Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Due Diligence!!! thats all folks

Just finished listening to S.F. Giants GM Brian Sabean giving an interview on KNBR 680 with "the Razor & Mr. T". A few tidbits of useful info were passed along. Most surprisingly to me are my current thoughts about the state of Sabean's mind and the direction I think he is on with the team. I actually think I like it.Well,lets not get carried away just yet, I might need to ponder a little farther. Just a side note, it was very fun listening to the banter between Ralph Barbieri and Brian Sabean as Ralph grilled him about Mark Texeria,CC Sabathia, Barry Zito, and every other free agent/trade rumor floated out there. To listen: http://www.knbr.com/razorMrT/index.html

Some Sabean tidbits:
-Mark Texeria- "No, None!" on offer to him: Not going offer him a contract. Period. Doesn't believe in the process they are presenting. Setting a market that's never been set. To lay the Gauntlet at 10 years. Wouldn't want to be involved in a 10 year contract. Would cripple us in every other area for 5 years.
-CC Sabathia- Will not go 6 years. Possibly 5 years, "it would be less than 6". As to the reported weekend meeting with him, Sabean said he "doesn't know where that came from. the only reason to meet the player would be to give a legitimate offer and at this point he doesn't have one nor doesn't know if he has plans to make one." (Sabean was very definitive with no to 6 years, stuttered and bounced around the question to 5 years) If we were planning on making an offer to Sabathia, we would have done so. Weare doing due diligence. If it was about the money, I think he would have already taken New York's money or even Milwaukee's money. At this point,I don't even know if any west coast team has made him an offer. Just doing due process with him.
-Trading Jonathen Sanchez- No chance. "I would not give up Sanchez" We don't know what we have with Sanchez yet, don't know about Lowry, and don't even have a 5th starter yet. If we give up Sanchez, we still don't know about Lowry.
-Andrew Baggerly's projected Bochy lineup- "probably close", trying to get a consistent lineup on the field, doesn't think he will getting a hitter in here of any note without giving up something significant.We are not giving up pitching.
-This years winter meetings-Very little concrete conversation or even offers as compared to normal years. Probably be less done here this year than ever before, across all teams
-On improving team- If you can't improve your offense, you need to improve in other ways, pitching. Lower the run differential per game. Can't make a move just to make a move. looking for infield options, not outfield options. If someone has a year left on their contracts, we are not going to do that. "Most of the players available have warts"
-Outfield Power options available- "on the power basis, are so inept defensively, they would be counterproductive" (referring to a move to the infield as well)
-Tim Alderson & Madison Bumgarner- They are on Matt Cain's path, doesn't expect either to make it to the big leagues this year at all but will be in camp as prospect minicamp this spring.
-Randy Johnson-"name we have talked about but at this point we haven't made an offer."
-On (Hank)Blaylock, (JJ) Hardy, Bill Hall, Brian Roberts, (Dan) Uggla, Delmon Young- "you tell me Ralph, would you have any interest. They are on someone else's team, I probably shouldn't talk about them"
-Jorge Cantu & Edwin Encarnacion- Said "They are with other people's teams"then "one is a 3B that should be a 1B and the other is known as E5."
-Travis Ishikawa- could be 1B but could be supplemented by Richie (Arulia).
-Buster Posey-on a very fast track, from what we've seen so far, including Hawaii, he won't be long.
-Kickin Tires- "we're done. Throwing hubcaps now!"

My thoughts: First off, to bad about Texeria but did anyone actuallythink we had a chance? Funny though, that Brian Sabean takes a stand, or as Damon Bruce just said, "a moral stand" against long term contracts. Anyone else think it might be 2 years too late? Second, maybe just maybe they are going after CC, for 5 years. That wouldn't be bad at all...If he would actually take it. And finally, it's good to see he isn't interested in all those old vets/short contracts/no defense 3B we've been linked to. Randy Johnson might actually be on the christmas list after all.

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