Robo: How can the Giants rebuild?

How would Giants fans react if the team attempts to rebuild?

"I don't know," Magowan says. "This is a very competitive marketplace. The Giants have set a high standard for themselves. From 1993 to 2004, we had the third-best record in baseball. Fans are used to seeing a competitive team here.

"We have to compete with the A's. We also have to compete for sports and entertainment dollars with everyone else out there (in the Bay Area) — the 49ers, the Raiders, the Warriors, the Sharks. We're the smallest two-team market in baseball, one-third the size of New York, one-third the size of L.A., half the size of Chicago.

"If we were to announce like the Cleveland Indians did a few years ago that we were going to get younger, play a lot of young players and in three or four years be really good, that kind of announcement would not go down very well with our fans. It may not have gone down that well with the Cleveland fans."

Magowan then cites the decline in Indians' home attendance, from 3.46 million in 2000 to 2 million in '06.

And right now, they're not very good and playing lots of old players. That's supposed to draw fans?

I used to be a Sabean fan until he gave his reason for not signing Guerrero when he was a free agent after 2003. From a MLB.com chat:

shaundarbie: Did you ever make an offer for Vladimir Guerrero?

Sabean: In a word: No. If we had signed Guerrero or [Gary] Sheffield, we would have been without [Jim] Brower, [Scott] Eyre, [Matt] Herges, [Dustin] Hermanson, [Brett] Tomko, [A.J.] Pierzynski, Feliz, [J.T.] Snow, [Jeffrey] Hammonds, [Dustan] Mohr and Tucker -- obviously not being able to field a competitive team, especially from an experience standpoint, given our level of spending.

http://www.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20040130&content_id=632454&vkey=news_sf&fext;=.jsp&c_id=sf

It's amazing that he thought having Bonds and Guerrero in the same lineup would keep him from fielding a competitive team...

Great quote, Elvis. Not to mention that:

1) Brower, Eyre, Herges, Hermanson, Tomko, Pierzynski, Snow, Hammonds, Mohr, and Tucker are no longer with the team.

2) with Guerrero, Sabean might have found it hard to trade away all his best young power arms to the Twins for Mr. Cancer, er, Pierzynski.

I love it when GMs act like the moves they make are the only ones that would have made any sense whatsoever.

You know, I can't actually disagree with the argument that Robothal makes here, especially this one:

His ownership group needs strong attendance to help pay the debt on privately financed AT&T Park.

As much as I am firmly entrenched in the "no public financing for stadia" camp, you are going to run into these problems when teams build their own parks. And that does bind Sabean's hands some. I don't know if all that gets you to "Sabean shouldn't be fired", and in fact I think it doesn't, but it's a good point nonetheless.

Incidentally, I wonder if we're going to start seeing private equity getting into sports? With the tax deduction the first 5 years and the ginormous early profits that are there, along with the growing desperation for projects to pump money into, it might be a fit.

The reason why I think this article's premise is nonsensical is that Bonds being there hasn't forced Sabean to empty the farm system. In fact, (one regrettable trade aside) Sabean has done a very good job hanging on to his good young players, many of whom are now on the 40-man roster and performing well for the team. Nothing has stopped the Giants bringing up good pitching during the Bonds era, and the reason they haven't brought up good hitting is not because it was traded away, but because it never existed in the first place. The Giants simply do not draft/develop it well - and while that is not Sabean's direct responsibility, he bears the responsibility for changing the system, which he has been unable to do.

I wonder how much power he has though. Did the Zito decision come on an ownership level?

I love it when GMs act like the moves they make are the only ones that would have made any sense whatsoever.

Many times the moves they make are the only ones that can make AND that make sense to them at that time.

Every team/GM is different- no two GMs would do the exact same thing given the same circumstances- but Sabean's quote in #3 is great- "obviously not being able to field a competitive team, especially from an experience standpoint, given our level of spending."

Sabean never considered Vlad because he thought he would be forced, budgetwise, to replace several veteran mediocrities with several league minumum youngsters or inexperienced players.
You or I may think that the likes of Hermanson, Snow, Tucker et al are eminently replaceable- Sabean didn't and likely still doesn't- to him and to many baseball insiders the mere fact that they were veterans made them superior to ANY unproven player who would likely replace them.

I find the Giants fascinating because of their team age (pitching excluded) even their "young" guys are old. They do not have a single position player under 25 their youngest player with more than 100Abs is 32 The weighted average of the offense is 34! The Yankees are old and creaky- the weghted average of their offense is 31...

The Giants are such an amazing outlier that they are interesting to me for that reason alone- I probably wouldn't be happy if I was a Giants fan, but there it is.

First of all, the stadium debt is not that big of a deal. It's $20M a year, which was a much bigger burden in 2000 than it is even seven years later (given how MLB revenues have shot up). What's more, they derive a lot of financial advantages from owning the stadium, which I would guess outweigh the debt service by quite a lot.

Second, how does the need to stay competitive cause Sabean to not be able to draft or develop any good position players?

Third, as has been pointed out, if the Giants are trying to keep a competitive team on the field every year, then they have already failed. Now they have a team that is neither competitive nor rebuilding.

Fourth, Barry Bonds's salary has had nothing to do with the quality of the rest of the team. For most of the years he's been on the team (excluding when he was injured), Bonds has generated far more revenue than what the Giants have paid him. Having a player who generates revenue greater than his salary makes it easier to stock the rest of the roster with good players, not harder. Having Bonds on the team would have made it easier to sign Vladimir Guerrero, if they had chosen to do that, because with Bonds they had more money than they would have had without him.

This whole article is just nonsense. The only "extraordinary circumstance" Sabean has operated under is having the greatest hitter of his generation, and maybe ever, to build a team around. This extraordinary circumstance gave him both on-field and financial advantages over other GMs, since Bonds generated so much more revenue for the franchise than he took away in salary. Sabean's track record should be evaluated in the context of the tremendous advantage he started with.

Sabean's track record should be evaluated in the context of the tremendous advantage he started with.

You mean a player who starting in 2001 put up 4 cnsecutive seaons where his Batting Runs above Average were: 138, 134, 96, 129 while his outs were only 325, 328, 259, 242

Let's say the rest of the team was perfectly average- a .500 team pitching and offense- adding Bonds 2001-2004 would give that .500 team 94, 94, 91 and 94 wins (total 373 by pythag)
the team actually went: 90, 95, 100, 91 (total 376)- their estimated wins by Pythag were 86, 98, 93, 88 (total 365)

The 2001-04 Giants were essentially a mediocre team lifted into annual contention because ONE player- who Sabean inherited- went completely medieval on the league.

I can't help but see the 2001-2004 Giants as a missed opportunity

I can't help but see the 2001-2004 Giants as a missed opportunity

Sabean's #### don't work in the world series!

First off, they'll draw at least 2.5 million even if they lose 100 games a year. Pac Bell is such a nice place to watch a game that even if the Giants suck it's an enjoyable experience. Frankly they have no competition from the A's, because as long as the A's play in the dump that is the Coliseum (and intentionally discourage walkup, the only way they'll sellout), the A's will struggle to draw 2 million while the Giants will comfortably draw at least a half million more.

Secondly, I think Magowan is wildly out of touch with the fan base right now. The most popular players on the team are Lincecum and Cain, BECAUSE THEY'RE YOUNG. The fan base knows perfectly well that the Giants need rebuilding in the worst way and would enjoy the idea of watching young *talent* run on the field.

I don't know why Sabean is Magowan's binky - maybe he lets Magowan walk all over him or something - but Sabean sucks, and that's a fact.

Secondly, I think Magowan is wildly out of touch with the fan base right now. The most popular players on the team are Lincecum and Cain, BECAUSE THEY'RE YOUNG. The fan base knows perfectly well that the Giants need rebuilding in the worst way and would enjoy the idea of watching young *talent* run on the field.

I don't know why Sabean is Magowan's binky - maybe he lets Magowan walk all over him or something - but Sabean sucks, and that's a fact.

Seriously - Tim Lincecum has Facebook groups devoted to him, for god's sakes. I realize not everyone is as hardcore of a fan as I am, but the most energy I've seen in SF is Lincecum's first start. Give the fanbase some credit.

From 1993 to 2004, we had the third-best record in baseball.

Is that right? Obviously the Yankees and Braves would be ahead of the Giants, but are the Giants really the best of the rest? It could well be true, but my first reaction is definitely surprise...

(*does some quick adding -- feel free to check the arithmatic*)

Braves: 1149
Yankees: 1124
Giants: 1031 wins
Red Sox: 1022 wins
Astros: 1020
Indians: 1016
Dodgers: 997
Mariners, Cardinals: 996
White Sox: 977
A's: 973
Rangers: 938
Angels: 930
Reds: 928
Blue Jays: 922
Orioles, Mets 915
Phillies: 910
Cubs: 904
Expos: 901
Padres, Twins: 889
Rockies: 882
Marlins: 880
Royals: 841
Pirates: 835
Brewers: 825
Tigers: 779
Diamondbacks: 545
Devil Rays: 451

(I guess I shouldn't be, but I'm surprised that the Rockies and Marlins are so close).

Let's eyeball the end-point game...

Leaving off 1993 would put the Red Sox (and possibly others) ahead of the Giants. Adding 1992 would... hmm... I'm not sure that the Giants don't keep third place if we add in 1992. (Someone want to check that?) Leaving off 2004... hmm, I still get the Giants in third. Adding in 2005 again vaults the Red Sox (and possibly others) over the Giants.

By my (quickly eyeballed, possibly mistaken) count then, the Giants could make an even bigger claim: to have been the third best team in baseball from 1992 through 2004. Anyone want to add in 1992? 1991?

Catch you later.
--Robert Machemer

Agreed, I don't think they can assume they'll continue to draw just because of the park. I went to Camden Yards a couple of years ago. Really nice park, maybe nicer than Pac Bell. It was about half empty the day I went.

I would also like to put in a word for The Oakland/Macafee whatever it's called now Coliseum. I enjoyed going there. It has a much less "corporate" vibe. Sure, it's ugly as hell, but in a way it's a nice antidote to the modern experience of "stadium as faux-retro shopping mall" that so many teams seems to covet. I'm sure the Fremont stadium will be more along those lines.

By my (quickly eyeballed, possibly mistaken) count then, the Giants could make an even bigger claim: to have been the third best team in baseball from 1992 through 2004. Anyone want to add in 1992? 1991?

Well, they could also claim to be the best team in professional baseball history, as they have the most wins. They trail the Yankees by about .030 points in winning pct though.

Agreed, I don't think they can assume they'll continue to draw just because of the park. I went to Camden Yards a couple of years ago. Really nice park, maybe nicer than Pac Bell. It was about half empty the day I went.

This is true, Camden Yards is an awesome place to watch a game, but is mostly empty now. However the O's have sucked for about 10 years now. If the Giants punted 2-3 seasons in a rebuilding effort, their recent success combined with their park would probably be enough to maintain decent attendance through the down years.

By my (quickly eyeballed, possibly mistaken) count then, the Giants could make an even bigger claim: to have been the third best team in baseball from 1992 through 2004. Anyone want to add in 1992? 1991?

While it may look like the years were cherry-picked, there are decent reasons for it, I suppose. 1993 was the first year of the Magowan ownership group, and 2005 was the year Bonds was injured and missed almost the entire season.

While it may look like the years were cherry-picked, there are decent reasons for it, I suppose. 1993 was the first year of the Magowan ownership group, and 2005 was the year Bonds was injured and missed almost the entire season.

Well, if that's the case, than the 2005 record (as well as 2006) should also go in the record for Magowan (and Sabean for his years). After all, the 75-87 they put up w/o bonds was a nice reflection of the talent on the team that Sabean assembled to "help" bonds win a title. Cherry-picking is fun, especially in journalism...but the harsh facts are that for all of the competitiveness the Giants have supposedly shown in the past 10+ years, they have only one WS appearance to show for it. (which, to be fair, is better than 1 WS in 14 straight division titles, which is one of the msot overblown statements made about the Braves--I mean, who gives a damn? Divisions became meaningless as soon as Ol' Bud got his asinine proposals through)

Well, the Braves won 5 NL pennants and 1 World Series in a span of 9 years. That's not just an accomplishment, it's something that half the franchises in MLB would kill for.

Incidentally, I wonder if we're going to start seeing private equity getting into sports?

Like John Henry?

Someone who made his money that way and has a passion for the game can get in, but you aren't going to see faceless groups with some diabolical name like Cerberus by into it with the intent of turning a quick profit. MLB owners have to approve all team sales.

We have to compete with the A's. We also have to compete for sports and entertainment dollars with everyone else out there (in the Bay Area) — the 49ers, the Raiders, the Warriors, the Sharks. We're the smallest two-team market in baseball, one-third the size of New York, one-third the size of L.A., half the size of Chicago.

This is mostly cuckoo bird. The A's and Giants aren't really in competition for a fanbase, and if they really were, the meaningful advantages are all slanted toward the Giants. Football is different b/c it's a season ticket sport where tickets are sold out WAY in advance. The 49ers are an institution and you can obviously cross the Raiders off the list when it comes to poaching money from SF teams. The Sharks are in San Jose which might as well be Pluto to the SF dweller. The Warriors were, until these last 6 months, generally an afterthought with a core group of fans that had zero effect on the Giants - if anything, they were creating cost choices in the East Bay between the Warriors and the A's. When it comes to money the Giants have a larger and much more affluent fan base than the A's and they get all the meaningful corporate sponsors. The A's ballpark is named after freaking virus software. The Giants are AT&T. They have a giant Coke bottle in the bleachers.

I'm not saying that the Giants don't have their own financial issues, but when it comes to fanbase dollars and generating more of them, they're competing against themselves. The better the team is, the more money they'll make. It's not like the A's who have and are going to have major financial issues regardless of how good the team is.

Incidentally, I wonder if we're going to start seeing private equity getting into sports?

We already do see it, in the sense that private equity consists of a consortium of buyers using a lot of debt financing to purchase a business that is at least initially non-publicly traded. The real innovation would be an IPO of either a baseball franchise or a business owning franchises in more than one sport (for instance, Steinbrenner once talked of a possible IPO of YankeeNets, back when that entity existed).

And just to be nit-picky, John Henry runs a managed futures firm, which is like a hedge fund, not like a private equity shop. And his firm has done poorly in recent years.

1) The Giants will draw more than the Pirates by almost any definition for three reasons.

(a) There's more people in the SFBA than the Pittsburgh area.

(b) Pittsburgh is a football town. SF has been trending baseball town for quite a while now. The Niners may contend for a division title this year and people are still focusing exclusively on the Giants. There is no countdown to training camp here. Simply put, a higher percentage of the population is emotionally invested in baseball.

(c) Magowan isn't that dumb. There's no way the vortex of suck that has overtaken the Pirates to manifest in San Francisco could happen in SF. Magowan *is* a Giants fan, and the Giants are a wealthy team. The odds of him totally closing up shop and living off the profits like McClatchy are unlikely.

2) PBP/SBC/AT&T/ABCDEFG is truly phenomenal. Better than Camden in my opinion. Furthermore, there is a greater disparity between old and new than in any other park. Candlestick was truly horrible. Bad sightlines, bad weather, bad location. Anybody over 20 in SF thanks the deity/non-deity of their choice when they step into Pac Bell.

I would also like to put in a word for The Oakland/Macafee whatever it's called now Coliseum. I enjoyed going there. It has a much less "corporate" vibe. Sure, it's ugly as hell, but in a way it's a nice antidote to the modern experience of "stadium as faux-retro shopping mall" that so many teams seems to covet. I'm sure the Fremont stadium will be more along those lines.

It's still pretty corporate, with ads everywhere, commercials on the big screen, promotions and whatever. Their non-corporateness is only limited by the limitations of the place. I can ignore ads, but not ridiculous lines for food that shut down the concourse because people are trying to filter into a space two persons wide due to the lines. It's not even any cheaper than Pac Bell, in my instance (coming from SF on BART).

Like John Henry?

Someone who made his money that way and has a passion for the game can get in, but you aren't going to see faceless groups with some diabolical name like Cerberus by into it with the intent of turning a quick profit. MLB owners have to approve all team sales.

Well no, I meant a particular fund. And the fund isn't looking to turn a "quick profit" per se, they're looking at at the very least 5-6 years of holding the asset.

As for the approval process, they could very well enter an agreement to sell the team to interested limited partners in the fund as a sort of follow-on. I would think the MLB owners would salivate at the idea of huge pocketed groups driving franchise values even further through the roof. There would be some obstacles, but I don't think they're anywhere near insurmountable when you factor that into the equation.

(EDIT) Incidentally, and to be honest, I completely forgot about owner approval when I posted the first time.

Interestingly, I had a Freakonomics blog interview with Mark Cuban up in another tab waiting to be read, and it contains this question:

Q: I appreciate your passion as an owner, but do you think that disinterested owners/investors (or hedge funds one day) buying up teams as a hobby or as just another page in their portfolio will be good for the game? What’s better in your mind, an owner who loves the game and the team but can’t afford a contender’s elite roster, or Goldman Sachs coming in and forming the Yankees?

A: I don’t think corporate owners can or will be disinterested. The impact on the corporate brand of being a disinterested owner of a losing team would be consequential to the business. Sports are not just a business, or a game; they have an immeasurable impact on the psyche of an entire city/region/state. When the Mavs made the finals last year, the city shut down to watch the games. When we won, the entire city was abuzz, when we ended up losing, the entire city lost with us. That’s a responsibility that no corporation can get away from.

I will give you another example of the impact of sports. When we took Broadcast.com public, the stock achieved what was, at the time, the largest one-day gain in the history of the stock market. Although the stock made the front page of every business section and many front pages of newspapers, its media coverage that day, both in Dallas and nationally, paled in comparison to the media of the Mavs signing a free agent or making a trade.

A major corporation might get noted on the business pages a couple times a week if something significant is happening to the company. A professional sports team has beat writers that follow its every move, and typically has at least one story in every paper in town and in many national media outlets, every day of the week. That’s tough for any corporate owner to ignore.

I find the Giants fascinating because of their team age (pitching excluded) even their "young" guys are old. They do not have a single position player under 25 their youngest player with more than 100Abs is 32 The weighted average of the offense is 34! The Yankees are old and creaky- the weghted average of their offense is 31...

The Giants are such an amazing outlier that they are interesting to me for that reason alone- I probably wouldn't be happy if I was a Giants fan, but there it is.

I wouldn't use the word "fascinating" but I agree that Sabean's insistence on seemingly going out of his way to make the team older is interesting. The age of the Yankees and Ginats' rosters, particularly the Giants, is more or less unprecedented in baseball history, I think.

Cherry-picking is fun, especially in journalism...but the harsh facts are that for all of the competitiveness the Giants have supposedly shown in the past 10+ years, they have only one WS appearance to show for it. (which, to be fair, is better than 1 WS in 14 straight division titles, which is one of the msot overblown statements made about the Braves--I mean, who gives a damn? Divisions became meaningless as soon as Ol' Bud got his asinine proposals through)

To the franchise, simply making the playoffs is a great benefit because 1) the fans don't give up on the team in August (or July, or June), and 2) they get extra revenue from the playoffs. They also get some other benefits such as keeping the team looking like a contender, which may not make the team more attractive to FAs as money does, but if the money is more-or-less equal, it helps.

Frankly they have no competition from the A's, because as long as the A's play in the dump that is the Coliseum (and intentionally discourage walkup, the only way they'll sellout), the A's will struggle to draw 2 million while the Giants will comfortably draw at least a half million more.

The A's have a lot more problems with the Giants than the Giants have with the A's, but the A's drew almost 2 million people last year. Sure, some of those people are fans of other teams, and some of those people attend Giants games too, but the majority of A's fans would likely be Giants fans if the A's aren't there. Plus, the Giants would get a bump in TV and radio ratings and all the other ancillary benefits from having more fans.

It isn't the A's that he is talking about - it's the Red Sox, the Phillies - teams in a big, single-team market.

FWIW, they already have set up Fanfest stuff at the end of Market. Uh, the All Star game is a month away.

The Sharks are in San Jose which might as well be Pluto to the SF dweller.

Of course, there are more people who don't live in SF at AT&Love; every night than actualy SF residents, so that doesn't really matter. The realy reason Sharks don't matter because the NHL is a ex-major sports league. Beautiful plumage though.

You mean a player who starting in 2001 put up 4 cnsecutive seaons where his Batting Runs above Average were: 138, 134, 96, 129 while his outs were only 325, 328, 259, 242

Let's say the rest of the team was perfectly average- a .500 team pitching and offense- adding Bonds 2001-2004 would give that .500 team 94, 94, 91 and 94 wins (total 373 by pythag)
the team actually went: 90, 95, 100, 91 (total 376)- their estimated wins by Pythag were 86, 98, 93, 88 (total 365)

BRAA isn't position adjusted, so Bonds wasn't actually that many runs better than an average LF. Not that your larger point is wrong...

Of course, there are more people who don't live in SF at AT&Love; every night than actualy SF residents, so that doesn't really matter. The realy reason Sharks don't matter because the NHL is a ex-major sports league. Beautiful plumage though.

Well, there are more people who don't live in SF than SF residents because SF only makes up about 12% of the Bay Area's population.

I bet if you included people who work in SF or grew up in SF, the number would be higher.

I'm inclined to give some agreement towards the original point. Obviously the decline of the NHL plays a major role (the Sharks certainly had relevancy when they were making their 93-94 playoff run). But I think SF has become more provincial and self-centered in the past 10 years as the city has slowly been revitalized, and hence locals have adopted a Manhattanesque if it's not in my burg, it's not relevant attitude. More importantly the media has fed this. The Chronicle and the SF TV stations ignore the Sharks.

Trust me, it's very easy to live here and get smoke blown up your rear end about how great it is to be in SF. A lot of it's true, but your perspective wanes.

Trust me, it's very easy to live here and get smoke blown up your rear end about how great it is to be in SF. A lot of it's true, but your perspective wanes.

Which is why all of us in the burbs make fun of you for acting like such provincial twits.

:)

I can't see a baseball team ever going public with an IPO, because then they'd have to file their financial reports with the SEC.

Bud Selig would throw a fit, because it would show how profitable teams really are, and they couldn't cry poverty to get a stadium.

I can't see a baseball team ever going public with an IPO, because then they'd have to file their financial reports with the SEC.

That is definitely true. However, going strict PE or even a quasi-PO to "qualified investors" would prevent that. Besides, it wouldn't happen even without that. Green Bay will remain unique until the day that someone buys up all the shares.

That is definitely true. However, going strict PE or even a quasi-PO to "qualified investors" would prevent that. Besides, it wouldn't happen even without that. Green Bay will remain unique until the day that someone buys up all the shares.

The Celtics are traded publicly, or were at one point.

Which is why all of us in the burbs make fun of you for acting like such provincial twits.

I'm sorry, what are these suburbs you speak of? I prefer to call them the provinces. :)

Which is why all of us in the burbs make fun of you for acting like such provincial twits.


That's why we ignored you and pretended you didn't exist.

:)

I might not have left my neighborhood when I lived in North Beach unless I had a really compelling reason to do so.

The Celtics are traded publicly, or were at one point.

It doesn't look like they are anymore (IPO was in 1986, apparently), but I never knew that.

Trust me, it's very easy to live here and get smoke blown up your rear end about how great it is to be in SF. A lot of it's true, but your perspective wanes.

True, although I think that the pro-SF bias is not without warrant. And I'm a suburbian!

I might not have left my neighborhood when I lived in North Beach unless I had a really compelling reason to do so.

I wouldn't have.

Well, maybe I'd go over to the Marina to ogle rich chicks. But then I'd feel my inner Marxist rise up, and I'd go to City Lights and buy Orwell to read over a beer at Tosca.

The Excelsior..ehhh, not so good. Though we have a couple very good and completely unknown Italian restaurants, since there are still remnants of a large Italian community out here. And stuff is cheaper. And if people aren't from China or Mexico, they're actually from here, rather than talking about their days at New Haven in annoying accents. It'll do for a bedroom community.

Seriously - Tim Lincecum has Facebook groups devoted to him, for god's sakes.

What's your point? There are Facebook groups devoted to Doug Mirabelli. I'm in both of them.

Also, the Coliseum is NOT a dump. I havn'et been to Pac Bell, but I like the Coliseum. There are always seats available, and it's cheap.