Brian Sabean is Amazing…

Published by on August 6, 2008 | 5 Responses

..ly stupid.

Did Sergio Romo just get DFA’d by accident?

From Andrew Baggarly’s blog:

I’m told that Romo was still on revocable trade waivers when the Giants optioned him, which is not allowed. Therefore, he was designated for assignment. I’m told that trade waivers supercede in this case…so it’s a bit tangled. Will the Giants lose Romo, an arm they value, for nothing? I’ll find out.

To potentially lose a valuable bullpen arm because you don’t understand how the waiver-wire system works, is just amazing. How long have you been a GM?

If Romo is lost to the waivers, this will be truly amazing. I will be angry. Updates to follow.

Update

Crisis averted.

A little explanation on Romo: The Giants probably put him on revocable waivers because a potential trade partner was interested in him. Or they wanted t ogauge the general the level of interest. No matter the reason, you cannot option someone when they are on revocable waivers. (I’m up on most roster rules, but that’s a new one for me.)

Anyway, and this is the important part, the Giants insist the oversight will not result in losing Romo to another club. When you designate a player, you take them off your 40-man roster and have 10 days to waive, release or outright him. Before those 10 days are up, the Giants will revoke Romo off waivers be able to option him at that point. He’ll remain on the 40-man roster. Romo said he expects to join Fresno in Salt Lake on Friday.

Next: The Giants accidentally sell Tim Lincecum’s rights to Japan!

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MrLomez
MrLomez

To be an apologist for a second: The way I understand it, right after the TD, it's not uncommon for teams to basically put everyone on the roster on revocable waivers, from the stars to the bench scrubs (every player can go on R-waivers once a season). It's a strategy to mask a team's intentions in regards to certain fringe players (e.g. Romo) and not necessarily to throw bait out for trade partners. It's a pretty weak smokescreen but the idea is that since the whole roster is on RW's, opposing teams won't know who to put claims on and who to ignore since they don't know who you're serious about unwaiving, releasing, outrighting, etc. (and they can't just put claims on everyone because then they're responsible, or potentially responsible, if you then don't revoke a given player off of waivers). Deep breath. Does this make sense? Anyway, in the case of Romo, what I imagine happened was he was procedurely placed on R-waivers along with everyone else (or at least a few Giants fringe players), and then the Giants optioned him without considering his status. The fact that he was on R-waivers to begin with however could very well have been incidental to their decision to option him. This brainfart is perhaps symbolic of this regime's inattention to detail, and is pretty shameful. But practically, it's not at all that much of a big deal.

Cat
Cat

And I thought the minor league merry-go-round was bad...

delorean
delorean

@ OGC: The buck stops with Sabean. He's the boss. If something completely f'ing retarded happens on his watch, it's ultimately his responsibility. Period. If it turns out that one of his minions was responsible for this cock-up, then that person needs to be fired immediately, if not sooner. Require some god-damn accountability in your organization.

Chris
Chris

But shouldn't they at least run stuff by him first? Example: "Hey Boss, I was thinking I might trade Tim Lincecum for Fernando Tatis, whatddya think?"

obsessivegiantscompu
obsessivegiantscompu

No, but his assistants are. Sabean should not be expected to know every nuance of a roster move. That's why they had Ned Colletti handling some of that stuff, that's why Tony Siegel (or a name something like that) was hired, to know the ins and outs of the jungle and jumble of what the procedural rules are.