Sometimes, it sucks to be right.
Before this season started, I lamented that the Giants simply couldn’t compete in the NL, let alone the West, because their offense had simply gotten older, slower and less effective since last year. Adding Dave Roberts, Bengie Molina, Ryan Klesko and Rich Aurillia wasn’t exactly the same thing as a Carlos Lee or Alfonso Soriano. GM Brian Sabean’s response was that the team made offers to those high-profile free agents, but they chose to sign elsewhere.
Guess what, Bri-Bri? It’s not because they are insane, or motivated by the great queso in Texas or brats in Chicago. It’s because they see the same thing in San Francisco that most clear-headed fans do – this is a team that can’t win the way it’s structured.
To be sure, Molina and Klesko have both outperformed my expectations and as role players I can’t complain. What I can complain about is that they are two of the best hitters on the team. I’m not going to get into a discussion about how much leverage Barry Bonds has with this team, because I think it’s perfectly rational to want to keep one of the best hitters in the history of the game on your team, especially as he approaches perhaps the most hallowed record in the game. But adding, for example, a Vladimir Guerrero a few years ago would have been a sea changing event for this team. Getting a bit crazier, drafting and developing offensive talent should not be an afterthought. (Unless of course, Tony Tarasco still has something left.)
Yesterday, the Giants lost their sixth game in a row, and the second straight to the Brewers, who we will get back to in a moment. Their strength – pitching – has become a liability because the team leans on it way too much. I am happy that Barry Zito is on the team, but there’s no way that the $126 MM the team is paying him won’t become a huge, huge burden sooner than later. (Someone should see if George Steinbrenner still has a pulse and investigate whether we could get Robinson Cano or something for Zito.) When you look at Zito, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Noah Lowry and Matt Morris, in whatever order they lineup, it’s hard not to think that this is one of the most talented starting rotations in all of baseball.
But they can’t do it all themselves. This team simply can’t score runs, and even Bonds now sits out more games than he ever has – something both predictable and totally unplanned for in terms of offensive help.
Developing young pitching – Cain, Lincecum, Lowry and others – is hugely important, and it’s a skill set this team should be proud of. The team has been willing to trade away some pretty great prospects and in some cases (see: Nen, Robb) it has worked brilliantly. In others (see: Pierzynski, Asswipe), they have been some of the worst trades in recent memory. More egregiously, the team has failed to develop a single solid offensive prospect since the days of Matt Williams and Will Clark. I like Fred Lewis as much as anyone, but before the season started, the best prospect was Todd Linden who was waived a month or so ago, and then released again by the Marlins.
Speaking of the Marlins, they and the Brewers provide two routes the Giants could utilize to rebuild – an option Sabean and Magowan refuse to even discuss. The Brewers built from the ground up, and now have perhaps the best young offense in baseball. While they signed Johnny Estrada, look at the rest of their infield:
1B - Prince Fielder -- the leading contender for NL MVP was drafted by the Brewers in the first round of 2002.
2B - Rickie Weeks - while often injured, Weeks is a world of potential, and was drafted by the Brewers in the first round of 2003.
SS - J.J. Hardy - Hardy made a splash with a HUGE start to the year, but it’s not like he came out of nowhere. Oh, and he was drafted by the Brewers in the second round of 2001.
3B - Ryan Braun - Braun is a recent callup and future stud at the hot corner. He’s assimilated quite well to the bigs, and yes – he was drafted by the Brewers in the first round of 2005.
In the outfield, they’ve finally given Corey Hart the playing time he deserves, and he’s responded well, hitting over .300 with 13 SB and solid power. He was drafted in 2000 by the Brewers. Bill Hall took awhile to develop, but has definitely done so – he plays centerfield, and was drafted by the Brewers in the sixth round in 1998. The third outfield spot is a bit more of a rotation, but when Geoff Jenkins plays , which is most often the case, that completes 8 of 9 positions being homegrown, as Jenkins was a first round draft pick of the team back in 1995.
Eight of nine starting positions were drafted by the Brewers, and Estrada certainly didn’t cost a lot to sign. Let's highlight that one more time:
89% OF THE STARTING OFFENSE OF THE NL CENTRAL LEADING MILWAUKEE BREWERS WAS DRAFTED AND DEVELOPED BY THE MILWAUKEE BREWERS.
How does their pitching look? They just called up
Yovani Gallardo who made a nice debut against the Giants. He was drafted in the second round of 2004 by the Brewers. Their ace,
Ben Sheets was drafted by Milwaukee in the first round of 1999. The rest of the rotation was signed or traded for, but we are still talking about a HUGE portion of this team being home-grown.
That’s the way to do things.
The Marlins did things a bit differently, signing a huge amount of expensive free agents, then trading them for promising youngsters. Folks like
Dan Uggla, Hanley Ramirez, Miguel Cabrera, Jeremy Hermida, Josh Willingham, Dontrelle Willis, Scott Olsen and others came either via development or by trading away people they could no longer afford to pay.
What they didn’t do was get older and older, and staunchly refuse to do anything about it. The Giants are in a world of hurt and there’s no visible light at the end of the tunnel. As a season ticketholder, I’m somewhat torn as I don’t really know what I can do about it. I need to be a good fan and not turn my back in the bad times, but I also would like to send a message that fans can’t stand for this. I honestly see really awful parallels to the way this team is run, and the way the White House manages the Iraq war. That is, an utter refusal to acknowledge the bad things, a desperate attempt to highlight some positive things that don’t really have any major impact, and an expectation that in any possible future, not much is going to change.
Like I said, sometimes, it’s hard to be right.
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