Extending Sabean, Extending My Fears
Posted by Chris - 13/07/07 at 01:07 amConfusion. Panic. Fear.
These are all emotions that are going to sweep Giants nation like a cool breeze blowing across the bay. Most had Sabean pegged as working on borrowed time and on the way out. Three consecutive losing seasons can have that affect on people. But, it sounds like the Giants are are making efforts to bring back Sabes as the two sides have begun contract extension talks.
Quoting from the Chronicle
There are no guarantees the contract extension talks between the Giants and Sabean will result in an agreement. Sabean has stated publicly that he wants to return. However, he has been frustrated at times by ownership’s involvement in player personnel decisions and might seek assurances of more autonomy.
I have to admit that I wouldn’t mind seeing the deal between Sabean and the Giants hit a snag. I do not think Sabean is the right GM for the transition that the Giants have been limping towards for the last three years. Post 2007 the Giant almost certainly will not employ the services of one Barry Lamar Bonds and with change on the horizon I would like to see a GM more suited to developing a farm system. That’s not exactly a totally fair criticism against Sabes because he has developed some good pitchers from the farm system (Cain, Lincecum, Lowry) but prospects that can hit have been nonexistent.
At this point Sabean supporters would probably point out his MO of developing young pitching and then trading them away for the needed hitting. While in theory this sounds alright I don’t think it has worked out in the real world. And to me it makes more sense to draft towards needs (see: hitting) than rather to try and swap pieces with other teams. Pitching is always a valuable commodity but it seems to me that teams with legit hitting prospects are more inclined to hang onto them instead of paying the high priced free agent market. A team is going to be more likely to deal away veterans (such as when Thome was moved to make room for Howard in Philadelphia) to make room for their young position prospects.
The draft from this year cemented this ideology, taking pitching with 2 of the 3 top first round picks. It’s not that I don’t like the guys that they picked up, I do, but I would have loved to seen a hitter or two picked up. The third pick landed Wendell Fairley, whom is toolsy and athletic, but I don’t think he’s going to project to a top power hitter that you can build a offense starved team around.
Another part of the quote from the Chronicle that interested me was the meddling decisions of the ownership. The question is a good one. Has ownership limited Sabean in his efforts to build the team, insisting that he supplement Bonds with veteran talent? Trying to draw the line between what Sabean has done on his own and what management has influenced Sabean to do is extremely hard if not impossible to do. We can have notions, or feelings that Mcgowan and company pushed for the Zito deal but how do we really know? And if Sabean has been tied by the ownership, why has he decided to come back for more? Are they going to let him run the show? Did they ever influence him at all? This is the part that makes me the most uneasy because we’ll never know how much Sabean has been in control.
What I can think you can draw from Sabean’s tenure is that he has experienced success in the earlier years and that lately in the last few years he’s not had the same success. And I think you can also draw from the past three years is that if the ownership has become increasingly meddlesome with the GM operations, Sabean has not be able to work well with the ownerships demands and influence.
Sabean is a safe and easy choice even though he’s been out of public favor for the last few years. It’s a safe and predictable move for a organization that seems to be afraid of making drastic changes. He’s a known quantity. The news of Sabean’s extension in a lot of ways reminds me of the signing of Bruce Bochy. Both are safe and semi-yawn worthy. What the team needs is a new direction, a bold move, instead it feels like we are going to paddle again slowly in the same direction.
Understand that I’m not arguing for dismantlement of the team or a total rebuild but something has to change. Either in organizational philosophy or in personnel and I don’t get the feeling that either has changed or is going to change.
For what it’s worth, my dream GM was Paul DePodesta
Comment Starter: What’s your take on Sabean returning?
July 13th, 2007 at 5:47 am
1) I don’t agree that Sabean’s “been out of public favor…” I agree that there are some who are very vocal and very opposed, but they seem to me to be pretty immature and kind of cherry pick their justifications. Not that I think Sabean is perfect, but I do think he is a top GM and I think it is both a pretty slim chance we’ll do better and bringing chaos and revamping the organization sets us back 2 to 3 years.
An example of lame criticism is blaming Sabean for the past 3 losing seasons. This, truly, comes from a need to blame someone. It also rather conveniently ignores the rather huge dose(s) of bad luck, at least in ‘05 and ‘06. Losing Bonds to a freak occurence after surgery can hardly be blamed on Sabean. Losing Benitez in his 1st or 2nd game can hardly be blamed on Sabean. Losing Alou for 1/2 a season is not Sabean’s fault. And don’t give me the lame, bullshit argument that signing old players… If that’s the case, explain Sanchez, Lewis, or Lowry, last year. Or Foppert, Ainsworth, Niekro, EME and on and on. The fact is ball players, playing hard, get hurt.
The criticism that he’s developed no position players is a criticism worth discussing. Not as a conclusion, but analytically. Most of the crybabies who cite this “fact,” completely ignore 1) the large number of pitchers developed (currently, 8 on the MLB roster), 2) the fact that from ‘97 thru ‘04, as a consequence of winning, he was always drafting in the mid to high 20s (see Martin’s at OCG analysis of picking top 5 vs picking below top 10 - you will see Sabean has beaten the averages by a wide margin), 3) usually, to build thru the draft, a team has to go thru years of hell (Atlanta, Milwaukee, 2 successful ones, KC, Cinci, Pitt, Mont/Wash, a few unsuccessful ones). One thing I think is very important is to analyze Sabean’s performance against that of other GMs, not just cherry pick a few convenient examples. I am fully prepared to accept, if someone wants to assemble the data, that Sabean has underperformed relative to other GMs. I don’t expect that is the case, but I won’t argue with conclusive data.
Finally, all the roto experts seem to have no real idea what Sabean is doing - and how close he is to being successful, this first miserable half notwithstanding. Sabean, it seems to me, is following a combination of the Detroit / San Diego models. Remeber the adage ’strong pitching beats strong hitting?’ In my experience, it is especially true in the playoffs/series. And, given the types of parks in the NL west, Sabean is smart to follwo the SD model and assemble a strong pitching staff. While we are 4th in the league (and damned good) we are about a full 1.00 in ERA worse than SD. SD, BTW, is worse than we are offensively, but they lead the NL. Not just the NL West, the NL. Great pitching and no hitting and they are the best in the NL. We are close, but not nearly as strong as SD. The good news is some of SDs best is old and ready for decline, while we are have a pretty young staff and should get better. The team that Sabean assembled for ‘07 should be in the hunt. I don’t think anybody expected any of these players to have outlier years, or even to hit over their career averages. I think Giants management expected these players to hit at about (say, within 15 points of their career avgs, OBPs, SLGs. Instead, 5 players are having outlier bad years. OK, as I have already noted, some decline can be and was expected. SOME. Not precipitous. Not the precipitous declines that Omar, Aurilia, Roberts, Durham, and Feliz are having. As far as BA, which is easiest for me to use (I’ll compute OBPs, if you want, or OPSs), I thought Omar would be about 275-280; Aurilia, 280-285; Roberts, 285-290; Durham 285-290, Feliz, 260-265 (actually, I thought Feliz would have to hit 270 or be benched in favor of Aurilia/Frandsen, but neither of them played well enough to take the spot). Had these players (and/or Linden) performed to these levels, we would be right in the hunt.
July 13th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Hi Frank,
I do think that Sabean has fallen out of public favor. Turn on KNBR and listen to what the average fans usually say, most haven’t been in love with Sabean for the last couple of years. Add in Sabean’s blowups of “I know what the hell I’m doing” and I think you can say he’s feeling the pressure from the public too. And if citing three straight losing seasons with a top payroll built around one of the best players to ever suit up and play the game, isn’t a good reason, then what the hell is?
Bad luck is a part of baseball and so is good luck. Teams with developed farm systems can handle the bad luck. Look at Atlanta, Arizona, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, any team with a strong farm system has been able to handle episodes of bad luck by replacing from within. The Giants haven’t been able to do that, because by and large their farm system has been weak.
Here’s how BA has ranked the Giants system from 2001-2006
2001 22
2002 12
2003 11
2004 24
2005 17
2006 18
The pitching trio of Lowry, Lincecum, and Cain is nice but we lucked out with the Lincecum pick and Lowry still concerns me because of his peripherals. Because I cite stuff like peripherals you sometimes bring up Roto, which I don’t play, do you not buy the idea of walking more guys, striking out less, and giving up more hits is detrimental to a pitcher? Lowry could crash and burn next year, or in the second half. I’m also bullish on Matt Morris.
Is the lack of hitting for the Giants an organizational thing? Do they need to hire better talent evaluators that can focus on hitting? These are questions that fans need to ask.
And San Diego is not worse than us offensively, even though it’s not the best way to measure a teams offense, they have scored more runs than we have this year. Giants are ranked 15th in runs scored while the Padres are 11th. Add the fact that their rotation is almost a full 1.0ER lower than us and it’s not hard to see why they are in first.
The Padres have scored 374 runs and allowed 298 runs for a Pythagorean record of 52-35, the Padres actual record is 49-38, they are close to meeting their Pythagorean record.
The Giants have scored 365 runs and allowed 362 runs for a Pythagorean record of 42-42, their actual record is 38-48. The Giants have underperformed their Pythagorean record some but it goes to show that even with the solid pitching we’ve had this year, the terrible offense still makes us around a .500 ballclub.
As for the players like Durham, Roberts, Vizquel, etc. declining I can see that this was hopefully the last “hurrah” with Bonds as the centerpiece and once again he was surrounded by veterans. Sure, if Pedro Feliz actually didn’t suck this year (along with Aurilia, Durham, and Roberts) we’d probably be doing better, but you can say that about anyone. Veterans have the chance to age and decline and become injured more than a younger player. This was the chance that Sabean took and he got burned, for the third straight year in a row.
I think this quote applies here
July 13th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Look, losing is not fun, it is frustrating, agonizing, and makes you crazy. And people have to lash out at the first and most obvious target. To just blithely state “3 losing season” like it is somehow proof that Sabean has failed is just irrational and unwarranted. It is just a knee jerk, non-analytical response, and not helpful at all. ‘05 and ‘06 cannot be laid in Sabean’s lap. I will grant you, ‘07 is an entirely different story, but there are lots of factors here that are just ignored, as people just look at the bottom line, 10 games under 500. OK, that sucks, that’s frustrating, but grow up people, carefully look at all of the factors, not just the -10 games.
Your comments about replacing from within are just conclusions. When, how, who. Are you saying those teams overcame the magnitude of personnel losses the Giants had in ‘05 and ‘06? Where’s the proof. Iagree, my point, in fact, is bad luck happens. Sometiems you have good luck, sometimes, bad. Sometimes you have the good luck to overcome the bad. The bad luck in ‘05 and ‘06 was pretty insurmountable. This year is entirely different. I would be gald, eager actually, to debate what has gone on and the cause for this years awful results. I don’t want to do it with insults and bare conclusions. I do think it is really interesting. And I am referring exactly to your pythagorean predictions - and just why this team is so far below them.
Your reference to the BA rankings is interesting, but, again, in isolation it is meaningless. To be useful, one would have to look rather deeply at the other 31 teams. Comparing the Giants to Milwaukee for example, is not really fair or instructive. Why? Milwaukee has been picking in the top 7 for years. Jesus, they should have some good players in their system. But such an analysis could us how we are doing compared to other teams who have had similar splaces in the draft order. I am not sure, either, that just citing the BA ‘grades’ tells us anything. Wouldn’t a better analysis be to compare all the teams and find out how many players they have produced from their own system, then correct for draft position? You cite Atlanta, Az, Milw, LA. AZ and Milw, for sure, as I just argued, should have strong farm systmes, they’ve been drafting with premium picks (Az gets Upton as a #1 pick - we’ve never had a #1 pick). We have, currently 12 players on the roster from our farm system. I am not going to do the work to determine how many of each of the other 31 teams roster is made up of home grown players. But you can’t compare us to some ethereal standard in your head; you have to compare us to the other teams. And, BTW, in addition to the 12 currently on the roster plus 3 others who have been on the roster at some point this season.
Now, what if Atlanta is the #1 develop your own system in the majors? And we are #2? I mean, just saying Atlanta has done better than us does not mean we suck. If you can show that, factoring in draft position, we are in the bottom 1/3 of MLB teams in producing home grown players, then we have something to criticize. Az, for example has had 4 losing season since 01, LA has had 2, and we have had 2, the last two. Even compared to the Dodgers, who have a 515/457 record vs our 527/442 record, have had better draft position in 4 of the 6 draft years since 01. In otherwords, you cannot compare a GMs performance based on quality of minor leaguers, unless you factor in the ability he had to draft premium players (the Milws and AZs). You also have to take into account any particularl advantages a team may have, such as Atlanta who are unrivaled in the Ga, N,S Car, Ala, Tenn, Ky area and have established a great network with high school coaches. So, if they do better than we do, firng our guy and bringing in their guy sin’t going to solve the problem as he can’t bring the competitive advantage with him.
July 13th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Now, briefly, to you last 2 paragraphs. I don’t think it is reasoanble expected that the 5 named players all go completely to hell. One, maybe two, not all 5. If 3 of them had approached (not duplicated, just with 10 points or so) their career averages, then I think, pythagoreanly speaking, we should be 3 games back. And I don’t think you can attribute it to age. I am not saying age is completely irrelevant, but Bonds, Molina, klesko, even Winn to an extent, as well as lots of other +35 year olds around the league are performing quite well. Yes, we know after, say, 32, a guy will start to decline. That is not to say become sudenly worthless, just decline - gradually, over time. So, I would expect some decline, 10 to 15 points for some, little or no decline for others. It is simply not statistically likely that these 5 guys go in the toilet the last 3 months. That is bad luck. It’s just part of the game. Every team has losing seasons. They’re usually not the fault of the GM. Especially not this GM, who is one of the most winning GMs in history.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
About Upton and AZ, actually, they didn’t get a #1, they lucked out in that he should have been a #1 but fell to them at #15 only because of signability only, everyone recognized his talents and potential.
About Lincecum, yes, they lucked out but they were also the ones who took a chance with him and his funky delivery. They deserve credit for that. And we still don’t know if his arm will fall off, but I take solace with every pitcher I hear about who is similar, first Roy Oswalt, now, as noted in the Chronicle, like Jim Palmer. Those are two good pitchers to be compared to.
About doing the same thing over and over again, I think some of that “credit” should go to Magowan and Co. for pushing the “Winning with Bonds” angle. The thing is, if you have Bonds, you have to go “all in”, in poker parlance. You don’t spend all that money and then don’t try to win.
In 2005, our first year of losing, Bonds was coming back at any point, so you had to still focus on winning and thus be buyers and not sellers up to the bitter end. Plus, going into the trade deadline, we were only about 7 games back, striking distance if Bonds comes back. Then you can’t do any waiver deals because you expect Bonds back in 2006 and you don’t want to kill chances for the next season.
In 2006, again, you have to try to win. And we were in it until that horrible losing streak began with the loss to the Cards, in mid-September, when it is basically too late to do any deals.
In 2007, you have to try to win since it is Bonds “last year” and especially after they signed Zito. Hence, they signed for each season some of the best players available, defensively and offensively (but rarely both), in order to win that season, every season that we have Bonds on the team.
Again, that is coming from the top and that handcuffs what Sabean can do, so no one can really say what he would and would not do, without this pressure from the top to win. Maybe if he was given the luxury if not competing as a possibility, he won’t sign a Feliz, use Frandsen instead, heck, don’t sign Roberts and/or Bonds and play Linden instead. He has given prospects a chance, Niekro and Ellison had excellent chances to grab hold of their position in the starting lineup and failed. And he did trade Matt Williams away when there was nothing to lose, he was taking over, he wasn’t expected to be competitive.
And what Frank is saying about draft position is exactly what I’ve been preaching on my blog based on my research and study of draft picks. I’ve been at a loss to explain it so that others understand more fully until now, so here goes my latest analogy and I think it’s a good one (and thus I will steal back for my blog next time I explain this :^): this is similar to how people have been complaining about Feliz, yeah he has RBIs, but of course he has RBIs he has a lot more opportunity to get them batting behind Barry Bonds. So look at it this way, picking in the Top 5 is like batting behind Barry Bonds, there are a lot more opportunities to select a good to very good player there, than where the Giants were picking when they were winning, 21-30, heck it is approximately twice as good as #10 where the Giants have picked the past two drafts.
Given this, if you want to call it luck that Lincecum fell to the Giants, then anybody who picks a good major league player in the 21-30 overall range is lucky too, there was only around a 11% chance of finding a good player in that range for the draft from 1988 to 2000. And you are extremely lucky if you find a good player in the 2nd round, that’s around a 5% chance, and into the 3rd round, your chances fall again to around 2-3%.
That’s all very low odds, that’s very lucky unless you can beat the odds by a lot by picking good players, more than one per draft judging from my study of the Brewers rebuild and how it took 9 years to obtain all their key players on this team, and I am being kind by not counting Geoff Jenkins, who is still a starter and was drafted 12 years ago. They essentially have found one of their starters a year, while drafting often in the Top 10 area over the past 5-6 seasons.
Or to put it another way, drafting in the top five is like wanting a home run and having Barry or Albert Pujols or Ryan Howard or A-Rod at-bat, while drafting in the 21-30 range overall like the Giants were doing when they were winning is then like having Randy Winn or Marcus Giles at bat - there is still some odds of a homer, but clearly not as much as when those others are hitting. By the third round, you are in Johnnie Lemaster range. Then at some point soon after that, I’m presuming because I only covered the first 100 picks overall, you get to Duane Kuiper range (1 career homer)