Sabean – It’s The All-Star give me a Break

It’s halftime and that means the blogs are going crazy with grading, report cards and analysis, well, we here at Firesabean believe in analyzing one man: Brian Sabean.

There’s a lot of chatter about Sabean-haters not giving Sabes credit where credit is due — which is garbage. I’ve praised him for Uribe, pulling the trigger on the Molina trade and… uh… Uribe! Serious note for the haters:  He also deserves praise for Freddy Sanchez (when healthy and we’re not being lied to about how long he’s out) and Huff (but see disclaimer)

MAN, why does everything have a negative attached to it, so weird!

Well, let’s pull out the gradebook and see what we can give our lovable GM at the All-Star Break.

PR Skills

If you ignore his call-in to the Razor and Mr. T Show where he sounded like a 10-year-old crybaby and dropped some infamous quotes like “I’m a big boy”; or his call-out of Bumgarner at the beginning of Spring Training where he threw him under the bus saying:

He (Madison Bumgarner) was preoccupied this winter and it cost him. He had personal stuff to straighten out, getting married, and he was ill-prepared to come into spring training. I don’t know how much he threw to get ready.

Or when he was defending the reason why Buster Posey was still in Triple-A and why Posey’s number were so dominant he said:

Triple A baseball isn’t very good. I’m going to tell you that right now. Especially from a pitching standpoint. Anybody who can pitch is in the big leagues.

Or when he double-crossed what he said just two months ago:

Anybody who said he’s not ready to catch in the big leagues is crazy because he’s a pretty good catcher, especially throwing.

As my girlfriend says, “Yeah dumbass, we all figured that out a while ago”.

Or his infamous “FL” call-in to KNBR — I mean even if it wasn’t him that’s still pretty crazy so I blame Sabean.

Or him recently throwing the PITCHING STAFF under the bus when our hitting (his doing) has still obviously been the fault-point. Maybe it’s Posey’s fault Sabes!

Or.. OK, I’ll just stop and give him an F

Signings

Aubrey Huff (1 yr, $2.5M) : If anyone claims he made a genius signing to get Huff they need to turn off the computer, find the nearest freeway and frolic. He went after Adam LaRoche for $18 million and Nick Johnson. Nick Johnson. Then, he settles for Huff. The deal is sexy, but the way it happened was not.

But, Huff is playing All-Star baseball so I will give this a D (because of how he was signed).

Mark Derosa (2 yr, $12M): lol. F.

Bengie Molina (1 yr, $4.5M): The end result was a pitcher who has looked pretty good so far. But Bengie should never have been re-signed in the first place. It was clearly an idiotic move, but like usual, he gets bailed out. He said Texas actively and heavily pursued Big Money. BUT, he did pull the trigger so for that, I give you a generous C.

Juan Uribe (1 yr, 3.25M): UUUU has slumped terribly recently or else Sabean may have pulled out a great signing. Still (.251, 12 HR, 50 RBI) isn’t terrible. If he can stay healthy, it’ll be an A- signing, but for now, we’ll give it a B.

Freddy Sanchez (2 yr, 12M): WHEN HEALTHY, he does what he’s supposed to do. He’s a great number two hitter and no complaints over at 2nd base. A.

OVERALL: Sanchez doesn’t really count — as it was an extension, but overall looks like he’ll get a C.

Call-Ups

Buster Posey: Obviously this needed to happen ASAP, but it didn’t until May 29th. Not to mention Sabean didn’t say, “BOCHY, play the guy at catcher he’s a freaking catcher” when he finally was called up. It took Bengie to get traded a few weeks ago to make everyone realize who we have. Luckily, Posey doesn’t care. Sabean kept saying Posey wasn’t ready and spitting out crap like this:

Under those circumstances, we can’t see how Posey would immediately fit in as regards to playing time – May 25 (four days before he was called up)

The call-up itself is a damn blessing, but how it was and has been handled gets a solid F.

Madison Bumgarner : Again, like Posey, the call-up deserves an A, but let’s look deeper. It took Todd Wellemeyer to get hurt, then Joe Martinez to get called up and struggle THEN we finally saw Madbum. So like Huff, Sabean lucked out into finally seeing the light. D-.

Joe Martinez: See Bumgarner.

OVERALL: I can’t go into the Matt Downs and the Eugenio Velez’s because this would be longer than it already is. Listen, the call-ups that have stuck are great, the way they were handled — which is what I’m analyzing — were terrible. D-.

FINAL GRADE:

He’s been our GM for 14 years — that’s 26% of the time we’ve been in San Francisco. He’s got a big mouth, an annoying accent and an ego the size of Manny Ramirez’s man-boobs. He’s lucked out into some great moves this year, he’s made few good moves and he’s definitely made himself look like a complete asshole.

The comment that takes the cake though, was one he made just a few days ago:

That’s not to say Buster isn’t fully committed or all-in. He is. He’s smart and he’s got the advance reports. Anybody who said he’s not ready to catch in the big leagues is crazy because he’s a pretty good catcher, especially throwing.

Baggs made a comment after that that is a microcosm of how his tenure as a GM has been. Double-crossing political garbage that has left us with ZERO World Series Titles.

He said himself this winter that Posey wasn’t ready to catch in the big leagues. I suppose it’s plausible that Posey made major improvements over the first two months at Triple-A Fresno that convinced the staff, but anyway … we digress.

A D- is your final grade Mr. Sabean, and that’s because I’m having a good day.