The Giants gained a game on the Diamondbacks, then lost it again. Whatever. Brett Pill came up and hit two home runs in his first two games, so Brandon Belt will never play another game again, ever. Bochy continues to start Orlando Cabrera every day, even against right-handers, even when he drops routine pop-ups that lead to back-breaking runs.
I watched the Giants lose to the Padres yesterday live from sunny Petco Park in San Diego, which is a fine stadium with plenty of Giants fans around. I have been to two Giants/Padres games at Petco this year, and both games featured a Giants loss, but a coupon for two free Jack in the Box tacos, so I'm torn as to which side of the ledger these games fall on.
The Sabean/Bochy strategy of which players are valuable and worth starting and worth giving lots of leeway when struggling and why is absolutely baffling and defies all logic. If 2012 is anywhere as big a disaster as 2011 was, I think Giants ownership HAS to try to start fresh by ousting one or both of these guys, World Series goodwill or no. But I'm fearful that the ownership is just as pleased as punch with the status quo, and will continue to be so, indefinitely. The Giants offense has finished dead last or near to it in five of the last six seasons. They had a league-average offense in the other year. They can develop and craft pitching like nobody's business. They have pitching scouts out the wazoo who are out of this world. Dave Righetti must be like some kind of crazy Pitcher Whisperer, the George W-looking freak. But by this point, far removed from the heyday of Bonds, Kent, and Burks, it's plain as day that Brian Sabean has absolutely no idea how to evaluate a hitter's worth, and Bochy understands even less what stats to look at.
Here's the perfect Bruce-Bochy-in-a-nutshell insight into how Bruce Bochy thinks: With both Mike Fontenot and Brandon Crawford (both left-handed batters, both far better defensively than Orlando Cabrera) available to start at SS against RHP Aaron Harang, Bochy went with righty Cabrera, citing Cabrera's lifetime 3-for-5 against Harang. There's small samples sizes, and there is THIS. Five at-bats. Five at-bats that happened in 2003. It's just...I can't...
Bill, I've got a story for you that makes both Brian Sabean AND J. P. Ricciardi look bad: on Baseball Today yesterday, Keith Law talked about how J.P. kind of panicked after Halladay lost his first three starts in 2003 (my favourite Blue Jays team ever btw), and called Sabean and offered Halladay for three prospects. This would be a way better story if I could remember which three, but obviously none of them were "oh shit" names, because they didn't stay in my mind even a day. Anyway, Sabean took a couple of days, called back and said no, and Halladay won his next fifteen en route to his first Cy Young and, you know, being Roy Halladay.
ReplyDeleteCuts both ways, of course: J. P. wouldn't part with Alex Rios when Sabean was offering Lincecum, so, you know. Whatever.
Yeah that story went around on mlbtraderumors or some other blog. It was three pitching prospects: Jerome Williams was one. Ainsworth maybe? Or Aardsma and Foppert. Either way, three pitchers that never went anywhere. Crazy stuff.
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