Those six elimination games against the Reds and Cardinals notwithstanding, this was by design.

A nice way to sweep under the mat the facts that belie your entire argument.

Brian Sabean, the longest-tenured general manager in the game

Wow. Never would've guessed that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_general_managers

And a whole lot of Buster Posey doesn’t hurt, either

Nor does having a $130M payroll.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_general_managers

So we've got four GMs who were hired in the 90's: Sabean, Billy Beane, Brian Cashman, and ... Dan O'Dowd?

So when exactly is Baseball America going to get over it?

Baseball America's writing is really good on college baseball and pretty good in most areas for minor league baseball. Their MLB writing sucks.

Who's the next GM fired? I'm thinking Jack Z. Dayton Moore should have already gotten the ax, and the new Dodgers owners wasted a good opportunity to get rid of Colletti, too.

They are the quantitative analysts in the Giants front office, which if you believe the prevailing opinion among baseball’s Internet Illuminati, still gathers most of its information from gut feel and tobacco-spattered scouting reports.

Now wait a second. It was the old school journalists writing all those "the Giants did it the old fashioned way, not the Moneyball way" articles and it was the Internet Illuminati who were pointing out the existence of Goldfarb.

Now I still make plenty of fun of Sabean but I'm a member of the Internet Stonecutters' Lodge not an Illuminati.

Of course I'd also say the 21st C Cards have a better claim to "first NL dynasty since the Reds". Also the 08-09 Phils with back-to-back pennants and 1 WS.

Not to mention a certain Braves team and their 37 straight division titles.

Anyway, no problem with Sabean as NL exec of the year although Jocketty and Rizzo deserve strong consideration.

Well deserved. Two championships with a team populated with shrewd draft picks like Buster Posey, Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner, Matt Cain, and Brandon Belt, and good trades like Melky Cabrera, Marco Scutaro, Angel Pagan and underrated freely available talent like Gregor Blanco and Santiago Casilla. Aside from Barry Zito they don't seem to blow their money on overpriced FA, instead using the money to retain the talent they find. Yea, he's not a saber guy, but there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Aside from Barry Zito they don't seem to blow their money on overpriced FA, instead using the money to retain the talent they find. Yea, he's not a saber guy, but there's more than one way to skin a cat.

It's not like "Saber guys" are immune from the bad fa signing. If you're going to sign free agents consistently, you are going to get burned occasionally. It's the nature of the game.

Well, there was Aubrey Huff and Aaron Rowand and 3/$21 for Affeldt doesn't look efficient (although I think it's at least defensible). In fact, I'm not sure he's had a single good FA signing in the last 7 years or so. He did have enough sense to buy out Bumgarner and Sandoval and the Cain extension might work out.

In fact, I'm not sure he's had a single good FA signing in the last 7 years or so.

He signed Huff to a one-year deal for 2010. That was a great signing.

Baseball America's writing is really good on college baseball and pretty good in most areas for minor league baseball. Their MLB writing sucks.

They farm most of their MLB writing out to local MLB beat writers, like Andrew Baggerly, who wrote this piece, so you see a lot of pieces that looks like the stuff your local beat writer would spit out... because your local beat writer did, in fact, spit it out.

Their college and minor league stuff is handled in-house and, like you said, is pretty damn good.

brafdlog is goldfarb spelled backwards!

brafdlog is goldfarb spelled backwards!

Harry Caray would be proud!!!

It seems to me that Sabean is very good at making adjustments on the fly during the season. Everyone makes mistakes, being willing to punt those mistakes and fix them is a separate challenge.

Like 2010, he had a couple "lightning in a bottle" trades where the Giants got way more than they could have expected. Melky and Scutaro hitting over .345 is not going to happen again.