Kuzul

I’ve heard Brian Sabean compared to a lot of people ranging from Lex Luther to “The Grinch”, but no comparison seems nearly as fitting of that of one Michael Scott, Regional Manager of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

When either Sabean or Michael Scott open their mouth, stupid usually comes out. Both make ridiculously idiotic decisions, yet somehow still keep their respective jobs. Since the Giants just dropped two of three to the Padres, I thought it would be a nice time to re-live some of Michael Scott’s greatest quotes and how they correspond to Sabean.

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Before the season started most analysts would have predicted that Lyndsey Lohan would have won an Oscar, before the NL West race would come down to the Giants and the Padres, but here it is August, and San Francisco and San Diego were all set to square off in an NL West showdown.

The Giants have been playing terrific baseball, winning more games in the month of July—20—than anyone else in baseball. What’s more is that veteran players who have seen their roles diminished, such as Aaron Rowand and Edgar Renteria have accepted backup roles with grace, leading to what some insiders believe to be the best clubhouse in baseball.

Brian Sabean, the Giants’ General Manager, obviously has an issue with all this winning and must have a vacation planned for the week after the season ends because he went and traded for Jose Guillen.

Guillen is such as great player that he was recently DFA’d by that perennial powerhouse the Kansas City Royals. The Royals DFA’d Guillen partly due to production, but also due to his clubhouse demeanor as  one GM recently told ESPN’s Buster Olney that, “no contender” should take Guillen because his personality and clubhouse reputation may be the second worst to Milton Bradley.”

What’s more is that Guillen is terrible defensively, holding a lifetime UZR average of 18.1 runs worse than a replacement player (fangraphs.com) in RF, which is why he has predominately been used as a DH in Kansas City.

Given his complete lack of prowess in the field and charming personality in the clubhouse, one would expect that he can flat out hit, but they would be wrong. Guillen has a respectable wOBA of .325 this year, and has posted a wOBA as high as .391 in the past, but that doesn’t seem to be enough to make up for his lack of defense and more importantly carcogenic laced personality.

Basically, Guillen is an older version of Pat Burrell, with the same effect on clubhouses that Elizabeth Taylor has on marriages.  So why would anyone trade for the guy, because, it’s Brian Sabean and after failing to land David Dejesus, Adam Dunn or Prince Fielder before the non-waiver trade deadline he had to do something.

I was hoping that he got it out his system with the deal for Mike Fontenot (a good deal by the way), but as they say wish in one hand and er, you get the point.

Hopefully, the Giants didn’t give up too much to get Pierzynski, I mean Guillen, and hopefully, this won’t all end very badly with Pat Burrell body slamming Guillen in the dugout while Rowand-2 kicks him in the head, on second thought….

Update

Jeff Fletcher of AOL Fanhouse is reporting that Bochy plans to insert Guillen as the starting RF and move Huff to 1B. Which means that this trade went from making sense if not for Guillen’s personality, to just traded for a .250 hitter to play RF who also happens to be a clubhouse cancer. Giants baseball….torture, Giants Front Office…torturing their fans. 

Guillen’s numbers

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Year           Tm    G   PA   AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI SB CS  BB   SO   BA  OBP  SLG   OPS OPS+

1997          PIT  143  526  498  58  133  20  5  14  70  1  2  17   88 .267 .300 .412  .712   82

1998          PIT  153  605  573  60  153  38  2  14  84  3  5  21  100 .267 .298 .414  .712   84

1999          TOT   87  318  288  42   73  16  0   3  31  1  0  20   57 .253 .315 .340  .656   67

1999          PIT   40  132  120  18   32   6  0   1  18  1  0  10   21 .267 .321 .342  .662   68

1999          TBD   47  186  168  24   41  10  0   2  13  0  0  10   36 .244 .312 .339  .651   67

2000          TBD  105  349  316  40   80  16  5  10  41  3  1  18   65 .253 .320 .430  .750   89

2001          TBD   41  145  135  14   37   5  0   3  11  2  3   6   26 .274 .317 .378  .695   85

2002          TOT   85  259  240  25   57   7  0   8  31  4  5  14   43 .238 .287 .367  .653   66

2002          ARI   54  141  131  13   30   4  0   4  15  3  4   7   25 .229 .277 .351  .628   57

2002          CIN   31  118  109  12   27   3  0   4  16  1  1   7   18 .248 .299 .385  .684   76

2003          TOT  136  534  485  77  151  28  2  31  86  1  3  24   95 .311 .359 .569  .928  142

2003          CIN   91  349  315  52  106  21  1  23  63  1  3  17   63 .337 .385 .629 1.013  165

2003          OAK   45  185  170  25   45   7  1   8  23  0  0   7   32 .265 .311 .459  .770  101

2004          ANA  148  620  565  88  166  28  3  27 104  5  4  37   92 .294 .352 .497  .849  121

2005          WSN  148  611  551  81  156  32  2  24  76  1  1  31  102 .283 .338 .479  .817  116

2006          WSN   69  268  241  28   52  15  1   9  40  1  0  15   48 .216 .276 .398  .674   75

2007          SEA  153  658  593  84  172  28  2  23  99  5  1  41  118 .290 .353 .460  .813  116

2008          KCR  153  633  598  66  158  42  1  20  97  2  1  23  106 .264 .300 .438  .738   95

2009          KCR   81  312  281  30   68   8  0   9  40  1  0  22   50 .242 .314 .367  .681   80

2010          KCR  106  437  396  46  101  17  2  16  62  1  0  27   84 .255 .314 .429  .743  101

14 Seasons        1608 6275 5760 739 1557 300 25 211 872 31 26 316 1074 .270 .322 .441  .762   99

162 Game Avg.      162  632  580  74  157  30  3  21  88  3  3  32  108 .270 .322 .441  .762   99

                     G   PA   AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI SB CS  BB   SO   BA  OBP  SLG   OPS OPS+

KCR (3 yrs)        340 1382 1275 142  327  67  3  45 199  4  1  72  240 .256 .308 .420  .727   94

TBD (3 yrs)        193  680  619  78  158  31  5  15  65  5  4  34  127 .255 .317 .394  .711   82

PIT (3 yrs)        336 1263 1191 136  318  64  7  29 172  5  7  48  209 .267 .301 .406  .707   82

WSN (2 yrs)        217  879  792 109  208  47  3  33 116  2  1  46  150 .263 .319 .455  .773  104

CIN (2 yrs)        122  467  424  64  133  24  1  27  79  2  4  24   81 .314 .363 .566  .929  141

ARI (1 yr)          54  141  131  13   30   4  0   4  15  3  4   7   25 .229 .277 .351  .628   57

OAK (1 yr)          45  185  170  25   45   7  1   8  23  0  0   7   32 .265 .311 .459  .770  101

ANA (1 yr)         148  620  565  88  166  28  3  27 104  5  4  37   92 .294 .352 .497  .849  121

SEA (1 yr)         153  658  593  84  172  28  2  23  99  5  1  41  118 .290 .353 .460  .813  116

AL (9 yrs)         879 3525 3222 417  868 161 14 118 490 19 10 191  609 .269 .326 .438  .764  101

NL (7 yrs)         729 2750 2538 322  689 139 11  93 382 12 16 125  465 .271 .316 .445  .761   97

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Provided by <a href=”http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/sharing.shtml”>Baseball-Reference.com</a>: <a href=”http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/guilljo01.shtml#batting_standard”>View Original Table</a><br>Generated 8/13/2010.

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Pablo Sandoval isn’t hitting. What makes things worse is that he’s average at best on defense and has all the speed of a water buffalo. His defense and lack of speed was acceptable because he hit baseballs like they were trying to steal his dinner, but this year he’s sporting an Aaron Rowand-like wOBA of just .303 and an OPS of .701.

Now before you go all Mel Gibson on me and start screaming obscenities that, while hilarious, are also quite disturbing, I’m not saying that the Giants should DFA Sandoval or send him down to Richmond, just that he has ceased to be an everyday player—for this season at least.

There has already been a lot made of Sandoval’s “slump” or, rather, lack of production since April when he had an OPS of 1.008. Some seem to believe that it’s due to his personal issues, or his eyesight, or even the vaunted sophomore jinx, but it has a whole lot more to do with his appetite than his ability.

This winter, Sandoval was coming off a break-out campaign in which he posted an OPS of .943 with 25 HR’s. However, the Giants rightly identified that the Kung Fu Panda would have a difficult time going all Daniel-san on opposing pitchers with any consistency at his then listed weight of 240 lbs. The Giants instituted “Operation Panda” in which Sandoval, along with his older brother Michael, stayed in San Francisco during the off-season and attended daily workout sessions, while also being educated on proper nutrition and eating habits. At first, “Operation Panda” seemed to be a huge success; Sandoval shed weight and seemed to be on a path to better fitness, health, and hopefully prolonged production.

At the end of “Operation Panda” Sandoval returned home to finish the winter ball season in Venezuela, but ran in to Mom’s cooking and put all the weight he’d lost back on.

Initially, this didn’t seem to effect Sandoval much and he had a great April, even though he struggled a bit from the right side. Since a torrid April Sandoval seems to be imposing a lot more fear in to the hearts of all-you-can-eat buffet owners than opposing pitchers. Instead of getting better, he’s getting worse. His 1.008 OPS in April, was followed by a .617 OPS in May, .645 in June and a .597 OPS in July.

Most of Sandoval’s decline in OPS can be measured in the D.B. Cooper-like disappearance of power that he’s suffered through so far this season. His ISO (Isolated Power or SLG-AVG) decline this year: April – .207, May – .108, June – .106 and July – .063.  Just as a frame of reference, the great slugger Brett Butler averaged an ISO of .086 over his career, while Barry Bonds averaged an ISO of .309.

As Andrew Baggerly recently pointed out in his blog, “The Braves’ three-run rally in the second inning began when Brooks Conrad’s poorly hit roller down the third-base line got past Pablo Sandoval for a double. Sandoval wasn’t playing off the line, either—the latest alarming evidence that the 23-year-old is slowing down.” It appears that Sandoval’s weight is slowing him down, and this was before he allowed the weakly hit ground ball off the bat of Alfonso Soriano to turn in to a double yesterday.

The problem is the Giants don’t have a better option, even with Sandoval’s meager production it’s more likely that he’ll suddenly snap out of his slump then for the Giants to get better production from Manny Burriss. However, much of Sandoval’s struggles this year have come from the right side, while he’s posted an OPS of just .604 from the right side, he’s posted a more respectable OPS of .736 from the left side; conversely, Edgar Renteria has a lifetime OPS of .912 against left-handed pitchers and would most likely pick up playing time if Sandoval sat.

While, the only real long-term solution for Sandoval is to call in Jenny Craig and Jillian Michaels of The Biggest Loser fame to tag-team the Kung Fu Panda this off-season and do something to make his body resemble a professional athlete outside of Bowling and Sumo wrestling, the short-term solution is to platoon Sandoval until he either picks it up or forces his way to the bench. 

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While some members of the media are clamoring for the Giants to trade for a big bat and Brian Sabean is kicking the tires on every non-impact bat available, the Giants’ best trade option is right in front of them: John Bowker.

Bowker’s detractors would say that he’s had his chance and failed to produce, that he’s a AAAA player who feasts off AAA pitching or that he doesn’t fit what the Giants need; but Bowker is a left-handed outfielder with power. This is exactly what the Giants are looking for. Bowker has absolutely raked in Fresno this year, while hitting .329, with a .408 OBP, .629 SLG good for a Bondsian 1.037 OPS and 12 home runs in 167 at-bats.

Some people may remember Bowker’s 2008 campaign when he burst on to the scene and had a great first half, but sharply declined in the second half of the season. That year he hit eight HR’s by the end of June in only 198 at-bats, but only hit two more the rest of the year. However, Bowker’s plate discipline was horrible, once pitchers realized he would swing at anything that’s exactly what he saw. His BB percentage in 2008 was an anemic 5.4 percent and that was only after a strong August in which he saw his BB percentage jump to 11.8.

Bowker spent most of 2009 in Fresno, but unlike so many other players who have poor command of the strike zone, he did something about it and his BB percentage skyrocketed to 16.4. The increased number of walks he drew helped bump his OPS up to an impressive 1.047, and he hit 21 homeruns in 366 at-bats.

Although the Giants planned to give the starting right field job to Nate Schierholz out of spring training in 2010, Schierholz didn’t hit, while Bowker did and won the starting spot. Bowker stumbled out of the gate and then got Bochy’d.

In case you’re not familiar with a player getting Bochy’d it works one of two ways depending on the classification a player falls in to: For younger players, their job is always in jeopardy, go through a slump or see your batting average dip and you will be benched. Also, it is assumed that left handed batters cannot hit left handed pitchers—ever, and vice-versa for right handed batters. For older grizzly gamery veterans, when their production declines they will continue to get starts and at-bats even when said slump continues for months, and in the case of Aaron Rowand years. It will also be assumed that veterans are always on the up-swing and never on the decline; consequently they will bat higher in the lineup than they should and even the smallest hitting streak will be met with increased starts, at-bats, etc. It started in San Diego and has continued in San Francisco.

Having Bruce Bochy can make it tough on young players, especially those who don’t have ice in their veins or aren’t named Posey. Many young players struggle even when they have their manager’s and club’s support. For example, in his rookie season, Barry Bonds hit a paltry .223, the great Willie Mays hit a very un-Mays like .274. Matt Williams came up in 1987 and hit an anemic .188 and didn’t put it all together for three more years. In fact Williams’ numbers after two seasons in the majors are pretty close to Bowker’s, except worse: .194 avg., 16 HR’s, .241 OBP, .366 SLG, compared to Bowker’s numbers: .238 avg., 15 HR’s, .285 OBP, .394 SLG.

MinorLeagueSplits.com, uses a formula that adjusts for a player’s league, the jump in talent level at the major league level and various other factors to use a AAA players stats to create their Major League Equivalent (MLE) or what they are likely to produce at the big league level. Currently Bowker’s MLE slash line is: .283/.346/.509/.855 with nine HRs over the remainder of the season.

The Giants already went out and spent big dollars on Freddy Sanchez who compares unfavorably to Kevin Frandsen—another player who got Bochy’d—and Fred Lewis is a major contributor in Toronto. The stats for Sanchez, Frandsen and Lewis:

Player           AVG / OBP / SLG / OPS / HR / 3B / 2B / SB

Sanchez  .275 / .331 / .335 / .666 / 1 / 1 / 9 / 2
Frandsen .288 / .336 / .367 / .702 / 0 / 0 / 11 / 2
Lewis .284 / .347 / .457 / .804 / 6 / 5 / 27 / 11

Even if he doesn’t produce at epic proportions he’s proven to be a good bat off the bench, coming through with a number of big hits earlier this year in pinch-hit roles, including his home run against Francisco Rodriguez. Before Sabean goes out and trades for Shea Hillenbrand, Freddy Sanchez or another non-impact bat that will cost more money, maybe the Giants should find out what they have in John Bowker.

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Some of you may have read Ted Sillanpaa’s piece about what a great manager Bruce Bochy is, and only those of us in the “lunatic fringe” want him gone, undeservedly so.  I thought that such a nefarious idea deserved more than a comment on the bottom. In some ways Bruce Bochy is perfect for the Giants, he has a total disregard for Sabermetrics—although he might include such new fangled statistics as OBP and OPS in that category—given even a remote option he will always choose the grizzly gamery veteran over the younger player (see: Aaron Rowand, Bengie Molina, et. al.), he believes that a good catcher can win championships, even with subpar offense and defense; consequently in many cases Bochy’s thinking is very much in line with the Giants front office. 

First let’s take a look at his total disregard for Sabermetrics. The most obvious case of this is Aaron Rowand. Through Sunday, Rowand’s OBP (that’s On Base Percentage if you’re reading Bork) was .278 and his OPS (On Base plus Slugging Percentage) was .678. His OBP is the 16^th highest on the team, 16^th ! It is also nearly 50 points lower than Nate Schierholz, who has seen sporadic playing time, an absolute no-no for young players. His OPS was slightly better, ranking him 13^th on the team and exactly 50 points behind Schierholz who Rowand is mainly taking playing time from. Some may argue that Rowand’s defense makes up for this, but they would be wrong or drunk or both. Rowand’s current UZR is -0.4 while Schierholz stands at 5.4. Even a cursory examination of Sabermetrics shows that Bochy isn’t looking at these numbers.

However, Rowand is a veteran and Schierholz is not. Much in the same way that Molina was a veteran and Posey is not, or Renteria is a veteran and Ishikawa is not (Renteria playing slides Uribe to 3^rd and Pablo to 1^st ) and in each case Bochy chooses the veteran. This should come as no surprisee though because Bochy was let go in San Diego for his insistence on playing veterans on the decline over unproven rookies, namely Vinny Castilla, Phil Nevin and Ryan Klesko. While many may argue that Schierholz, Bowker or even Posey aren’t everyday major leaguers, the guys Bochy previously refused to play: Adrian Gonzales, Xavier Nady and Josh Barfield. Gonzales is one of the best players in the league, while Nady has struggled with injuries he has been an above average producer when healthy and Barfield had one solid season, but is now out of the league. No one will know how good Bowker and Schierholz are until they get consistent playing time at the major league level. Obviously they have nothing left to prove at AAA, so most teams would give them a shot or cut them loose, not Bork.

For all the talk of Buster Posey, there has been a ridiculous amount of credit given to catcher’s game calling abilities. Yet the team that has won the most World Series over the last ten years, the Yankees, have a catcher in Posada who is known for being good with a bat, but a poor receiver who struggles with calling games (see: AJ Burnett, David Wells etc.). Mind you Posada is not even average, but below average, his fielding value above replacement has ranged from -6.0 to -0.4 over the last four years according to fangraphs, yet the Yankees win and even pitch well.

Mind you, this is just a small smattering of Bochy’s incompetence as a manager and doesn’t even include his brilliant in-game decisions, like pinch running Eli Whiteside for Buster Posey yesterday, or the fact that from the outside looking in it appears that this team has quit on him. It’s time for Bochy to go and hopefully he’ll take Sabean with him.

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