unwelcome by the Greek Chorus of three or four commenters who consistently launch vicious personal attacks on anyone who dares disagree with the prevailing meme.
Someone once wrote there that OBM stands for Only Barry Matters. And it's true.
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Affeldt (4.5 M) Bumgarner Cain (4.5 M) Hinshaw Joaquin S. Johnson Lincecum (9 M) J. Martinez Medders (.85 M) Pucetas Romo Runzler J. Sanchez (2.1 M) H. Sosa B. Wilson (4.4 M) Zito (18.5 M)
CATCHERS
Molina (4.5 M)
Posey Whiteside
INFIELDERS
Burriss DeRosa (6 M) Downs Frandsen Gillaspie Huff (3 M) Ishikawa Pill Renteria (10 M) Rohlinger F. Sanchez (6 M) Sandoval Uribe (3.25 M) Velez
OUTFIELDERS
Bowker Ford Lewis Peguero Rowand (13.6 M) Schierholtz Torres
It's fucking absurd that someone can be directly responsible for the offensive ineptitude we saw this year - that someone could be responsible for several years of losing baseball teams - and that person could be given a job extension. It's kind of absurd to keep one guy around for this long at all, let alone a guy who has been responsible for teams this bad. It's like we don't realize there are other general managers out there. It's the same fallacy that we employ in player selection. We stick with veterans because they've been doing good things for us. Yes, they have - but other players could do BETTER things. We stick with Sabean because he's pulled off some good deals, and he's put together some good teams, and the last couple drafts have been good - it's not like some new GM is just going to sit on his fucking hands all day long.
Jesus. Sabean deserves to be fired.
Thank God the Giants are not run by majority view of the blogispere. Most of you need to start asking the question, if the guys in charge don't see what I am seeing could it perhaps be me that is missing something?
Yes, it is you.
Cute, but clearly out of context. I ask this question all the time which is the only reason I still read and respond to any of you. It is you and the rest of your blogishere click that seems to be unwilling to even consider the possibility that you might be wrong.
No, wrong again. You are the one that is not seeing the repeating pattern of falure. It's not out issue, but yours.
Oh, I see the patterns of failure, but I also see the patterns of sucess which you very much seem to ignore.
Take another look, consider the possibility that the Giants ownership and management might know things you do not, be aware of changes that have happened that you have closed your eyes to, and be aware of changes that are to come that you could not know about. Open your eyes and notice the positive changes that have already happened. If you do this you might start to see that there really is reason for hope.
I have seen some positive changes, however the overwhelming body of poor management, poor decisions, and lack of organizational direction tells me that the few positive things that have happened are just not enough.
I don't think I could have said it any better. Sabean is an idiot but slightly smarter then management that decided he was worthy of getting an extension. Those that continue to defend Sabes and the decision to keep him are the reason why this team doesn't win. If you truly want the giants to win a championship before you die then you should be smart enough to realize that our window of opportunity is shrinking and if you put yourself in the shoes of our young pitchers, what makes you think they want to stick around on a team that doesnt score them any runs. Without the young pitching this team is as bad as the pirates. 2 more years of Sabean means 2 more years of excuses and 2 years less that we have a chance to win with Timmy and Matty before they take off for greener pastures.
Well... I know. OBM is a place I've started to avoid because of the overall shrillness. Too much whining, not enough baseball. John can be masterful, as he has been in discussing Bonds, but "things suck, things suck" is getting a little tedious.
That said, I don't like the re-signings either. Most definitely not Bochy, Sabean I can certainly agree has done some great things, but the trades and FA signings seem like... bad judgment in the best light.
I pretty much agree with Doug above... there has to be better choices out there, and while I don't believe predictive metrics are the end-all and be-all, on the offensive side we seem to have gotten exactly what 417 stats analysts have said we would. Rowand et al are only disappointments if you weren't paying attention. They don't suck by any means, they're just being who you should expect them to be.
I would think one would try and strive towards improvement, not stasis. That Bochy and Sabean are average at their jobs seems well-proven. The team should try for better than average.
The worst recent Giants decision was signing Aaron Rowand. What were they thinking?
Can't they just admit they made a mistake and get rid of this inept fraud like the D'backs did with Russ Ortiz? (And Russ is a much better player than Rowand.)
Thanks for providing more evidence to support my point. There is just no way in hell Russ Ortiz came anywhere near as close to earning his DBacks salary as Aaron Rowand has to earning his Giants salary.
The DBacks signed Russ to a 4 Year $33M contract that covered the 2005-8 seasons. The DBacks paid Russ all of this money exect for the major league minimum portions of 2006 with the Orioles and 2007 with the Giants saving the DBacks less then $1M of the $33M. For this according to Fangraphs Russ provided a total value in these four seasons of negative $3.6M. On the otherhand Aaron Rowand accoording to Fangraphs has thus far provided the Giants positive $14.6M in value compared to his thus far cost of $24M.
You have to be blinded by your blogishere group think point of view to make such an ignorant statement.
Well, it's not like his main point was wrong. The Rowand signing was and still is a horrible signing, and will only get worse, because the contract is not even halfway to its conclusion.
That's right. Thx, dregarx.
Rowand is putrid. Fact. Fangraphs or no fangraphs. The Giants should get rid of this inept spectacle.
Your still wrong. Yes the Giants shouldn't have signed Aaron Rowand but at this point his contract is sunk cost at what would actually be flat out stupid would be for the Giants to "get rid of this inept spectacle". Why is so hard to understand that getting the additional $15-20M positive value Rowand is likely to provide is way better then just throwing him away and getting no value?
Rowand is a sunk cost, that's true. That certainly does not mean that he has to be played displyeing his great pile of suck or even on the roster taking up space that someone useful could be occupying. A sunk cost is just that.......money that you will never get back. Admit your mistake...move on...and begin the process of fixing the problem.
The Giants do not have a better inhouse option to play in CF then Rowand. If they did I would be all for playing that option. I am not for trying to buy such an option thru either free agency or trade. Rowand is still around a league average player (2 wins above replacement level) and thus replacing him is not where the Giants should focus their resources.
The Giants should focus their resources on getting an outfielder to replace Randy Winn and a cleanup hitter to replace Bengie Molina that provide more value then the two being replaced have any hope of providing in 2010 and beyond.
For you (or anyone else) to continue to argue otherwise frankly just shows that you can't even for a moment make any effort to honestly consider the arguement that you are getting from any other point of view other then your own. This is just no logical arguement that can be made for the Giants dumping Aaron Rowand.
Did you not watch the games?
Has it escaped your eyes and the cognitive abilities of the human species that Rowand plays like an inept little leaguer?
We're not dishonest. We're simply not delusional. Nor blind.
Lots of things Rowand did bothered me and the two that bothered me the most were the following:
His stupid throws when he airmailed the cutoff man thinking he had a great arm and was going to gun down the lead runner but in fact had no chance to do so (because his great arm is only a figment of his imagination) and thus instead he allowed the trailing runner to advance another base.
His frequent and almost dependable chasing of sliders in the dirt sometimes for not just strike three but he did it for 1 and two too.
All that said, the evidence still says that he played at 1.9 Wins above replacement level last year in his 546 PAs and 1127 defensive innings in CF. This is an average player (not a replacement level player) and thus one only a fool just throws away.
Okay, so we're not seeing what we're seeing because some bogus math formula says so, right?
I can't believe you actully think what I just read. There is clearly no point in continuing this discussion with you as you are just too far out of touch with reality.
I'm not the one who is buying into this "replacement player" b.s.
You are out of touch with reality---or blind.
I don't disregard WARP.
I choose Fred Lewis.
To clarify, my reference to WARP was not a response to your particular comment, but just a note given the tenor of your discussion with DProfessor.
FLew can give 2.0 WARP in CF. The Gigantes don't recognize this of course, but if they did, they would be looking to flip Rowand to dump costs and replace him with a similar overall talent in Lewis.
The best thing about blogs is the variety and the fresh perspectives. John at OBM is often dark and cynical, true, but "lifer" fans like me get dark and cynical quite a bit. Grant at McChronic is the funniest goddamn thing I read regularly, and I need those full-on giggling fits. Lefty, here on this site, is a prose-master of the highest order. Sometimes I forget what point he made because I'm too busy being in awe of his word-smithing. Chris at BCB makes me think, Martin at OGC challenges my biases, and Big D at Giants Win makes me jump up and say "hurrah!" I need 'em all, dammit. Otherwise I'd be stuck reading the fookin' Chronicle and their pile of useless columnists. So I'll be sad if any of these fellows pull the plug.
And by the way, GO GIANTS!
Amen!
Ancillary to this thread's main point as it may be, your reference to the Chron's crack sports columnists is right on (I'm looking at you, Ratto!) I once worked at a hotel and became friendly with the lady from Manila who ran the kitchen. The manager was a loudmouth clown and would come in to the kitchen, go on ten minute rants and she would just smile and nod. After he had left she would turn to me, still smiling, and say, "Talk lot, say nothing." Ratto is the hotel manager of columnists. Worst is that I'm sure he knows, in his heart of hearts, that he is terrible at his job but he's just like Sabes...he'll never admit that he's terrible.
Wow, I can't believe I'm agreeing with GRM. Rowand is overpaid, and was a poor signing, but he's not worthless. That said, you guys are right that it was predictable that he would not live up to his contract. Zito (to beat a dead horse) and Dave Roberts (at the time of his signing ) are in the same boat.
John at OBM bemoans the fact that his readership is down without realizing that new readers are made unwelcome by the Greek Chorus of three or four commenters who consistently launch vicious personal attacks on anyone who dares disagree with the prevailing meme.
Someone once wrote there that OBM stands for Only Barry Matters. And it's true.
Too bad because he can really write.