The Brian Sabean Era of Giants baseball came to a definitive end today when the Giants announced that Farhan Zaidi would assume the duties of President of Baseball Operations. Both from the title and the job description of answering directly to Managing Partner Larry Baer, it is clear that Zaidi is in complete charge of baseball operations likely relegating Sabean to some sort of advisory role. Unlike Bobby Evans who was something of a Sabean protege, Zaidi comes from outside with a decidedly different mindset about how to build a team and from a background of success with cross-bay A's and the archival Dodgers. In other words, he will not be beholden to Brian Sabean or anyone else in the Giants organization but Baer and the ownership group.
It is hard to argue with Zaidi's track record and credentials. He stands firmly on the analytical side of baseball management to the point of reportedly dictating lineup construction to the manager and micromanaging in-game decision making. You have to wonder how much longer Bruce Bochy has to be Manager in an environment like that!
The Giants as an organization appear to be in desperate need of new ideas and Zaidi is definitely new. My hope is he can bring the analytical ideas without compromising the scouting side. Hopefully his ideas will assist and augment the scouting rather than replacing it.
I had hoped Kim Ng would get the job but it seems clear the Giants targeted Zaidi all along and were marking time until the Dodgers season was over. If the only reason Teams continue to interview Ng for GM positions is to check off a box for diversity, they need to just stop. I have to say, Zaidi has his own diversity credentials as he is Pakistani and is the first Muslim American to be named to run a MLB team's baseball operations.
I wish him the best and will be watching his moves with great anticipation.
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Zaidi seems very highly regarded in the industry, so I'm excited about the hire. Look forward to what he says in the press conference.
ReplyDeleteLG
The most encouraging thing to me with this hire is it almost certainly means Larry & Co made a commitment to stay the hell out of the baseball decisions. Zaidi was going to get a shot with big revenue team at some point, so I see no way he takes the Giants job without knowing Larry is going to keep out of his chili.
ReplyDeleteIt is going to be interesting and exciting to see what direction he goes with the roster. I suspect we will find out quickly how he views the Giants young players.
Good luck to the boss!
ReplyDeleteMaybe micro-managing Roberts was necessary -- he made some terrible pitching changes seemingly on his own. Considering the star power on that team, hitting and pitching, they won the division in a playoff and squeaked into the WS in a 7-game NLCS.
For all the Dodgers recent efforts they are still susceptible to LH pitching although much less so than years past.
With RH Posey hurting and Longoria less effective than hoped for, plus the OF a mess for any kind of hitting, the Giants are threatening to become even more one-dimensional in the immediate future if Harper is signed.
Although there are some good RH bats available IF and OF from FA, will the Giants have the resources to go beyond Harper?
Assuming Duggar sticks, can one of the beloved IF threesome be shed gainfully? Or gracefully?
With the current l/u and Harper, 5 of 8 LHers will face 4 Dodger LH starters plus Beuhler (assuming Ryu accepts the QO).
That won't be pretty, but there is time and money between now and March 28, the earliest Opening Day in history (Oakland and Seattle play 2 games in Tokyo earlier).
If they can buy the genius of LA, they ought to be able to buy a team, too!
I hope they hold on to the best prospects they have -- are there 8 or 10 that are really standouts?
The bell doth not toll for thee, Bryce!
DeleteGreat Choice!
ReplyDeleteIt's time to put Sabean / Bochy in the Rearview Mirror and move Forward..........Thanks for the 3 in 5 you will never be forgotten!
What a bad idea. So we want to be like all the other teams? This team will now be just like all the other teams. At least Sabean had the good sense to leave Bochy to manage on his own. Can't imagine Bruce is going to put up with this long. Get ready for 3 inning pitching starts. :(
ReplyDeleteNo two teams are the same. There are so many people involved, from programs in the Dominican through Arizona/Florida and all the minor league sites, before getting to the big club. Things change from one day to the next as to the reliance on data, as opposed to the eye test. You can't ignore the data, but you need to see the players. What is critical is to have a smart, innovative leader, who is a good listener. By all accounts, Zaidi checks all the boxes.
DeleteChristian,
DeleteRespectfully, I think you're way off base. The Giants need major change. I used to love that they did things differently, because it worked. Now it seems like they are lightyears behind the rest of baseball. The record backs that up. Zaidi is a tremendous hire, and will put plenty of creativity into restructuring the organization... which is precisely what it needs at the moment. Sabean had a legendary run, but it's time for change. I'm happy to see them make this move.
Cove Chatter
With all due respect, the Giants were in the divisional race all the way into late August, in spite of a series of freak injuries, until collapsing after trading McCutchen. Perhaps they could use a new strength and training coaching staff to keep the players in shape. However, I don't think burning down and rebuilding the whole team is the answer. But this is why they paid the big bucks. I just don't want this team to turn into either the Milwaukee brewers or los Angeles dodgers. Two knee jerk sabermetric losers.
Delete... after trading McCutchen AND DLing Posey AND running out of gas...
DeleteBTW, the Dodgers didn't tear down but added on with a HUGE budget expenditure and then won 6 divisions in a row. Six straight years of post season. Six straight Blue Flags.
I don't like LA, but who but Atlanta has won more divisions since the Yankees were champs?
Give some credit. I'd rather have 3 rings than 6 divisions, but, holy cow, the NL west has been very blue for most of the decade.
Zaidi actually mentioned that the Giants were competitive most of the season before injuries became overwhelming. You should watch the press conference, he is very well spoken and it seems like he doesn't believe in a total tear down.
DeleteWith all the respect that is due, Milwaukee and LA played off in the NLCS - LA lost to Boston, the only team to ignore the CBT limit, I believe. I don't like LA because that's burned into my soul as a 1957 Berkeley baby but I have to respect their recent ability to draft and develop very talented young players. We'd like some of that, please!
DeleteNationals went over also without such good results.
DeleteFrom MLBTR -- with the other consequences of going over and a comment about the Giants:
As was widely expected, the Red Sox and Nationals were the only two clubs who exceeded the $197MM luxury tax threshold this season, as MLB.com’s Jon Morosi confirmed earlier this week. The exact figures aren’t known, though as per the luxury tax calculations on Cot’s Baseball Contracts, Boston surpassed the threshold by slightly beyond $40.85MM, while Washington was just under $6.3MM beyond the tax line. As a reminder, a team’s normal payroll is just pure dollars spent on player salaries in a season, whereas the payroll as calculated for Competitive Balance Tax purposes consists of the average annual value of player contracts, bonuses, and other expenses.
This is the second straight year that the Nats passed the luxury tax threshold, so their tax bill will consist of 30 percent of every dollar spent in overage (so around $1.89MM). After exceeding the threshold in 2015 and 2016, the Red Sox ducked under the CBT line in the 2017-18 offseason to “reset their clock,” so they’ll be taxed at the first-timer rate of 20 percent of every dollar spent in overage. By Cot’s numbers, however, the Red Sox surpassed the threshold by more than $40MM, so they’ll face a 62.5 percent surcharge on the overage.
This would work out to roughly $25.53MM in luxury tax payments and, perhaps more importantly, Boston’s top pick in next year’s amateur draft (currently the 33rd overall selection) would drop by 10 spots. Since the Sox are so close to that $40MM figure, it’s possible there could be some other calculation or unknown payroll factor that got the club under the $237MM mark — we won’t know for certain about the draft pick or the final Competitive Balance Tax bill until the league makes an official announcement. Had Boston stayed within the $20MM-$40MM range for payroll overage, they would have faced only a 12 percent extra in tax on top of their 20 percent first-timer percentage, putting them on the hook for approximately $12.672MM in luxury tax payments.
The Giants were right up against the $197MM line seemingly all season long, though by Cot’s calculations, they squeaked under the threshold by less than $1.6MM, thus avoiding their fourth straight year of tax payments. San Francisco was very careful in trying to stay under the $197MM payroll line after a busy offseason, as the team made a pure salary dump of a trade with the Rangers in July to unload Austin Jackson and Cory Gearrin’s contracts, and also traded Andrew McCutchen to the Yankees on August 31 once they were fully out of contention.
The Competitive Balance Tax was a major subplot of the 2017-18 offseason, as one of the reasons behind the unprecedented lack of free agent activity was the fact that big spenders like the Giants, Yankees, and Dodgers all kept their spending in check (at least by their standards) in an effort to stay under the threshold. For New York, this marks the first time since the luxury tax system was instituted in 2003 that the team will avoid making payments — the Yankees paid a whopping $319.6MM in total luxury tax payments from 2003-17. The Dodgers have exceeded the threshold every season since 2013, as the Guggenheim Baseball Management ownership group made an initial big spending splash to bring the club back into relevance, though the Dodgers always stressed that they would eventually take a more measured approach to payroll.
From Alex Pavlovic, nbcsports.com, absolutely the best news I've seen on Bryce Harper:
ReplyDeleteSAN FRANCISCO — A few minutes after Farhan Zaidi finished his introductory press conference at AT&T Park, Scott Boras stood in front of reporters at the annual General Managers Meetings and discussed his biggest client, Bryce Harper.
Boras told reporters in Carlsbad that Harper is a “generational player” and said “Harper’s Bazaar has begun.” Zaidi will head down to Carlsbad later Wednesday night, and it’s possible he’ll get that pitch from Boras in person. But it doesn’t sound like it’s one that will win him over.
After two years of whispers about their chase for Harper, the Giants appear to have cooled off. Sources familiar with their thinking said any interest in Harper has been overblown. “We’re shocked" by some of the rumors, one person said, noting that Harper would have to "really, really want to come" to San Francisco and pass on more lucrative opportunities elsewhere.
That is not Boras’ style. He will go for the biggest deal, every time, and Harper is believed to be aiming for a record contract well over $300 million. But giving out big deals has not been Zaidi’s style, and Larry Baer said he will not change the way Zaidi has operated.
“His success speaks for itself,” Baer said.
In Los Angeles, Friedman and Zaidi didn’t give out a deal larger than Kenley Jansen’s five-year, $80 million contract. Jansen was already a Dodgers star and fan favorite. Justin Turner, another All-Star already in-house, got $64 million over four years. When Clayton Kershaw threatened to opt out, the front office tacked on just one year, bringing him to three years and $93 million. Rich Hill got $48 million over three years. Brandon McCarthy got $48 million over four years.
See a theme here?
During his press conference, Zaidi talked about potentially adding a starting pitcher. He said no move is too small, and seemed particularly impressed by a past trade that brought MVP candidate Khris Davis to Oakland for two lesser-known prospects. Zaidi also said this when asked about the Giants roster:
“The number one thing that stands out to me is the importance of selfless play in baseball. We’re in a baseball culture, at an amateur level, where there’s a little bit of a showcase culture and a lot of emphasis on individual performance over the team. I think when you can create a culture where players put team over the individual, that can be a competitive advantage. Ninety percent of the time, individual and team goals align. Sometimes (though) you need to move a runner over and have a long at-bat to tire out the pitcher. I’ve seen a lot of the guys on this team play for a long time and they have that (team) spirit in spades.”
That is not, at all, a description of Harper or how he is being pitched in free agency. Some rival executives, while noting that Zaidi disdains massive deals, have pointed out that Baer and ownership may overrule him. But Baer said he would trust his new head of baseball operations.
“There’s no restrictions coming in,” Baer said. “Is that ($300 million player) going to be what’s the game-changer for the Giants in 2019, 2020, 2021 — I don’t know … we didn’t look at it as generic ‘no big contracts.’ He’s been successful in getting from Point A to Point B. We want him to go with what’s successful for him.”
The Giants have long felt Harper would like to play in San Francisco, and perhaps there’s a point where the price becomes acceptable. But the Giants do not currently feel the need to make a splash.
Zaidi was the splash, and they’re going to let him do what he feels is best to turn this organization back into a sustainable winner.
I suspect the Giants will ADD to their core picking somewhat below the radar but quality guys (results not splash) for 2-3 year "affordable" contracts.
ReplyDeleteBeing a metrics guy, he'll look for more RH bats (he's seen what LH pitchers have done to LA) or LH who don't have bad splits, or like Puig is actually opposite the normal (in many other ways, too).
The GM job is still open isn't it? Certainly Zaidi will review the interviews that the Giants have had, maybe call some of them back or maybe add some guys below the GM level in other organizations -- more Dodgers?
Ms Ng may yet be the GM -- what a shakeup that would be!
The Giants just might have a GM in the making sitting right under their nose in Randy Winn. Randy is intelligent, contemplative and a good baseball mind. He is a little more soft-spoken than Farhan Zaidid, but can communicate on Zaidi's level and has a strong baseball background.
ReplyDeleteI am soooo glad the Giants won't be signing Harper! (If they don't.)
ReplyDeleteI hope the Dodgers do, plus I hope Ryu and Grandal accept their QOs -- then the Dogs are in a BIG bind for arbitration -- they will have to trade off some or release some. They have a HUGE bundle in arbitration!
FWIW from MLBTR:
DeleteThe Dodgers have an eye-popping 13 arbitration-eligible players this winter. They are as follows:
Yasiel Puig (Arb 3) – $11.3 million
Alex Wood (Arb 3) – $9 million
Joc Pederson (Arb 2) – $4.2 million
Enrique Hernandez (Arb 2) – $3.2 million
Chris Taylor (Arb 1) – $3.2 million
Josh Fields (Arb 4) – $2.8 million
Tony Cingrani (Arb 3) – $2.7 million
Corey Seager (Arb 1) – $2.6 million
Tom Koehler (Arb 3) – $2 million
Pedro Baez (Arb 2) – $1.8 million
Yimi Garcia (Arb 2) – $900,000
Erik Goeddel (Arb 1) – $900,000
Zac Rosscup (Arb 2) – $800,000
If the Dodgers tendered all the players above at the salary listed, that’d be a $45.4 million commitment.
Magic date: the deadline to add a player to the 40-man roster this year is November 20, 2018 -- 10 days away!