It is comments like the following that bother me the most about the Giants prospects for next year and 2011, the length of Giants GM Brian Sabean's contract.
From the blog Extra Baggs, by Giants beat writer Andrew Baggarly
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/extrabaggs/2010/01/13/aubrey-huff-to-bat-cleanup-in-giants-new-look-lineup-sandoval-puts-on-a-few-pounds-plus-many-more-notes/
If Bengie Molina and the Mets genuinely are getting close to a contract, the other catching dominoes will start to fall. Yorvit Torrealba still makes sense, although it’s hard to imagine he’ll take a one-year contract when he reportedly already turned down two to stay in Colorado. “The catcher’s market is remarkably still evolving,” Sabean said. “There will probably be somebody left without a place to go that we can turn to. We are willing to go to (rookie Buster) Posey but we are keeping an open mind. We’ll revisit as we go along.”
In answering a question about the Giants plans for addressing the catching position this year Sabean offers "there will probably be somebody left without a place to go that we can turn to".
AYFKM!!! I think I have used the "it's 2 a.m., last call and we're just going to go home with the prettiest girl that is still standing" approach to free agents that personifies the Neukom/Sabean/Giants era of late.
After reading these comments, you can almost envision Sabean, like a loser in some smoky, honky-tonk bar, reeking of too many Marlboro's and Johnny Walker Red, failing to score with the honeys and then settling for the fat chick with the cleft lip. That's how it seems like the Giants luck has been scoring A-list free-agents in recent years.
We settled for DeRosa as the answer in LF, when Holliday was available.
We settled for Huff as the answer at 1B, after failing to secure LaRoche.
It is also-ran finishes like this that sets the table for a second place (or worse) finish on the field. As long as Sabean is around.
And it's not as if I'm pining for the bold strokes of the Magowan as Managing General Partner era. The Neukom boys handed Sabs a pile of cash and he turned it into Aaron Rowand and Edgar Renteria. We have the most flexible group of IF gloves in the bigs, with little or no pop from 1B, a hallmark of the Sabean years. We still have no pop from the corner OF's and I don't see too many teams winning titles that do not have some juice from the 1B-3B-LF-RF positions. This team I'm sure has had the weakest production from those four slots as any in the bigs. We have guys in the 3-4-5 slots in the order that would likely be 6-7-8 guys on a contender.
It looks like we have to have breakout or career years from too many hitters to contend unless all goes right with the starters. And we could be a sophomore slump by Panda away from competing with the Padres for the basement again.
This team finally stuck it's head out of the hole of successive years of 90 loss seasons. I would hate to see last years 88 win total be an aberration. But I'm starting to get that 90 loss feeling again.
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