Performance Review: Sabean and Bochy

With so many people expressing mixed emotions about the Bochy/Sabean extensions over the past couple of weeks, I wanted to take a little bit more of an in-depth look at what these two have done here during their time in San Francisco.

It's no secret that Sabean has made big time mistakes over the past couple of years through free-agency. He signed Aaron Rowand and Barry Zito to multi-year deals that will ultimately pay the two under-achievers nearly 200 million dollars before their time in San Francisco is up. Then capped it off by guaranteeing a aging, injury prone under-achieving Edgar Renteria nearly $20 million for 2 years. Even since he took over reigns of the Giants in the mid-90's, free agency hasn't been too kind to Sabean and that's not how he's put his good teams together. Sure, he did get Juan Uribe for peanuts and Jeremy Affeldt on a great deal last off-season, but come on, every time this guy shells out multi-year, big dollar contracts, he flat out misses. If you look back through the years that Sabean has been pulling the strings for this team, all his big acquisitions that have paid off have come via trade (Jason Schmidt, Jeff Kent, Ellis Burks, Livan Hernandez, Kenny Lofton, Wilson Alvarez, Roberto Hernandez, Rob Nen, Randy Winn ect..). Now, a lot of those guys he ended up re-signing after he acquired them, and a few of them really paid off in that way (Jason Schmidt, Jeff Kent, Ellis Burks, Rob Nen) but those guys don't count as true free agent acquisitions since they were already with the team. So, Sabean's track record has clearly indicated that he's been much better on the trade market than he is in free agency.

However, ever since 2003, his trades have really turned into crap shots. The one player acquired after 2003 that I can think of as having an impact with the Giants for multiple seasons is Randy Winn. Other than that, all that comes to mind are Shea Hillenbrand, Sidney Ponson, Ryan Garko, Freddy Sanchez, dealing away Russ Ortiz after 2002 and getting nothing in return, and of course, the dreaded AJ Pierzynski deal. So, Sabean's had a bad track record in free-agency throughout his career, and now all the sudden he's striking out in the trade market that he used to be so good with? So why did the Giants extend him you ask? I think it's largely in part because of what he's done in the last couple of drafts. He's really rebuilt the farm system, although they still lack a bunch of offensive talent. He pulled the trigger on the small, unorthodox Tim Lincecum when other GM's where skeptical and I think that one pick is what ultimately has Sabean still running the team. Take away Timmy, and the Giants are very ordinary. Now Sabean has another tough task in locking up Lincecum for the long-term as he hits arbitration this winter.

I can't say as much about Bochy, because he's only been here 3 seasons, and in two of those seasons he really didn't have anything to work with on the field. What I've seen from him though, hasn't been bad, but certainly not great. For starters, I really do like the way he uses his pitching staff. It seems like everyone gets enough work in the pen, but they don't get overworked. He lets his starters' performance dictate how long they go in a game, and doesn't rely so much on a pitch count like Felipe Alou did. Now, that said, he does have some tendencies that I'd like to see changed. I don't like his stubbornness with the lineup. He insisted to hit Bengie Molina cleanup over the second half of last season at a time when Bengie was a guy who was weighing down the lineup in multiple ways. And like his predecessors, Felipe Alou and Dusty Baker, he definitely seems to feel much more confident in playing the veteran ballplayer. I can think of numerous games when Nate Schierholtz was hot in which he insisted on playing a struggling Randy Winn over the youngster. I'm just not sure this is a guy you want leading a young up and coming team. He's a little laid back, kind of suited to run a veteran ball club, and they might need some more energy from that spot. So yes, like with the GM spot, it would have made a lot of sense to get a younger person in there with new energy and philosophy, but at the same time, Boch did well with what he had in '09 and it would have been tough to fire him after that year.

If worst comes to worst, and Sabean fails to address their obvious needs this Winter and the team comes out and struggles under Bochy next summer, I wouldn't put it past the "Bowtie" to eat the final year of their deals and cut them loose.