Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Brian Sabean: Alchemist

The law of conservation of matter states that in a closed system, matter cannot be created or destroyed, merely that it may be rearranged. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the San Francisco Giants:

The Giants remain in the trade market, still trying to upgrade their offense, but their thinking has changed given what's happening in the trainer's room.

With reliever Vinnie Chulk shelved with shoulder tendinitis and starter Noah Lowry rehabbing from surgery and unavailable until at least late April, the Giants are shying away from trade talk if it means giving up pitchers.

"We're going to try," general manager Brian Sabean said when asked if he expects trade activity before Opening Day, "but I don't see us trading pitching in any regard to try to solve what we want to do offensively."

See, here's the thing, Brian. When you seek to upgrade your pathetic offense through trades, but limit your trading chits to parts of that same pathetic offense, you are creating the sort of closed system that Lavoisier described. One which, by virtue of the law, is immune to enhancement (really, what are you going to get for Daniel Ortmeier?). On the bright side, given how crappy the Giants' hitters are, it is one that is probably immune to degradation as well (really, how much worse can you do than Daniel Ortmeier?).

Of course, this is the same guy who made totally separate rules for his superstar hitter for a decade, so we can't exactly expect him to understand much about chemistry.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

APBA Guy-

I expect you to have much amusement at the expense of the Giants this year, and get no argument from any of us in the Bay Area about anything derisive you say towards the men in black and orange.

In our office pool I have the Giants at 102 losses-worse than last year's Nationals by far. I tried to start a pool for how many homers the Giants would hit out to left field. I took zero, and interest in the pool immediately collapsed.

On the plus side, this may be the first year that you can get decent seats on a walk-up basis at AT & T park.

Mr Lomez said...

It turns out Sabean is about as good a chemist as he is a mathematician.

There was in article on the Giants mlb.com website just 2 days ago explaining that the Giants have 9(!) bullpen candidates competing for only 4 available spots on the roster. Take out Chulk and now it's 8. You're telling me none of those guys are expendable? Pat Misch is the key to the franchise's future?

Plus two of those guys, Threets and Valdez, are out of minor league options, so they're going on waivers anyway if they're not kept on the roster. It just makes no sense.

Excuse my venting, it's tough times for Giants fans.

Anonymous said...

We appreciate Sabean over at Razzball.com. We're running a roto league where you have to draft the worst team possible. Top round Giants selections includes:

Rich Aurilia - Great powerless stats at the 1B/3B position

Dan Ortmeier - A find at 1B/OF

Omar Vizquel - We don't count SB so he's as good as gold to underperform league averages in R/HR/RBI and even AVG.

Dave Roberts - Again, no SB so this guy is a 1st round pick if he had guaranteed playing time.

Aaron Rowand - How bad will his stats regress? .270/15/75?

Randy Winn - Solidly mediocre.

Rajah Davis - Can put up mediocre stats if only given the chance.

Ray Durham - Can't expect another .210 season and still has moderate power. A late-round 2B selection.

Net/net, LOVE/HATE their lineup.

I hope they find 400 AB for Velez to give the fans some excitement. I think he could be a Chone Figgins type.

At least the (starting) pitching has promise....